The leafless hedge, beneath the open heavens,
The weary beggar took untroubled rest.
It was a music of most heavenly tone,
To which the heart leaped joyfully, and all
The spirits danced: for honest fame, men laid
Their heads upon the block, and while the axe
Descended, looked and smiled. It was of price
Invaluable-riches, health, repose,
Whole kingdoms, life, were given for it, and he
Who got it was the winner still; and he
Who sold it, durst not open his ear, nor look
On human face, he knew himself so vile.
Yet it, with all its preciousness, was due
To virtue, and around her should have shed,
Unasked, its savoury smell; but Vice, deformed
Itself, and ugly, and of flavour rank,
To rob fair Virtue of so sweet an incense,
And with it to anoint and salve its own
Rotten ulcers, and perfume the path that led
To death, strove daily by a thousand means;
And oft succeeded to make Virtue sour
in the world's nostrils, and its loathly self
Smell sweetly. Rumour was the messenger
Of defamation-and so swift that none
Could be the first to tell an evil tale;
And was withal so infamous for lies,
That he who of her sayings on his creed
The fewest entered, was deemed wisest man.
The fool, and many who had credit too
For wisdom, grossly swallowed all she said
Unsifted; and although at every word
They heard her contradict herself, and saw
Hourly they were imposed upon, and mocked,
Yet still they ran to hear her speak, and stared,
And wondered much, and stood aghast, and said-
It could not be; and while they blushed for shame
At their own faith, and seemed to doubt-be-
lieved,
Of social joy, and happiness, decayed.
Fools only in his company were seen,
And those forsaken of God, and to themselves
Given up the prudent shunned him, and his
house,
As one who had a deadly moral plague.
And fain would all have shunned him at the day
Of judgment; but in vain. All who gave ear
With greediness, or wittingly their tongues
Made herald to his lies, around him wailed;
While on his face, thrown back by injured men,
In characters of ever-blushing shame,
Appeared ten thousand slanders, all his own.
Among the accursed, who sought a hiding-
place
In vain, from fierceness of Jehovah's rage,
And from the hot displeasure of the Lamb,
Most wretched, most contemptible, most vile,
Stood the false priest, and in his conscience felt
The fellest gnaw of the undying Worm.
And so he might, for he had on his hands
The blood of souls, that would not wipe away.
Hear what he was :- He swore in sight of God,
And man, to preach his master, Jesus Christ;
Yet preached himself: he swore that love of souls
Alone, had drawn him to the church; yet strewed
The path that led to hell with tempting flowers,
And in the ear of sinners, as they took
The way of death, he whispered peace: he swore
Away all love of lucre, all desire
Of earthly pomp, and yet a princely seat
He liked, and to the clink of Mammon's box
Gave most rapacious ear: his prophecies,
He swore, were from the Lord; and yet taught
lies
For gain; with quackish ointment healed the
wounds
And whom they met, with many sanctions, told. And bruises of the soul outside, but left
So did experience fail to teach; so hard
It was to learn this simple truth, confirmed
At every corner by a thousand proofs―
That common fame most impudently lied.
Within the pestilent matter, unobserved,
To sap the moral constitution quite,
And soon to burst again, incurable.
He with untempered mortar daubed the walls
Of Zion, saying, Peace, when there was none.
'Twas Slander filled her mouth with lying The man who came with thirsty soul to hear
Slander, the foulest whelp of Sin: the man
In whom this spirit entered was undone.
His tongue was set on fire of hell; his heart
Was black as death; his legs were faint with
haste
To propagate the lie his soul had framed;
His pillow was the peace of families
Destroyed, the sigh of innocence reproached,
Broken friendships, and the strife of brotherhoods:
Yet did he spare his sleep, and hear the clock
Number the midnight watches, on his bed
Devising mischief more: and early rose,
And made most hellish meals of good men's Him out, he cried :-Touch not the priest of God.
And that he was anointed, fools believed:
But knew that day, he was the devil's priest:
From door to door you might have seen him Anointed by the hands of Sin and Death,
speed,
Or placed amidst a group of gaping fools,
And whispering in their ears, with his foul lips.
Peace fled the neighbourhood in which he made
His haunts and like a moral pestilence,
Before his breath the healthy shoots, and blooms
And set peculiarly apart to ill,-
While on him smoked the vials of perdition
Poured measureless. Ah me! what cursing then
Was heaped upon his head by ruined souls,
That charged him with their murder, as he stood
With eye of all the unredeemed, most sad.
Waiting the coming of the Son of Man!
But let me pause, for thou hast seen his place,
And punishment, beyond the sphere of love.
Much was removed that tempted once to sin. Avarice no gold, no wine the drunkard saw : But Envy had enough, as heretofore, To fill his heart with gall and bitterness. What made the man of envy what he was, Was worth in others, vileness in himself; A lust of praise, with undeserving deeds, And conscious poverty of soul: and still It was his earnest work and daily toil With lying tongue, to make the noble seem Mean as himself. On fame's high hill he saw The laurel spread its everlasting green,
Again: before him, in the infernal gloom,
That omnipresent shape of Virtue stood,
On which he ever threw his eye; and like
A cinder that had life and feeling, seemed
His face, with inward pining, to be what
He could not be. As being that had burned
Continually in slow consuming fire,
Half an eternity, and was to burn
For evermore, he looked. Oh! sight to be
Forgotten! thought too horrible to think!
But say, believing in such woe to come, Such dreadfui certainty of endless pain, Could beings of forecasting mould, as thou Entitlest men, deliberately walk on, Unscared, and overleap their own belief
And wished to climb: but felt his knees too Into the lake of ever burning fire?
And stood below, unhappy, laying hands
Upon the strong, ascending gloriously
The steps of honour, bent to draw them back;
Involving oft the brightness of their path
In mists his breath had raised. Whene'er he heard,
As oft he did, of joy and happiness,
And great prosperity, and rising worth,
'Twas like a wave of wormwood o'er his soul
Rolling its bitterness. His joy was woe:
The woe of others: when, from wealth to want,
From praises to reproach, from peace to strife,
From mirth to tears, he saw a brother fall,
Or virtue make a slip-his dreams were sweet.
But chief with slander, daughter of his own,
He took unhallowed pleasure: when she talked,
And with her filthy lips defiled the best,
His ear drew near; with wide attention gaped
His mouth; his eye, well pleased, as eager gazed
As glutton, when the dish he most desired
Was placed before him; and a horrid mirth,
At intervals, with laughter shook his sides.
The critic, too, who, for a bit of bread,
In book that fell aside before the ink
Was dry, poured forth excessive nonsense, gave
Him much delight. The critics-some, but few,
Were worthy men : and earned renown which had
Immortal roots: but most were weak and vile :
And as a cloudy swarm of summer flies,
With angry hum and slender lance, beset
The sides of some huge animal; so did
They buzz about the illustrious man, and fain
With his immortal honour, down the stream
Of fame would have descended; but alas!
The hand of Time drove them away: they were,
Indeed, a simple race of men, who had
One only art, which taught them still to say-
Whate'er was done, might have been better
done :
And with this art, not ill to learn, they made
A shift to live: but sometimes too, beneath
The dust they raised, was worth awhile obscured;
And then did Envy prophesy and laugh.
O Envy hide thy bosom! hide it deep:
A thousand snakes, with black envenomed mouths
Nest there, and hiss, and feed through all thy
Such one I saw, here interposing, said The new arrived, in that dark den of shame, Whom, who hath seen shall never wish to see
Thy tone of asking seems to make reply, And rightly seems: They did not so believe. Not one of all thou saw'st lament and wail In Tophet, perfectly believed the word Of God, else none had thither gone. Absurd, To think that beings made with reason, formed To calculate, compare, choose, and reject, By nature taught, and self, and every sense, To choose the good and pass the evil by, Could, with full credence of a time to come When all the wicked should be really damned, And cast beyond the sphere of light and love, Have persevered in sin! Too foolish this For folly in its prime. Can aught that thinks. And wills, choose certain evil and reject Good, in his heart believing he does so? Could man choose pain, instead of endless joy? Mad supposition, though maintained by some Of honest mind. Behold a man condemned! Either he ne'er inquired, and therefore he Could not believe; or else he carelessly Inquired, and something other than the word Of God received into his cheated faith, And therefore he did not believe, but down To hell descended, leaning on a lie. Faith was bewildered much by men who meant To make it clear-so simple in itself; A thought so rudimental and so plain That none by comment could it plainer make. All faith was one: in object, not in kind The difference lay. The faith that saved a sout And that which in the common truth believed, In essence were the same. Hear then, what faith True, Christian faith, which brought salvation,
Belief in all that God revealed to men :
Observe-in all that God revealed to men ;
In all he promised, threatened, commanded, said.
Without exception, and without a doubt.
Who thus believed, being by the Spirit touched,
As naturally the fruits of faith produced-
Truth, temperance, meekness, holiness, a
As human eye from darkness sought the light.
How could he else? If he who had firm faith
The morrow's sun should rise, ordered affairs
Accordingly; if he who had firm faith
That spring, and summer, and autumnal daye
Should pass away, and winter really come,
Prepared accordingly; if he who saw
A bolt of death approaching, turned aside
And let it pass; as surely did the man
Who verily believed the word of God,
Though erring whiles, its general laws obey,
Turn back from hell, and take the way to
heaven.
That faith was necessary, some alleged,
Unreined and uncontrollable by will.
Invention savouring much of hell! Indeed,
it was the master-stroke of wickedness,
Last effort of Abaddon's council dark,
To make man think himself a slave to fate,
And worst of all, a slave to fate in faith.
For thus 'twas reasoned then :-From faith alone,
And from opinion, springs all action: hence,
If faith's compelled, so is all action too:
But deeds compelled are not accountable;
So man is not amenable to God.
FAIREST of those that left the calm of heaven
And ventured down to man, with words of peace
Daughter of Grace! known by whatever name,
Religion! Virtue! Piety! or Love
Of Holiness! the day of thy reward
Was come. Ah! thou wast long despised: de
spised
By those thou wooedst from death to endless life
Modest and meek, in garments white as those
That seraphs wear, and countenance as mild
As Mercy looking on Repentance' tear,
With eye of purity, now darted up
To God's eternal throne, now humbly bent
Upon thyself, and weeping down thy cheek
That glowed with universal love immense,
A tear, pure as the dews that fall in heaven;
In thy left hand, the olive branch, and in
Thy right, the crown of immortality-
With noiseless foot, thou walkedst the vales of
earth,
Arguing that brought such monstrous birth, Beseeching men from age to age, to turn
though good
From utter death-to turn from woe to bliss;
It seemed, must have been false: most false it Beseeching evermore, and evermore
And by the book of God condemned throughout.
We freely own that truth, when set before
The mind, with perfect evidence, compelled
Belief: but error lacked such witness still.
And none, who now lament in moral night,
The word of God refused on evidence
That might not have been set aside, as false.
To reason, try, choose and reject, was free:
Hence God, by faith, acquitted, or condemned;
Hence righteous men, with liberty of will
Believed; and hence thou saw'st in Erebus,
The wicked, who as freely disbelieved
What else had led them to the land of life.
Despised-not evermore despised, not now,
Not at the day of doom: most lovely then,
Most honourable thou appeared, and most
To be desired. The guilty heard the song
Of thy redeemed, how loud! and saw thy face,
How fair!-Alas! it was too late! the hour
Of making friends was past; thy favour then
Might not be sought: but recollection, sad
And accurate, as miser counting o'er
And o'er again the sum he must lay out,
Distinctly in the wicked's ear rehearsed
Each opportunity despised and lost;
While on them gleamed thy holy look, that like
A fiery torrent went into their souls.
The day of thy reward was come-the day
Of great remuneration to thy friends;
To those, known by whatever name, who sought,
In every place, in every time, to do
Unfeignedly their Maker's will, revealed,
Or gathered else from nature's schoo!; well
With God's applause alone, that, like a stream
Of sweetest melody, at still of night
As apostrophe to Religion, Virtue, Piety, or love By wanderer heard, in their most secret ear, of Holiness.
For ever whispered, Peace; and as a string
Of kindred tone awoke, their inmost soul,
Responsive, answered, Peace; inquiring still
And searching, night and day, to know their
duty-
Description of several classes of the redeemed. The faithful minister, the true philosopher, the righteous governor, the uncorrupted statesman, the brave general, the man of active benevolence and charity, the Christian bard. And the most When known, with undisputing trust, with love numerous among the saved were such, who on Unquenchable, with zea., by reason's lamp earth were eclipsed by lowly circumstances, Inflamed-performing; and to Him, by whose many of whom were seen "highest and first in Profound, all-calculating skill alone, honour." Suddenly an innumerous host of angels, headed by Michael and Gabriel, descended from heaven, silently and without song, and lifting mankind into mid air, parted the good and bad; to the right and left, the good to weep no more, and the bad never to smile again; the righteous placed "beneath a crown of rosy light," and the wicked were driven and bound under a cloud of darkness, where stood also Satan and his legion, awaiting the judgment and punishment due to their rebellion.
Results results even of the slightest act,
Are fully grasped, with unsuspicious faith,
All consequences leaving; to abound
Or want alike prepared; who knew to be
Exalted how, and how to be abased;
How best to live, and how to die when asked.
Their prayers sincere, their alms in secret done.
Their fightings with themselves, their abstinence
From pleasure, though by mortal eye unseen,
Their hearts of resignation to the will
Of Heaven, their patient bearing of reproach
And shame, their charity, and faith, and hope
Thou didst remember, and in full repaid.
No bankrupt thou, who at the bargained hour
Of payment due, sent to his creditors
A tale of losses and mischances long.
Insured by God himself, and from the stores
And treasures of his wealth at will supplied,
Religion! thou alone, of all that men,
On Earth, gave credit, to be reimbursed
Anointed by the Holy Ghost, and set
Apart to the great work of saving men ;
Instructed fully in the will divine;
Supplied with grace in store, as need might ask
And with the stamp and signature of heaver,
Truth, mercy, patience, holiness and love,
Accredited; he was a man by God,
The Lord, commissioned to make known to men,
On the other side the grave, didst keep thy word, The eternal counsels; in his Master's name,
Thy day, and all thy promises fulfilled.
As in the mind, rich with unborrowed wealth,
Where multitudes of thoughts for utterance strive,
And all so fair, that each seems worthy first
To enter on the tongue, and from the lips
Have passage forth,-selection hesitates,
Perplexed, and loses time; anxious, since all
Cannot be taken, to take the best; and yet
Afraid, lest what be left be worthier still;
And grieving much, where all so goodly look,
To leave rejected one, or in the rear
Let any be obscured: so did the bard,
Though not unskilled, as on that multitude
Of men, who once awoke to judgment, he
Threw back reflection, hesitating, pause.
For as his harp, in tone severe, had sung
What figure the most famous sinners made,
When from the grave they rose unmasked;
did
He wish to character the good: but yet
Among so many, glorious all, all worth
Immortal fame, with whom begin, with whom
To end, was difficult to choose; and long
His auditors, upon the tiptoe raised
Of expectation, might have kept, had not
His eye-for so it is in heaven, that what
Is needed always is at hand-beheld,
That moment, on a mountain near the throne
Of God, the most renowned of the redeemed
Rejoicing; nor who first, who most to praise,
Debated more; but thus, with sweeter note,
Well pleased to sing, with highest eulogy,
And first, whom God applauded most,-began.
To treat with them of everlasting things;
Of life, death, bliss, and woe: to offer terms
Of pardon, grace, and peace, to the rebelled;
To teach the ignorant soul; to cheer the sad;
To bind, to loose with all authority:
To give the feeble strength, the hopeless hope;
To help the halting, and to lead the blind;
To warn the careless; heal the sick of heart;
Arouse the indolent; and on the proud
And obstinate offender, to denounce
The wrath of God. All other men, what name
Soe'er they bore, whatever office held,
If lawful held-the magistrate supreme,
Or else subordinate, were chosen by men,
Their fellows, and from men derived their power,
And were accountable for all they did
To men; but he alone his office held
Immediately from God, from God received
sc Authority, and was to none but God
Amenable. The elders of the church,
Indeed, upon him laid their hands, and set
Him visibly apart to preach the word
Of life; but this was merely outward rite,
And decent ceremonial, performed
With patient ear, thou now hast heard-though
Aside digressing, ancient feeling turned
My lyre, what shame the wicked had that day;
What wailing, what remorse: so hear in brief,
How bold the righteous stood-the men re-
deemed!
How fair in virtue! and in hope how glad!
And first among the holy shone, as best
Became, the faithful minister of God.
See where he walks on yonder mount, that lifts Its summit high, on the right hand of bliss! Sublime in glory! talking with his peers Of the Incarnate Saviour's love, and past Affliction, lost in present joy! See how H's face with heavenly ardour glows! and how Es hand, enraptured, strikes the golden lyre! As now conversing of the Lamb once slain, He speaks; and now, from vines that never hear Of winter, but in monthly harvest yield Their fruit abundantly, he plucks the grapes Of life! but what he was on earth it most Behoves to say:-Elect by God himself;
On all alike; and oft, as thou hast heard,
Performed on those, God never sent: his call,
His consecration, his anointing, all
Were inward; in the conscience heard and felt.
Thus by Jehovah chosen and ordained,
To take into his charge the souls of men;
And for his trust to answer at the day
Of judgment-great plenipotent of heaven,
And representative of God on earth-
Fearless of men and devils; unabashed
By sin enthroned, or mockery of a prince;
Unawed by armed legions; unseduced
By offered bribes; burning with love to souls
Unquenchable, and mindful still of his
Great charge and vast responsibility,
High in the temple of the living God
He stood, amidst the people, and declared
Aloud the truth, the whole revealed truth,
Ready to seal it with his blood. Divine
Resemblance most complete! with mercy now,
And love, his face, illumed, shone gloriously;
And frowning now indig::antly, it seemed
As if offended Justice, from his eye,
Streamed forth vindictive wrath! Men heard
alarmed:
The uncircumcised infidel believed;
Light thoughted Mirth grew serious and wept;
The laugh profane sunk in a sigh of deep
Repentance; the blasphemer, kneeling, prayed,
And, prostrate in the dust, for mercy called;
And cursed old forsaken sinners gnashed
Their teeth, as if their hour had been arrived.
Such were his calling, his commission such:
Yet he was humble, kind, forgiving, meck,
Easy to be entreated, gracious, mild:
And with all patience and affection, taught,
Rebuked, persuaded, solaced, counselled, warned,
In fervent style and manner. Needy, poor,
And dying men, like music, heard his feet
Approach their beds; and guilty wretches took
New hope, and in his prayers wept and smiled,
And blessed him, as they died forgiven; and all
Saw in his face contentment, in his life,
The path to glory and perpetual joy.
Deep learned in the philosophy of heaven,
He searched the causes out of good and ill,
Profoundly calculating their effects
Far past the bounds of time; and balancing,
In the arithmetic of future things,
The loss and profit of the soul to all
Eternity. A skilful workman he,
In God's great moral vineyard; what to prune
With cautious hand, he knew; what to uproot;
What were mere weeds, and what celestial plants,
Which had unfading vigour in them, knew:
Nor knew alone; but watched them night and
day,
And reared and nourished them, till fit to be
Transplanted to the Paradise above.
Be multiplied. Religious man! what God
By prophets, priests, evangelists, revealed
Of sacred truth, he thankfully received,
And, by its light directed, went in search
Of more: before him, darkness fled: and all
The goblin tribe, that hung upon the breasts
Of night, and haunted still the moral gloom,-
With shapeless forms, and blue infernal lights,
And indistinct and devilish whisperings,
That the miseducated fancies vexed
Of superstitious men,-at his approach,
Dispersed invisible. Where'er he went,
This lesson still he taught: To fear no ill
But sin, no being but Almighty God.
All-comprehending sage! too hard alone
For him was man's salvation; all besides,
Of use or comfort, that distinction made
Between the desperate savage, scarcely raised
Above the beast whose flesh he ate undressed,
And the most polished of the human race.
Was product of his persevering search.
Religion owed him much, as from the false
She suffered much; for still his main design,
In all his contemplations, was to trace
The wisdom, providence, and love of God,
O! who can speak his praise! great, humble And to his fellows, less observant, show
He in the current of destruction stood,
And warned the sinner of his woe; led on
Immanuel's armies in the evil day;
And with the everlasting arms, embraced
Himself around, stood in the dreadful front
Of battle, high, and warred victoriously
Them forth. From prejudice redeemed, with
His passions still, above the common world,
Sublime in reason, and in aim sublime,
He sat, and on the marvellous works of God,
Sedately thought: now glancing up his eye
Intelligent, through all the starry dance;
With death and hell. And now was come his rest, And penetrating now the deep remote
His triumph day: illustrious like a sun,
in that assembly, he, shining from far,
Most excellent in glory, stood assured,
Waiting the promised erown, the promised throne,
The welcome and approval of his Lord.
Nor one alone, but many-prophets, priests
Apostles, great reformers, all that served
Messiah faithfully, like stars appeared,
Of fairest beam; and round them gathered, clad
In white, the vouchers of their ministry-
The flock their care had nourished, fed, and saved.
Nor yet in common glory, blazing, stood
The true philosopher, decided friend
Of truth and man; determined foe of all
Deception, calm, collected, patient, wise,
And humble; undeceived by outward shape
Of things; by fashion's revelry uncharmed;
By honour unbewitched;-he left the chase
Of vanity, and all the quackeries
Of life, to fools and heroes, or whoe'er
Desired them; and with reason, much despised,
Traduced, yet heavenly reason, to the shade
Retired-retired, but not to dream, or build
Of ghostly fancies, seen in the deep noon
Of sleep, ill balanced theories; retired,
Bat did not leave mankind; in pity, not
In wrath, retired; and still, though distant, kept
His eye on men; at proper angle took
His stand to see them better, and beyond
The clamour which the bells of folly made,
That most had hang about them, to consult
With nature, how their madness might be cured,
And how their true substantial comforts might
Of central causes, in the womb opaque
Of matter hid; now, with inspection nice,
Entering the mystic labyrinths of the mind,
Where thought, of notice ever shy, behind
Thought disappearing, still retired; and still,
Thought meeting thought, and thought awaken.
ing thought,
And mingling still with thought, in endless
Bewildered observation: now with eye,
Yet more severely purged, looking far down
Into the heart, where Passion wove a web
Of thousand thousand threads, in grain and hue
All different; then, upward venturing whiles,
But reverently, and in his hand, the light
Revealed, near the eternal throne, he gazed,
Philosophizing less than worshipping.
Most truly great! his intellectual strength,
And knowledge vast, to men of lesser mind
Seemed infinite; yet from his high pursuits,
And reasonings most profound, he still returned
Home, with an humbler and a warmer heart.
And none so lowly bowed before his God,
As none so well His awful majesty
And goodness comprehended; or so well
His own dependency and weakness knew.
How glorious now! with vision purified
At the Essential Truth, entirely free
From error, he, investigating still-
For knowledge is not found, unsought, in hea-
From world to world at pleasure roves, on wing
Of golden ray upborne; or, at the feet
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