And trim the vessel for so long a course; And call our prudence and our courage up, To sail by chart and compass;-who much wish, To guide their course on earth;-and in the night— To mark religion's fixed and guiding star. To worship God and love him—if to man With lowliness and caution. They reveal Frown o'er the earth, and make a wilderness “How rotten—how corrupt the human heart! "How desperately wicked! Not one thought "Attuned to virtue;-not a single act "But, mark'd by dire depravity, proclaims "His fallen being and degraded state. "Not his a partial sickness;-not the blight "Which shakes the bloom, but rotten at the root "He grows;-of flower and fruit devoid;-of good 46 Incapable by nature. Child of wrath— "And worthy to become so! Downward prone "The reptile licks the dust-nor dares to raise His breath towards incens'd-indignant heaven. "His all of virtue worthless;-each bright act "Of seeming good-hypocrisy and guile." Such-and so hideous-and more fearful still (Till we expect abhorring earth will gape And whelm the monster in her dark abyss) Is man-his Maker's image! as pourtrayed In pulpits-when, in sable garb, the priest Deals forth anathemas;-and echoes loud Threats of damnation in despairing ears. The self-named prophet see! his sleeky hair Lank falling o'er a face of thought devoidYet full of fury-as he calls on God— A wrathful God! to aid his preacher's cause. In Nature's broadest mould (to wield a plough More fitting) his proportions framed;—his hands, Like a flail falling, shakes the groaning desk;— His brow, with grace and perspiration fraught, Frowns o'er the crouching multitude, who hear They all are worthless-and groan out "Amen!" "Pastor and people-each," he says, "" are vile!" Who doubts the dictum of the holy man? If they be worthless, let us mark them then; If vile, let us avoid them. They best know The plague-spots on their hearts. If hypocrites, Let us beware that we be not deceived. But 'tis a libel on the name of God Rank blasphemy-to say that man was made One thought or deed aright. Was it a dream, Amid the strugglings of my erring youth, An exile-and an alien-and a slave; Why starts the tear at the sad tale of woe? 'Tis called humanity;-it takes our name, And marks our nature. Wherefore throbs the pulse, And with applause repeated, stands each deed, With execration every deed of shame But that within their hearts-deep in their hearts- To chains and torture (light when void of shame) The hemlock and the bowl-and he* must die * Socrates. The instances adduced of virtue are, perhaps, too familiar with most readers, to render explanation necessary; yet a brief remark may prevent mistake or obscurity. To say nothing of Curtius, whose supposed self-devotion in leaping into the gulph, is a matter of common allusion; the oracle having declared, on an invasion, that that party who shed the first blood should be defeated, Codrus, king of Athens, sought the enemy's camp in diguise, and, provoking them to violence, fell the first victim. Alexander the Great, at the brink of the grave, from having bathed in the Cydnus when overheated, received, at the moment when taking a draught from the hand of his friend and physician Phillip, an anonymous scroll, stating that it was intended to poison him; he put the letter, with a smile, into the hands of Phillip, and immediately drank off the medicine. Regulus, being made prisoner by the Carthaginians, was sent by them to Rome, (under a pledge that he would return) to negotiate a peace, and an exchange of prisoners; knowing the reduced state of those who sent him, he strongly advised against both-and then voluntarily, returned to tortures and to death. Art thou unmoved? By Nature sore depraved, Doth no enthusiastic glow arise At acts like these? Is there no string within To vibrate in accordance with such tones? No busy thought that whispers to the heart- "Of lofty thoughts-and actions great and good?" A man-above all Greek and Roman lore- To pride impervious, pierced through error's maze; A lowly life-and an untimely end. By priests and hypocrites (the rabbis named, He died a martyr in a glorious cause— And scoffed him there: for these he prayed, and cried The seeds of good within him. Fan to flame The embers, deadened oft, yet warm within, Of heaven-sent truth. Arouse him from the trance, Urge him to speed-and thunder in his ear The danger and the madness of delay. Clothe him in armour;--gird him round with truth; With righteousness his breast-plate;--for his shield Deliverance his helmet ;--and his sword The swift and soul-convincing word of life. ON THE PAY OF THE DISSENTING PRIESTHOOD. With Extracts from "The Support of the Christian Ministry." A Sermon, by James Bennett, of Rotherham College. THE existence of a priesthood, whose members exercise an exclusive right to teach-and who, following religion as a trade, are paid for thus teaching-is common to nearly all dissenting parties, as well as to the establishment. The Freethinking Christian church, who consider the equality of its members, and the absence of the hireling teacher, as essential points of Christianity, is, indeed, almost, if not altogether, the sole exception. The funds and revenues of the established church, however, being prescribed and defined by law, the sources of those funds and revenues are comparatively well known; but with regard to the dissenting bodies, the case is different. The payments to the ministry |