ARGUMENT.

One prominent human passion, the lust of power-The many forms and names it assumes:-Tyranny-Anarchy.-Struggles which gave birth to Liberty in Britain.-Earthly Liberty—Its real character and objects.-Slavery denounced-Only exceeded in wickedness by Persecution. The false-named freedom of Greece and Rome-Prejudices of statesmen, historians, philosophers, and poets on this point-Pagan freedom only truly described by the Prophet.-True Christian liberty-Its blest effects. -The true freeman.—A renewed human heart unfolded—Its passions and capacities-Its struggling and contradictory principles and qualities-The scene of conflict between the powers of Good and Evil.-Afflictions and trials to which the Christian was liable on earth-His growth in holiness.-Virtue perfect in God only. -Impossibility of fallen man gaining Heaven by his own merit. -The Redeemed beheld around the Throne.-Hymn to Divine Love.-The Bard reverts to the affairs of Time.-Books of Earth -The Novelist and Novels-Books that endured.-Vanity of human speculations on the mysteries of God.-Sin and presumption of men in censuring the ways of Providence.-The mysteries of the Christian faith-Reason unable to comprehend these hidden things of God. The unequal distribution of worldly goods, a mystery of Providence. The high-born luxurious man contrasted with the beggar.-Lessons taught by the disparity of fortune. -The difference of mental gifts-The man of weak intellectThe man of powerful understanding.-Important lesson drawn from the difference of intellectual endowments..-Reflections on the wisdom and goodness of God in the measure and distribution of his best gifts.-An illustrious poet of Earth-The lofty powers and tendencies of his genius-His fame-His fate-Reflections drawn from his character and history.

THE

COURSE OF TIME.

BOOK IV.

THE world had much of strange and wonderful,

In passion much, in action, reason, will,
And much in providence, which still retired
From human eye, and led Philosophy,

That ill her ignorance liked to own, through dark
And dangerous paths of speculation wild.

Some striking features, as we pass, we mark,

In order such as memory suggests.

Of

One passion prominent appears, the lust

power,

which ofttimes took the fairer name

Of liberty, and hung the popular flag

Of freedom out. Many, indeed, its names.

When on the throne it sat, and round the neck

Of millions riveted its iron chain,

And on the shoulders of the people laid
Burdens unmerciful, it title took
Of tyranny, oppression, despotism;
And every tongue was weary cursing it.
When in the multitude it gathered strength,
And, like an ocean bursting from his bounds,
Long beat in vain, went forth resistlessly,
It bore the stamp and designation, then,
Of popular fury, anarchy, rebellion;

And honest men bewailed all order void;
All laws annulled; all property destroyed;
The venerable, murdered in the streets;

The wise, despised; streams, red with human blood;
Harvests, beneath the frantic foot trod down;
Lands, desolate; and famine at the door.

These are a part; but other names it had,
Innumerous as the shapes and robes it wore.
But under every name, in nature still
Invariably the same, and always bad.

We own, indeed, that oft against itself
It fought, and sceptre both and people gave
An equal aid; as long exemplified
In Albion's isle, Albion, queen of the seas;
And in the struggle, something like a kind

Of civil liberty grew up, the best

Of mere terrestrial root; but, sickly, too,
And living only, strange to tell! in strife
Of factions equally contending; dead,

That

very moment dead, that one prevailed.

Conflicting cruelly against itself,

By its own hand it fell; part slaying part.
And men who noticed not the suicide,

Stood wondering much, why earth, from age to age,

Was still enslaved; and erring causes gave.

This was earth's liberty, its nature this, However named, in whomsoever found,And found it was in all of woman born,Each man to make all subject to his will; To make them do, undo, eat, drink, stand, move, Talk, think, and feel, exactly as he chose. Hence the eternal strife of brotherhoods,

Of individuals, families, commonwealths.

The root from which it grew was pride; bad root, And bad the fruit it bore. Then wonder not, That long the nations from it richly reaped Oppression, slavery, tyranny, and war;

Confusion, desolation, trouble, shame.

And marvellous though it seem, this monster, when It took the name of slavery, as oft

It did, had advocates to plead its cause;

Beings that walked erect, and spoke like men ;
Of Christian parentage descended, too,
And dipped in the baptismal font, as sign

Of dedication to the Prince who bowed
To death, to set the sin-bound prisoner free.

Unchristian thought! on what pretence soe'er Of right, inherited, or else acquired;

Of loss, or profit, or what plea you name,
To buy and sell, to barter, whip, and hold
In chains, a being of celestial make;

Of kindred form, of kindred faculties,

Of kindred feelings, passions, thoughts, desires;
Born free, and heir of an immortal hope;
Thought villanous, absurd, detestable !
Unworthy to be harboured in a fiend!
And only overreached in wickedness
By that, birth too of earthly liberty,
Which aimed to make a reasonable man
By legislation think, and by the sword
Believe. This was that liberty renowned,

Those equal rights of Greece and Rome, where men,