INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY.

"But why should I with indignation burn, Not well beseeming here, and long forgot? Or why one censure for another's sin? Each had his conscience, each his reason, will, And understanding, for himself to search, To choose, reject, believe, consider, act. And God proclaimed from heaven, and by an oath Confirmed, that each should answer for himself; And as his own peculiar work should be, Done by his proper self, should live or die. But sin, deceitful and deceiving still,

Had gained the heart, and reason led astray."

FATALITY OF FALSE CREEDS.

"A strange belief, that leaned its idiot back On folly's topmost twig-belief that God,

Most wise, had made a world, had creatures made, Beneath his care to govern and protectDevoured its thousands.

Reason-not the true,

Learned, deep, sober, comprehensive, sound,

But bigoted, one-eyed, short-sighted Reason,
Most zealous, and sometimes, no doubt, sincere—
Devoured its thousands. Vanity to be

Renowned for creed eccentrical, devoured
Its thousands. But a lazy, corpulent,
And over-credulous faith, that leaned on all
It met, nor asked if 'twas a reed or oak;
Stepped on, but never earnestly inquired
Whether to heaven or hell the journey led,

Devoured its tens of thousands, and its hands
Made reddest in the precious blood of souls.'

VAIN ACQUISITIONS- -GLORIES OF REDEMPTION.
"In Time's pursuits, men ran till out of breath.
The astronomer soared up, and counted stars,
And gazed and gazed upon the heaven's bright face,
Till he dropp'd down dim-eyed into the grave:
The numerist, in calculations deep,

Grew gray: the merchant at his desk expired:
The statesman hunted for another place,

Till death o'ertook him, and made him his prey:
The miser spent his eldest energy

In grasping for another mite: the scribe

Rubbed pensively his old and withered brow,
Devising new impediments to hold

In doubt the suit that threatened to end too soon:
The priest collected tithes, and pleaded rights
Of decimation to the very last.

In science, learning, all philosophy,

Men labored all their days, and labored hard,
And, dying, sighed how little they had done.
But in religion they at once grew wise.
A creed in print, though never understood;
A theologic system on the shelf,

Was spiritual lore enough, and served their turn;
But served it ill. They sinned, and never knew:
For what the Bible said of good and bad,
Of holiness and sin, they never asked.
"Absurd, prodigiously absurd, to think
That man's minute and feeble faculties,

Even in the very childhood of his being,

With mortal shadows dimmed and wrapp'd around,
Could comprehend at once the mighty scheme,
Where rolled the ocean of eternal love;
Where wisdom infinite its master-stroke
Displayed; and where omnipotence, oppress'd,
Did travail in the greatness of its strength;
And everlasting Justice lifted up

The sword to smite the guiltless Son of God;
And Mercy, smiling, bade the sinner go!
Redemption is the science and the song
Of all eternity: archangels, day

And night, into its glories look: the saints,
The elders round the throne, old in the years
Of heaven, examine it perpetually;

And, every hour, get clearer, ampler views
Of right and wrong; see virtue's beauty more;
See vice more utterly depraved and vile;
And this, with a more perfect hatred, hate;
That daily love with a more perfect love."

PRIDE AND ITS ATTENDANTS.

But whether I for man's perdition blame
Office administered amiss, pursuit

Of pleasure false, perverted reason blind,
Or indolence that ne'er inquired; I blame
Effect and consequence; the branch, the leaf.
Who finds the fount and bitter root, the first
And guiltiest cause whence sprung this endless wo,
Must deep descend into the human heart,

And find it there. Dread passion! making men

On earth, and even in hell, if Mercy yet
Would stoop so low, unwilling to be saved,
If saved by grace of God. Hear then, in brief,
What peopled hell, what holds its prisoners there
"Pride, self-adoring pride, was primal cause
Of all sin past, all pain, all wo to come.
Unconquerable pride! first, eldest sin,

Great fountain-head of evil! highest source,
Whence flowed rebellion 'gainst the Omnipotent,
Whence hate of man to man, and all else ill.
Pride at the bottom of the human heart
Lay, and gave root and nourishment to all
That grew above. Great ancestor of vice!
Hate, unbelief, and blasphemy of God;
Envy and slander; malice and revenge;
And murder, and deceit, and every birth
Of damned sort, was progeny of pride.
It was the ever-moving, acting force,
The constant aim, and the most thirsty wish
Of every sinner unrenewed, to be

A god in purple or in rags, to have
Himself adored; whatever shape or form
His actions took, whatever phrase he threw
About his thoughts, or mantle o’er his life,
To be the highest, was the inward cause
Of all; the purpose of the heart to be

Set up, admired, obeyed. But who would bow
The knee to one who served and was dependent?
Hence man's perpetual struggle, night and day,
To prove he was his own proprietor,

And independent of his God; that what

He had might be esteemed his own, and praised
As such. He labored still, and tried to stand
Alone, unpropped, to be obliged to none;
And, in the madness of his pride, he bade
His God farewell, and turned away to be
A god himself; resolving to rely,

Whatever came, upon his own right hand.

"O desperate phrensy! madness of the will! And drunkenness of the heart! that naught could quench

But floods of wo, poured from the sea of wrath,
Behind which mercy set. To think to turn
The back on life original, and live!
The creature to set up a rival throne
In the Creator's realm! to deify

A worm! and in the sight of God be proud!
To lift an arm of flesh against the shafts
Of the Omnipotent, and midst his wrath
To seek for happiness!-insanity

Most mad! guilt most complete! Seest thou those worlds

That roll at various distance round the throne

Of God, innumerous, and fill the calm

Of heaven with sweetest harmony, when saints
And angels sleep? As one of these, from love
Centripetal withdrawing, and from light,
And heat, and nourishment cut off, should rush
Abandoned o'er the line that runs between
Create and increate-from ruin driven

To ruin still, through the abortive waste—
So pride from God drew off the bad; and so,