The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles Vol. 2. Bowles William Lisle

all (be sure) "are worthy of their hire;"

      Who only preach for good of their poor souls,

      That they may turn "from darkness unto light,"

      And, above all, fly, as the gates of hell,

      Morality!27 and Baal's steeple house,

      Where, without "heart-work," Doctor Littlegrace

      Drones his dull requiem to the snoring clerk!"28

      True; he who drawls his heartless homily

      For one day's work, and plods, on wading stilts,

      Through prosing paragraphs, with inference,

      Methodically dull, as orthodox,

      Enforcing sagely that we all must die

      When God shall call – oh, what a pulpit drone

      Is he! The blue fly might as well preach "Hum,"

      And "so conclude!"

      But save me from the sight

      Of curate fop, half jockey and half clerk,

      The tandem-driving Tommy of a town,

      Disdaining books, omniscient of a horse,

      Impatient till September comes again,

      Eloquent only of "the pretty girl

      With whom he danced last night!" Oh! such a thing

      Is worse than the dull doctor, who performs

      Duly his stinted task, and then to sleep,

      Till Sunday asks another homily

      Against all innovations of the age,

      Mad missionary zeal, and Bible clubs,

      And Calvinists and Evangelicals!

      Yes! Evangelicals! Oh, glorious word!

      But who deserves that awful name? Not he

      Who spits his puny Puritanic spite

      On harmless recreation; who reviles

      All who, majestic in their distant scorn,

      Bear on in silence their calm Christian course.

      He only is the Evangelical

      Who holds in equal scorn dogmas and dreams,

      The Shibboleth of saintly magazines,

      Decked with most grim and godly visages;

      The cobweb sophistry, or the dark code

      Of commentators, who, with loathsome track,

      Crawl o'er a text, or on the lucid page,

      Beaming with heavenly love and God's own light,

      Sit like a nightmare!29 Soon a deadly mist

      Creeps o'er our eyes and heart, till angel forms

      Turn into hideous phantoms, mocking us,

      Even when we look for comfort at the spring

      And well of life, while dismal voices cry,

      Death! Reprobation! Woe! Eternal woe!

      He only is the Evangelical

      Who from the human commentary turns

      With tranquil scorn, and nearer to his heart

      Presses the Bible, till repentant tears,

      In silence, wet his cheek, and new-born faith,

      And hope, and charity, with radiant smile,

      Visit his heart, – all pointing to the cross!

      He only is the Evangelical,

      Who, with eyes fixed upon that spectacle,

      Christ and him crucified, with ardent hope,

      And holier feelings, lifts his thoughts from earth,

      And cries, My Father! Meantime, his whole heart

      Is on God's Word: he preaches Faith, and Hope,

      And Charity, – these three, and not that one!

      And Charity, the greatest of these three!30

      Give me an Evangelical like this! But now

      The blackest crimes in tract-religion's code

      Are moral virtues! Spare the prodigal, —

      He may awake when God shall "call;" but, hell,

      Roll thy avenging flames, to swallow up

      The son who never left his father's home

      Lest he should trust to morals when he dies!

      Let him not lay the unction to his soul,

      That his upbraiding conscience tells no tale

      At that dread hour; bid him confess his sin,

      The greater that, with humble hope, he looks

      Back on a well-spent life! Bid him confess

      That he hath broken all God's holy laws, —

      In vain hath he done justly, – loved, in vain,

      Mercy, and hath walked humbly with his God!

      These are mere works; but faith is everything,

      And all in all! The Christian code contains

      No "if" or "but!"31 Let tabernacles ring,

      And churches too,32 with sanctimonious strains

      Baneful as these; and let such strains be heard

      Through half the land; and can we shut our eyes,

      And, sadly wondering, ask the cause of crimes,

      When infidelity stands lowering here,

      With open scorn, and such a code as this,

      So baneful, withers half the charities

      Of human hearts! Oh! dear is Mercy's voice

      To man, a mourner in the vale of sin

      And death: how dear the still small voice of Faith,

      That bids him raise his look beyond the clouds

      That hang o'er this dim earth; but he who tears

      Faith from her heavenly sisterhood, denies

      The gospel, and turns traitor to the cause

      He has engaged to plead. Come, Faith, and Hope,

      And Charity! how dear to the sad heart,

      The consolations and the glorious views

      That animate the Christian in his course!

      But save, oh! save me from the tract-led Miss,

      Who trots to every Bethel club, and broods

      O'er some black missionary's monstrous tale,

      Reckless of want around her!

      But the priest,

      Who deems the Almighty frowns upon his throne,

      Because two pair of harmless dowagers,

      Whose life has passed without a stain, beguile

      An evening hour with cards; who deems that hell

      Burns fiercer for a saraband; that thou —

      Thou, my sweet Shakspeare – thou, whose touch awakes

      The inmost heart of virtuous sympathy, —

      Thou, O divinest poet! at whose voice

      Sad Pity weeps, or guilty Terror drops

      The blood-stained dagger from his palsied hand, —

      That

27

See "Pilgrim's Progress."

28

See Rowland Hill's caricatures, entitled "Village Dialogues."

29

The text, which no Christian can misunderstand, "God is not willing," is turned, by elaborate Jesuitical sophistry, to "God is willing," by one "master in Israel." So that, in fact, the Almighty, saying No when he should have said Yes, did not know what he meant, till such a sophistical blasphemer set him right! To such length does an adherence to preconceived Calvinism lead the mind.

30

"And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." —St Paul.

31

Literally the expression of Hawker, the apostle of thousands and thousands. I speak of the obvious inference drawn from such expressions, and this daring denial of the very words of his Master: "Happy are ye, if ye do them!" —Christ. "But in vain," etc.

32

I fear many churches have more to answer for than tabernacles.