In points of faith and speculation,
Which tend to nothing but vexation.
With these it is a heinous crime
To cough or spit in sermon time:
"Tis worse to whistle on a Sunday
Than cheat their neighbours on a Monday:
To dine without first saying grace is
Enough in heaven to lose their places;
But goodness, honesty, and virtue
Are what they've not the least regard to.
Others there are, and not a few,
Who place it in the bugbear view;
Think it consists in strange severities;
In fastings, weepings, and austerities.
False notions their weak minds possess
Of faith and grace and holiness:
And as the Lord's of purer eyes
Than to behold iniquities,
They think, unless they're pure and spotless,
All their endeavours will be bootless;
And dreadful furies in æternum,
In unconsuming fires will burn them.
But O, how happy are the few
Who place it in its proper view!
To these it shines divinely bright,
No clouds obscure its native light;
Truth stamps conviction in the mind,
All doubts and fears are left behind,
And peace and joy at once an entrance find.
O LORD, my best desires fulfil,
"And help me to resign
Life, health, and comfort to thy will,
And make thy pleasure mine.
Why should I shrink at thy command,
Whose love forbids my fears?
Or tremble at the gracious hand
That wipes away my tears?
No, let me rather freely yield
What most I prize to Thee;
Who never hast a good withheld,
Or wilt withhold from me.
Thy favour all my journey through
Thou art engaged to grant;
What else I want, or think I do,
"Tis better still to want.
Wisdom and mercy guide my way,
Shall I resist them both?
A poor blind creature of a day,
And crushed before the moth!
But ah! my inward spirit cries,
Still bind me to thy sway;
Else the next cloud that veils my skies
Drives all these thoughts away.
THE FUTURE EXISTENCE OF BRUTES.
THE CHARACTER OF THE DOG FROM BUFFON.
'THE beasts that perish.'-Those few words are shown
On the dread pages of Inspired Record,
By man, proud man, as he were doom'd alone
To meet for guiltless pain supreme reward.
Yet knows he well, that on the Leaves Divine
Oft from the seeming sense we must refrain;
And, lest warm hope consistency resign,
The letter wave, the spirit to obtain.
For brutal life, while reasoning we explore
The text misconstrued much, it but declares
That man's free thoughts and deeds import him
Since this his state of trial is not theirs.
To earthly life he perishes;-but here
The vast momentous difference is implied,
He perishes accountable, aware
That choice was given, and reason for its guide.
I mark the tones of Arrogance exclaim,
'Since they are form'd incapable of sin,
Of innocence instinctive where's the claim?
It well may be as it had never been.'
True, if permitted ills did ne'er oppress,
If certain as their innocence, their peace,
With the short date of being brutes possess,
Heaven might ordain their consciousness should
Yet not infringe those never altering laws
Of equity and mercy, which combined
To form the essence of the' Eternal Cause,
Judge, guardian, friend of all existing kind.
But since, full oft, the pangs of dire disease,
Labour, and famine, and oppression hard,
From cruel man, the blameless victims seize,
Of Heavenly Justice they may claim reward.
Alas! the dumb, defenceless numbers found
The wretched subjects of a tyrant's sway,
Who hourly feel his unresisted wound,
And hungry pine through many a weary day;
Or those, of lot more barbarously severe,
Who strain their weak lame limbs beneath a load
Their fainting strength is basely doom'd to bear,
While smites the lash, the steely torments goad.
Has God decreed that this poor helpless train
Shall groaning yield the vital breath he gave,
Unrecompensed for years of want and pain,
And close on them the portals of the grave?
Ah no! the great Retributory Mind
Will recompense, and may perhaps ordain
Some future mode of being, more refined
Than ours, less sullied with inherent stain;
Less torn by passion, and less prone to sin;
Their duty easier, trial less severe,
Till their firm faith and virtue proved may win
The wreaths of life in yon eternal sphere.
This then may form the much rewarding doom:→
But O! whate'er the nature of the meed,
Theirs it must be;-then let us now presume
Their guiltless cause on other grounds to plead.
Suppose permitted ills did not oppress,
That certain as their innocence, their peace,
And thus that, with the being they possess,
Sensation might, without injustice, cease;
Yet still, proud man, in this scorn'd tribe below,
Shall more than innocence thy pride impede,
Nature, where all the generous ardours glow,
And action vieing with thy noblest deed.
If strength, if grace, if magnitude of frame
To give the dignifying powers must fail;
If not from them proceeds the sacred claim
That lifts the creature on Creation's scale;
If mind shall ever be to form preferr'd,
Courage to force, to beauty sentiment,
One brute, at least, has powers, by Heaven con-
That for a doom oblivious were not lent.
Ah! what but Heaven-born sentiment corrects,
Refines, adorns, ennobles being? still
From the contagious taint of Vice protects,
Controls the appetites, exalts the will?
This shouldst thou feel, perforce then shalt thou
That animal perfection must depend,
Human and brute alike, on the degree
In which the lights of sentiment extend.
In brutal life if exquisite they prove;
If education may increase their force;
If fond, intelligent, and faithful love
Rise in the breast, and strengthen on its course;
If, in a silent servitude to man,
Energic Friendship burns with generous strife, Say, canst thou deem thy Dog's short vital span Stopp'd on the confines of Eternal Life?
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