Who, when occafion juftified its use,
Had wit as bright as ready to produce,
Could fetch from records of an earlier age,
Or from philofophy's enlightened page,
His rich materials, and regale your ear
With ftrains it was a privilege to hear:
Yet above all his luxury fupreme,

And his chief glory, was the gofpel theme;
There he was copious as old Greece or Rome,
His happy eloquence feemed there at home,
Ambitious not to fhine or to excel,

But to treat juftly what he loved fo well.

It moves me more perhaps than folly ought, When fome green heads, as void of wit as thought, Suppose themselves monopolifts of sense,

And wifer men's ability pretence.

Though time will wear us, and we must grow old,
Such men are not forgot as foon as cold,

Their fragrant memory will out-laft their tomb,
Embalmed for ever in its own perfume.
And to fay truth, though in its early prime,
And when unftained with any groffer crime,
Youth has a fprightliness and fire to boast,
That in the valley of decline are loft,
And virtue with peculiar charms appears,

Crowned with the garland of life's blooming years;

Yet age, by long experience well informed,

Well read, well tempered, with religion warmed,
That fire abated, which impels rash youth,
Proud of his speed to overshoot the truth,
As time improves the grape's authentic juice,
Mellows and makes the speech more fit for ufe,
And claims a reverence in its shortening day,
That 'tis an honour and a joy to pay.
The fruits of age, lefs fair, are yet more found,
Than those a brighter season pours around;
And, like the ftores autumnal funs mature,
Through wintry rigours unimpaired endure.
What is fanatic frenzy, fcorned fo much,
And dreaded more than a contagious touch?
I grant
it dangerous, and approve your fear,
That fire is catching if you draw too near;
But fage obfervers oft mistake the flame,
nd give true piety that odious name.
To tremble (as the creature of an hour
Ought at the view of an almighty power)
Before his prefence, at whofe awful throne
All tremble in all worlds, except our own,
To fupplicate his mercy, love his ways,
And prize them above pleasure, wealth, or praise,
Though common fenfe allowed a cafting voice,
And free from bias, muft approve the choice,

Convicts a man fanatic in the extreme,
And wild as madness in the world's esteem.
But that disease, when foberly defined,
Is the falfe fire of an overheated mind;
It views the truth with a diftorted eye,
And either warps or lays it useless by;
'Tis narrow, selfish, arrogant, and draws
Its fordid nourishment from man's applaufe;
And while at heart fin unrelinquished lies,
Prefumes itself chief favourite of the skies.
'Tis fuch a light as putrefaction breeds
In fly-blown flesh, whereon the maggot feeds,
Shines in the dark, but ushered into day
The ftench remains, the luftre dies away.
True blifs, if man may reach it, is compofed
Of hearts in union mutually disclosed;

And, farewell elfe all hope of pure delight,

Those hearts fhould be reclaimed, renewed, upright.
Bad men, profaning friendship's hallowed name,
Form, in its ftead, a covenant of shame,

A dark confederacy against the laws
Of virtue, and religion's glorious caufe:

They build each other up with dreadful skill,
As bastions fet point blank against God's will;
Enlarge and fortify the dread redoubt,

Deeply refolved to shut a Saviour out;

Call legions up from hell to back the deed;
And, curft with conqueft, finally fucceed.
But fouls, that carry on a bleft exchange

Of joys, they meet with in their heavenly range,
And with a fearlefs confidence make known
The forrows, fympathy efteems its own,
Daily derive increasing light and force

From fuch communion in their pleasant course,
Feel lefs the journey's roughness and its length,
Meet their opppofers with united strength,
And, one in heart, in intereft, and defign,
Gird up each other to the race divine.

But Conversation, choose what theme we may,
And chiefly when religion leads the way,
Should flow, like waters after fummer flowers,
Not as if raised by mere mechanic powers.

The Chriftian, in whose soul, though now distressed,
Lives the dear thought of joys he once poffeffed,
When all his glowing language iffued forth
With God's deep ftamp upon its current worth,
Will speak without disguise, and must impart,
Sad as it is, his undiffembling heart,
Abhors conftraint, and dares not feign a zeal,
Or feem to boaft a fire he does not feel,
The fong of Sion is a tafteless thing,

Unless, when rifing on a joyful wing,

The foul can mix with the celestial bands,

And give the strain the compass it demands.
Strange tidings thefe to tell a world, who treat
All but their own experience as deceit !
Will they believe, though credulous enough
To fwallow much upon much weaker proof,
That there are bleft inhabitants of earth,
Partakers of a new ethereal birth,

Their hopes, defires, and purposes estranged
From things terreftrial, and divinely changed,
Their very language of a kind, that speaks
The foul's fure intereft in the good the fecks,
Who deal with fcripture, its importance felt,
As Tully with philosophy once dealt,
And in the filent watches of the night,

And through the scenes of toil-renewing light,
The focial walk, or folitary ride,

Keep ftill the dear companion at their fide?
No-fhame upon a self-disgracing age,
God's work may ferve an ape upon a stage
With fuch a jeft, as filled with hellish glee
Certain invifibles as fhrewd as he;

But veneration or refpect finds none,

Save from the fubjects of that work alone.

The world grown old her deep difcernment shows, Claps fpectacles on her fagacious nofe,