Fall back into our feat, extend an arm

And lay it at its ease with gentle care,
With handkerchief in hand depending low :
The better hand more busy gives the nose
Its bergamot, or aids the indebted eye

With opera glass, to watch the moving scene,
And recognize the flow-retiring fair.—
Now this is fulfome; and offends me more
Than in a churchman flovenly neglect

And ruftic coarseness would. An heavenly mind
May be indifferent to her house of clay,
And flight the hovel as beneath her care;
But how a body fo fantastic, trim,

And quaint, in its deportment and attire,
Can lodge an heavenly mind-demands a doubt.

He, that negotiates between God and man
As God's ambaffador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, fhould beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a foul;
To break a jeft, when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and to address

The skittish fancy with facetious tales,

When fent with God's commiffion to the heart!

So did not Paul. Direct me to a quip
Or merry turn in all he ever wrote,
And I confent you take it for your text,
Your only one, till fides and benches fail.
No: he was serious in a serious cause,
And understood too well the weighty terms
That he had taken in charge. He would not stoop
To conquer thofe by jocular exploits,

Whom truth and foberness affailed in vain.

Oh popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy fweet feducing charms?
The wifeft and the best feel urgent need
Of all their caution in thy gentleft gales;
But fwelled into a guft-who then alas!
With all his canvafs fet, and inexpert,

And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power?
Praise from the riveled lips of toothless bald
Decrepitude, and in the looks of lean

And craving poverty, and in the bow
Refpectful of the smutched artificer,
Is oft too welcome, and may much disturb
The bias of the purpose. How much more,

Poured forth by beauty fplendid and polite,
In language foft as adoration breathes?
Ah spare your idol! think him human ftill.
Charms he may have, but he has frailties too!
Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire.

All truth is from the fempiternal source Of light divine. But Egypt, Greece, and Rome, Drew from the ftream below. More favoured we Drink, when we choose it, at the fountain head. To them it flowed much mingled and defiled With hurtful error, prejudice, and dreams Illufive of philofophy, fo called,

But falfely. Sages after fages ftrove

In vain to filter off a cryftal draught

Pure from the lees, which often more enhanced The thirst than flaked it, and not seldom bred Intoxication and delirium wild.

In vain they pushed inquiry to the birth

And spring-time of the world! afked, Whence is man?

Why formed at all? and wherefore as he is? Where muft he find his Maker? with what rites Adore him? Will he hear, accept, and bless?

Or does he fit regardless of his works?
Has man within him an immortal feed?
Or does the tomb take all? If he furvive

His afhes, where? and in what weal or woe?
Knots worthy of solution, which alone
A Deity could folve. Their answers, vague
And all at random, fabulous and dark,

Left them as dark themselves. Their rules of life
Defective and unfanctioned, proved too weak

To bind the roving appetite, and lead
Blind nature to a God not yet revealed.
'Tis revelation fatisfies all doubts,
Explains all myfteries, except her own,
And fo illuminates the path of life,
That fools difcover it, and stray no more.
Now tell me, dignified and sapient fir,
My man of morals, nurtured in the fhades
Of Academus-is this false or true?

Is Chrift the abler teacher, or the schools?
If Chrift, then why refort at every turn
To Athens or to Rome, for wisdom short
Of man's occafions, when in him refide.
Grace, knowledge, comfort—an unfathomed ftore?
How oft, when Paul has served us with a text,

Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached!

Men that, if now alive, would fit content

And humble learners of a Saviour's worth,

Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth, Their thirft of knowledge, and their candour too!

And thus it is. The paftor, either vain

By nature, or by flattery made fo, taught
To gaze at his own splendour, and to exalt
Abfurdly, not his office, but himself;
Or unenlightened, and too proud to learn;
Or vicious, and not therefore apt to teach;
Perverting often, by the stress of lewd
And loofe example, whom he fhould inftruct;
Expofes, and holds up to broad disgrace,

The nobleft function, and difcredits much
The brightest truths, that man has ever seen.
For ghoftly counsel; if it either fall

Below the exigence, or be not backed

With show of love, at least with hopeful proof Of fome fincerity on the giver's part;

Or be dishonoured in the exterior form

And mode of its conveyance by fuch tricks,

As move derifion, or by foppish airs