His innate craving you will not dispel,
But only drive him deeper into hell;
Till now the world in mental darkness gropes,
In blind apostasy or creed-bound hopes;
As if your object was to stand stock-still,
Or make religion like an old tread-mill-
Nor move one step with the advancing age,
Nor preach one sermon from true Nature's page!
Whose lessons simple, no extremes they tell,
They ask just thinking right and meaning well ;'
Not yours the mind or mien of Christian priest,
But more like Druids from their graves released.
When will you teach mankind like us of old?
Who left our homes for neither glebes nor gold,1
But preached and taught with wisdom from above,
Well paid and honoured by our Master's love.
No petty wranglings marked our course through life-
No splitting hairs with keen Disruption2 knife!
For well we knew our Lord's coat had no seam,
Which proves your sect-faith but a Bigot's dream.

A more senseless and blasphemous production than the latter is not, nor ever was, in print.

1 We all know the strict injunctions of Jesus to his twelve apostles, when he told them to preach, viz. :-"Freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey; neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves; for the workman is worthy of his meat." I am afraid very few of the pretended expounders of His gospel of the present day would care about "holding forth" on these terms.

2 Samuel Butler, as early as 1663, in his " Religion of Hudibras," very truly says:

"They prove their doctrine orthodox

By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly, thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended;
A sect whose chief devotion lies

In odd, perverse antipathies

In falling out with that or this,

And finding somewhat still amiss.
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,

Than dog distraught, or monkey sick :
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong,
than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite

As if they worshipped God for spite."

One church alone, by God and Truth's ordained,
The rest is mockery, their worship feigned.
Be like the Persian, or the Indian, see
God's unbuilt temple in the sky or sea,
Whose roof-the infinite, eternal air-
Cannot contain His Spirit even there,
Whose pulpit in Immensity's enshrined,
The only audience fit, Omniscient Mind!
Begone! and loll within your cushioned rooms—
Enjoy your wines, and wrangle with your grooms;
But never more you dare, with impious face,
To bring your Maker into such disgrace

As give the infidel and heathen cause

To laugh triumphant at your splitting straws;
For true religion was by God designed,
First to emancipate, then teach the mind-

To raise it far above such petty strife

Which lowers your Kirks down to a scolding wife.
What faith, you knaves, can have so many ways
Of serving God, and giving heart-felt praise?
Each tearing up to show his little rent

Or patching seams, where not a seam was meant.
The time will come when cunning Cant must cease
To frighten mortals, or disturb their peace,

1 No doubt many of the clergy do so, and possibly think themselves quite entitled, according to Scripture, to fulfil the injunctions of the sacred volume, which bids them "truly tithe all the increase of the seed, that the field bringeth forth from year to year, and eat before the Lord in the place where he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always. And if the way be too long for thee, so that thou art not able to carry it, or if the place be too far from thee which the Lord thy God shall choose to set his naine there, when the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, then shalt thou turn it into money, and bind up the money in thine hand, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose. And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth, and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household."-Dent. xiv. But it is easily seen that this only applies to the Lord God of Israel, and the origin of Popery, the ancient Levitical priesthood, for modern society is trying its best to discourage the spending of money on wine or "6 strong drink" as a curse to humanity. The same chapter also states that the children of Israel "shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself, but shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat of it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien, for thou art a holy people unto the Lord.” Now, the idea of Almighty God, who is no respecter of persons, bidding any set or sect of people give or sell bad meat to others that they could not use themselves is a direct insult to God, reason, justice, and truth.

Your pews be filled with emptiness alone,

Your hearers, fledged with knowledge, wisely flown;
For Truth alone must stand-and preached by those
Who'll make fanaticism their deadly foes.

Then man at last shall get his proper due-
His mind enlightened and the Truth made true :
God's great design be then with wisdom fraught,
When man can practise what his Pattern taught,
With soul unchained and free from priestcraft's fear,
Which haunt, like spectres, sinful mortals here.
Begone you faithless, worldly, spiteful pair,
For see the first streaks of the morning air!
I give you warning, when you reach your hives,
Have less formality-live better lives;
For, what with tracts and Sabbatarian tirades,
You'll drive Religion from old Scotia's glades-
And in its place Hypocrisy's loud whine
Shall bray and force truc Piety to resign;
The people soured, disgusted in their heart,
To see impostors ape their Saviour's part-
As if their Acts of Parliament could make
Mankind more moral than the cross or stake.
Go! wrangle in your Synods, how you'll sing-
Of Innovations prate-each other sting-
And in a cloud of cant the gospel hide :
Its mission smother in your selfish pride;
Until Religion truly there is none,

But for the bread of life you give a stone;
Or, what is worse, a cold and freezing charity,
Which, if it gives at all, gives with asperity.
What cares the Lord, whether you stand or sit? 1
You paltry worms, who feed on Holy Writ,

In the Free Kirk Presbytery of Edinburgh, a fierce and most unchristian discussion was raised by Dr Begg, condemning Dr Guthrie for allowing his congregation to stand while singing. Dr. Lee was also brought up by the General Assembly-or, as he naively said, "by the Presbytery of Edinburgh," -for choosing to allow his congregation to stand while singing their psalms, and, very sensibly, preferring to read his prayers, instead of quoting eternally one prayer from memory-misnamed "extempore prayers. But the clever Doctor caught and spitted his opponents by his intellectual, cool, and piercing irony. His keen, logical sarcasm was so cold, that it was a frost which burned like fire. Something like Byron, who said of sensuality:

"They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less;
And no one virtue yet, except starvation,
Could stop that worst of vices -Propagation."