And all is over when we're once assured. "This is Conversion: --First there comes a cry Which utters, 'Sinner, thou'rt condemned to die;' Then the struck soul to every aid repairs, To church and altar, ministers and prayers; In vain she strives,--involved, ingulf'd in sin, She looks for hell, and seems already in: When in this travail, the New Birth comes on, And in an instant every pang is gone; The mighty work is done without our pains, - Claim but a part, and not a part remains. "All this experience tells the Soul, and yet These moral men their pence and farthings set Against the terrors of the countless Debt; But such compounders, when they come to jail, Will find that Virtues never serve as bail. "So much to duties: now to Learning look, And see their priesthood piling book on book; Yea, books of infidels, we're told, and plays, Put out by heathens in the wink'd-on days; The very letters are of crooked kind, And show the strange perverseness of their mind. Have I this Learning? When the Lord would speak; Think ye he needs the Latin or the Greek? And lo! with all their learning, when they rise To preach, in view the ready sermon lies; Some low-prized stuff they purchased at the stalls, And more like Seneca's than mine or Paul's: Children of Bondage, how should they explain The Spirit's freedom, while they wear a chain? They study words, for meanings grow perplex d, And slowly hunt for truth from text to text, Through Greek and Hebrew: --we the meaning seek Of that within, who every tongue can speak: This all can witness; yet the more I know, The more a meek and humble mind I show. "No; let the Pope, the high and mighty priest, Lord to the poor, and servant to the Beast; Let bishops, deans, and prebendaries swell With pride and fatness till their hearts rebel: I'm meek and modest: --if I could be proud, This crowded meeting, lo! th' amazing crowd! Your mute attention, and your meek respect, My spirit's fervour, and my words' effect, Might stir th' unguarded soul; and oft to me The Tempter speaks, whom I compel to flee; He goes in fear, for he my force has tried, - Such is my power! but can you call it pride? "No, Fellow-Pilgrims! of the things I've shown I might be proud, were they indeed my own! But they are lent: and well you know the source Of all that's mine, and must confide of course: Mine! no, I err; 'tis but consigned to me, And I am nought but steward and trustee." --------------------------