The Saints!--the Formalists, the extra pious, Who think the mortal husk can save the soul, By trundling, with a mere mechanic bias, To church, just like a lignum-vitae bowl! The Saints!--the Pharisees, whose beadle stands Beside a stern coercive kirk, A piece of human mason-work, Calling all sermons contrabands, In that great Temple that's not made with hands! Thrice blessed, rather, is the man with whom The gracious prodigality of nature, The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom, The bounteous providence in every feature, Recall the good Creator to his creature, Making all earth a fane, all heaven its dome! To HIS tuned spirit the wild heather-bells Ring Sabbath knells; The jubilate of the soaring lark Is chant of clerk; For Choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet; The sod's a cushion for his pious want; And, consecrated by the heaven within it, The sky-blue pool, a font. Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar; An organ breathes in every grove; And the fall heart's a Psalter, Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love! Sufficiently by stern necessitarians Poor Nature, with her face begrimmed by dust, Is stoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked: but must Religion have its own Utilitarians, Labeled with evangelical phylacteries, To make the road to heaven a railway trust, And churches--that's the naked fact--mere factories? O! simply open wide the temple door, And let the solemn, swelling organ greet, With VOLUNTARIES meet, The WILLING advent of the rich and poor! And while to God the loud Hosannas soar, With rich vibiations from the vocal throng-- From quiet shades that to the woods belong, And brooks with music of their own, Voices may come to swell the choral song With notes of praise they learned in musings lone. How strange it is, while on all vital questions, That occupy the House and public mind, We always meet with some humane suggestions Of gentle measures of a healing kind, Instead of harsh severity and vigor, The saint alone his preference retains For bills of penalties and pains, And marks his narrow code with legal rigor! Why shun, as worthless of affiliation, What men of all political persuasion Extol--and even use upon occasion-- That Christian principle, conciliation? But possibly the men who make such fuss With Sunday pippins and old Trots infirm, Attach some other meaning to the term, As thus: