What from his wardrobe her beloved allows To deck the wedding-day of his unspotted spouse. Behold what marks of majesty she brings; 520 Richer than ancient heirs of eastern kings! Her right hand holds the sceptre and the keys, To show whom she commands, and who obeys: With these to bind, or set the sinner free, With that to assert spiritual royalty. One in herself, not rent by schism,[114] but sound, Entire, one solid shining diamond; Not sparkles shatter'd into sects like you: One is the Church, and must be to be true: One central principle of unity. 530 As undivided, so from errors free, As one in faith, so one in sanctity. Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage Of heretics opposed from age to age: Still when the giant-brood invades her throne, She stoops from heaven, and meets them half way down, And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown. But like Egyptian sorcerers you stand, And vainly lift aloft your magic wand, To sweep away the swarms of vermin from the land: 540 You could like them, with like infernal force, Produce the plague, but not arrest the course. But when the boils and blotches, with disgrace 543 And public scandal, sat upon the face, Themselves attack'd, the Magi strove no more, They saw God's finger, and their fate deplore; Themselves they could not cure of the dishonest sore. Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread, Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed; From east to west triumphantly she rides, 550 All shores are water'd by her wealthy tides. The Gospel-sound, diffused from pole to pole, Where winds can carry, and where waves can roll, The self-same doctrine of the sacred page Convey'd to every clime, in every age. Here let my sorrow give my satire place, To raise new blushes on my British race; Our sailing-ships like common sewers we use, And through our distant colonies diffuse The draught of dungeons, and the stench of stews, 560 Whom, when their home-bred honesty is lost, We disembogue on some far Indian coast: Thieves, panders, paillards,[115] sins of every sort; Those are the manufactures we export; And these the missioners our zeal has made: For, with my country's pardon be it said, Religion is the least of all our trade. Yet some improve their traffic more than we; For they on gain, their only god, rely, And set a public price on piety. 570 Industrious of the needle and the chart, They run full sail to their Japonian mart; Prevention fear, and, prodigal of fame, Sell all of Christian,[116] to the very name; Nor leave enough of that, to hide their naked shame.