Thus, at the deftin'd period, fhall return
HE, once on earth, who bids the comet blaze:
And, with him, all our triumph o'er the tomb.
Nature is dumb on this important point;
Or hope precarious in low whisper breathes;
Faith speaks aloud, distinct; ev'n adders hear,
But turn, and dart into the dark again.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulph of death,
To break the fhock blind nature cannot fhun,
And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore.
Death's terror is the mountain faith removes;
That mountain barrier between man and peace.
'Tis faith difarms deftruction; and abfolves
From ev'ry clam'rous charge, the guiltless tomb.
Why difbelieve? Lorenzo!- Reason bids,
'All-facred reafon.'Hold her facred ftill;
Nor fhalt thou want a rival in thy flame:
All-facred reafon! fource, and foul, of all
Demanding praise, on earth, or earth above!
My heart is thine: deep in its inmoft folds,
Live thou with life; live dearer of the two.
Wear I the bleffed crofs, by fortune stampt
On paffive nature, before thought was born?
My birth's blind bigot! fir'd with local zeal!
No; reafon rebaptiz'd me when adult;
Weigh'd true, and falfe, in her impartial scale;
My heart became the convert of my head;

And made that choice, which once was but my fate. argument alone my faith is built:'

• On

Reafon purfu'd is faith; and, unpurfu'd

Where proof invites, 'tis reafon, then, no more:
And fuch our proof, that, or our faith is right,
Or reafon lyes, and heav'n defign'd it wrong:
Abfolve we this? what, then, is blafphemy?

Fond as we are, and justly fond of faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard;
The mother honour'd, as the daughter dear.
Reason the root, fair faith is but the flower:
The fading flower fhall die; but reafon lives
Immortal, as her father in the fkies.
When faith is virtue, reafon makes it fo.
Wrong not the Christian; think not reason yours ;
'Tis reafon our great mafter holds fo dear;
'Tis reafon's injur'd rights his wrath refents;
'Tis reafon's voice obey'd, his glories crown;
To give loft reafon life, he pour'd his own:
Believe, and fhew the reafon of a man;
Believe, and taste the pleasure of a god;
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb:
Thro' reafon's wounds alone thy faith can die;
Which dying, tenfold terror gives to death,
And dips in venom his twice-mortal sting.

Learn hence what honours, what loud paans, due
To thofe, who push our antidote afide;
Those boafted friends to reason, and to man,
Whose fatal love ftabs ev'ry joy, and leaves
Death's terror heighten'd gnawing on his heart.
These pompous fons of reason idoliz❜d,
And vilify'd at once; of reafon dead,
Then deify'd, as monarchs were of old;

What conduct plants proud laurels on their brow?
While love of truth thro' all their camp refounds,
They draw pride's curtain o'er the noon tide-ray,
Spike up their inch of reason, on the point
Of philofophic wit, call'd argument;
And then, exulting in their taper, cry,
'Behold the fun;' and, Indian-like, adore.

Talk they of morals? O thou bleeding Love!
Thou maker of new morals to mankind!

The grand morality is love of thee.

As wife as Socrates, if fuch they were,
(Nor will they 'bate of that fublime renown)
As wife as Socrates, might justly stand
The definition of a modern fool.

A CHRISTIAN is the highest ftile of man.
And is there, who the bleffed cross wipes off,
As a foul blot, from his difhonour'd brow?
If angels tremble, 'tis at fuch a fight:

The wretch they quit, defponding of their charge,
More ftruck with grief or wonder, who can tell?
Ye fold to fenfe! ye citizens of earth!

(For fuch alone the Chriftian banner fly)

Know ye how wife your choice, how great your gain?
Behold the picture of earth's happiest man:

'He calls his wifh, it comes; he sends it back,
And fays, he call'd another; that arrives,
• Meets the fame welcome; yet he still calls on;
• Till one calls him, who varies not his call,
• But holds him faft, in chains of darkness bound,
'Till nature dies, and judgment fets him free;

!

A freedom far lefs welcome than his chain.'

But grant man happy; grant him happy long; Add to life's highest prize her latest hour!

That hour, fo late, is nimble in approach,
That, like a poft, comes on in full career:
How swift the shuttle flies, that weaves thy fhroud!
Where is the fable of thy former years?
Thrown down the gulph of time; as far from thee
As they had ne'er been thine; the day in hand,
Like a bird ftruggling to get loofe, is going;
Scarce now poffefs'd, fo fuddenly 'tis gone;
And each swift moment fled, is death advanc'd
By ftrides as fwift: eternity is all;

And whofe eternity? who triumphs there?
Bathing for ever in the font of blifs!
For ever basking in the Deity!

Lorenzo! who?-Thy confcience fhall reply.

O give it leave to speak; 'twill speak ere long, Thy leave unafkt: Lorenzo! hear it now, While useful its advice, its accent mild. By the great edict, by divine decree, Truth is depofited with man's last hour; An honeft hour, and faithful to her trust; Truth, eldest daughter of the Deity;

Truth, of his council, when he made the worlds; Nor lefs, when he fhall judge the worlds he made ; Tho' filent long, and fleeping ne'er fo found, Smother'd with errors, and oppreft with toys, That heav'n-commiffion'd hour no fooner calls, But from her cavern in the foul's abyss,

Like him they fable under Ætna whelm'd,
The goddess bursts in thunder, and in flame;
Loudly convinces, and feverely pains.

Dark daemons I discharge, and hydra-ftings;
The keen vibrations of bright truth-is hell:
Juft definition! tho' by schools untaught.
Ye deaf to truth! perufe this parfon'd page,
And truft, for once, a prophet, and a priest;
'Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.'

G