RELIGION.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.—James, i. 26, 27.
Seeming devotion doth but gild the knave,
That’s neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave;
But where Religion doth with Virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine.
Waller.
Religion’s all. Descending from the skies
To wretched man, the goddess, in her left,
Holds out this world, and in her right, the next.
Young.
Religion! Providence! an after state!
Here is firm footing; here is solid rock!
This can support us; all is sea besides;
Sinks under us, bestows, and then devours.
His band the good man fastens on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl.
Young.
Religion does not censure, or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued.
Cowper.
Pity Religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where’er she deigned to stray,
And every muse attend her in the way.
Virtue, indeed, meets many a rhyming friend,
And many a compliment politely penned;
But unattired in that becoming vest
Religion weaves for her, and half undressed,
Stands in the desert, shivering and forlorn
A wintry figure, like a withered thorn.
The shelves are full, all other themes are sped;
Hackneyed and worn to the last flimsy thread,
Satire has long since done his best, and curs’d;
And loathsome ribaldry has done his worst;
Fancy has sported all her powers away
In tales and trifles, and in children’s play;
And ’tis the sad complaint, and almost true,
Whate’er we write, we bring forth nothing new.
’Twere new, indeed, to see a bard all fire,
Touched with a coal from Heaven, assume the lyre
And tell the world, still kindling as he sung,
With more than mortal music on his tongue,
That he who died below, and reigns above,
Inspires the song, and that His name is Love.
Cowper.
Religion! what treasures untold
Reside in that heavenly word,
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.
Cowper.
And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning,
That if a man’s belief is bad,
It will not be improved by burning.
Praed.
This Religion, which dilates our thoughts
Of God Supreme to an infinity
Of awful greatness, yet connects us with Him
As children, loved and cherished;—
Adoring awe with tenderness united.
Joanna Baillie.
Religion pure,
Unchanged in spirit, though its forms and codes
Wear myriad modes,
Contains all creeds within its mighty span—
The love of God, displayed in love of man.
Horace Smith.
And when Religion moves upon the face
Of the remote and multitudinous seas,
Be hers again the peaceful mien that charmed
Judea’s midnight winds in secret prayer,
And walked, a spirit of prevailing love,
Upon the star-lit waves of Galilee.
A. Alexander.
That man alone is truly brave, whose soul
By virtue tutored, by religion swayed,
At their tribunal every impulse scans.
Samuel Hayes.
Religion is the chief concern
Of mortals here below;
May I its great importance learn,
Its sovereign virtue know!
More needful this than glittering wealth,
Or aught the world bestows;
Not reputation, food, nor health,
Can give us such repose.
Religion should our thoughts engage
Amidst our youthful bloom;
’Twill fit us for declining age,
And for the awful tomb.
Fawcett.
O deem not that Religion’s hallowed name
Is justly given to deeds of guilt and shame.
Deem not she loves the faggot and the steel,
The blood-stained hand, the heart untaught to feel.
Trace not her footsteps in the princely hall,
Where Borgia’s father held high festival.
She flees from haunts of guilt, nor heeds her voice
To bid the unrepentant heart rejoice;
To the seared spirit opes no ready heaven;
Forgives not him whom God hath not forgiven;
Nor loves she pomp’s vain homage; not the tide
Of low oblations at the shrine of pride.
Wm. Spicer Wood.
I see the ocean tossing in its strength,
And with a moan that speaks of coming storms
Rousing the dark waves from their lair, to greet
The howling wind, that in its force comes down
As with a war-cry of defiance, to
The might of the proud waters; in the midst
A giant rock uprears its crest, upon
Whose summit stands a form, beneath whose crowned
And awful brow the tempest seems to quail:
The pale magnificent beauty of her face
Is shaded by dark raven locks, that seem
Like night descending on the setting sun—
The calm rebuking chastity of eye
That lays the soul so bare before its glance
Is hers, and her august and stately form
Towers o’er the storm and tempest like a god
Serene in power. ’Tis Religion—yes,
Woman thy homage is well paid to her,
Who shall be as a mother to thy race;
When in his dungeon the lone prisoner weeps
Deserted by his kindred; hunted down
Like a wild beast of prey by man, and left
Year after year to count the lingering time
By the slow pulse of his own failing heart;
When in the bitterness of his despair
He weeps, and deems himself forsaken by
All living things; her soothing voice shall thrill
In comfort to his heart; her form shall bend
Like a pitying mother’s o’er him, and
Uphold his drooping head; her hallow’d brow
Shall shed its light upon his soul, and cast
Around him peace ineffable.
L. C. Reddell.
With ineffectual toil, the Pow’r Supreme
I sought along the mead which flow’rets bore;
Thro’ a dense woodland;—by a mazy stream;—
On heights;—in valleys;—by the wavy shore;
Nor God I found within the solar beam;
Nor in night’s radiance. What I could explore,
I saw, with proofs of His existence teem;
His certain stamp it had, but nothing more!
But thou, Religion! can’st unveil His face!
Shall, then, man’s bosom feel no love for thee,
And seek thee not within thy hallow’d place?
How clearly there the eye of Faith can see
The ever-living God of Truth—Love—Grace!
There man can learn to meet Eternity!
Rev. W. Pulling.
’Tis Religion that can give,
Sweetest pleasures while we live;
’Tis Religion must supply
Solid comfort when we die.
After death its joys will be
Lasting as eternity!
Be the living God my friend,
Then my bliss shall never end.
Master.