"Speak, oh ye Judges of the Earth
if just your Sentence be
Or must not Innocence appeal
to Heav'n from your decree
"Your Wicked Hearts and Judgments are
alike by Malice sway'd
Your griping Hands by mighty Bribes
to violence betrayed.
"No Serpent of parch'd Afric's breed
doth Ranker poison bear
The drowsy Adder will as soon
unlock his Sullen Ear
"Unmov'd by good Advice, and dead
As Adders they remain
From whom the skilful Charmer's voice
can no attention gain."
Small wonder that Judge Sewall writhed under the infliction of these lines as they were doubly thrust upon him by the deacon's "lining" and the singing of the congregation; and the words, "The drowsy Adder will as soon unlock his Sullen Ear" seemed to particularly irritate him; doubtless he felt sure that no one could doubt his integrity, but feared that some might think him stupid and obstinate.
Another arbitrary clergyman, having had an altercation with some unruly singers in the choir, gave out with much vehemence on the following Sunday the hymn beginning,--
"And are you wretches yet alive
And do you yet rebel?"
with a very significant glower towards the singers' gallery. In a similar situation another minister gave out to the rebellious choir the hymn commencing,--
"Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God."
A visiting clergyman, preaching in a small and shabby church built in a parish of barren and stony farm-land, very spitefully and sneeringly read out to be sung the hymn of Watts' beginning,--