When I got into the fields, I could not forbear comparing this song with the second lesson last Sunday evening at church; these were the words: Take heed lest at any time your heart be overcharged with drunkenness, and so that day come upon you unawares, for as a snare shall it come upon all them that are on the face of the earth.
Will. Why, to be sure, if the second lesson was right, the song must be wrong.
Stock. I ran over in my mind also a comparison between such songs as that which begins with
"Drink, and drive care away,"
with those injunctions of holy writ, Watch and pray, therefore, that you enter not into temptation; and again, Watch and pray that you may escape all these things. I say I compared this with the song I allude to,
"Drink and drive care away,
Drink and be merry;
You'll ne'er go the faster
To the Stygian ferry."
I compared this with that awful admonition of Scripture how to pass the time. Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.
Will. I am afraid then, master, you would not much approve of what I used to think a very pretty song, which begins with,
"A plague on those musty old lubbers
Who teach us to fast and to think."
Stock. Will, what would you think of any one who should sit down and write a book or a song to abuse the clergy?