Should a visit from Death come and put you in mind
Of your frail habitation of clay,
You may try to obstruct the unwelcome design,
With the transient delights of the Play!
If a faithful reproof you should happen to meet,
You can soon turn your faces away,
And pass by the blind and the lame in the street,
And carry your cash to the Play!
But if Parsons themselves so often attend,
Then surely their followers may;
And no wonder that they so well can defend,
The moral effects of the Play.
If Wesley and Whitfield have pleaded in vain,
And led their disciples astray;
Let Simpson and Hervey in silence remain,
You’ve nothing to fear from the Play.
If you of your time have to give no account,
At the last, the great Judgment day,
The troubles of life you may quickly surmount,
By clapping them off at the Play.
If safe ’midst seduction and ruin you roam,
You may laugh at the stoppers away,
Who sit pining and pulling long faces at home,
And are missing the joys of the Play.
Should the roof be crush’d in, and you kill’d we’ll suppose,
Why some angel would bear you away,
To some distant region of milder repose,
Where your spirit might dream of the Play.
Having no tribulation, no robe wash’d in blood,
Nor tears that need wiping away,
You might sing in those realms to the praise of your god,
How oft you had been at the Play.
THE REMOTE CHRISTIAN.
Deep in a glen, remote and wild,
And far from affluence,
A cottage stood, and heaven smil’d,
Upon that residence.