And the just but vacillating mind be not made the pendulum of arguments:
For a false reason, shrewdly put, can often not be answered on the instant,
And prudence looketh unto faith, content to wait solutions;
Yea, it looketh, yea, it waiteth, still holding honesty in leash,
Lest, as a hot young hound, it track not game, but vermin.
Many a man of honest heart, but ignorant of self and God,
Hath followed the marsh-fires of pestilence, esteeming them the lights of truth;
He heard a cause, which he had not skill to solve,—and so received it gladly;
And that cause brought its consequence, of harm to an unstable soul.
Prudence, for a man's own sake, never should be separate from honesty;