Stop! the next step is infidelity!
Contempt for man begets contempt for God;
He who hates man, must scorn the source of man,
And challenge, as unwise, his awful Maker.
The next step, doubt—and then comes unbelief;
Last, you raise man above all else beside,
And make him chiefest in the universe.
So, from a self-contempt grows impious pride,
Which swells your first-thought pigmy to a giant,
And gives the puffed up atom fancied sway.