Chains are the portion of revolted man,
Stripes and a dungeon: and his body serves
The triple purpose. In that sickly, foul,
Opprobrious residence he finds them all.
Cowper's Task.
God hath called me to come out from among them—worshippers of Mammon or of “Moloch-homicide,” or “Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's son,” “Peor his other name:”
“Lust hard by Hate,”
and I will come, so help me God!
Is it madness to prefer your new house in fee simple, to a clay cottage, of which I am tenant at will, and may be turned out at a moment's warning, and even without it, and out of which I know I must be turned in a few years certainly?
It is now midnight. May God watch over our sleep—over our helpless, naked condition, and protect us as well from the insect that carries death in his sting, as from the more feared but not so obvious dangers with which life is beset; and if he should come this night (as come he will) like a thief, may we be ready to stand in his presence and plead not our merits, but his stripes, by whom we are made whole.
J. R. of R.
P. S. I was not aware of the length to which my sermon would extend. Let me entreat you again to read Milton and Cowper. They prepared me for the “Sampson” (as Rush would say) among the medicines for the soul.
Roanoke, August 25, 1818.