The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

But, whence this power, which paralyses men
To dull machines, for priestly hands to work,
That from the Cross all crucifixion takes,
And shuts the fountain in Emmanuel's side,
Whence gush'd atonement for the World's great sin,
Till Christ with closèd wounds remains,
Shorn of those beams, which round His ransom play,
And form a Merit fit for man to plead,
Ample as Justice, Law, and God require?
Whence the dread magic, which so mocks the world,
Soothing pale conscience with Iscariot's kiss?
Look in thy heart! there, reader! there it lies.
As fits the die within the forming mould
So false religion for thy heart is framed.

Thy fountains, Nature! are the fatal spring
Whence Popery all her canker'd life-blood drains,
And drains for ever—for they ever flow!
A moral cast from our corrupted soul
Designing Rome hath taken; and contrived
A feign'd religion, that, with fitting art,
Infernally for each expression finds
Some flatt'ring counterpart, or creed, or charm.
'Tis Man's religion from the root of sin,

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By passion foster'd, and by pride increased,
Deep-grounded, in the under-soil intense
Where guilty nature feels the goading pang,
As conscience prompts, or keen compunction wakes.
Hence, creeds are moulded; hence, all gods are made;
While reason, bribed to superstition, bows,
As sin and penance take relieving turns;
Till man himself his own atonement dreams,
And draws salvation out of sighs, and tears.

And thus, not Mind, whate'er its lofty range
Along the pathless Infinite of thought,
A shielding bulwark round the man can raise,
Safely to keep one Romish error out.
For oft, religion is but God disguised;
And when its nature from the name is torn
Mere sounds and shades for sense and substance act;
And cheated man a human mock adores.
But God is love, by his Own love inspired,
As seen the sun, by His own ray reveal'd.

Then, vain those pæans which we loudly ring,
As though the great millennium of the mind
Were coming; or, a mental noon began,
Too searching for the Man of Sin to face.
Philosophy the sting of Death renews
And back the vict'ry to the grave restores.
Whatever prospect soaring mind attain
No good it masters, till in God it rest,
Where peace and pardon, law and love combine,
And Christ and conscience can together dwell.
And why? because some creed embrace we must;
From heaven or hell religion must be drawn.
For deep within, prognostications lurk
Of tongueless dread; and boding terrors strike
Their hidden chill; and throbs immortal stir,
Like pulses of eternity, our souls;
While moods are felt, when flames of wrath to come
Prelude damnation, such as Guilt foretells,
Till the grave opens through the banquet's glare
And time's last thunders their rehearsal ring.
Though sin confront it, yet will Conscience speak,
Till sear'd, and branded into senseless nought.
Shrined in the centre of our being, dwells
That voiceless Umpire, on his moral throne
Erect, and pure; whose archetype is God,
In the stern radiance of severest law
Reflected there, for legislative might.
Here, Right and Wrong their true award receive;
And Past and Present for acquittal stand,
Or, condemnation from the bar receive;
Here Man, the ruin, in his ashes keeps
Some righteous embers, which a priest can rake,
Or quench, or quicken, as the crisis needs.

When darkly flatter'd, and when deeply read,
Our hearts become but platforms, where a Priest
Can play the drama of his Church, at will,
And shift the scenes with most consummate guile.
Some charm which echoes our exacting taste,
Some lust respondent to the varied will,
Some lie, to oscillate with pleasing sway
And skill'd vibration, as the mood requires,
Some gulling fiend to take angelic form,
And o'er the pathway which to hell conducts
Weave a rich carpet of seductive woof,—
Let these be organised, or well applied,
And man's religion in their magic proves
How wondrously such adaptation works!
Garb'd in a shroud of theologic guise
Behold the Arch-fiend, with undreaded power
His priesthood guiding; and, with ritual spells
To sooth or sadden, flatter, charm or chain
All which in Man of dust or devil acts,
Gild moral ruin with redemption's smile!
Thus, like a puppet, many-wired and weak,
Our handled nature to each sacred pull
Of Popery moves, with most responsive play.

Art thou a Student, from the pristine wells
Of learning, pleased and proud with classic thirst
To drink rich draughts of undiluted Mind?
Or, is thine ear by intellectual taste
To harmonies of ancient thought attuned?
See! the hoar'd Fathers in their hallow'd shrines,
And pale Philosophy, in pensive state,
Ready to bathe thee in some mental calm,
And soothe thy terrors with ascetic trance.
Or, (to the chariot of the senses chain'd)
Do glare and grandeur, and attractive sheens,
And Pomps, and Festivals, and painted Lies
With false and fatal eloquence, appeal
To the base passion of thine earthly will?
Lo! the drunk Sense with reasonless delight
May find a Ball-room spiritually gay,
A ritual opera, by Rome arranged,
Where the blood dances, where emotion reels
While soft damnation, musical and sweet,
Charms faith to feeling, and each feeling, blind!