Fifty of the Protestant Ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

My true friend, my wise friend,
Remembered of old years,
To comfort and advise, friend,
In sorrows and in fears;
So patient and so ready
To hear as well as teach,
And ever staunch and steady
To practise as to preach,—

Alas, how very few, friend,
Among the modern race,
In faithfulness like you, friend,
Are ministers of grace,—
Their Master's mind fulfilling,
In doing all He saith,
And like Apostles willing
To serve Him to the death!

The folly and the pride, friend,
Of sacerdotal strife,
You spurned it all aside, friend,
In pulpit as in life;
You never drove us blindly
To sacraments alone,
But led our footsteps kindly
To Christ upon His throne!

I loved to go to church, friend,
For no sham ritual there,
But after God to search, friend,
In spiritual prayer;
From Paul, and not some “Father”
(Unless he witnessed thus),
My pastor used to gather
The food he found for us.

And in no drowsy drone, friend,
You dared to preach or pray,
But with a trumpet's tone, friend,
Proclaim'd the Gospel day;
And roused us by your teaching
So earnest and so clear,
For Glory to be reaching
Through Christian duty here!

Now rarely to be found, friend,
Are Abdiel souls like thee;
Anglicans may abound, friend,
But angels few there be:

The churchman seeks his pastor,
But scarcely can he find
The model of his Master
In life, and heart, and mind.

They want us to confess, friend,
To them, and not to God;
And think to ban or bless, friend,
By their weak staff or rod:
But never will we palter
With priests and all their dross;
We have no priest nor altar,
But Jesus and His cross!

Religion's rule for us, friend,
Is still the Bible plan;
No Roman scheming thus, friend,
With lying lures of man;
True Presence in the Spirit,
But not of flesh and blood,
And Christ, not human merit,
To make us just with God!

Protestant Pastors! each “Friend”
Your flocks would gladly hail;
If you but live and preach, friend,
Sincerely, without fail;
Not traitorously striving
To bring false doctrines in,
Nor step by step contriving
The way for Rome to win,

But guarding from that foe, friend,
The sheep within your fold,
And letting all men know, friend,
The gospel-truths of old,—
So will the treasons perish
That Oxford brings from Rome,
So shall our people cherish
Their pastor-friends at home.

II. OUR PROTEST.

It is time to be stirring and helping the Right,
By bearing my Protestant part in the fight,
It is time to do all that an Englishman can
By honestly taking my side like a man!

No slinking from resolute principles now,
I'll openly bear the true badge on my brow;
No shirking from duties with feeble excuse,
I'll dare them, in spite of contempt and abuse;

Unfurl the good flag to the breezes—true blue,
And swear to stand by it as “faithful and true,”
Denouncing the trimmers in Church as in State,
And loving all truths, as all treasons we hate.

With tolerant spirit, at liberty's claim,
With liberal hand, in humanity's name,

We grant, as we ask, equal rights, as we ought,
Free press and free worship, free speech and free thought!

But now is Intolerance making its stand
To bring back the Pope to this Protestant land,
And here that illiberal pestilent scheme,
Old Priestcraft, revives its papistical dream;

By lusts of the eye and the ear and the nose,
By music and incense, and pride in fine clothes,
Meek doves in their manner, sly serpents within,
Ridiculous, too, were it not for their sin,—

These Anglican priests, with vain-glorious device,
Are plotting their innocent flocks to entice
From Protestant truth, our birthright at home,
To the lies and the thraldoms of Catholic Rome!

O shame on that judge! for his quibbles of law,
Dissecting a hair and dividing a straw,
And forcing our plain Common Prayer-book to speak
Exactly what Papists and Jesuits seek:

Lit candles at noon-day! fit symbol, forsooth,
Of the glory of Christ and the radiance of truth;
Mixed chalice? O no!—mixed chalice? O yes—
If done in the vestry—(where lay folk confess!)—

Incense, so pleasant, poetical, sweet;
Well, we scarce can allow what is really most meet!

And,—so for more childish idolatries, too —
Not childish!—for children, if silly, are true,—

But, false in all oaths to your Church and your Queen,
The flocks you should pasture you starve and you wean,
Preaching and teaching, by tongue and by pen,
Not the Gospel of God, but traditions of men!

I, then, with the thousands who think in my rhymes,
Denounce those false priests in these perilous times,
As spawn of the Serpent, ambitiously vain,
Such as England has crushed, and will crush yet again!

III. THE PROTESTANT CHURCH.

O Mother Church of England, where should thy children search
For any wiser teacher, any purer, better Church,
More liberal or more gentle, more free to think and speak,
And quit of all the idols of the Latin and the Greek!

From infancy, with first thy water-symbol on the brow,
Through youth, when faith and reason well confirmed the sponsor's vow,
Through all the years of Sabbaths, with their preachings and their pray'rs,
And consolations of all kinds, through life in all its cares,—

Thy fostering love hath helped us in each path of peace or strife,
And still shall cheer us bravely on adown the vale of life,
As frequently our pastor-friend, a shepherd, not a priest,
Shall feed us with the simple food of Christ's memorial feast!

Yet hast thou somewhat now of blame, some spots are on the sun,
Scores of thy clergy are thy shame, and treacherous deeds have done,
Thy very Colleges have lifted into Learning's seat
The Rationalistic infidel, the Ritualistic cheat!

They do their worst to wean us, but we love our Mother still,
And stand by her for life or death, through good report or ill;
The laity of England still are Protestant at heart,
And, spite of all that priests may plot, will take their Church's part.

Her Liturgies we love, and by her Articles we hold,
Worthy in no non-natural sense to have been cast in gold;
Her honest pastors well we praise, true preachers of the Word,
Her bishops and her ministers, good servants to The Lord.

O Mother! they have done thee wrong, these superstitious ones,
Who claim their heritage through Rome as thus the true Church-sons;
Our root is Christ; while Moses and the Twelve and honest Paul
These, in the volume of the Book, to us are all in all.

No chain of fathers need we, to endorse what Jesus saith,
No councils want we to define our Bible-builded faith;
Anthority is nought with us except on Scripture strength,
And every doctrine must be tried by simple texts at length.

Thy sister Church of Scotland, as pure and true as thou,
In these fierce days of sifting standeth strong and faithful now,
Protesting against Popish wiles, and winning souls to heaven,
And proof alike against the pagan and the papal leaven:

That Beast, with those two Lamb-like horns to guard his dragon tongue,
Working his wonders and deceits the world of men among,

Whom we eschew, and will not bear his mark on heart or hand,
The blain of unbelief, or the scarlet woman's brand!

But, Ireland! thou art marked withal; thou worshippest the Beast,
Thou art infected with the plagues that grow of Pope and priest;
And though our Church hath dwelt with thee for thrice a hundred years,
Thou hast not loved or honoured her, but dealt her shame and sneers!

Yes, Ireland! lo, the father's guilt upon the children falls,
The rust of centuries in thee have mouldered Zion's walls,
For sloth and too much luxury (though some were Abdiels found)
Have undermined thy bulwarks, and may hurl them to the ground!

Alas! the foe is at thy gates, and traitors hide within,
And Providence is just to punish negligence as sin;
Thy golden days are past; but not the preaching of the Cross;
Religion still shall gladden thee, the gainer for thy loss!

And though that crafty wolf of Rome, as cruel as of old,
By thine own treacherous shepherds now is welcomed to the fold,
It shall not rend thee as thou fearest, nor as it may hope,
For every Protestant is sworn to guard thee from the Pope!

IV. TRAPS.

“Ad Clerum.”

Be honest, be open, be frank like a man,
But don't lie in wait to deceive;
Your sneaking and sly Jesuitical plan
Is a web that the devil might weave:
By little and little—ay, that is your scheme—
You hope to corrupt us at home,
From Protestant truth to your Catholic dream,
From the pure Church of England to Rome!

Yet you were ordained our national guides,
For pastors and teachers and friends,
But now on the battlefield meanly change sides,
To compass our enemies' ends:

Of the Church Universal most truly are we,
But Catholics?—not as you mean,
For in thought and in speech we will live and die free,
Not serving the Pope—but the Queen.

We honour the conscience, good faith we admire,
No Papist—if true—we despise;
Full freedom of worship we grant and require,
Right liberty heartily prize;
But the double-faced trimmer and double-tongued cheat
We stoutly denounce and condemn;
For the wages they take and the bread that they eat,
Are stolen, not worked for, by them!

Their duty was plainly to preach the Lord Christ,
The crucified Saviour of souls,
And not to shame Him by the pranks of the priest
With his trumpery candles and stoles;
The gospel, and not its mere scaffold the church,
The mind of the Lord, not their own,
His honour, not theirs, they were bidden to search,
And seek it and serve it alone!

But now, you entrap us by this and by that,
With music and incense and flowers,
And think to steal on with the craft of a cat
To corrupt this religiom of ours;
By vestments of Baal, and bows to the East,
And man's absolution forsooth,
You change for a tinselly chancel and priest
God's worship of spirit and truth!

And thus you “entice silly women”—the text
Is suitable, “having a form,”—
And hope (but you can't) to allure the men next
To shelter your heads from the storm;
For England won't stand it! our millions abjure
The priestcraft you scheme to bring back,
As we wot well of old that no rights are secure
With a tyrannous Church on the track.

And though no one persecutes (pray have no fear),
Our tolerance still has its bound,
And soon you'll be stirring a hurricane here,
Your old “knavish tricks” to confound;
Great England is patient—but Protestant too—
So try not her patience too far,
For if you force England tow'rd Rome as you do,
She'll pack you to Rome as you are!

V. A NEW REFORMATION.

“Ad Populum.”

Sooner or later—and sooner is best—
To rescue the Church of this nation,
Up and down through the land from the East to the West,
We must fight for a new Reformation;

To baffle her treacherous clerical sons,
Who strive to be luring her Romeward,
And win back those silly degenerate ones
To return like the prodigal homeward.

By a touch here and there we must purge out small faults
From her liturgies, well nigh perfection,
And cure a few phrases that priesthood exalts,
Provoking indignant rejection;
Absolution by man, just a once on the whole,
And sham Apostolic succession,
And magical sacraments, giving the soul
Atonement for every transgression!

Our sacraments—all superstition apart
And waiving their exaggeration—
We honour them both, when received in the heart,
As helpers of grace and salvation;
But water and words are not Spirit and Faith,
Nor signs of more force than resemblance,
Nor is there a miracle worked when He saith,
This bread is My body's remembrance.

And priests?—we have none but the Saviour above,
King and Priest and full justification,
Whose gospel His many evangelists love
And preach in their wise ministration;
But, priests for a sacrifice? these we renounce
As Pagan, unchristian, Judaic,
And all sacerdotal effront'ry denounce
As harmful to cleric and laic!

Then, as to succession? Apostles were men
Who taught by the tongue in past ages,
But now we can teach by the press and the pen,
And in chief by the Book and its pages;
Succession? in spirit, but scarcely by touch;
Their doctrine is over all nations,
But often through Christians who, though they love much,
Have no theologic gradations.

We want reformation of matters in doubt,—
That the Prayer-book be not held “a jewel”
By Romanist-Anglicans creeping about,
And heaping our wrath with new fuel;
A jewel it may be, but not as they mean
By help of some rubrical mentors,
Not even by making a Pope of the Queen,
Nor worse, by ignoring Dissenters!

We want Reformation to bring these all in,
Wesleyans, and Baptists, and Brothers,
Independents, and all who wage war against sin,
And who preach Paul's pure creed, “not another's;”
For we fear and we feel, there must soon be here seen
A fierce and distinct separation,
When High Church and Low Church, the Pope and the Queen,
Contend for this new Reformation!

VI. ENGLAND'S UPRISING.

Ye parish priests of England,
The good, the pure, the true!
These angry rhymes in these fierce times
Are never flung at you;
They only hit the traitorous band
That shames your reverend ranks,
For heart and hand with you we stand
To stop their Popish pranks,
So, clergymen of England,
We claim your hearty thanks!

For, Jesuit priests in England,
Iscariots of our home,
Now scheme and strive to lure or drive
Their English flocks to Rome;
And lest our Mother Church and State,
Through some such Judas crew,
Meet evil fate from their sly hate,
We stand up straight with you,
O clergymen of England,
The faithful found and true.

Thus, lay and priests of England,
We millions far and wide
Rising in might to help the right,
Will fight on the same side;

And though false priests, and bishops too,
Trouble us sore and long,
Now, as of yore, from shore to shore
We both will stand up strong,
Clergy and lay for England,
That England take no wrong!

Yes, free and generous England,
Thy children, clerk and lay,
Together stand, a brother band,
For ever and a day;
Resolved that Cardinal and Pope
Shall not again be brought
To wreck in hate our Church and State,
As Bloody Mary wrought:
For we will rise for England,
To save her as we ought.

VII. THE SMITHFIELD MARTYRS.

Look back; three hundred years ago!—
Where now these markets stand,
With horns of plenty ranged in row,
From all our happy land—
That threefold century ago,
How changed the horrid scene,
With martyr faggots all aglow,
Beneath the Bloody Queen!

Alive—those Popish murderers burnt
(To please the Church forsooth!)
A host of saints whose lives had learnt
The way of peace and truth;
Alive—they chained them to the stake,
And, blazing where they stood,
They hunted heaven-ward, for Christ's sake,
The guiltless and the good!

Rogers and Philpot, honoured names,
And Bradford “by God's grace,”
And sweet Ann Askew, in the flames
Bathing her beauteous face,
And children, cripples, palsied age,
And mothers great with child,
Won here, through persecuting rage,
Their kingdoms undefiled!

Why died those noble martyrs thus?
To expiate what dread crime?
And how their witnessing to us
Thence to the end of time?
What did those tortured bodies teach
Before they could expire?
And how doth each still fiercely preach
As with a tongue of fire?

They died for Truth; their crime was Faith;
Their witness, still to give
Themselves for Christ: as Jesus saith,
“To lose your lives, and live!”

Rather they worship with the dead
As living in the Lord,
Than make their God a piece of bread
Created by man's word!

They died because their faith denied
Absolvings from a priest;
Because their murderers' creed belied
Their Lord's memorial feast;
Because to them mere bread and wine
Were not real flesh and blood,
But served as the substantial sign
Of spiritual good;

They died because they loved their Lord,
Protesting in His name,
And walked with Him for their reward
In Shadrach's belt of flame;
They died because they set their seals
To Truth, rejecting lies;
Therefore Elijah's chariot-wheels
Have whirl'd them to the skies!

And are there now no Jesuits nigh
The faithful flock to snare?
No soul-destroying fires to fly,
No martyrdoms to share?
Alas! our shepherds—some, not all—
Are traitors to their sheep,
Beckoning the Roman wolf to fall
On England half-asleep!

But she shall waken! and expel
From Freedom's island home
The Judas-pastors who would sell
Our liberties to Rome;
Those who are plotting, scarce in vain,
To work their Pope's desires,
And willingly would light again
The cruel Smithfield fires!

VIII. MARTYR RELICS.

“The crime for which almost all the Protestants were condemned was their refusal to acknowledge the Real Presence.”— Hume's History of England.

In a day when the letter-bags everywhere yield
Their pleasures and interests every day,
Scattering loves over city and field,
Or dropping reverses and fears by the way—
At Smithfield it chanced that, for popular use,
They planted a pillar-box just a year back,
On a stained-looking spot with the paving-stones loose,
And the soil underneath it all burnt red and black.

Why is this? did the Great Fire of London stretch here?
Well—hardly; for Smithfield was open and fresh;
And—what are these bones and old chains lying here?
Those masses of charcoal, and—is it?—burnt flesh?

Too truly, too fearfully—this is the place
Where Christians, whom stepmother Church wouldn't shrive,
Men, women, yea children—to priestcraft's disgrace,
To its deep detestation, were roasted alive!

Yes, yes—at a time when that priestcraft again
Is lifting its head as a basilisk near,
By wonderful Providence, never in vain,
These bones have uprisen for witnessing here;
They witness of Rome still as “always the same,”
Made drunk with the blood of the saints evermore,
And eager as ever for faggot and flame,
To-day—if to-day she was strong as of yore!

They witness the peril that lurks in each priest,
If his craft were a pestilence over the land,
And bid us beware of the mark of the Beast,
And wipe it away from the forehead and hand;
They witness the truths my own ancestors held
In Hesse and Augsburg, three centuries back;
So, conscience, with hearty goodwill is compell'd
To hold them in honour that never should lack!

For I come from the stock of confessors myself,
Of a Protestant house before Luther was born,
Who were martyrs from power, from place, and from pelf,
For religion, from homes in old Germany torn;

And near the dark days when good Latimer bled,
My fathers escaped to their Sarnian home,
Or further away to America fled,
To hide from the rage of idolatrous Rome.

It is therefore I claim as a brother, though weak,
That justice be done to these martyrs of truth,
And honours long due be no longer to seek
For Taylor the aged, or Hunter the youth,
For Cardmaker, Hawkes, and Rose Allen's sweet sake,
And the child-bearing mother in Guernsey aflame,
And her sudden-born babe burnt close to her stake,
Baptized in the fire without water or name!

I claim, then, for such, as their champion this day,
Unworthy, but come of a stock they well love,
All praise to all martyrs, who never would pray
To wafers and wine, but to Jesus above!
No relics we save; let the dust lie adust;
But honour and love to great memories be given,
With a Church of Remembrance for good men and just,
Who won through the furnace their entrance to heaven?

IX. TAUGHT BY THE FOE.

Too truly they charged us: I speak as a friend,
Good Protestant pastors and laymen at home;
For somewhat against us, some matters to mend,
Gave this badoccasion to perverts of Rome;

Those Anglican traitors would never have dared
To jeer at their poor Mother Church as they do,
If the tracks for their treason had not been prepared
By the sins of us lay, and, some pastors! of you.

Too many of both, like the virgins of old,
Were slumbering and sleeping—though half of them wise;
So shepherds and sheep were surprised in their fold
By the bark of the wolf, to awake and arise:
And still may there not be some dulness, some sloth,
To be charged, honest pastors, on us, or on you,
If vext congregations seem too little loth
To change dim old lamps for the bright and the new?

Forgive: let a layman in faithfulness speak;
There had grown of old times many slovenly ways;
Damp churches, bad readers, and prayers once a-week,
And sermons no mortal could venture to praise;
And pews with their harpies, and beadles so grim,
And covetous clerks and those base surplice fees,
And charity children all screaming the hymn,
And the poor never seen where the rich loll'd at ease!

All this was all wrong; and the foe seem'd a friend,
Who made us consider such negligent ways;
But happily since there is well nigh an end
Of laches like this in these quick latter days;

Thus all the more need (those outworks repaired)
For keeping true ward on the citadel tower,
Lest, so by the foe's seeming friendliness snared,
We yield up the faith in this perilous hour.

Gay robes of idolatrous sign and device,
Sly symbols of doctrine our fathers denied,
And every small trap that is set to entice
Our parsons and people on Popery's side,—
All these we denounce; while reforming the wrong
We cling to the right with all zeal as before,
Resolved to keep Protestant England as strong
For God, and man's freedom, as ever of yore!

Thus taught by the foe to cleanse each little blot,
While steadfastly every great truth we retain,
With order and decency noways forgot,
Our worship shall still be seen simple and plain;
In spirit our musical psalms shall be sweet,
Our services warm with religion's pure light,
And all that is fervent and comely shall meet
In Protestant Liturgies ordered aright!

X. LUKEWARMNESS.

There is more yet against us,—if one may speak out
Frankly and faithfully, fearless of man,—
For human infirmities hover about
To set what we will hard against what we can;

As thus;—that we Protestants, ever too prone
To fight single-handed with falsehood and wrong,
Forget that each twig is but weakness alone,
Whereas the whole faggoted bundle were strong.

Our foes are united, a phalanx compact,
Papists and infidels, equal in hate,
Acute and agreed on each treacherous act
That helps to dissever the Church from the State;
Well knowing, ill hoping, that through this free land,
If Protestant faith be disarmed of defence,
The Throne too must fall, and old Popery stand
Tyrant of England not many days hence!

O! can it be truth that the Protestant's Name
Is quite out of fashion, unpopular now,
Since sundry false brethren have spotted with shame
The fillet which martyrdom wore on its brow?
O pastors! O people! awake and arise!
Be zealous for England's Religion and Laws,
Rememb'ring, unless all her history lies,
That—Liberty stands with the Protestant Cause!

For we, disunited through treachery's sin,
May possibly fall as Jerusalem fell,
Where the foeman without and the false-man within
Combined for her ruin too weakly, too well!
Alas for those traitors, our Church's choice sons,
Her Rome-stricken clergy, her priest-bitten lay,—
Alas! they have welcomed, degenerate ones,
Both sorrow and shame to their country to-day!

And this is our sin! that so slowly we rise,
Gallios caring for none of these things,—
With an island-contempt in the heart and the eyes,
The tolerant scorn that from indolence springs;
But the curse upon Meroz, who help'd not the Lord
When the sword of the mighty flash'd fierce against Him,
May bitterly—justly—in judgment be pour'd
On zeal grown so cold, on a lamp shown so dim!

That omen be absent! Let each of us now
Live stoutly for truths wherein martyrs have died,—
Let “union and zeal” be the Protestant vow,
The motto for all upon Liberty's side;
As in days long-ago of the red rose or white,
With conscience and duty together we'll stand
For the Crown and the Creed of our fathers to fight,
And rescue from traitors this Protestant land!

XI. FAITHFULNESS.

How great are their mercies to whom it is given
To fight on the side of their Lord,
To strive against hell with the Sabaoth of heaven,
And stand for God's truth in His word!

Too many have faithlessly started aside,
Ay, some of the good and the great
With papists and infidels sadly allied
To wreck both the Church and the State;

Too few are found faithful in these latter days
When love of the truth is grown cold,
And fashion and folly forsake for new ways
The true ones, because they are old;

Yes, true ones, and old; though the new ones now claim
Antiquity truth and the rest,
In the night mediæval like shadows they came
To darken this Church of the West:

From monks and from friars their doctrines they drew,
But not from the Church in its prime,
And so Reformation went back to renew
The Scriptural truths of old time.

Against creature-worship, and pray'rs for the dead,
And priestcraft, and paganized rites,
And Rome for the Christian's infallible head,
A Protestant faithfully fights;

Against superstition, and Satan's own plan
The souls of the worldly to win,
Confession pour'd out, not to God, but to man,
With priestly absolving from sin,—

Against a closed Bible, against the sly scheme
For darkness extinguishing light
Through Catholic Unity's tyrannous dream,
A Protestant ever will fight.

He fights, and shall conquer; the banner he waves,
With Constantine's motto deviced,
Is the Cross that gives freedom to sinners and slaves,
The Gospel of God and His Christ!

XII. PROTESTANTISM.

Puritanic, narrow-minded,
Lost in low sectarian ways,
With dull prejudices blinded,
Protestant! is this your praise?
So they charge us, so they tell us,
So their envious tongues would blight
(Of our noble freedoms jealous)
England's name of living light.

Pure,—so be it; walking purely
On the straight and narrow track,
In good works and faith securely,
Forwards! never creeping back:
Honest-hearted, and frank-spoken,
Scorning cheats, and shams and lies,
Protestant! are these a token
Of a spirit to despise?—

Liberty in faith and reason,
Freedom's right to think and speak,
Courage, in and out of season,
From the strong to save the weak,—

Conscience honoured, judging all things,
By the Word of God all ways,
Keeping truth in great and small things,
Protestant! be this your praise.

Every superstitious error
It is yours to sweep aside,
Every form of pagan terror
Shaped by priestcraft in its pride;
Every kind of persecution
Yours to hate, as British born,
Every human absolution,
As a Christian, yours to scorn.

While your zeal for soul-salvation
Points to Christ upon the Cross,
Sacerdotal mediation
You denounce as utter dross;
While you tolerate opinion
You will keep, as best you can,
Rome's intolerant dominion
From the soul and mind of man.

So, for narrowness, large-minded,
For sectarian, wide and free,
Full of light, instead of blinded,
Bold to speak, as clear to see,—
Protestant, in honest gladness,
Proudly will you claim a name
Which the Papist in his madness
Wrung from martyrdom aflame!

XIII. POPERY.

O subtle and shrewd is the Antichrist plan
For luring this world from The Lord,
For snaring the soul of the natural man,
And quenching the light of the Word!

There are gauds for the foolish, in chaunts and in tints;
There are mystical saws for the wise;
For the sensual, confession with pardons and hints,
For the ignorant, miracle-lies:

For the pious much prayer, for the penitent pain,
For the formalist, gesture and phrase,
For the worldling, free license again and again
To shrive and to sin in all ways;

For sheer superstition, a priest that can save,
For guilt, absolution off-hand,
Authority, dull common minds to enslave,
Decision, the weak to command:

All strong concentrations of power and of plan,
With spies, and unscrupulous tricks
To trap or to scare or inveigle the man
In a birdlime that stuns as it sticks:

Ay, stuns as it sticks; for your birdlime is made
Of misletoe, holly, and yew,
And priestcraft, in Popery's poisonous shade,
Entraps as the gamekeepers do:

By force and by craft, by allurements and sloth,
By promising peace out of strife,
Through Belial and Mammon, as partners with both,
They drain the poor soul of its life.

And so to the rescue, in Liberty's name!
The numbed and entangled we clear
From error's foul slime and confessional shame,
To truth and repentance sincere:

Now as ever of old, with The Christ we must stand
To wrestle this antichrist down,
And fight for the faith of this Protestant land,
Upholding the Cross and the Crown!

XIV. THE IRISH CHURCH.

Cut it down to the root,
For it cumbereth the ground!
It beareth wild fruit,
Its heart is unsound,—
The leaf, look! doth wither,
The grapes yield no wine,—
Stern woodman, speed hither,
And hew down this vine.

Ah, God! is all true
The accuser hath said?
Is judgment so due,
And mercy so fled?

Hath grace quite departed
From branch and from root?
Is all hollow-hearted
And barren of fruit?

Alas! we have err'd
In thousands of ways,
Neglecting Thy word,
Forgetting Thy praise;
We grieve for transgression,
And ask at Thy throne,
In humble confession,
Forgiveness alone!

Yet, Lord! is it just
What the enemy saith?
Are we false to our trust?
Are we foes to Thy faith?
Have none of us striven,
By night and by day,
To win souls to Heaven
And teach them Thy way?

All missions elsewhere
That heathendom bless,
Would you crush the work there
For its feeble success?
Though millions benighted,
Now hold such in scorn,
They may yet be requited
By millions unborn

Is it duty, forsooth
(If a failure were shown),
To measure all truth
By successes alone?
So might we disparage
(Where merits are blank)
The thraldom of marriage,
The heirdom of rank!

Our grapes—were all wild?
Our leaf—is all sear?
Hath mammon defiled
All comeliness here?
Many lifetimes of labour—
Have these been quite vain,
That God and our neighbour
Condemn us again?

Not so! We are bold
In help from above,
That the Lord will behold
This vine in His love,—
Will prune it and dress it,
To bring forth more fruit,
And spare it and bless it,
And stablish its root!

So the boar from the wood
Shall not break down its hedge,
Nor the foes of all good,
Though banded in pledge;

The Saviour, returning,
Around us shall reign,
And change all our mourning
To gladness again!

XV. CHURCH AND STATE.

The State and the Church, like husband and wife,
For better or worse are wedded for life,—
Divorced they both fall, as united both stand,
The light and defence of this Protestant land.

True it is, that the Church hath Christ for her Head,
And needs neither husband nor lord in His stead,—
True it is, that the State neither teaches nor guides
But only gives out what the Master provides.

Yet God hath ordained good governments here,
To be served in His love, and obeyed in His fear;
And the chief of the State is His steward for the day
Till the Lord from His journey return far away.

So England, acknowledging God in His Word,
Beholds in her Queen the good steward of her Lord,
Her earthly defender of heavenly faith,
To work the Lord's will, and enforce what He saith.

And chiefly the Throne is sworn to withstand
Papistical lies in this Protestant land;
For the title that Englishmen give to their Kings,
From Protestant faith in intensity springs.

Then, woe to the Crown if the Church should decay,
And woe to the Church with her champion away!
Together they fall, as together they stand,
The Creed and the Crown of this Protestant land.

XVI. TO CERTAIN HIERARCHS.

O Vine! that the Husbandman planted,
And hedged well around with His grace,
And summers and seasons hath granted,
That thou shouldst be strong in thy place;
O Vine! the marauders have rent thee,
And torn off thy boughs and thy root,—
But can it then tamely content thee
That robbers should ravage thy fruit?

Where, where are this vineyard's defenders,
Its champions for God and the good,
To rout all its rooters and renders
Wild boars and wild beasts of the wood?

Where are some, so well paid for a courage
They seem little eager to show,
Content with a prudent demurrage
To ward off the shock of the foe?

Ye Bishops! in dignified greatness
Laying hands on more Bishops forsooth,
So careful by lordly sedateness
To compromise nothing but Truth,—
We look to your bench for some vigour,
Some strength in this Protestant strait,
But lo! what a pitiful figure
You cut both in Church and in State!

We laymen cry out for true leaders,
Not clerical slaves to routine
With orthodox hate of seceders
And love of the churchy machine,
Who live to stir nothing and no man,
So peace do but last for your day,
And heed of each lion-like foeman,
As it were but an ass in the way!

Ah! know but yourselves as men know you,
Slumbering and dumb in the dark,
With infidels eager to show you
Their lies of the Flood and the Ark,
With Jesuits plotting and waiting
To seize both your folds and their flocks,
And Popery heartily hating
The heretic Church that it mocks!

Then think you by politic shrewdness
In fencing both early and late,
To carte aside infidel lewdness,
And tierce with papistical hate?
No! faithfulness honestly spoken,
And earnestness heartily shown,—
Herein were the Bishops' true token,
For Christ and His Zion to own!

Oh! stand in the front of this battle,
And round you we laymen will crowd,
Unscared though the thunder-cloud rattle,
Unbent though the mountains be bow'd;
But should the Church leaders so fail us,
And leave us to conquer alone,
Lay England, if Rome shall assail us,
Will rescue the Church and the Throne!

XVII. TO SOME INCUMBENTS.

Well; let the foe smite us with blame as before;
No doubt there is much to bewail and amend,—
And precious as balm shall be blame if it cure,
The frown of that foe is the smile of a friend;

For all are but men,—and perfection is found
Nowhere on earth where the meddler is man,
But everywhere follies and failings abound
And we all must fall short, let us strive as we can.

They charge then,—that paltry ambitions are strong
In desk and in pulpit as well as elsewhere,
That eloquent helpers not often last long
Incumbents' parochial glories to share;
That rector and curate keep separate spheres
With the rich and the poor, with greatest and least,
While brotherly kindness too seldom endears
The bargain and sale between deacon and priest.

If thus for a possible few they speak sooth,
Oh, fling all such littleness frankly aside!
Our pastors are equals for God and His truth,
Priests, deacons, and bishops, all pledged against pride:
So, let no good curate, whose toil day and night
Though earnest and pious is nearly unpaid,
Be snubbed by his rector and kept out of sight
As a serf of the Church, and inferior in grade!

We stand not on ranks; the true servant of Christ,
With orders from heaven far more than of earth,
Is higher in calling than prelate or priest
Though deacon—or lay—by his heavenly birth;

But we take outer orders and forms and degrees
As governments, helps, and convenience of men,
Which God will ignore if His Sov'reignty please,
And pour His free grace through the press or the pen.

Mere office is little; the temple well served,
Good character sanctifies station and place,
And Protestants never have wavered nor swerved
From claiming that works must bear witness to grace;
Our bishops, when faithful, are bishops indeed,
Old Winchester! Durham! we hail you with joy;
But mere consecration of vest or of creed
Cannot help to save souls, but may help to destroy.

This is not, it may be, the Catholic sense
Which councils and fathers and schoolmen would own,
But the rational faith and conviction intense
A Protestant gains from the Scriptures alone;
We trust not in men; whether fathers, or sons,—
They are fallible all, in a Council, or out;
And the Church, not of earthly, but heavenly ones,
Is built of all churches within—and without.

XVIII. PRIVATE JUDGMENT.

We are bound to prove all things and hold fast the good,
And dare not live credulous fools if we would,

For reason without and the conscience within
Condemn a blind faith for both folly and sin.

The merit and duty of rational man
Command him to master all truth as he can,
Earnestly, humbly to seek it and find,
With the love of his heart and the light of his mind;

With his heart and his mind,—both lit from Above
By the Spirit of light and the Spirit of love,
In patience and prayer, with humilities felt,
And the eye that hath wept and the knee that hath knelt.

The Word which was written that men might believe,
Heedfully will such a Christian receive;
But, as to traditions of men, with all care
His wisdom must weigh what perchance is a snare:

Not scorning opinions, but hearing them all,
For self and for pride he will fear lest he fall,
And willingly learns of the world or the Church,
For every good help in his Scriptural search.

No rational Protestant ever was seen
A priestworked automaton mindless machine,—
Still less will he dare to denounce or despise
The truths ever held by the good and the wise.

Yes! just private judgment, our duty and right,
Must be led by man's teaching and lit by God's light,
Undazzled by glitter the fanatic needs,
Undimmed by the dark of heretical creeds.

But you, ye blind guides, who boast that ye see,
And think to make slaves where the Lord has made free,
Who shut up the Bible on priestly pretence
That none but yourselves can decipher the sense,—

Infallible teachers! you need, in good sooth,
Infallible hearers as well for all truth;
Or the dogmas you preach will be warped in the ear
Of ignorant sinners who fallibly hear;

Thus, we that are laymen—and fallible each,
But jealous for truths that infallibles teach,—
Resolve, as enjoined by our Master and Lord,
To judge what we hear by the weight of His word.

XIX. CORRIGENDA.

Must it come to a battle? Shall Christians contend
With swords and with staves for the faith we defend?
Will they force it upon us, that all through this land
The freemen must fight who for Liberty stand?

Our fathers when erst for Religion they stood,
At the Great Reformation for God and the good,
In the much that they won left us somewhat to win,
When we strive for the truth against Satan and sin;

And so there were some things which compromise dealt,
Which ignorance fancied, and prejudice felt,
That clung to the Prayer-book like burrs on the hand,
To sow Popish weeds on this Protestant Land.

These taints in the Liturgy, subtle but few,
We claim to cut out, as reforming anew,—
The priestcraft, the Presence, the hold here and there
Your Romanists claim in our plain Common Prayer.

They strive by these drag-lines to pull the ship back,
But we break away—Forward, ho!—on the track,—
No mid-channel towings to hamper it thus,
But the Fair-Haven gale of the Gospel for us!

A new Reformation; if peacefully won,
Thank God for all kindliness under the sun!
If fiercely fought out between false men and true,
Thank God that the many must conquer the few!

For, laymen by millions are Liberty's hope,
While a few petty priests are the slaves of the Pope,—
And Protestant England resolves that her home
Evermore shall be free from the thraldoms of Rome.

Evermore shall be free! for the Protestant heart
Will sooner with life than with liberty part;
And Englishmen claim their religion to be
The faith of the Bible, as pure and as free!

XX. PEACE OR WAR.

By all means—Law and Quiet—
Be these our modern praise!
No Lord George Gordon riot,
No “light of other days,”
Such light as bonfires flaring
With sacrilegious fires,
Or mobs our matrons scaring,
As once they scared our sires!

Yes; though the parish tyrant
Provokes the fist that strikes,
By sacerdotal high rant
And daring what he likes
Against our English feelings
Of honesty at home,
By superstitious stealings
Of trumpery from Rome,—

Yet we would make no Edom
Of his chancel or his pelf,
But all we want is freedom
From the thraldom of himself;
We give him leave to leave us
Right peacefully in time,
Before the rabble grieve us
By—Heaven avert it!—crime.

For Britain frowns and hectors
In honest wrath to know
So many budding rectors
Perverted to the foe,
And vows she will not stand it,
To see the parish priest
A semi-papal bandit
Of the Babylonish Beast!

Shall that Italian Ferret
Usurp this Lion-throne
Which Protestants inherit
Through their pure faith alone?
Shall Popery and its vermin
(As bad old times have seen)
Again infest the ermine
Of England and her Queen?

No! those old times have taught us
The strength that in us lies,—
For our own hands have wrought us
The freedom that we prize;
Our hands upheld by Heaven,
Have conquered in the fight,
And quell'd the papal leaven
By force of truth and right.

So, yet once more if treason
To that pure faith of ours
Wakes up with bitter reason
An angry people's powers

As with the white and red-rose
That tore our weal in twain.
Shall rage, as if the dead rose,
Red civil war again!

Or, if some scheme less frightful
Be managed to divide
The wrongful from the rightful
Without that bloody tide,
At least our torn division
Of church, and creed, and crown,
Must earn the world's derison,
And drag our glory down!

These Romanizing traitors
Are forcing to a fight
The lovers and the haters
Of liberty and light;
And beckon on war's demon
To scare sweet peace at home,
By threats that England's fremen
Shall wear the chains of Rome!

So, their's the guilt, not our's,
If revolution dire,
That now in thunder lours,
Should wrap this land in fre;
No peace can be for Zion
If Jezebel come here,—
No rest for Judah's lion
With Rabshakeh so near!

XXI. PRIEST AND LAY.

They have dared to malign the dear martyrs of Jesus,
Their patience to mock, and their pangs to disclaim,
To sneer at the tortures that shock us and freeze us,—
The rack with its throes, and the stake with its flame!
They smoothly excuse those Dominican devils
Whom orthodox Rome set apart for such crimes,
And gladly would mix in the murderous revels
Achieved by such Catholic zeal in old times.

They say that the stupefied fanatics felt not,
That obstinate infidels chose their own course,
That heretics who contumaciously knelt not
Must clearly be dragged to the altar by force;
They vow that the State, not the Church, was the slayer,
A barbarous people, and not the meek priest,—
The age was in fault, not the preacher and pray-er,
The laymen, but clericals? not in the least.

And yet, were the laity leaders and preachers?
Or a strong church in the pride of high place?
Were the weak flocks or their tyrannous teachers
Zealots in crime, God and man to disgrace?
Not the dull laymen, but scholarly churchmen,
These were the burners for bigotry's sake;
Search out all history, Protestants, search, men!
You'll still find the priest at the root of the stake.

Who taught the world to be piously cruel,
With horrors that none but a monk could contrive?
What but grim priestcraft invented the fuel
To burn soul and body together alive?
Seed of the True Church! Blood of the martyrs!
Strangely you conquered the priest in the saint,
When to high heaven your flaming avatars
Rose to the glory no fancy can paint!

Ay; all ye Druids, ye Brahmins, ye Pagans,
And African Obis, and priests of all creeds,
From Mary's the Blest, to Astarte's and Dagon's,
Through priestcraft in chief poor humanity bleeds:
And more; when a day of redemption has brightened,
It never was priest bade the dayspring to burst,—
France, Italy, Spain! if your fetters are lightened,
They fall to the layman,—the last is the first!