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86
VIE DE JÉSUS.
On hearing of a forthcoming cheap edition.
A book of pleasant phrase, but narrow spanOf thought, is coming, in its cheapest guise,
Home to the hearths of each poor artisan
Throughout unhappy France—to make him wise
With a false gospel; and that, so enticed,
And flushed with petty raptures, he may give
His horny hands to this Parisian Christ,
Who lacks the strength to lift them! Shall it live,
This pleasant book? Oh! join with one accord!
Reject the lore, which—void of spleen or joke,
And in wild earnest—cuts down at one stroke
The measure of the stature of our Lord,
To this unscriptural pigmy! nor invoke
A frail young saint, in lieu of God the Word!
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