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To Certain Persons calling themselves “Christians.”
What's “Primitive Christianity?”
I know not: yours I feel and see,
Which sets good friends and neighbours at strife,
Son with parent, husband with wife;
Which plays the spy upon all my life;
And failing, just now, to burn men quick,
Does what it can by subtler trick.
When I was a boy, sincere and bold,
It plied me with plotters, cunning and cold,
Flung Faith into Superstition's cell,
Dropp'd poison into Learning's well.
When I was a lover, it haunted me
With more than a rival's jealousy.
When fain would I greet my brothers and sisters
It comes with an oil that raises blisters
Between our palms. It lifts its eyes
To Heav'n, and utters calumnies,
In the name of Truth it tells myriad lies,
In the name of Love it hates and curses,
In the name of God repeats sorcerer's verses.
I know not: yours I feel and see,
Which sets good friends and neighbours at strife,
Son with parent, husband with wife;
Which plays the spy upon all my life;
And failing, just now, to burn men quick,
Does what it can by subtler trick.
When I was a boy, sincere and bold,
It plied me with plotters, cunning and cold,
Flung Faith into Superstition's cell,
Dropp'd poison into Learning's well.
When I was a lover, it haunted me
With more than a rival's jealousy.
When fain would I greet my brothers and sisters
It comes with an oil that raises blisters
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To Heav'n, and utters calumnies,
In the name of Truth it tells myriad lies,
In the name of Love it hates and curses,
In the name of God repeats sorcerer's verses.
Now, as I love freedom, and truth, and love,
And my fellows around me, and God above,
So much (consider how much it must be)
I abhor your Christianity.
And my fellows around me, and God above,
So much (consider how much it must be)
I abhor your Christianity.
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