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High in demand, though lowly in pretence,
Of all his conduct this the genuine sense—
My penitential stripes, my streaming blood,
Have purchas'd Heav'n, and prove my title good.

Το

Turn eastward now, and Fancy shall apply

your

weak sight her telescopic eye.

The bramin kindles on his own bare head

The sacred fire, self-torturing his trade;
His voluntary pains, severe and long,
Would give a barb'rous air to British song;
No grand inquisitor could worse invent,
Than he contrives to suffer, well content.
Which is the saintlier worthy of the two?
Past all dispute, yon anchorite say you.

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Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name?

I say the bramin has the fairer claim.

If suff'rings, Scripture no where recommends,

Devis'd by self to answer selfish ends,

Give saintship, then all Europe must agree

Ten starv'ling hermits suffer less than he.

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The truth is (if the truth may suit your ear,
And prejudice have left a passage clear)
Pride has attain'd it's most luxuriant growth,
And poison'd ev'ry virtue in them both.

Pride may be pamper'd, while the flesh grows lean; Humility may clothe an English dean;

That grace was Cowper's-his, confess'd by all-
Though plac'd in golden Durham's second stall.
Not all the plenty of a bishop's board,

His palace, and his lackeys, and "My Lord,"
More nourish pride, that condescending vice,
Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice;
It thrives in mis'ry, and abundant grows
In mis'ry fools upon themselves impose.

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But why before us, protestants, produce An Indian mystic, or a French recluse? Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear, Reform'd and well instructed? You shall hear. Yon ancient prude, whose wither'd features show She might be young some forty years ago,

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Her elbows pinion'd close upon her hips,

Her head erect, her fan upon

her lips,

Her eyebrows arch'd, her eyes both gone astray, To watch yon am'rous couple in their play, With bony and unkerchief'd neck defies

The rude inclemency of wintry skies,

And sails with lappet-head, and mincing airs,
Duly at clink of bell to morning pray'rs.
To thrift and parsimony much inclin❜d,

She yet allows herself that boy behind;
The shiv'ring urchin, bending as he goes,
With slipshod heels, and dewdrop at his nose;
His predecessor's coat advanc'd to wear,

Which future pages yet are doom'd to share,
Carries her Bible tuck'd beneath his arm,

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And hides his hands, to keep his fingers warm. She, half an angel in her own account, Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount, Though not a grace appears on strictest search, But that she fasts, and item, goes to church.

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Conscious of age she recollects her youth,

And tells, not always with an eye to truth,

Who spann'd her waist, and who, where'er he

came,

Scrawl'd upon glass miss Bridget's lovely name;

Who stole her slipper, fill'd it with tokay,
And drank the little bumper ev'ry day.
Of temper as envenom'd as an asp,
Censorious, and her ev'ry word a wasp;

In faithful mem'ry she records the crimes
Or real, or fictitious, of the times;

Laughs at the reputations she has torn,

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And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn. Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride,

Of malice fed while flesh is mortified;

Take, Madam, the reward of all your pray'rs, Where hermits and where bramins meet with theirs; Your portion is with them-Nay, never frown, But, if you please, some fathoms lower down. 170 Artist attend-your brushes and your paintProduce them-take a chair-now draw a saint.

Oh sorrowful and sad! the streaming tears
Channel her cheeks-a Niobe appears!

Is this a saint? Throw tints and all away-
True Piety is cheerful as the day,

Will weep indeed, and heave a pitying groan,
her own.

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For others' woes, but smiles upon
What purpose has the King of saints in view?
Why falls the Gospel like a gracious dew?
To call up plenty from the teeming earth,
Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth?
Is it that Adam's offspring may be sav❜d
From servile fear, or be the more enslav'd?
To loose the links, that gall'd mankind before,
Or bind them faster on, and add still more?
The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove,
Or, if a chain, the golden one of love:
No fear attends to quench his glowing fires,
What fear he feels his gratitude inspires.
Shall he for such deliv'rance freely wrought,
Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought.

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