THE DEAN.
In that way! Why, God bless me, yes
Further discussion’s needless there.
Heaven is the wage of faithfulness,
Of course, and moral life, and prayer.
But life and faith hold such dissent,
They only thrive, when kept apart;
Six days for toiling hands are meant,
The seventh, for stirring of the heart;
If all the week we preach’d and pray’d,
The Sabbath had in vain been made.
God’s incense, rightly to be used,
Must not be lavishly diffused;
Worship, like Art, was not created
To he in perfume dissipated.
The Ideal you may safely sound
From pulpit’s holy vantage-ground;
But with your surplice lay it by,
When you emerge beneath the sky.
All things, as I have said, are based
On laws that strictly must be traced,
And my sole end in speaking is
To give this fact due emphasis.