The good must merit God’s peculiar care;
  But who, but God, can tell us who they are? 
  One thinks on Calvin Heaven’s own spirit fell;
  Another deems him instrument of hell;
  If Calvin feel Heaven’s blessing, or its rod. 
  This cries, there is, and that, there is no God. 
  What shocks one part will edify the rest,
  Nor with one system can they all he blessed. 
  The very best will variously incline,
  And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
  Whatever is, is right.—­This world ’tis true
  Was made for Caesar—­but for Titus too. 
  And which more blessed? who chained his country, say,
  Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day? 
  ‘But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed,’
  What then?  Is the reward of virtue bread? 
  That, vice may merit, ’tis the price of toil;
  The knave deserves it, when he tills the soil,
  The knave deserves it when he tempts the main,
  Where folly fights for kings, or dives for gain. 
  The good man may be weak, be indolent: 
  Nor is his claim to plenty, but content. 
  But grant him riches, your demand is o’er;
  ‘No—­shall the good want health, the good want power?’
  Add health, and power, and every earthly thing. 
  ‘Why bounded power? why private? why no king?’
  Nay, why external for internal given? 
  Why is not man a god, and earth a Heaven? 
  Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
  God gives enough, while he has more to give: 
  Immense the power, immense were the demand;
  Say, at what part of nature will they stand? 
  What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
  The soul’s calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
  Is virtue’s prize:  A better would you fix? 
  Then give humility a coach and six,
  Justice a conqueror’s sword, or truth a gown,
  Or public spirit its great cure, a crown. 
  Weak, foolish man! will Heaven reward us there
  With the same trash mad mortals wish for here? 
  The boy and man an individual makes,
  Yet sigh’st thou now for apples and for cakes? 
  Go, like the Indian, in another life
  Expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife,
  As well as dream such trifles are assigned,
  As toys and empires, for a god-like mind. 
  Rewards, that either would to virtue bring
  No joy, or be destructive of the thing: 
  How oft by these at sixty are undone
  The virtues of a saint at twenty-one! 
  To whom can riches give repute, or trust,
  Content, or pleasure, but the good and just? 
  Judges and senates have been bought for gold,
  Esteem and love were never to be sold. 
  Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
  The lover and the love of human-kind,
  Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
  Because he wants a thousand pounds a year. 
  Honour and shame from no condition rise;
  Act well your part, there all the honour