The Saints!—­the aping Fanatics that talk
All cant and rant, and rhapsodies high-flown—­
  That bid you baulk
  A Sunday walk,
And shun God’s work as you should shun your own.

The Saints!—­the Formalists, the extra pious,
Who think the mortal husk can save the soul,
By trundling with a mere mechanic bias,
To church, just like a lignum-vitae bowl!

The Saints!—­the Pharisees, whose beadle stands
  Beside a stern coercive kirk. 
  A piece of human mason-work,
Calling all sermons contrabands,
In that great Temple that’s not made with hands!

Thrice blessed, rather, is the man, with whom
The gracious prodigality of nature,
The balm, the bliss, the beauty, and the bloom,
The bounteous providence in ev’ry feature,
Recall the good Creator to his creature,
Making all earth a fane, all heav’n its dome! 
To his tuned spirit the wild heather-bells
  Ring Sabbath knells;
The jubilate of the soaring lark
  Is chant of clerk;
For choir, the thrush and the gregarious linnet;
The sod’s a cushion for his pious want;
And, consecrated by the heav’n within it,
  The sky-blue pool, a font. 
Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar;
  An organ breathes in every grove;
  And the full heart’s a Psalter,
Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love!

Sufficiently by stern necessitarians
Poor Nature, with her face begrimed by dust,
Is stoked, coked, smoked, and almost choked; but must
Religion have its own Utilitarians,
Labell’d with evangelical phylacteries,
To make the road to heav’n a railway trust,
And churches—­that’s the naked fact—­mere factories?

Oh! simply open wide the Temple door,
And let the solemn, swelling, organ greet,
  With Voluntaries meet,
The willing advent of the rich and poor! 
And while to God the loud Hosannas soar,
With rich vibrations from the vocal throng—­
From quiet shades that to the woods belong,
  And brooks with music of their own,
Voices may come to swell the choral song
With notes of praise they learned in musings lone.

How strange it is while on all vital questions,
That occupy the House and public mind,
We always meet with some humane suggestions
Of gentle measures of a healing kind,
Instead of harsh severity and vigor,
The Saint alone his preference retains
    For bills of penalties and pains,
And marks his narrow code with legal rigor! 
Why shun, as worthless of affiliation,
What men of all political persuasion
Extol—­and even use upon occasion—­
That Christian principle, Conciliation? 
But possibly the men who make such fuss
With Sunday pippins and old Trots infirm,
Attach some other meaning to the term,
                As thus: