Whole, as thou thought’st, and never wish’d a cure: 
Now thou hast plunged in folly, shame, disgrace,
Now thou’rt an object meet for healing grace;
No merit thine, no virtue, hope, belief,
Nothing hast thou, but misery, sin, and grief;
The best, the only titles to relief.’ 
‘What must I do,’ I said, ‘my soul to free?’ —
‘Do nothing, man; it will be done for thee.’ 
‘But must I not, my reverend guide, believe?’ —
‘If thou art call’d, thou wilt the faith receive.’ 
’But I repent not.’—­Angry he replied,
’If thou art call’d, though needest nought beside: 
Attend on us, and if ’tis Heaven’s decree,
The call will come,—­if not, ah! woe for thee.’ 
   “There then I waited, ever on the watch,
A spark of hope, a ray of light to catch;
His words fell softly like the flakes of snow,
But I could never find my heart o’erflow: 
He cried aloud, till in the flock began
The sigh, the tear, as caught from man to man;
They wept and they rejoiced, and there was I
Hard as a flint, and as the desert dry: 
To me no tokens of the call would come,
I felt my sentence, and received my doom;
But I complain’d—­’Let thy repinings cease,
Oh! man of sin, for they thy guilt increase;
It bloweth where it listeth;—­die in peace.’
- In peace, and perish?’ I replied; ’impart
Some better comfort to a burthen’d heart.’ 
‘Alas!’ the priest return’d, ’can I direct
The heavenly call?—­Do I proclaim th’ elect? 
Raise not thy voice against th’ Eternal will,
But take thy part with sinners, and be still.’ 
   “Alas, for me! no more the times of peace
Are mine on earth—­in death my pains may cease. 
   “Foes to my soul! ye young seducers, know
What serious ills from your amusements flow;
Opinions you with so much ease profess,
Overwhelm the simple and their minds oppress: 
Let such be happy, nor with reasons strong,
That make them wretched, prove their notions wrong;
Let them proceed in that they deem the way,
Fast when they will, and at their pleasure pray: 
Yes, I have pity for my brethren’s lot,
And so had Dives, but it help’d him not: 
And is it thus?—­I’m full of doubts:  —­Adieu! 
Perhaps his reverence is mistaken too.” {12}

LETTER XXII.

THE POOR OF THE BOROUGH.

Methought the souls of all that I had murder’d
Came to my tent, and every one did threat . . . 
                      Shakespeare, Richard III.

The time hath been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end:  but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools. 
                              Shakespeare, Macbeth.

-------------------------

Peter Grimes.