Have you belief in what your Lord has done,
And are you thankful?—­all is well my son.’ 
   “A way far different ours—­we thus surprise
A soul with questions, and demand replies: 
‘How dropp’d you first,’ I ask, ’the legal Yoke? 
What the first word the living Witness spoke? 
Perceived you thunders roar and lightnings shine,
And tempests gathering ere the Birth divine? 
Did fire, and storm, and earthquake all appear
Before that still small voice, What dost thou here? 
Hast thou by day and night, and soon and late,
Waited and watch’d before Admission-gate;
And so a pilgrim and a soldier pass’d
To Sion’s hill through battle and through blast? 
Then in thy way didst thou thy foe attack,
And mad’st thou proud Apollyon turn his back?’
   “Heart-searching things are these, and shake the mind,
Yea, like the rustling of a mighty wind. 
   “Thus would I ask:  ’Nay, let me question now,
How sink my sayings in your bosoms? how? 
Feel you a quickening? drops the subject deep? 
Stupid and stony, no! you’re all asleep;
Listless and lazy, waiting for a close,
As if at church;—­do I allow repose? 
Am I a legal minister? do I
With form or rubric, rule or rite comply? 
Then whence this quiet, tell me, I beseech? 
One might believe you heard your Rector preach,
Or his assistant dreamer:  —­Oh! return,
Ye times of burning, when the heart would burn;
Now hearts are ice, and you, my freezing fold,
Have spirits sunk and sad, and bosoms stony-cold. 
   “Oh! now again for those prevailing powers,
Which, once began this mighty work of ours;
When the wide field, God’s Temple, was the place,
And birds flew by to catch a breath of grace;
When ’mid his timid friends and threat’ning foes,
Our zealous chief as Paul at Athens rose: 
When with infernal spite and knotty clubs
The Ill-One arm’d his scoundrels and his scrubs;
And there were flying all around the spot
Brands at the Preacher, but they touch’d him not: 
Stakes brought to smite him, threaten’d in his cause,
And tongues, attuned to curses, roar’d applause;
Louder and louder grew his awful tones,
Sobbing and sighs were heard, and rueful groans;
Soft women fainted, prouder man express’d
Wonder and woe, and butchers smote the breast;
Eyes wept, ears tingled; stiff’ning on each head,
The hair drew back, and Satan howl’d and fled. 
   “In that soft season when the gentle breeze
Rises all round, and swells by slow degrees;
Till tempests gather, when through all the sky
The thunders rattle, and the lightnings fly;
When rain in torrents wood and vale deform,
And all is horror, hurricane, and storm: 
   “So, when the Preacher in that glorious time,
Than clouds more melting, more than storm sublime,
Dropp’d the new Word, there came a charm around;
Tremors and terrors rose upon the sound;
The stubborn spirits by his force he broke,