the worse for Parsons!
Alas! and is all this wise device
For the saving of souls thus gone in a trice?--
The whole put down, in the simplest way,
By the souls resolving _not_ to pay!
And even the Papist, thankless race
Who have had so much the easiest case--
To _pay_ for our sermons doomed, 'tis true,
But not condemned to _hear them_, too--
(Our holy business being, 'tis known,
With the ears of their barley, not their own,)
Even _they_ object to let us pillage
By right divine their tenth of tillage,
And, horror of horrors, even decline
To find us in sacramental wine![3]
It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er,
Ah! never shall rosy Rector more,
Like the shepherds of Israel, idly eat,
And make of his flock "a prey and meat."[4]
No more shall be his the pastoral sport
Of suing his flock in the Bishop's Court,
Thro' various steps, Citation, Libel--
_Scriptures_ all, but _not_ the Bible;
Working the Law's whole apparatus,
To get at a few predoomed potatoes,
And summoning all the powers of wig,
To settle the fraction of a pig!--
Till, parson and all committed deep
In the case of "Shepherds _versus_ Sheep,"
The Law usurps the Gospel's place,
And on Sundays meeting face to face,
While Plaintiff fills the preacher's station,
Defendants form the congregation.
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