(A decayed Church, a faithful Minister, a Gospel Sermon, a
cold wind, a rainy day, and ten hearers!)
Alas, for our mother, whom age hath o'ertaken,
Her champions are sleeping beneath the cold sod;
She seems both by lover and friend quite forsaken,
Her total dependance is now on her God!
By tribute to Cæsar her battlements crumble,
Her grey headed Elders may weep in despair;
Her once lovely fabric's now ready to tumble,
While no one arises her breach to repair!
Alas, for the spot where our ancestors bended,
In humble devotion, and brotherly love,
Where early petitions like incense ascended,
And blessings in answer came down from above.
Alas, for that spot where our tribes did assemble,
In youthful succession, both healthy and gay,
Which then did the Temple of Zion resemble,—
But briers and thorns have now choked up the way.
The voice of her Elders in prayer seems to falter,
And her bells ring dolefully over her dead,
Her priest may lament from the porch to the altar,
Her pews are deserted, her virgins are fled.
Among her old timber, the hollow winds whistle,
And carve out a track for the frost or the snow;
Her walls, while they preach her departing epistle,
Are cover'd with gloom, both above and below.
Dim through her old windows the daylight is peeping,
The damp floor hath driven the hearers away;
A drop through the roof seems as if it were weeping,
To think how her beauty is gone to decay.
Of her milk and her honey she still might have boasted,
And offer'd to all in abundance, and free,
But her funds by the drones are now nearly exhausted,
In craftily clipping the wings of the Bee.
Still thanks be to God, the Gospel is publish'd,
With precept on precept, and line upon line;
Still Ten there are found, who come to be furnish'd,
With heav'nly instruction, in lectures divine.
The Minister boldly the tidings reported,
And wisely distinguish'd the bad from the good;
Of the present or absent who die unconverted,
That worm eaten pulpit is clear of their blood!