I love a soul not all of wood,
Predestinated to be good,
But true to the backbone
Unto itself alone,
And false to none;
Born to its own affairs,
Its own joys and own cares;
By whom the work which God begun
Is finished, and not undone;
Taken up where he left off,
Whether to worship or to scoff;
If not good, why then evil,
If not good god, good devil.
Goodness!--you hypocrite, come out of that,
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
I have no patience towards
Such conscientious cowards.
Give me simple laboring folk,
Who love their work,
Whose virtue is a song
To cheer God along.
I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to
some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire,
because I was bending my steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath,
instead of a church, when I would have gone farther than he to
hear a true word spoken on that or any day. He declared that I
was "breaking the Lord's fourth commandment," and proceeded to
enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen
him whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath.
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