PROLEGOMENON. 39 



Aftei all, it would surely be a broken-hearted and 

 mournful man who could say, All men are bad; I hate them 

 all and distrust the world : I have fought for long years 

 ferociously the doctrine of total depravity, but at last I sur- 

 render. "There is none that doeth good, no, not one." 

 " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 

 mother conceive me." 



" There is no man of Nature's worth 

 In the circle of the earth ; 

 And to mine eye the vast skies fall, 

 Dire and satirical, 

 On clucking hens and prating fools, 

 On thieves, on drudges, and on dolls. 

 And I can say to the Most High, 

 ' Godhead ! all this astronomy, 

 And fate, and practice, and invention, 

 Strong -art, and beautiful pretension, 

 This radiant pomp of sun and star, 

 Throes that were, and worlds that are, 

 Behold ! are in vain, and in vain ; 

 And Nature has miscarried wholly 

 Into failure, into folly.' " 



Rather say to this disconsolate and hopeless soul, 



"Alas! THINE is the bankruptcy 

 Blessed Nature so to see." 



Having no heroic determination on hand seriously to 

 reinstitute the WHOLE code of Dracon, but only that enact- 

 ment punishing ingratitude with death, having no essay 

 to write on " original sin" or the refreshing and ambrosial 

 doctrine of " eternal reprobation," no additions to offer to 

 the Ten Commandments, (unless it might be that eleventh 

 commandment suggested by the progress and NEEDS of the 

 times, and which, critically considered, is the sum and sub- 

 stance of all the rest, viz. : Thou shalt attend to thine own 

 business and allow thy neighbor to attend to his; for the 

 Lord thy God hath sometimes made rich those who were 

 found attending to their own concerns, but will not bless 



