AN ESSAY IN COUPLETS.

WHAT blesses yet is difficult,
This--goodness: worship, the result.

What man doth worship man doth love,
And what he loveth he would prove.

And if proof fail he'll place it high,
And claim a god's authority.

What man can pray for, man can share,
His boon foreshadowed in his prayer.

Were man of all his needs bereft
There would not be a bible left.

Were needy man to lose his creed
To-morrow one would spring at need.

Because men are by life enticed
They love their murdered Jesus Christ.

Because their god is still their good,
Kind Christ was God in flesh and blood.

Because they feel the hurt of sin
His mother was a maiden clean.

Because men long for purity
He, born of her security.

Because so many women fail
Therefore his Magdalen was frail.

Because lone women need to love,
One Christ was set all change above.

Some heart whose will could weakness be
Invented his Gethsemane;

Some soul in passion's sore distress
Temptation in the wilderness.

Since notions are not deep as needs,
Religion deeper is than creeds.

If e'er the Christ be quite forgot,
'Twill be that love is needed not!

Or else that love has found a way
To every heart of every day.

The very truth is set at nought
If there be nothing lovely taught;

And any solemn lie will do,
So it be sweet and solemn too.

In all of which 'tis clear to scan,
Religion bindeth social man.

What blesses, yet is difficult,
This--goodness: worship--the result.