Page:The Hind and the Panther - Dryden (1687).djvu/140

What if his dull Forefathers us'd that cry,
Cou'd he not let a Bad Example dye?
The World was fall'n into an easier way,
This Age knew better, than to Fast and Pray.
Good Sense in Sacred Worship would appear
So to begin, as they might end the year.
Such feats in former times had wrought the falls
Of crowing Chanticleers in Cloyster'd Walls.
$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$Expell'd for this, and for their Lands they fled;
And Sister Partlet with her hooded head
Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a Bed.
The way to win the restiff World to God,
Was to lay by the Disciplining Rod,
Unnatural Fasts, and Foreign Forms of Pray'r;
Religion frights us with a meen severe.
'Tis Prudence to reform her into Ease,
And put Her in Undrest to make Her pleas:
A lively Faith will bear aloft the Mind,
And leave the Luggage of Good Works behind.

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