But in my ear the old machine already
Begins to grate. They would not credit warning,
Or I would up and cry, Repent! I will.
Here is a fair gathering and I feel moved.
Mortals, Repent! the world is nigh to its end;
On its last legs and desperately sick.
See ye not how it reels round all day long?
Oh! here’s a ranter. Come, here’s fun. Amen!
I know the church service by heart.
Be off!
You’ll serve the church by keeping out of it.
I am a preacher come to tell ye truth.
I tell ye too there is no time to be lost;
So fold your souls up neatly, while ye may;
Direct to God in Heaven; or some one else
May seize them, seal them, send them—you know where.
The world must end. I weep to think of it.
But you, you laugh! I knew ye would. I know
Men never will be wise till they are fools
For ever. Laugh away! The time will come,
When tears of fire are trickling from your eyes,
Ye will blame yourselves for having laughed at me.
I warn ye, men: prepare! repent! be saved!
I warn ye, not because I love, but know ye.
God will dissolve the world, as she of old
Her pearl, within His cup and swallow ye
In wrath: although to taste ye would be poison,
And death and suicide to aught but God.
Again I warn ye. Save himself who can!
Do ye not oft begin to seek salvation?
You? you? and fail, as oft, to find? Sink? Cease?
And shall I tell ye, brethren, why ye fail
Once and for ever? why, there is no past;
And the future is the fiction of a fiction;
The present moment is eternity;
It is that ye have sucked corruption from the world
Like milk from your own mothers: it is in
Your soul-blood and your soul-bones. Earth does not
Wean one out of a thousand sons to Heaven.
Beginnings are alike: it is ends which differ.
One drop falls, lasts, and dries up—but a drop;
Another begins a river: and one thought
Settles a life, an immortality:
And that one thought ye will not take to good.
Now I will tell ye just one other truth:
Ye hate the truth as snails salt—it dissolves ye,
Body and soul—but I don’t mind. So, now:
Up to this moment ye are all, each, damned.
What are ye now? still damned! It will be the same
To-morrow—and the next day—and the next:
Till some fine morning ye will wake in fire.
Ye see I do not mince the truth for ye.
Belike ye think your lives will dribble out
As brooks in summer dry up. Let us see!
Try: dike them up: they stagnate—thicken—scum.
That would make life worse than death. Well, let go!
Where are ye then? for life, like water, will
Find its last level: what level? The grave.
It is but a fall of five feet after all;
That cannot hurt ye; it is but just enough
To work the wheel of life; so work away!
Ye may think that I do not know the terms
And treasures whereupon ye live so high.
But I know more than most men, modestly
Speaking. I know I am lost, and ye too. God
Could only save me by destroying me;
So that I have no advantage over you.
And therefore think ye will the rather bear
One of your own state to advise for ye
Now don’t you envy me, good folks, I pray—
Envy’s a coal comes hissing hot from hell.
’Twill be such coals will burn ye by the way.
Your other preachers first think they are safe.
Now I say, broadly, I am the worst among ye;
And God knows I have no need to wrong myself,
Nor you. I boast not of it, but as truth:
It is little to be proud of, credit me.
What is salvation? What is safety? Think!
Who wants to know? Does any?
All of us.
Then I will not tell ye. You shall wait until
Some angel come and stir your stagnant souls:
Then plunge into yourselves and rise redeemed.
Come, I’ll unroll your hearts and read them to ye.
To say ye live is but to say ye have souls,
That ye have paid for them and mean to play them,
Till some brave pleasure wins the golden stake,
And rakes it up to death as to a bank.
Ye live and die on what your souls will fetch;
And all are of different prices: therefore Hell
Cannot well bargain for mankind in gross;
But each soul must be purchased, one by one.
This it is makes men rate themselves so high:
While truly ye are worth little: but to God
Ye are worth more than to yourselves. By sin
Ye wreak your spite against God—that ye know:
And knowing, will it. But I pray, I beg,
Act with some smack of justice to your Maker,
If not unto yourselves. Do! It is enough
To make the very Devil chide mankind—
Such baseness, such unthankfulness! Why he
Thanks God he is no worse. You don’t do that.
I say be just to God. Leave off these airs
Know your place—speak to God—and say, for once,
Go first, Lord! Take your finger off your eye!
It blocks the universe and God from sight.
Think ye your souls are worth nothing to God?
Are they so small? What can be great with God?
What will ye weigh against the Lord? Yourselves?
Bring out your balance: get in, man by man:
Add earth, heaven, hell, the universe; that’s all.
God puts his finger in the other scale,
And up we bounce, a bubble. Nought is great
Nor small with God—for none but He can make
The atom indivisible, and none
But He can make a world: He counts the orbs,
He counts the atoms of the universe,
And makes both equal—both are infinite.
Giving God honor, never underrate
Yourselves: after Him ye are everything
But mind! God’s more than everything; He is God.
And what of me? No, us? no! I mean the Devil?
Why see ye not he goes before both you
And God? Men say—as proud as Lucifer—
Pray who would not be proud with such a train?
Hath he not all the honor of the earth?
Why Mammon sits before a million hearths
Where God is bolted out from every house.
Well might He say He cometh as a thief;
For He will break your bars and burst your doors
Which slammed against Him once, and turn ye out
Roofless and shivering, ’neath the doom-storm;
