the mountain faith removes;
That mountain barrier between man and peace.
'Tis faith disarms destruction; and absolves
From every clamorous charge, the guiltless tomb.
Why disbelieve? Lorenzo!--"Reason bids,
All-sacred reason."--Hold her sacred still;
Nor shalt thou want a rival in thy flame: 730
All-sacred reason! source, and soul, of all
Demanding praise, on earth, or earth above! 732
My heart is thine: deep in its inmost folds,
Live thou with life; live dearer of the two.
Wear I the blessed cross, by fortune stamp'd
On passive nature, before thought was born?
My birth's blind bigot! fired with local zeal!
No; reason re-baptized me when adult;
Weigh'd true, and false, in her impartial scale;
My heart became the convert of my head; 740
And made that choice, which once was but my fate.
"On argument alone my faith is built:"
Reason pursued is faith; and, unpursued
Where proof invites, 'tis reason, then, no more:
And such our proof, that, or our faith is right,
Or reason lies, and Heaven design'd it wrong:
Absolve we this? What, then, is blasphemy?
Fond as we are, and justly fond, of faith,
Reason, we grant, demands our first regard;
The mother honour'd, as the daughter dear. 750
Reason the root, fair faith is but the flower;
The fading flower shall die; but reason lives
Immortal, as her Father in the skies.
When faith is virtue, reason makes it so.
Wrong not the Christian; think not reason yours:
'Tis reason our great Master holds so dear;
'Tis reason's injured rights his wrath resents;
'Tis reason's voice obey'd his glories crown;
To give lost reason life, he pour'd his own:
Believe, and show the reason of a man; 760
Believe, and taste the pleasure of a God;
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb:
Through reason's wounds alone thy faith can die;
Which dying, tenfold terror gives to death,
And dips in venom his twice-mortal sting.
Learn hence what honours, what loud paeans[16], due 766
To those, who push our antidote aside;
Those boasted friends to reason, and to man,
Whose fatal love stabs every joy, and leaves
Death's terror heighten'd, gnawing on his heart.
Those pompous sons of reason idolized
And vilified at once; of reason dead,
Then deified, as monarchs were