'Here comes Parker, the Orson of parsons, a man 730 Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban (The Church of Socinus, I mean),--his opinions Being So-(ultra)-cinian, they shocked the Socinians: They believed--faith, I'm puzzled--I think I may call Their belief a believing in nothing at all, Or something of that sort; I know they all went For a general union of total dissent: He went a step farther; without cough or hem, He frankly avowed he believed not in them; And, before he could be jumbled up or prevented, 740 From their orthodox kind of dissent he dissented. There was heresy here, you perceive, for the right Of privately judging means simply that light Has been granted to _me_, for deciding on _you;_ And in happier times, before Atheism grew, The deed contained clauses for cooking you too: Now at Xerxes and Knut we all laugh, yet our foot With the same wave is wet that mocked Xerxes and Knut, And we all entertain a secure private notion, That our _Thus far!_ will have a great weight with the ocean, 'Twas so with our liberal Christians: they bore 751 With sincerest conviction their chairs to the shore; They brandished their worn theological birches, Bade natural progress keep out of the Churches, And expected the lines they had drawn to prevail With the fast-rising tide to keep out of their pale; They had formerly dammed the Pontifical See, And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.; But he turned up his nose at their mumming and shamming, And cared (shall I say?) not a d---- for their damming; 760 So they first read him out of their church, and next minute Turned round and declared he had never been in it. But the ban was too small or the man was too big, For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig (He scarce looks like a man who would _stay_ treated shabbily, Sophroniscus' son's head o'er the features of Rabelais);-- He bangs and bethwacks them,--their backs he salutes With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the roots; His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced, And he talks in one breath of Confutzee, Cass, Zerduscht, 770 Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, Dathan, Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, _that_ he's no faith in), Pan, Pillicock, Shakespeare, Paul, Toots, Monsieur Tonson, Aldebaran, Alcander, Ben Khorat, Ben Jonson, Thoth, Richter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, Judah Monis, Musæus, Muretus, _hem_,--[Greek: m] Scorpionis, Maccabee, Maccaboy, Mac--Mac--ah! Machiavelli, Condorcet, Count d'Orsay, Conder, Say, Ganganelli, Orion, O'Connell, the Chevalier D'O, (See the Memoirs of Sully,) [Greek: to pan], the great toe 780 Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to pass For that of Jew Peter by good Romish brass, (You may add for yourselves, for I find it a bore, All the names you have ever, or not, heard before, And when you've done that--why, invent a few more). His hearers can't tell you on Sunday beforehand, If in that day's discourse they'll be Bibled or Koraned, For he's seized the idea (by his martyrdom fired) That all men (not orthodox) _may be_ inspired; Yet though wisdom profane with his creed he may weave in, He makes it quite clear what he _doesn't_ believe in, 791 While some, who decry him, think all Kingdom Come Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of Hum, Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a crumb Would be left, if we didn't keep carefully mum, And, to make a clean breast, that 'tis perfectly plain That _all_ kinds of wisdom are somewhat profane; Now P.'s creed than this may be lighter or darker, But in one thing, 'tis clear, he has faith, namely--Parker; And this is what makes him the crowd-drawing preacher, 800 There's a background of god to each hard-working feature, Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest: There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest, If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least, His gestures all downright and same, if you will, As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a drill; But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke, Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak, You forget the man wholly, you're thankful to meet 810 With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street, And to hear, you're not over-particular whence, Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Latimer's sense.