Squire Loftus, friends, was a _cultured_ man,
You knew him-so did I:
He had studied the "Sciences" through and through,
Had forgotten far more than the ancients knew,
Yet still retained enough
To demonstrate clearly that all the old,
Good, practical Bible-truths we hold
Are delusion, nonsense, stuff!
He could show that the earth had begun to grow
Millions and millions of ages ago;
That man had developed up and out
From something Moses knew nothing about,--
Held with Pope that all are but parts of a whole
Whose body is Nature, and God its Soul;--
And, since _he_ was a part of that same great whole,
Then the soul of all Nature was also his soul;--
Or, more plainly--to be not obscure or dim--
That God had _developed Himself_ in him:--
That what is called _Sin_ in mankind, is not so,
But is just _misdirection_, all owing, you know,
To defectiveness either of body or brain,
Or both, which the soul is not thought to retain,--
In the body it acts as it _must_, but that dead
All stain from the innocent soul will have fled!
"How wise was Squire Loftus!" there's somebody cries;--
Nay, friend, not so fast, if you please;
His wisdom was that of the self-deceived fool
Who quits the clear fount for the foul, stagnant pool,
Who puts out his eyes lest the light he descry,
Then shouts 'mid the gloom "how clear-sighted am I!"
Who turns from the glorious fountain of Day,
To follow the wild _ignis fatuus_' ray
Through quagmire and swamp, ever farther astray,
With every step that he takes.
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