The Virginia Gazette

From the Methodist, a poem written by E. Lloyd, lately published in England.

The author, after having described their manner of preaching, says that their sermons are olios made of conflagration, of gulfs, of brimstone, and damnation; eternal torments, furnace, worm, hell fire, a whirlwind, and a storm; with Mammon, Satan, and perdition, and Belzebub, to help the dish on; Belial, and Lucifer, and all the nick-names which Old Nick we call.

He also represents the illiterate zealots, that leave their lawful callings for an employment to which it is manifest they are not called, in a strain of lively and satyrick humour.

Every mechanic will commence Orator, without mood or tense; pudding is pudding still, they know, whether it has a plum or no;

So, tho' the preacher has no skill, a sermon is a sermon till.

The bricklayer throws his trowel by, and now builds mansions in the sky; the cobler touch'd with holy pride, flings his old shoes, and last aside, and now devoutly sets about cobbling of souls, that ne'er wear out;

the baker now a preacher grown, finds man lives not by bread alone, and now his customers he feeds with prayers, with sermons, groans, and creeds;

the tinman, mov'd by warmth within, hammers the gospel just like tin; weavers inspir'd, their shuttles leave, sermons and flimsy hymns to weave;

barbers unraz'd will leave the chin, to trim and shave the man within; the waterman forgets his wherry, and opens a celestial ferry;

the barber bit by phrenzy's grub, the mash-tub for the preaching tub resigns, those waters to explore which if you drink you thirst no more;

the gardiner, weary of his trade, tir'd of the mattock and the spade, chang'd to Apollo's in a trice, waters the plants of paradise;

the fisherman no longer sets for fish the meshes of their net, but catch, like Peter, men of sin, for catching is to take them in.