Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Parnassian Spring

The Acceptable Sacrifice.
A Fragment of Meander.

Whoe'er approaches to the Lord of all,
And with his off'rings desolates the stall:
Who brings an hundred bulls with garlands drest-
The purple mantle, or the golden vest:
Or ivory figures richly wrought around,
Or curious images with em'ralds crown'd;
And hopes with these God's favor to obtain,
His tho'ts are foolish, and his hopes are vain.
He, only he, may trust his pray'r will rise,
And Heav'n accept his grateful sacrifice,
Who leads, beneficent, a virtuous life;
Who wrongs no virgin; who corrupts no wife;
No robber he; no murd'rer of mankind;
No miser, servant to the sordid mind.
Dare to be just, my Pamphilus,--disdain
The maddest trifle for the greatest gain:
For God is nigh thee, and his purer sight
In acts of goodness only takes delight.
He feeds th' indigent, and from his store
Rewards the labourer for his honest toil,
And heaps his substance as he turns the soil.
To him, then, humbly pay the rites divine,
And not in garments, but in goodness, shine.
Guiltless in conscience, thou may'st safely sleep,
Tho' thunders bellow thro' the boundless deep.