The Respectable Burgher on The Higher Criticism

 Since Reverend Doctors now declare 
That clerks and people must prepare 
To doubt if Adam ever were; 
To hold the flood a local scare; 
To argue, though the stolid stare, 
That everything had happened ere 
The prophets to its happening sware; 
That David was no giant-slayer, 
Nor one to call a God-obeyer 
In certain details we could spare, 
But rather was a debonair 
Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player: 
That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair, 
And gave the Church no thought whate'er; 
That Esther with her royal wear, 
And Mordecai, the son of Jair, 
And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair, 
And Balaam's ass's bitter blare; 
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare, 
And Daniel and the den affair, 
And other stories rich and rare, 
Were writ to make old doctrine wear 
Something of a romantic air: 
That the Nain widow's only heir, 
And Lazarus with cadaverous glare 
(As done in oils by Piombo's care) 
Did not return from Sheol's lair: 
That Jael set a fiendish snare, 
That Pontius Pilate acted square, 
That never a sword cut Malchus' ear 
And (but for shame I must forbear) 
That -- -- did not reappear! . . . 
- Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair, 
All churchgoing will I forswear, 
And sit on Sundays in my chair, 
And read that moderate man Voltaire.

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