Punch (67.1874)

88

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 29, 1874.

SUAVE MARI MAGNO, &c.

People who are prevented through Circumstances from Going out of Town may derive Comfort by watching the Bain

fall in Torrents, and pitying the poor Holiday Folk at the Seaside.


PUNCH TO ARCHBISHOP TAIT.

The Church should thank you, Tait—in time it will—
For your sagacious Public Worship Bill,

Which, while it curbs the showy Ritualist,

Allows a healthy freedom to exist,

Nor yet the reverent worshipper annoys,

While it debars child-Curates of their toys,

And guards from tinsel shows, theatric ways,

Our sanotuaries built for prayer and praise.

Not.less Punch thanks you for your counsel wise,
Which parsons blest with common sense will prize;

To shun the fogs that caste and coterie wreathe,

And lay-life’s freer air be bold to breathe.

Study the men to whom they have to preach,

Nor fear to know the world they claim to teach.

Steel rusts in damp, but intellect will rust
Condemned to feed on volumes dry as dust:

Nor does it much the manlier impulse stir
To lead aright the fair parishioner,

Who having flirted till of flirting tired,

Her life’s fag-end would heavenwards have inspired.

No ; Punch agrees with you, Most Reverend Primate :
Too oft our parsons breathe a stuffy climate,

Till men who rowed and cricketed—and thought—
Become, from sheer shop-influence good for naught;
Magnify molehills into mountains’ size ;

Unmanned, with men’s needs cease to sympathise ;
Twixt the two sexes’ stools come sexless down,

And their dwarfed souls in tittle-tattle drown ;
Studying the Record, Guardian, or Rock,

Till their brains reel in the white sunshine’s shock,
Used to the dim religious gloom, strained through
Windows, stained each with its peculiar hue.

God speed him who would ease sectarian yoke
For these weak teachers of a stalwart folk;

Bid them be no blind leaders of the blind,

But with firm hand, clear eye, and manly mind,
Come forth, the glorious Gospel in their hand,
And speak the great plain truths all understand.

The streets are open, and the fields are free ;

“ All things to all ” our time’s St. Paul must be:
Ready to learn, to teach what he has learnt,

Yet leave the unconvinced unbanned, unburnt,
And freely offer— balm of life’s annoy—

The all-unstinted “ tidings of great joy.”

This cannot be, while coat and caste and clique,
The M.B. waistcoat, the smooth-shaven cheek,
The proud pretension of the priestly youth
To stand alone as Lord and lamp of truth,

The priggish ignorance that sets at nought
Worldly experience, philosophic thought,

Ride rampant. Meantime, hopeful let us wait
Result of Primate’s and Priests’ tete-a-tete.

Mayors and their Nests.

We have the Correspondents informing us, how Marshal
Mac Mahon “while en route from Rennes to St. Brieuc, received
a Deputation of country Mayors, and paid a visit to the Govern-
ment breeding studs.” Is not this a misprint for “ Mares ? ” Who
knows but that one object of the Marshal’s tour may be to dis- 1
cover “ Mare’s” nests. They abound in the French provinces, and
still more in Paris. It is in these nests that the French canard is
usually batched.

A Problem for Brentford.—If Brentford Infants are “ warm-
blooded animals,” what are Brentford Poor-Law Guardians ?