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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420757" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Pastoral Letter</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, this is all, — the utmost reach<br>Of priestly power the mind to fetter!<br>When laymen think, when women preach,<br>A war of words, a 'Pastoral Letter!'<br>Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes!<br>Was it thus with those, your predecessors,<br>Who sealed with racks, and fire, and ropes<br>Their loving-kindness to transgressors?<br>A 'Pastoral Letter,' grave and dull;<br>Alas! in hoof and horns and features,<br>How different is your Brookfield bull<br>From him who bellows from St. Peter's!<br>Your pastoral rights and powers from harm,<br>Think ye, can words alone preserve them?<br>Your wiser fathers taught the arm<br>And sword of temporal power to serve them.<br>Oh, glorious days, when Church and State<br>Were wedded by your spiritual fathers!<br>And on submissive shoulders sat<br>Your Wilsons and your Cotton Mathers,<br>No vile 'itinerant' then could mar<br>The beauty of your tranquil Zion,<br>But at his peril of the scar<br>Of hangman's whip and branding-iron.<br>Then, wholesome laws relieved the Church<br>Of heretic and mischief-maker,<br>And priest and bailiff joined in search,<br>By turns, of Papist, witch, and Quaker!<br>The stocks were at each church's door,<br>The gallows stood on Boston Common,<br>A Papist's ears the pillory bore, —<br>The gallows-rope, a Quaker woman!<br>Your fathers dealt not as ye deal<br>With 'non-professing' frantic teachers;<br>They bored the tongue with red-hot steel,<br>And flayed the backs of 'female preachers.'<br>Old Hampton, had her fields a tongue,<br>And Salem's streets could tell their story,<br>Of fainting woman dragged along,<br>Gashed by the whip accursed and gory!<br>And will ye ask me, why this taunt<br>Of memories sacred from the scorner?<br>And why with reckless hand I plant<br>A nettle on the graves ye honor?<br>Not to reproach New England's dead<br>This record from the past I summon,<br>Of manhood to the scaffold led,<br>And suffering and heroic woman.<br>No, for yourselves alone, I turn<br>The pages of intolerance over,<br>That, in their spirit, dark and stern,<br>Ye haply may your own discover!<br>For, if ye claim the 'pastoral right'<br>To silence Freedom's voice of warning,<br>And from your precincts shut the light<br>Of Freedom's day around ye dawning;<br>If when an earthquake voice of power<br>And signs in earth and heaven are showing<br>That forth, in its appointed hour,<br>The Spirit of the Lord is going!<br>And, with that Spirit, Freedom's light<br>On kindred, tongue, and people breaking,<br>Whose slumbering millions, at the sight,<br>In glory and in strength are waking!<br>When for the sighing of the poor,<br>And for the needy, God hath risen,<br>And chains are breaking, and a door<br>Is opening for the souls in prison!<br>If then ye would, with puny hands,<br>Arrest the very work of Heaven,<br>And bind anew the evil bands<br>Which God's right arm of power hath riven;<br>What marvel that, in many a mind,<br>Those darker deeds of bigot madness<br>Are closely with your own combined,<br>Yet 'less in anger than in sadness '?<br>What marvel, if the people learn<br>To claim the right of free opinion?<br>What marvel, if at times they spurn<br>The ancient yoke of your dominion?<br>A glorious remnant linger yet,<br>Whose lips are wet at Freedom's fountains,<br>The coming of whose welcome feet<br>Is beautiful upon our mountains!<br>Men, who the gospel tidings bring<br>Of Liberty and Love forever,<br>Whose joy is an abiding spring,<br>Whose peace is as a gentle river!<br>But ye, who scorn the thrilling tale<br>Of Carolina's high-souled daughters,<br>Which echoes here the mournful wail<br>Of sorrow from Edisto's waters,<br>Close while ye may the public ear,<br>With malice vex, with slander wound them,<br>The pure and good shall throng to hear,<br>And tried and manly hearts surround them.<br>Oh, ever may the power which led<br>Their way to such a fiery trial,<br>And strengthened womanhood to tread<br>The wine-press of such self-denial,<br>Be round them in an evil land,<br>With wisdom and with strength from Heaven,<br>With Miriam's voice, and Judith's hand,<br>And Deborah's song, for triumph given!<br>And what are ye who strive with God<br>Against the ark of His salvation,<br>Moved by the breath of prayer abroad,<br>With blessings for a dying nation?<br>What, but the stubble and the hay<br>To perish, even as flax consuming,<br>With all that bars His glorious way,<br>Before the brightness of His coming?<br>And thou, sad Angel, who so long<br>Hast waited for the glorious token,<br>That Earth from all her bonds of wrong<br>To liberty and light has broken, —<br>Angel of Freedom! soon to thee<br>The sounding trumpet shall be given,<br>And over Earth's full jubilee<br>Shall deeper joy be felt in Heaven!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420757" data-title="The Pastoral Letter de John Greenleaf Whittier" data-description="So, this is all, — the utmost reach
Of priestly power the mind to fetter!
When laymen think, when women preach,
A war of words, a 'Pastoral Letter!'
Now, shame upon ye, parish Popes!
Was it thus with those, your predecessors,
Who sealed with rac..."></div>
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