<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=529666" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Respectable Burgher on "The Higher Criticism"</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Since Reverend Doctors now declare <br>That clerks and people must prepare <br>To doubt if Adam ever were; <br>To hold the flood a local scare; <br>To argue, though the stolid stare, <br>That everything had happened ere <br>The prophets to its happening sware; <br>That David was no giant-slayer, <br>Nor one to call a God-obeyer <br>In certain details we could spare, <br>But rather was a debonair <br>Shrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player: <br>That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair, <br>And gave the Church no thought whate'er; <br>That Esther with her royal wear, <br>And Mordecai, the son of Jair, <br>And Joshua's triumphs, Job's despair, <br>And Balaam's ass's bitter blare; <br>Nebuchadnezzar's furnace-flare, <br>And Daniel and the den affair, <br>And other stories rich and rare, <br>Were writ to make old doctrine wear <br>Something of a romantic air: <br>That the Nain widow's only heir, <br>And Lazarus with cadaverous glare <br>(As done in oils by Piombo's care) <br>Did not return from Sheol's lair: <br>That Jael set a fiendish snare, <br>That Pontius Pilate acted square, <br>That never a sword cut Malchus' ear <br>And (but for shame I must forbear) <br>That -- -- did not reappear! . . . <br>- Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair, <br>All churchgoing will I forswear, <br>And sit on Sundays in my chair, <br>And read that moderate man Voltaire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Thomas+Hardy">Thomas Hardy</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <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=529666" data-title="The Respectable Burgher on "The Higher Criticism" de Thomas Hardy" data-description="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; Tha..."></div> </div> </div>

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