"Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Monarchists,
Of stripes and bondage braggarts,
Pale Churchmen, with singed rubrics snatched
From Puritanic fagots.

"And last, not least, the Quakers came,
With tongues still sore from burning,
The Bay State's dust from off their feet
Before my threshold spurning;

"A motley host, the Lord's debris,
Faith's odds and ends together;
Well might I shrink from guests with lungs
Tough as their breeches leather

"If, when the hangman at their heels
Came, rope in hand to catch them,
I took the hunted outcasts in,
I never sent to fetch them.

"I fed, but spared them not a whit;
I gave to all who walked in,
Not clams and succotash alone,
But stronger meat of doctrine.

"I proved the prophets false, I pricked
The bubble of perfection,
And clapped upon their inner light
The snuffers of election.

"And looking backward on my times,
This credit I am taking;
I kept each sectary's dish apart,
No spiritual chowder making.

"Where now the blending signs of sect
Would puzzle their assorter,
The dry-shod Quaker kept the land,
The Baptist held the water.

"A common coat now serves for both,
The hat's no more a fixture;
And which was wet and which was dry,
Who knows in such a mixture?

"Well! He who fashioned Peter's dream
To bless them all is able;
And bird and beast and creeping thing
Make clean upon His table!

"I walked by my own light; but when
The ways of faith divided,
Was I to force unwilling feet
To tread the path that I did?

"I touched the garment-hem of truth,
Yet saw not all its splendor;
I knew enough of doubt to feel
For every conscience tender.

"God left men free of choice, as when
His Eden-trees were planted;
Because they chose amiss, should I
Deny the gift He granted?

"So, with a common sense of need,
Our common weakness feeling,
I left them with myself to God
And His all-gracious dealing!

"I kept His plan whose rain and sun
To tare and wheat are given;
And if the ways to hell were free,
I left then free to heaven!"

Take heart with us, O man of old,
Soul-freedom's brave confessor,
So love of God and man wax strong,
Let sect and creed be le