A PIOUS magistrate! sound his praise throughout <br />The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt <br />That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh? <br />Sin in high places has become devout, <br />Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie <br />Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety! <br />The pirate, watching from his bloody deck <br />The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold <br />Of Acapulco, holding death in check <br />While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told; <br />The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross <br />On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss <br />From his own carbine, glancing still abroad <br />For some new victim, offering thanks to God! <br />Rome, listening at her altars to the cry <br />Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell <br />Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell <br />And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high, <br />Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky, <br />'Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!' <br />What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black <br />As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack? <br />Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays <br />His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase <br />And saintly posture, gives to God the praise <br />And honor of the monstrous progeny. <br />What marvel, then, in our own time to see <br />His old devices, smoothly acted o'er, — <br />Official piety, locking fast the door <br />Of Hope against three million souls of men, — <br />Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed, — and then, <br />With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee, <br />Whining a prayer for help to hide the key!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/official-piety/
