RELIGION's all. Descending from the skies.
To wretched man, the goddess, in her left,

Holds out this world, and in her right, the next.

YOUNG

RELIGION! Providence! an after state!
Here is firm footing; here is solid rock!
This can support us; all is sea besides;
Sinks under us, bestows, and then devours.
His hand the good man fastens on the skies,
And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl.

(See also CHRISTIANITY.)

YOUNG.

REMORSE-DESPAIR.

GODLY sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; but the sorrow

of the world worketh death. II. CORINTHIANS, vii, 10.

But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

I also will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh. PROVERBS 1. 25, 26.

How like gall and wormwood to the taste
The cup that we have longed to drain may prove!
LYDIA JANE PIERSON.

WHO bears no trace of passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, O, terrible Remorse?-
Who does not cast

On the thronged pages of his memory's book,
At times, a sad, and half-reluctant look,

Regretful of the Past?

J. G. WHITTIER.

JUST Heaven instructs us, with an awful voice,
That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice,
Our inward monitress, to guide or warn,

If listened to; but if repelled with scorn,
At length, as dire Remorse, she re-appears,
Works in our guilty hopes and selfish fears!
Still bids, Remember! and still cries, Too late!
And while she scares us, goads us to our fate.

COLERIDGE.

His eye no more looked onward; but its gaze
Rests where Remorse" a life misspent surveys;
What costly treasures strew that waste behind;
What whirlwinds daunt the soul that sows the wind!
By the dark shape of what he is, serene

Stands the bright ghost of what he might have been:
Here the vast lost, and there the worthless gain
Vice scorned, yet woo'd, and Virtue loved in vain!
SIR E. B. LYTTON.

TRY what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O, wretched state! O, bosom black as death!
O, limed soul, that struggling to be free,
Art more engaged!

SHAKSPEARE,

How awful is that hour, when conscience stings
The hoary wretch, who on his death-bed hears,
Deep in his soul, the thundering voice that rings,
In one dark, damning moment, crimes of years,
And, screaming like a vulture in his ears,

Tells,. one by one, his thoughts and deeds of shame; How wild the fury of his soul careers!

His swart eye flashes with intensest flame,

And like the torture's rack the wrestling of his frame.

PERCIVAL.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to Heaven go.

PRAY can I not,

SHAKSPEARE.

Though inclination be as sharp as will;
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I should first begin,
And both neglect.

SHAKSPEARE.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.

SOME deluded minds,

Harrowed by penal terrors, in the gulf

SHAKSPEARE.

Of black despair are whelmed. No ray of hope
Dispels the involving gloom; a Deity,

With all the thunder of dread vengeance round Him,
Is ever present to their tortured thoughts.

SAMUEL HAYES.

CALM, unruffled Joy,

With dove-like wing, infolds the virtuous breast,
While, armed with harpy talon, keen Remorse
Hovers o'er guilt, and poisons every sweet.

GEORGE BALLY.

To vengeance horrible aroused,

And clad in tenfold fierceness, shalt thou stand
Beside the atheist's bed; by his who oft,
With wit profane, and poignant blasphemy,
And specious show of argument, hath scoffed
Each awful truth, and ridiculed his God.

WILLIAM GIBSON.

THE past lives o'er again,

In its effects, and to the guilty spirit

The ever-frowning present is its image. COLERIDGE.

BUT conscience, in some awful, silent hour,
When captivating lusts have lost their power,
Perhaps when sickness, or some fearful dream
Reminds him of religion, hated theme!
Starts from the down on which she lately slept,
And tells of laws despised, at least not kept;
Shows with a pointing finger, but no noise,
A pale procession of past sinful joys;
All witnesses of blessings foully scorned,
And life abused; and, not to be suborned,
Mark these, she says, these, summoned from afar,
Begin their march to meet thee at the bar,
There find a Judge inexorably just,

And perish there, as all presumption must.

COWPER.

WHEN troubled conscience reads accusing scrolls,

Which witnessed are even by the breast's own blood

O, what a terror wounds remorseful souls,

Who poison find what seemed a pleasing food.

STIRLING.

BUT dreadful is their doom whom doubt has driven
To censure fate, and pious hope forego:
Like yonder blasted boughs, by lightning riven,

Perfection, beauty, life, they never know,
But frown on all that pass, a monument of woe.
BEATTIE

(See also CONTRITION, REPENTANCE.)

REPENTANCE-CONFESSION-CONVERSION.

REPENT ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. MATTHEW, iii, 2.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I. JOHN, i, 9.

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. EZEKIEL, xviii, 27.

Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance. MATTHEW, iii, 8.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to repent. Acтs, xvii, 30.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness: but is long suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 11. PETER, iii, 9.

Break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. DANIEL, iv, 27.

'Tis not to cry God mercy, or to sit

And droop, or to confess that thou hast failed:

'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit;

And not commit those sins thou hast bewailed.

He that bewails, and not forsakes them too,
Confesses rather what he means to do.

REPENTANCE clothes in grass and flowers
The grave in which the past is laid.

QUARLES.

JOHN STERLING.

HE who seeks Repentance for the past,

Should woo the angel virtue in the future.

SIR E. B. LYTTON.

Nor all the pride of empire

E'er gave such bless'd sensations as one hour

Of penitence, though painful.

HENRY BROOKE