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Dryden, _Religio Laici_.

'Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations:
ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell
thee. ' Deut. xxxii. 7.

l. 76. _To adore, or scorne an image, &c. _ Compare: 'I should violate
my own arm rather than a Church, nor willingly deface the name of
Saint or Martyr. At the sight of a Cross or Crucifix I can dispense
with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour: I
cannot laugh at, but rather pity the fruitless journeys of Pilgrims,
or contemn the miserable condition of Friars; for though misplaced
in circumstances, there is something in it of Devotion. I could
never hear the _Ave-Mary_ Bell without an elevation, or think it a
sufficient warrant, because they erred in one circumstance, for me
to err in all, that is in silence and dumb contempt. . . . At a solemn
Procession I have wept abundantly, while my consorts blind with
opposition and prejudice, have fallen into an excess of scorn and
laughter.
' Sir Thomas Browne, _Religio Medici_, sect. 3. Compare also
Donne's letter To Sir H. R. (probably to Goodyere), (_Letters_,
p. 29), 'You know I have never imprisoned the word Religion; not
straightning it Friarly _ad religiones factitias_, (as the Romans
call well their orders of Religion), nor immuring it in a Rome, or
a Geneva; they are all virtual beams of one Sun. . . . They are not so
contrary as the North and South Poles; and they are connaturall pieces
of one circle. Religion is Christianity, which being too spirituall to
be seen by us, doth therefore take an apparent body of good life and
works, so salvation requires an honest Christian. '

l. 80. _Cragged and steep. _ The three epithets, 'cragged', 'ragged',
and 'rugged', found in the MSS. , are all legitimate and appropriate.