Page:The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) Holmes.djvu/200

170 That weakness smoothed the path of sin, In half the slips our youth has known; And whatsoe'er its blame has been, That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown. Though temples crowd the crumbled brink O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, Their tablets bold with what we think, Their echoes dumb to what we know; That one unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above, Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it: !

[ particular record is noteworthy principally for containing a paper by my friend, the Professor, with a poem or two annexed or intercalated. I would suggest to young persons that they should pass over it for the present, and read, instead of it, that story about the young man who was in love with the young lady, and in great trouble for something like nine pages, but happily married on the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will be contained in the periodical where this is found, unless it differ from all other publications of the kind. Perhaps, if such young people will lay