Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/420

412 ''that stand upon the watch-tower, and that give faithful warning; that stand in the breach, and make themselves a wall for their church and country; that cry to God day and night, and lie in the dust mourning before him, to avert those judgments that seem to hasten toward us. They search into the mystery of iniquity that is working among us, and acquaint themselves with that mass of corruption that is in popery''. He prays, That the number of these may increase, and that he may be of that number, ready either to die in peace, or to seal that doctrine he has been preaching above fifty years, with his blood. This being his last paragraph, I have made bold to transcribe the most important parts of it. His design is to end after the manner of orators, with leaving the strongest impression possible upon the minds of his hearers. A great breach is made, the mystery of popish iniquity is working among us; may God avert those judgments that are hastening toward us; I am an old man, a preacher above fifty years, and I now expect and am ready to die a martyr for the doctrines I have preached. What an amiable idea does he here leave upon our minds, of her majesty, and her government! He has been poring so long upon Fox's book of martyrs, that he imagines himself living in the reign of queen Mary, and is resolved to set up for a knight errant against popery. Upon the supposition of his being in earnest, (which I am sure he is not) it would require but a very little more heat of imagination, to make a history of such a knight's adventures. What would he say to behold the fires kindled in Smithfield, and all over the town, on the seventeenth of November; to behold the pope born in triumph on the shoulders of the people, with a cardinal on the one side, and the tender