<h4><SPAN name="THE_NEW_FREETHINKER" id="THE_NEW_FREETHINKER"></SPAN>THE NEW FREETHINKER</h4>
<p>John Grubby, who was short and stout<br/>
And troubled with religious doubt,<br/>
Refused about the age of three<br/>
To sit upon the curate's knee;<br/>
(For so the eternal strife must rage<br/>
Between the spirit of the age<br/>
And Dogma, which, as is well known.<br/>
Does simply hate to be outgrown).<br/>
Grubby, the young idea that shoots,<br/>
Outgrew the ages like old boots;<br/>
While still, to all appearance, small,<br/>
Would have no Miracles at all;<br/>
And just before the age of ten<br/>
Firmly refused Free Will to men.<br/>
The altars reeled, the hen-ens shook,<br/>
Just as he read of in the book;<br/>
Flung from his house went forth the youth<br/>
Alone with tempests and the Truth,<br/>
Up to the distant city and dim<br/>
Where his papa had bought for him<br/>
A partnership in Chepe and Deer<br/>
Worth, say, twelve hundred pounds a year.<br/>
But he was resolute. Lord Brute<br/>
Had found him useful; and Lord Loot,<br/>
With whom few other men would act,<br/>
Valued his promptitude and tact;<br/>
Never did even philanthropy<br/>
Enrich a man more rapidly:<br/>
Twas he that stopped the Strike in Coal,<br/>
For hungry children racked his soul;<br/>
To end their misery there and then<br/>
He filled the mines with Chinamen—<br/>
Sat in that House that broke the Kings,<br/>
And voted for all sores of things—<br/>
And rose from Under-Sec. to Sec.<br/>
Some grumbled. Growlers who gave less<br/>
Than generous worship to success,<br/>
The little printers in Dundee<br/>
Who got ten years for blasphemy,<br/>
(Although he let them off with seven)<br/>
Respect him rather less than heaven.<br/>
No matter. This can still be said:<br/>
Never to supernatural dread,<br/>
Never to unseen deity,<br/>
Did Sir John Grubby bend the knee;<br/>
Never did dream of hell or wrath<br/>
Turn Viscount Grubby from his path;<br/>
Nor was he bribed by fabled bliss<br/>
To kneel to any world but this.<br/>
The curate lives in Camden Town,<br/>
His lap still empty of renown,<br/>
And still across the waste of years<br/>
John Grubby, in the House of Peers,<br/>
Faces that curate, proud and free,<br/>
And never sits upon his knee.<br/>
<br/><br/></p>
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