ON GOD AND MEN

Poor weak and silly mortals, who conceived 

Too foolishly of God while they believed 

That this divinity could be confined 

To any of those places they assigned, 

When even Heaven, which doth this globe embrace, 

Cannot hold Him who yet fills every place, 

Still present in the earth, the sea, the air, 

Not bounded, nor excluded anywhere, 

He in kings’ courts and great assemblies dwells, 

In private houses, and obscured cells. 

His presence over the whole world extends, 

And He to every single heart descends. 

Before designs to their ripe birth are brought, 

He’s at their first conception in the thought, 

And when the black deeds are brought forth, not night 

Nor darkness can obscure them from His sight. 

Yet though He all men’s inclinations knows, 

He often makes experiment of those 

Who boast His name, that when their weak holds fail, 

They, finding mortals’ best perfections frail, 

More humbly may to the Almighty bend 

And upon His, not their own strength depend. 

From Lucy Hutchinson Canto 15: 31-52

Loch Katrine