All such, equally with those by whatever hand that would be religious by being miserable, I reject at once, along with all that are merely commonplace religious exercises.

But this at least is very unlike the rest of Pope's compositions: it is as simple in utterance as it is large in scope and practical in bearing.

The name _Jove_ may be unpleasant to some ears: it is to mine--not because it is the name given to their deity by men who had had little outward revelation, but because of the associations which the wanton poets, not the good philosophers, have gathered about it.

Here let it stand, as Pope meant it, for one of the names of the Unknown God.
THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.
Father of all! in every age, In every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! Thou great First Cause, least understood! Who all my sense confined To know but this, that thou art good, And that myself am blind Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the good from ill; And, binding Nature fast in Fate, Left free the human will: What Conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do-- This, teach me more than hell to shun, That, more than heaven pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives, Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man receives: To enjoy is to obey.
Yet not to earth's contracted span Thy goodness let me bound, Or think thee Lord alone of man, When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I judge thy foe.
If I am right, thy grace impart Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O teach my heart To find that better way.
Save me alike from foolish pride Or impious discontent, At aught thy wisdom has denied, Or aught thy goodness lent.
Teach me to feel another's woe, To hide the fault I see: That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.
Mean though I am--not wholly so, Since quickened by thy breath:-- O lead me wheresoe'er I go, Through this day's life or death.
This day, be bread and peace my lot: All else beneath the sun Thou know'st if best bestowed or not, And let thy will be done.
To thee, whose temple is all space, Whose altar, earth, sea, skies, One chorus let all being raise! All Nature's incense rise! And now we come upon a strange little well in the desert.

Few flowers indeed shine upon its brink, and it flows with a somewhat unmusical ripple: it is a well of the water of life notwithstanding, for its song tells of the love and truth which are the grand power of God.
John Byrom, born in Manchester in the year 1691, a man whose strength of thought and perception of truth greatly surpassed his poetic gifts, yet delighted so entirely in the poetic form that he wrote much and chiefly in it.