(Inspired by watching a couple of evangelists in Beverley town centre)

 

He prowls the city’s precincts calling out into the void

His heart is filled with righteous wrath, demeanour underjoyed

Damning passers-by to Hell, his heart and soul employed

By the Church of the Hectoring Zealot.

 

In Ulster’s Ian Paisley you had thought you’d seen it all

For genuflecting he’d have put you up against a wall

But this one sees that no-one from His Grace escapes the Fall

Except the Church of the Hectoring Zealot.

 

“Thy eyes and tongue shall be cut out and fruitless be thy plea;

For ye shall walk on burning coals in timeless purgatory

The Hounds of Hell shall chew thy innards all eternity

All but the Church of the Hectoring Zealot.”

 

Thy vitals they shall bubble in the brimstone pots of Hell;

Repent before the Lord doth ring his summoning death knell

There is still time for thy contrition ere the sounding bell

With us the Church of the Hectoring Zealot.”

 

His congregation’s deaf to him for it could not care less

About their chance of afterlife compared with M & S

With Tesco or The Blacksmiths’ Arms, yet still with bile he’ll press

The cause of the Church of the Hectoring Zealot.