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A PARTING SCENE
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IN THE WORLD
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KIND WORDS
AWAKEN KIND ECHOKS;
OR,
Ellustrations of the Power of Rindness.
“It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blessed—
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.â€
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH ; AND NEW YORK,
‘cea (pene
Bed ea. plan of this volume, as a monitor of love
in illustration of the power of kindness,
was suggested originally by an American
work, entitled “The Law of Kindness,†from which
some interesting portions have been transplanted into
our pages. In some essential points, however, that
work appeared not only ill-adapted for English
readers, but radically defective, as a practical ex-
position of the golden law of love. Hence the pre-
paration of this volume. It is written as a humble
but earnest recognition of the sacred maxim, “ Let
the same mind be in us as was in Christ ;†and is
offered by the author to his readers in the anxious
hope that it may teach many of them practically to
realize the truth of its title, that love begets love;
that a soft answer turneth away wrath; and that
KIND WORDS AWAKEN KIND ECHOES.
I.
II,
ITI,
IV.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
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THE POWER OF KINDNESS, ... eee
THE HAPPY HOME, eos eae
LOVE TO ENEMIES,
MOTIVES FOR LOVE TO ENEMIES,
PHILANTHROPY, ...
KINDNESS AND JUVENILE DESTITUTION,
KINDNESS AND INSANITY, ...
NATIONAL KINDNESS, aes
THE REWARD OF PRACTICAL KINDNESS,
. THE LOVING KINDNESS OF GOD TO MAN,
een
46
81
110
152
183
221
. 239
271
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Che Potver of Kindness.
“ The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.â€
BYRON.
Re tava HEN the people whom God had selected to be
4 Wl the inheritors of many blessings, and the
race through whom the Messiah should
come, were gathered in the wilderness of Sinai, he
gave them a law by which they should be guided
while they remained apart from all the other families
of mankind. This law is embraced in what we still
recognise as the Ten Commandments, It warns man,
as his duty to his neighbour, that he must not wrong
him, hurt him, rob him, or kill him: he must not even
injure him in his heart by coveting what he possesses.
It was a divine law, and therefore still remains holy, :
and binding on all men. But when God _ himself
appeared among men as the man Christ Jesus, he
summed up all the old commandments in one perfect
IO The Power of Kindness.
law—* Love the Lord with all thy heart, and thy
neighbour as thyself.†“A new commandment,†said
he, “T give unto you, That ye love one another ;†and
in that perfect law of love is summed up all the second
table of the law. The New Testament abounds with
maxims in accordance with this new law, which all
hearts recognise to be true—* Perfect love casteth out
fear °—“ Love thinketh no evil ?—“ Love never fails ;â€
and then that beautiful summary of its full expression
and unlimited extent: “If thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink; so shalt thou heap
coals of fire on his head.†We all know the force of
this method of overcoming evil with good, however
little we may practise it. No triumph can equal that
by which we overcome an enemy with love; and did
people only sufficiently consider even the mingled
feeling of humiliation and shame which fills the mind
of one who has received good in return for evil, they —
would know it to be by far the noblest revenge that
man can have.
We see, in the spiritual world, the Supreme Being
perfect in benevolence and love, as in all other attri.
butes ; while opposed to him is a spirit of evil, insti-
gating to crime and to all sinful passions, which result
in misery to those who take this enemy of all good for
their guide. So is it with the human race. Love is
the. one characteristic of men which shows their like-
ness to God, and revenge and hatred are the passions
Lhe Power of Kindness. II
which prove them to be the servants of the devil.
Many men have been beautiful examples of the power
of love. It is this spirit that carried Elliot away to
spend his life among the poor, ignorant Red Indians,
and induced the benevolent Howard to expose himself
to danger and to pestilential contagion, that he might.
rescue the most depraved and outcast class of human
beings. It was love that instigated the good apostle
John, and led him, in his old age when all the other
apostles were gone to their rest, to exclaim, as he
entered the assembly of primitive Christian disciples,
“ Little children, love one another.†He was the dis-
ciple that Jesus loved, because he most resembled
himself. But the only perfect example of love ever
seen on earth was Curist. Love constrained him to
leave heaven and dwell with men; love induced him
to bear human contempt and wrong, to endure humi-
liation, suffering, and scorn, while he went about
continually doing good; and love alone at length led
him to do what none other ever did—to lay down his
life for his enemies. No example of human love can
ever equal his; yet it is the pattern that we must
- follow, and strive to imitate, if we would wish to be
his disciples.
“Thou shalt not kill!†is one of the old ten com-
mandments, which still remains, like all the others, in
force. But he whose heart is full of love, and who isâ€
guided in all his actions by the law of kindness, will
12 Lhe Power of Kindness.
not feel this a difficult commandment to keep. There
is, however, one way in which a Christian is permitted
to kill his enemies. Does the reader ask how? In
self-defence, perhaps, you say. No! it is not that I
mean. In war? No! nor that neither. The way in
which the Christian should kill his enemy, whether in
peace or war, in retaliation or self-defence, is by making
him his friend; he is, in fact, to kill him with kind-
ness. The mode of doing this can hardly be better
illustrated than by the following narrative, related by
Mrs. Child, as a story founded on fact, of |
THE MAN THAT KILLED HIS NEIGHBOURS.
Reuben Black was a torment in the neighbourhood
where he resided. The very sight of him produced
effects which may be likened to those said to follow a
Hindoo magical tune, called Rang, which is supposed
to bring on clouds, storms, and earthquakes. His wife
had a sharp and uncomfortable look. His boys seemed
to be in perpetual fear. The cows became startled as
soon as he opened the barn-yard gates. The dog
dropped his tail between his legs, and eyed him
askance, as if to see what humour he was in. The cat
looked wild, and had been known to rush straight up
the chimney when he moved toward her. The de-
scription of a certain stage-horse was well suited to
Reuben’s nag—“ His hide resembled an old hair trunk.â€
Continnal whipping and kicking had made him go
Lhe Power of Kindness. 14
insensible, that no amount of blows could quicken his
pace, no cheering could change the dejected drooping
of his head. All his natural language said, as plain as
a horse could say it, that he was a most unhappy beast.
Even the trees on Reuben’s premises had a neglected
and desolate appearance. His fields were red with
sorrel, or overrun with weeds, Everything about him
seemed hard and arid as his own countenance. Every
day he cursed the town and the neighbourhood, because
the people poisoned his dogs, and stoned his hens, and
shot his cats. Continual lawsuits involved him in so
much trouble and expense, that he had neither time
nor money to spend on the improvement of his farm.
Against Joe Smith, a poor labourer in the neighbour-
hood, he had brought three suits in succession. Joe
said he had returned a spade he had borrowed, and
Reuben swore he had not. He sued Joe and recovered
damages, for which he ordered the officer to seize his
pig. Joe, in his wrath, called him an old swindler,
and a curse to the neighbourhood. + These remarks
were soon repeated to Reuben. He brought an action
for slander, and recovered very small damages. Fro-
voked at the laugh this occasioned, he watched for Joe
to pass by, and set his dog upon him, crying out
furiously, “Call me an old swindler again, will you ?â€
An evil spirit is more contagious than the plague. Joe
went home and scolded his wife, boxed little Joe’s ears,
and kicked the cat; and not one of them knew what it
14 The Power of Kindness.
was all for. A fortnight after, Reuben’s dog was
found dead from poison. Whereupon he brought
another action against Joe Smith, and not being able
to prove him guilty of the charge of dog-killing, he
took his revenge by poisoning a pet lamb belonging to
Mrs. Smith. Thus feelings of ill-will were followed by
misery and loss. Joe’s temper grew more and more
vindictive, and the love of talking over his troubles at
the gin-shop increased upon him. Poor Mrs. Smith
cried, and said it was all owing to Reuben Black, for a
better-hearted man never lived than her Joe when she
first married him.
Such was the state of things when Simeon Green
purchased the farm adjoining Reuben’s, This had
been much neglected, and had caught thistles and other
weeds from the neighbouring fields. But Simeon was
a diligent man, and one who commanded well his own
temper, for he had learned of Him who is “ meek and
lowly in heart.†He had been taught by the Holy
Spirit the evil of his own heart, and been led to a
humble but sure trust in Christ for pardon and sal-
vation; and having this hope in him, he sought, by
the aid of the Holy Spirit, to purify himself even as
God is pure, and to walk worthy of the vocation where-
with he was called, with all lowliness and meekness,
with long-suffering, forbearing—in love.
His steady perseverance and industry soon changed
the aspect of things on the farm. River mud, autumn
Lhe Power of Kindness. 15
leaves, old bones, were all put in use to assist in
producing fertility and beauty. The trees, hitherto
overrun with moss and insects, soon looked clean and
vigorous. Fields of grain waved where weeds had
only grown before. Roses covered half the house with
their abundant clusters. Even the rough rock, which
formed the door-step, was edged with golden moss,
The sleek horse, feeding in clover, tossed his mane and
neighed when his master came near; as much as to
say, “The world is all the pleasanter for having you in
it, Simeon Green!†The old cow, fondling her calf
under the great walnut tree, walked up to him with a
serious friendly face, asking for a slice of beet-root
which he was wont to give her. Chanticleer, strutting
about with his troop of plump hens and their downy
little chickens, took no trouble to keep out of his way,
but flapped his glossy wings, and crowed a welcome in
his very face. When Simeon turned his way homeward,
the boys threw their caps, and ran shouting, “ Father’s
coming!†and little Mary went toddling up to him,
with a flower ready to place in his button-hole. His wife —
was a woman of few words, but she sometimes said to
her neighbours, with a quiet kind of satisfaction,
“Everybody loves my husband that knows him. They
cannot help it.†| —
Simeon Green’s acquaintance knew that he was
“never engaged in a lawsuit in his life, but they pre-
dicted that he would find it impossible to avoid it now.
16 The Power of Kindness.
They told him his next neighbour was determined to
quarrel with people whether they would or not; that
he was like John Lilburne, of whom it was happily
said, “ If the world were emptied of every person but
himself, Lilburne would still quarrel with John, and
John with Lilburne.â€
“Ts that his character?†said Simeon. “If he
exercises it upon me, I will soon kill him.â€
In every neighbourhood there are individuals whe
like to foment disputes, not from any definite intention
of malice or mischief, but merely because it makes a
little ripple of excitement in the dull stream of life.
Such people were not slow in repeating Simeon Green’s
remark about his wrangling neighbour. “Kill me,
will he?†exclaimed Reuben. He said no more ; but
his tightly compressed mouth had such a significant
expression that his dog slunk from him in alarm.
That very night Reuben turned his horse into the
highway, in hopes he would commit some depredation |
on neighbour Green’s premises. But Joe Smith, seeing
the animal at large, let down the bars of Reuben’s own
cornfield, and the poor beast walked in, and feasted as
he had not done for many a year. It would have been
a great satisfaction to Reuben if he could have brought
a sult against his horse; but as it was, he was obliged
to content himself with beating him. His next exploit
was to shoot Mary Green’s handsome cock, because he
stood on the stone wall and crowed, in the ignorant
(149)
Lhe Power of Kindness, 17
joy of his heart, a few inches beyond the frontier line
that bounded the contiguous farms. Simeon said he
was sorry for the poor bird, and sorry because his wife
and children liked the pretty creature; but otherwise
it was no great matter. He had been intending to
build a poultry yard with a good high fence, that his
hens might not annoy his neighbours; and now he was
admonished to make haste and do it. He would build
them a snug warm house to roost in; they should have
plenty of gravel and oats, and room to walk back and
forth, and crow and cackle to their hearts’ content ;
there they could enjoy themselves, and be out of harm’s
way.
But Reuben Black had a degree of ingenuity and
perseverance which might have produced great results
for mankind had those qualities been devoted to some
more noble purpose than provoking quarrels. A pear
tree in his garden very improperly stretched an arm a
little over Simeon Green’s premises. It happened that
the overhanging bough bore more abundant fruit, and
glowed with a richer hue than the other boughs. One
day little -George Green, as he went whistling along,
picked up a pear that had fallen into his father’s garden.
The instant he touched it, he felt something on the
back of his neck like the sting of a wasp. It was
Reuben Black’s whip, followed by such a storm of
angry words, that the poor child rushed into the house
in an agony of terror. But this experiment failed also.
(149) 9
18 Lhe Power of Kindness.
The boy was soothed by his mother, and told not to
go near the pear tree again; and there the matter
ended.
This imperturbable good nature vexed Reuben more
than all the tricks and taunts he met from others. Evil
efforts he could understand, and repay with compound
interest, but he did not know what to make of this
perpetual forbearance. It seemed to him there must
be something contemptuous in it. He disliked Simeon
more than all the rest of the people put together,
because he made him feel so uncomfortably in the
wrong, and did not afford him the slightest pretext for
complaint. It was annoying to see everything in his
neighbour’s domains looking so happy, and presenting
such a bright contrast to the forlornness of his own.
When their waggons passed each other on the road, it
seemed as if Simeon’s horse tossed his head higher and
flung out his mane, as if he knew he was going by
Reuben Black’s old nag. He often said he supposed
Green covered his house with roses and honeysuckles
on purpose to shame his bare walls. But he did not
care—not he! He was not going to be fool enough to
rot his boards with such stuff. But no one resented his
disparaging remarks, or sought to provoke him in any
way. ‘The rose smiled, the horse neighed, and the calf
capered ; but none of them had the least idea that they
were scorned by Reuben Black. Even the dog had no
malice in | his heart, though he did one night chase
Lhe Power of Kindness. 19
home his geese, and bark at them through the bars
Reuben told his master the next day, and said he
would bring an action against him if he did not keep
that dog at home. Simeon answered very quietly that
he would try to take better care of him. For several
days a strict watch was kept, in hopes Towzer would
worry the geese again; but they paced home undis-
turbed, and not a solitary bow-wow furnished excuse
for a lawsuit. |
The new neighbours not only declined quarrelling,
but they occasionally made positive advanees towards
a friendly relation. Simeon’s wife sent Mrs. Black a
large basketful of very fine plums. Pleased with the
unexpected attention, she cordially replied, “Tell your
mother it was very kind of her, and I am very much
obliged to her.†Reuben, who sat smoking in the
chimney corner, listened to this message for once with-
out any impatience, except whiffing the smoke through
his pipe a little faster and fiercer than usual. But
when the boy was going out of the door, and the
friendly words were repeated, he exclaimed, “ Don’t
make a fool of yourself, Peg. They want to give us a
hint to send a basket of our pears; that’s the upshot of
the business. You may send them a basket, when they
are ripe; for I scorn to be under obligation, especially
to your smooth-tongued folks.†Poor Peggy, whose
heart had been for the moment refreshed by a little act
of kindness, admitted distrust into her bosom, and all
20 The Power of Kindness.
the pleasure she had felt on receiving her neighbour's
present departed.
Not long after this advance toward good neighbour-
hood, some labourers employed by Simeon Green,
passing over a bit of marshy ground with a heavy »
team, stuck fast in a bog occasioned by long continued
rain. The poor oxen were unable to extricate them-
selves, and Simeon ventured to ask assistance from his
waspish neighbour, who was working at a short distance.
Reuben replied gruffly, “ve got enough to do to
attend to my own business.†The civil request that
he might be allowed to use his oxen and chains for a
few minutes being answered in this surly tone, Simeon
silently walked of in search of a more obliging
neighbour. |
The men who had been left waiting with the patient
and suffering oxen scolded about Reuben’s ill nature
when Simeon came back to them, and said they hoped
Reuben would get stuck in the same bog himself.
Their employer rejoined, “If he should, we will do our
duty and help him out.†“There is such a thing as
being too good-natured,†said they. “If Reuben Black
takes the notion that people are afraid of him, it makes
him trample on them worse than ever.â€
“Oh, wait a while,†replied Green, smiling, “T will
kill him before long. Wait and see if I do not kill
him.â€
It chanced soon after, that Reuben’s team did stick
Lhe Power of Kindness. 21
fast in the same bog, as the workmen had wished.
Simeon noticed it from a neighbouring field, and gave
directions that the oxen and chains should be imme-
diately conveyed to his assistance. The men laughed,
shook their heads, and talked about the old hornet,
They, however, cheerfully proceeded to do as their
employer requested. “You are in a bad situation,
neighbour,†said Simeon, as he came alongside the
foundered team ; “but my men are coming with two
yoke of oxen, and I think we shall soon manage to
help you out.†“ You may take your oxen back again,â€
replied Reuben, quickly; “I want none of your. help.â€
In a very friendly tone Simeon answered, “I cannot
consent to do that ; for evening is coming on, and you
nave very little time to lose. It is a bad job at any
time, but it will be still worse in the dark.†“Light
or dark, I do not ask your help,†replied Reuben,
emphatically. “J would not help you out of the bog
the other day when you asked me.†But his good
neighbour replied, “The trouble I had in relieving my
poor oxen teaches me to feel for others in the same
situation. Do not let us waste words about it, neigh-
bour. It is impossible for me to go home and leave
you here in the bog, and night coming on.†|
The team was soon drawn out, and Simeon and his
men went away, without waiting for thanks. When
Reuben went home that night, he was unusually
thoughtful. After smoking awhile in deep contempla-
22 The Power of Kindness.
tion, he gently knocked the ashes from his pipe, and
said, with a sigh, “ Peg, Simeon Green has killed me!â€
“What do you mean?†said his wife, dropping her
knitting with a look of surprise. ‘“ You know, when he
first came into this neighbourhood he said he would
kill me,†replied Reuben; “‘and he has done it. The
other day he asked me to help his team out of the bog,
and I told him I had enough to do to attend to my
own business. To-day my team stuck fast in the same
bog, and he came with two yoke of oxen to draw it
out. I felt ashamed to have him lend me a hand, so
I told him I wanted none of his help, but he answered
just as pleasant as if nothing contrary had happened,
that night was coming on, and he was not willing to
leave mein the mud.†“He isa pleasant spoken man,â€
said Mrs, Black, “and always has a pretty word to say
to the boys. His wife seems to be a nice neighbourly
body, too.†Reuben made no answer ; but after medi-
tating awhile, he remarked, “Peg, you know that big
ripe melon down at the bottom of the garden % you
may as well carry it over there in the morning.†His.
wife said she would, without asking him to explain
where “over there†was.
But when the morning came, Reuben walked back-
wards and forwards, and round and round, with that
sort of aimless activity often manifested by fowls, and
fashionable idlers, who feel restless, and do not know
what to run after. At length the cause of his uncer.
Lhe Power of Kindness. 23
tain movements was explained. “I may as well carry
the melon myself, and thank him for his oxen. In my
flurry down there in the marsh, I forgot to say that I
was obliged to him.â€
He marched off toward the garden, and his wife stood
at the door, with her hand shading the sun from her
eyes, to see if he would carry the melon into Simeon
Green’s house. It was the most remarkable incident
that had ever happened since her marriage. She could
hardly believe her own eyes. He walked quickly, as if
afraid he should not be able to carry the unusual im-
pulse into action if he stopped to re-consider the
question. When he got into Mr. Green’s house, he felt
extremely awkward, and hastened to say, “Mrs. Green,
here is a melon my wife sent to you, and we think it is
a ripe one.†Without manifesting any surprise at such
unexpected courtesy, the friendly matron thanked him,
and invited him to sit down. But he stood playing
with the latch of the door, and without raising his eyes
said, “ Maybe Mr. Green is not in this morning ?â€
“He is at the pump, and will be in directly,†she
replied ; and before her words were spoken, the honest
man walked in, with a face as fresh and bright asa
June morning. He stepped right up to Reuben, shook
his hand cordially, and said, “I am glad to see you,
neighbour. Take a chair—take a chair.â€
“Thank you, I cannot stop,†replied Reuben. He
pushed his hat on one side, rubbed his head, looked
24 The Power of Kindness.
out of the window, and then said suddenly, as if by a
desperate effort,—“The fact is, Mr. Green, I did not
behave right about the oxen.â€
“Never mind—never mind,†replied Mr. Green.
“Perhaps I shall get into the bog again, one of these
rainy days. If I do, I shall know whom to call
upon.†:
“Why, you see,†said Reuben, still very much con-—
fused, and avoiding Simeon’s mild clear eye—“you see
the neighbours here are very provoking. If I had
always lived by such neighbours as you are, I should
not be just as Tam.â€
“Ah, well, we must try to be to others what we
want them to be to us,†rejoined Simeon. “You know
the good Book says so. I have learned by experience,
that if we speak kind words, we hear kind echoes. If
we try to make others happy, it fills them with a wish
to make us happy. Perhaps you and I can bring the
neighbours round in time to this way of thinking and
acting. Who knows ?—let us try, Mr. Black, let us
try. But come and look at my orchard. I want to
show you a tree which I have grafted with very choice ~
apples. If you like, I will procure you some cuttings
from the same stock.â€
They went into the orchard together, and friendly
chat soon put Reuben at his ease. When he returned
home, he made no remarks about his visit ; for he could
not, as yet, summon sufficient greatness of mind to tell
Cee en eet iota
SEER CAS
ae
THIS MORNIN
IN
iS NOT
MAYBE MR GREEN
<é
The Power of Kindness. 28
his wife that he had confessed himself in the wrong.
A gun stood behind the kitchen door, in readiness to
shoot Mr. Green’s dog for having barked at his horse.
He now fired the contents into the air, and put the gun
away into the barn. From that day henceforth, he
never sought for any pretext to quarrel with the dog or
- his master. A short time after, Joe Smith, to his utter
astonishment, saw him pat Towzer on the head, and
heard him say, “Good fellow!
Simeon Green was too magnanimous to repeat t to any
|?
one that his quarrelsome neighbour had confessed him-
self to blame. He merely smiled as he said to his
wife, “I thought we should kill him after a while.â€
Joe Smith did not believe in such doctrines. When
he heard of the adventures in the marsh, he said, “Sim —
Green is a fool. When he first came here, he talked very
_ big about killing folks, if they did not mind their P's
and Q’s. But he does not appear to have as much spirit
as a worm; for a worm will turn when it is trod upon.â€
Poor Joe had grown more intemperate and more
quarrelsome, till at last nobody would employ him. —
About a ‘year after the memorable incident of the
water-melon, some one stole several valuable hides from
Mr. Green. He did not mention the circumstance to
any one but his wife; and they both had reason for
suspecting that Joe was the thief. The next week the
following anonymous advertisement appeared in the
newspaper of the county :—
26 Lhe Power of Kindness.
“Whoever stole a lot of hides on Friday night, the
Sth of the present month, is hereby informed that the
owner has a sincere wish to be his friend. If poverty
tempted him to this false step, the owner will keep the
whole transaction a secret, and will gladly put him in
the way of obtaining money by means more likely to
bring him peace of mind.â€
This singular advertisement, of course, excited a good
deal of remark. There was much debate whether or
not the thief would avail himself of the friendly offer.
Some said he would be a greenhorn if he did; for it
was manifestly a trap to catch him. But he who had
committed the dishonest deed alone knew whence that
benevolent offer came, and he knew that Simeon Green
was not a man to set traps for his fellow-creatures, _
A few nights afterwards, a timid knock was heard. xt
Simeon’s door, just as the family were retiring to rest.
When the door was opened, Joe Smith was seen on the
steps, with a load of hides on his shoulders, Without
raising his eyes, he said, in a low humble tone, “T
have brought them back, Mr. Green. Where shall I
put them 2?†.
“Wait a moment till I can light a lantern, and I
will go to the barn with you,†he replied, “Then you
will come in, and tell me how it happened.—We will
see what can be done for you.â€
Mrs. Green knew that Joe often went hungry, and
had become accustomed to the stimulus of gin, She
Lhé Power of Kindness. 27
therefore hastened to make hot coffee, and brought from
the closet some cold meat-pie.
When they returned from the barn, she said, “I
thought you might feel better for a little warm supper,
neighbour Smith.†Joe turned his back towards her,
and did not speak. He leaned his head ayvainst the
chimney, and after a moment’s silence, he said, in a
choked voice, “It was the first time I ever stole any-
thing, and I have felt very bad about it. I do not
know how it is. I did not think, once, I should ever
come to be what Iam. But I took to quarrelling, and
then to drinking. Since I began to go down hill, every
body gives me a kick. You are the first man that has
offered me a helping hand. My wife is feeble, and my
children are starving. You have sent them many a
meal, God bless you! and yet I stole the hides from
you, meaning to sell them the first chance I could get.
But I tell you, Mr. Green, it is the first time I ever
deserved the name of thief.â€
“‘ Let it be the last, my friend,†said Simeon, pressing
. his hand kindly. “The secret shall remain between
ourselves. You are young, and can make up lost time.
Come now, give me a promise that you will not drink
one drop of intoxicating liquor for a year, and I will
employ you, to-morrow, at good wages. Mary will see
to your family early in the morning, and perhaps we
may find some employment for them also. The little
boy can at least pick up stones. But eat a bit now,
28 The Power of Kindness.
and drink some hot coffee. It will keep you from
wanting to drink anything stronger to-night. You will
find it hard to abstain at first, Joseph; but keep up a
brave heart, for the sake of your wife and children, and
it will soon become easy. When you feel the need of
coffee, tell my Mary, and she will always give it you.â€
Joe tried to eat and drink, but the food seemed to
choke him. He was nervous and excited. After an
ineffectual effort to compose himself, he laid his head
on the table, and wept like a child.
After a while, Simeon persuaded him to bathe his
head in cold water, and he ate and drank with good
appetite. When he went away, the kind-hearted host
said, “Try to do well, Joseph, and you shall always
find a friend in me.â€
The poor fellow pressed his hand, and replied, “I
understand now how it is you kill bad neighbours.â€
He entered into Mr. Green’s service the next day,
and remained in it many years, an honest and faithful
man.
How happily does this beautiful narrative illustrate
the power of kindness in subduing the most unlovely
and unamiable of human passions! It might be styled
the triumph of love. Simeon Green, simply provided
with the weapon of kindness, disarmed the churlishness
and evil passions of his neighbours. It is a fine ex-
ample of the practical efficacy of Christian principle,
The Power of Kindness. 29
which does not expend itself in mere words, or exhaust
itself in a single effort, but by patient continuance in
the work of charity and love is sure at last to triumph.
The case was, in all reasonable probability, a most un-
promising one. The disposition and temper of Reuben
Black, though such as is unhappily by no means rare
in this world, seemed such as the man of peace could
only escape from by getting beyond its reach. But
Simeon knew of a power more potent than malignity
and revenge, and had learned the lesson of “ killing his
enemy,†as a Christian only may, by acts of kindness.
Yet even Christian love may fail. The great pattern
of all love, the divine manifestation of the perfection
of generous self-sacrifice—the God-man, Christ Jesus,
when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he was
mocked, and scourged, and crowned with thorns, and
at length nailed to the tree, suffered in patience, pray-
ing for the forgiveness of his murderers; yet he sub-
dued not all his enemies by his love. There was a
Judas even among the twelve. There were faint-
hearted and faithless ones among the disciples, and
there were thousands, fed, and healed, and refreshed
by his miracles, who shouted, “Away with him!
Crucify him!†who felt no sympathy for him at the
judgment bar, and no sorrow for him on the cross of
Calvary. We must not therefore be discouraged, or
think our efforts have been altogether in vain, even if we
should lavish kind attentions and generous deeds on
30 Lhe Power of Kindness.
neighbours and companions as ungentle and churlish as
Reuben Black, and find that all our self-sacrifice has
been in vain. We must not weary in well-doing, since
we may rest assured that our forbearance and kindness,
if it fail to soften the churl, and kindle a return of
gratitude or a sense of shame in his rude breast, will
at any rate return into our own bosoms with a sense
of virtuous triumph, the sweetness of which contrasts
strangely, indeed, with the remorseful victory of revenge.
The Bible tells us that the divine Redeemer came
to set us an example, that we should follow in his steps.
When we read of his patient sufferings, his miracles of
healing, his casting out of evil spirits, his raising the
dead, it seems as if it were altogether vain that we
should attempt to imitate him. Yet the command is
a most simple one,—“ Let the same mind be in you
that was in Christ Jesus, who, when he was reviled,
reviled not again; when he suffered, threatened not,
but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.â€
The conduct of Simeon Green is a most happy illustra-
tion of one of the ways in which this spirit of love will
manifest itself, and though it may not always have its
return in such visible fruits upon the object against
whom such missiles of love are directed, yet we may
rest assured that patience hath her perfect work, and
love will have its triumph and its own sweet reward.
- Yet it is well calculated to fill the carnal mind with
surprise, when the powerful efficacy of such love is
The Power of Kindness. 31
discovered. Reuben Black is no solitary instance of
victory achieved, by such means, over the most morose
and stubborn self-will.
Bishop Latimer tells us, in one of his sermons on
the Lord’s Prayer, of an incident in the life of the well-
known Humphrey Monmouth, the wealthy alderman
and sheriff of London, whom George Harvey has re-
presented as one of the most prominent figures intro-
duced by him in the group of citizens represented in
his noble picture of “The first reading of the Bible in
the crypt of Old St. Paul’s:â€â€”
“Sheriff Monmouth had a poor neighbour, to whom
he had shown many acts of kindness. But the good
alderman became a Protestant, and his neighbour
thenceforth regarded him as an heretic and an enemy,
and would turn aside if he saw him in the street, lest
he should speak to him. ‘One time it happened,’ says
| Latimer, ‘that the alderman met him in so narrow a
street, that he could not shun him but must come
near him; yet for all this, this poor man was minded
to go forward, and not to speak with him. The rich
man perceiving that, caught him by the hand, and
asked him, saying, ‘ Neighbour, what is come into your
heart, to take such displeasure with me? What have
I done against thee? Tell me, and I will be ready at
all times to make you amends,’’
“Finally, he spoke so gently, so charitably, and
32 Lhe Power of Kindness.
friendly, that it wrought in the poor man’s heart, so
that by-and-by he fell down upon his knees, and asked
his forgiveness. The rich man forgave him, and took
him again into his favour, and they loved each other
as well as ever they did before.â€
Still simpler is the following little incident, illustra-
tive of the same power of love :—
“A neighbour sent his servant to John Bruen, Esq.
of Bruen, requesting him never to set a foot upon his
ground; to whom he sent this reply,—‘If it please
your master to walk upon my grounds, he shall be very
welcome; but if he please to come to my house, he
shall be still more welcome. By thus heaping coals
of fire upon his head, he won him over to love and
tenderness, and made him his cordial friend.â€
The story of Simeon Green’s mode of dealing with
his churlish neighbour, with which we have introduced
the illustrations of this chapter, in exhibition of the
power of kindness, finds a very striking parallel in the
following brief incident of an occurrence in the State
of Massachusetts, in the United States, It does not,
indeed, display the patient hope and long watching by
which Simeon at length overcame his neighbour; but
it shows most effectually how, actuated by the same
spirit, a “soft answer turneth away wrath :â€â€”
“The horse of a worthy and pious farmer in Massa-
Lhe Power of Kindness. 33
chusetts happening to stray into the road, a neighbour
of the man who owned the horse put him into the
pound. Meeting the owner soon after, he told him
what he had done, ‘And if I catch him in the road
again,’ said he, ‘T'll do it again.’ ‘Neighbour,’ replied
the other, ‘not long since I looked out of my window
in the night, and saw your cattle in my meadow, and
I drove them out and shut them in your yard; and T’ll
do it again.’ Struck with the reply, the man liberated
the horse from the pound, and paid the charges himself.â€
Another anecdote, illustrating the fruits of the same
lovely spirit, was thus related by a farmer in New.
Jersey, when describing the nature of his intercourse.
with his neighbour :—
“T once owned a large flock of hens. I generally
kept them shut up; but, one spring, I concluded to
let them run in my yard, after I had clipped their
wings, so that they could not fly. One day, when I
came home to dinner, I learned that one of my neigh-
bours had been there, full of wrath, to let me know my
hens had been in his garden, and that he had killed
several of them, and thrown them over into my
yard. I was greatly enraged because he had killed
my beautiful hens, which I valued so much. I deter-
mined, at once, to be revenged—to sue him, or in some
other way get redress. I sat down and ate my dinner
as calmly as I could. By the time I had finished my
(149) 3
34 The Power of Kindness.
-meal I became more cool, and thought that perhaps it
was not the best plan I could devise to fight with my
neighbour about hens, and thereby make him my bitter,
lasting enemy. I concluded to try another way, being
sure that it would do better.
“ After dinner, I went to his house. He was in his
garden. I stepped out, and found him in pursuit of
one of my hens with a club, trying to kill it. I
accosted him. He turned upon me, his face inflamed
with wrath, and broke out in a great fury,—
“
if I can get at them. I never was so injured. My
garden is ruined.’
“¢T am very sorry for it,’ said I. ‘I did not wish
to injure you, and now see that I have made a great
mistake in letting out my hens. I ask your forgive-
ness, and am willing to pay you six times the damage.’
“The man seemed confounded. He did not know
what to make of it. He looked up to the sky—then
down to the earth—then at me—then at his club—
and then at the poor hen he had been pursuing, and
said nothing,
“*Tell me now,’ said I, ‘what is the damage, and I
will pay you; and my hens shall trouble you no more.
I will leave it entirely to you to say what I shall do.
I cannot afford to lose the good will of my neighbours,
and quarrel with them, for hens, or anything else.’
“
lhe Power of Kindness. 35
damage is not worth talking about; and I have far
more need to compensate you, than you me, and to ask
your forgiveness than to receive it.’ â€
Rare as it is to find this spirit of forgiveness and
love actuating men, such examples are much more fre-
quent than we are perhaps apt to conceive, since they
are not of the class of incidents which make the greatest
show, or attract the most general attention. We shall
select a few more of these homely but delightful evi-
dences of the triumph of kindness over the most stub-
born natures, with which to conclude this chapter :—
“A lady residing in a country town had repeatedly
treated a young man whom she met with in the social
circles of the neighbourhood with marked contempt
and unkindness, Neither of them moved in the
higher circles of society; but the lady, without cause,
took numerous occasions to cast reproachful reflections
on the young man as beneath her notice, and unfit to
be treated with common respect. This lady had the
misfortune to meet with a considerable loss in the
destruction of a valuable chaise, occasioned by the
running away of the horse. She had borrowed the
horse and vehicle, and was required to make good the
damage. This was a serious draft on her pecuniary
resources, and she felt much distressed by her ill
fortune. The young man, being of a kind and
generous disposition, and determined to return good
36 The Power of Kindness.
for evil, instantly set himself about collecting money
for her relief. Subscribing liberally himself, and
actively soliciting others, he soon made up a generous
sum, and before she became aware of his movement,
appeared before her and placed the money modestly at
her disposal. She was thunderstruck. He left her
without waiting for thanks or commendation. She
was entirely overcome, and wept like a child.â€
There is a name—that of William Ladd—well
known throughout the whole United States of America
as that of the great advocate of the principles of uni-
versal peace, in opposition to armed conventions, offen-
sive wars, and all the false ideas of military glory, and
the bloody and impure honours of war. The Apostle
of Peace, as he is very frequently styled, used to relate
the following anecdote of his own personal experience, to
prove the most effective way of subduing our enemies :-—
“I had,†he was wont to say, “a fine field of grain
growing upon an out-farm at some distance from the
homestead. Whenever I rode by, I saw my neighbour
Pulsifer’s sheep in the lot, destroying my hopes of a
harvest. These sheep were of the gaunt, long-legged
kind, active as spaniels ; they would spring over the
highest fence, and no partition-wall could keep them
out. J complained to neighbour Pulsifer about them,
sent him frequent messages, but all without avail.
Perhaps they would be kept out for a day or two; but
Lhe Power of Kindness. 37
the legs of his sheep were long, and my grain more
tempting than the adjoining pasture. I rode by again
——the sheep were still there; I became angry, and told
my men to set the dogs on them; and if that would
not do, I would pay them if they would shoot the
sheep.
“I rode away much agitated; for I was not so much
of a peace man then as I am now, and I felt literally
full of fight. All at once a light flashed in upon me.
I asked myself, ‘Would it not be well for you to try
in your own conduct the peace principle you are teach-
ing to others?’ I thought it all over, and settled
down in my mind as to the best course to be pursued.
“The next day I rode over to see neighbour Pulsifer,
I found him chopping wood at his door. ‘Good morn-
ing, neighbour!’ No answer. ‘Good morning!’ I
repeated. He gave a kind of grunt without looking
up. ‘I came,’ continued I, ‘to see about the sheep.’
At this, he threw down his axe, and exclaimed, in an
angry manner, ‘ Now, arn’t you a pretty neighbour, to
tell your men to kill my sheep? I heard of it ; a rich
man, like you, to shoot a poor man’s sheep !â€
“Twas wrong, neighbour !’ said I ; ‘but it won’t do
to let your sheep eat up all that grain ; so I came over
to say, that I would take your sheep to my homestead
pasture, and put them in with mine; and in the fall
you may take them back ; and if any one is missing,
you may take your pick out of my whole flock.’
38 | Lhe Power of Kindness.
“ Pulsifer looked confounded ; he did not know how
to take me. At last he stammered out, ‘ Now, Squire,
are you in earnest?’ ‘Certainly I am,’ I answered ; ‘it
is better for me to feed your sheep in my pasture on
grass, than to feed them here on grain; and I see the
fence can’t keep them out.’ ;
“ After a moment’s silence, ‘The sheep shan’t trouble
you any more,’ exclaimed Pulsifer. ‘I will fetter them
all, But I'll let you know that, when any man talks of
shooting, I can shoot too; and when they are kind and
neighbourly, I can be kind too.†The sheep never
again trespassed on my lot. And, my friends,†he would
continue, addressing the audience, “remember that
when you talk of injuring your neighbours, they will
talk of injuring you. When nations threaten to fight,
other nations will be ready too. Love will beget love ;
a wish to be at peace will keep you in peace. You can
overcome evil with good. There is no other way.â€
Another pleasant example will suffice to show the
reward which the generous heart receives in returning
good for evil :—
“A Christian farmer in Jersey had a neighbour of
such a malevolent character as made him a plague and
terror to those with whom he became offended.
“One day he found the hogs of this good neighbour
in his corn-field) He drove them out, and came to
their owner in a storm of passion, making a great bluster
Lhe Power of Kindness. 39
about the damage done to his crop. ‘If I ever see
them in my corn again,’ said he, ‘T’ll £22 them—that
T will,’
“The good man kept calm as a summer’s evening,
and said nothing but what was kind and good-natured
in reply.
“Farmer Ward, after he had spent all his fury, went
off very much vexed to see that none of it took
effect.
“The good man shut up his swine at once; but,
impatient for their favourite and new-found food, they
soon made their escape, and got into the same corn-
field again without the knowledge of their owner.
“Mr. Ward discovered them, and at once attacked
them, slaughtering three or four of them before they
could make their retreat. Then, to aggravate his
neighbour’s feelings to the utmost, he put the dead
bodies on a cart, and drew them over to his house. He
threw them down before the door, saying, with sarcastic
bitterness, ‘Your hogs got into my corn again, and I
thought I would bring them home !’
“The owner of the swine kept perfectly cool, giving
no look or word of resentment at the injury done to him.
He might have gone to law with Mr. Ward, and per-
haps made him smart severely for destroying his pro-
perty and insulting him as he did. But he thought it
best to keep out of the law.
“The next year he himself had a corn-field situated
40 The Power of Kindness.
in a similar way beside the road. Now, it so happened
that neighbour Ward had some unruly swine running
in the street, which got into the good man’s corn-field,
and committed a depredation similar to that which his
had done in Mr. Ward’s field the year before. He
went and told him what mischief his vagrant swine had
done, and requested him to shut them up. But he
paid no attention to the request.
_ “Soon after, the farmer discovered them in the same
field again, and he hit on a good-natured and witty
expedient of being revenged on his neighbour. Instead
of killing them and carrying them home dead, he
caught them, tied their legs carefully, and drew them
with his team to their owner’s door. ‘N eighbour,’ said
he, ‘I found your hogs in my corn again, and I thought
[ would bring them home !?
“Never was a man more completely confounded !
He saw the wide difference between his neighbour’s
conduct and his own. It was too much. He told his
neighbour that he was very sorry, and that he would
pay all damages the hogs had done. He offered to pay
him, too, for the hogs he had killed the year before !
‘No,’ replied the other, ‘I shall make no account of the
damages your hogs nave done ; and I shall take nothing
for what you did to mine. TI let that pass,’
“Mr. Ward was completely overcome. He was ever
alter as kind and forbearing to his Christian neighbour
as he had been mischievous and cruel before.â€
Lhe Power of Kindness. AI
We shall only add one more anecdote. It occurred
among a band of settlers who went to establish them-
selves in the great wilderness of the backwoods of
America, They were a party of nearly forty emigrants,
who were united together by higher principles than
mere gain, being, like the old Pilgrim Fathers of New
England, a little colony of Christian wayfarers, who
sought a home in the wilderness, The account of their
experience in their new settlement was related to Mrs.
Child by one of the colonists; and is thus told by her:—
“Rich in divine knowledge, this little band started
for the far west. They were industrious and frugal,
and all things prospered under their hands. But soon
wolves came near the fold, in the shape of reckless
unprincipled adventurers ; believers in force and cun-
ning, who acted according to their creed. The colony
of practical Christians spoke of their depredations in
terms of gentlest remonstrance, and repaid them with
kindness. They went farther—they openly announced,
‘You may do us what evil you choose ; we will return
nothing but good.’ Lawyers came into the neighbour-
hood, and offered their services to settle disputes.
They answered, ‘We have no need. As neighbours, we
receive you in the most friendly spirit ; but for us, your
occupation has ceased to exist.’ ‘What will you do, if
rascals burn your barns, and steal your harvests ?’? ‘We
will return good for evil. We believe this is the high-
est truth, and therefore the best expediency.’
42 Lhe Power of Kindness.
“When the rascals heard this, they considered it a
marvellous good joke, and said and did many provok-
ing things, which to them seemed witty. Bars were
taken down in the night, and cows let into the corn-
fields. The Christians repaired the damage as well as
they could, put the cows in the barn, and at twilight
drove them gently home; saying, ‘Neighbour, your
cows have been in my field. I have fed them well
during the day, but I would not keep them all night,
lest the children should suffer for want of their milk.’
“If this was fun, those who planned the joke found
no heart to laugh at it. By degrees a visible change
came over these troublesome neighbours. They ceased
to cut off horses’ tails, and break the legs of poultry.
Rude boys would say to a younger brother, ‘Don’t
throw that stone, Bill! When I killed the chicken
last week, didn’t they send it to mother, because they
thought chicken-broth would be good for poor Mary ?
I should think you’d be ashamed to throw stones at
their chickens,’ Thus was evil overcome with good ;
till not one was found to do them wilful injury.
“Years passed on, and saw them thriving in worldly
substance beyond their neighbours, yet beloved by all.
From them the lawyer and the constable obtained no
fees. The sheriff stammered and apologized when he
took their hard-earned goods in payment for the war
tax. They mildly replied, ‘’Tis a bad trade, friend.
Examine it in the light of conscience and see if it be
Lhe Power of Kindness. 43
not so.’ But while they refused to pay such fees and
taxes, they were liberal to a proverb in their contribu-
tions for all useful and benevolent purposes.
“At the end of ten years, the public lands, which
they had chosen for their farms, were advertised for
sale at auction. According to custom, those who had
settled and cultivated the soil, were considered to have
a right to bid it in at the government price ; which at
that time was seven shillings per acre. But the fever
of land speculation then chanced to run unusually high.
Adventurers from all parts of the country were flocking
to the auction; and capitalists in Baltimore, Phila-
delphia, New York, and Boston, were sending agents to
buy up western lands. No one supposed that custom
or equity would be regarded. The first day’s sale
showed that speculation ran to the verge of insanity.
Land was eagerly bought in at seventeen, twenty-five,
and forty dollars an acre. The Christian colony had
small hope of retaining their farms. As first settlers,
they had chosen the best land; and persevering in-
dustry had brought it into the highest cultivation. Its
market-value was much greater than the acres already
sold at exorbitant prices. In view of these facts, they
had prepared their minds for another remove into the —
wilderness, perhaps to be again ejected by a similar
process. But the morning their lot was offered for sale,
they observed, with grateful surprise, that their neigh-
bours were everywhere busy among the crowd, begging
44 The Power of K indness.
and expostulating : ‘Don’t bid on these lands! These
men have been working hard on them for ten years.
During all that time they never did harm to man or
brute. They are always ready to do good for evil.
They are a blessing to any neighbourhood. It would
be a sin and a shame to bid on their land. -Let them
go at the government price.’
“The sale came on ; the cultivators of the soil offered
seven shillings ; intending to bid higher if necessary.
But among all that crowd of selfish, reckless speculators,
not one bid over them! Without one opposing voice,
the fair acres returned to them! I do not know a
_ more remarkable instance of evil overcome with good.â€
In all these examples of the power of kindness we see
the true spirit of Christianity, and the fruits of that
perfect law of love, the full manifestation of which has
only once been witnessed by men—in Him who, though
he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we,
through his poverty, might be made rich ; even our
Divine Redeemer, who purchased eternal life for us by
his sufferings and death. Yet this spirit of love which
reigns throughout the New Testament is not wanting
in the Old. Few more beautiful examples of it occur
than the touching appeal to the Prophet Jonah, which
closes the brief narrative of his mission to Nineveh.
“And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry ?
Thou hast had pity on the gourd for the which thou
Lhe Power of Kindness. 45
hast not laboured, neither madest it grow ; which came
up in a night and perished in a night: and should not
I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than:
six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between
their right hand and their left hand; and also much
cattle?†But, indeed, the spirit of love and mercy
pervades the whole Bible ; being one of the most pro-
minent of the Divine attributes which shines through
the providential dealings of God in the Old Testament
history as well as in that of the New. It is a striking
proof of its Divine origin, to observe how completely it
secures the admiration of the most hardened and merci-
less of men when manifested in its true character. By
such means it was that Penn secured the affections, and
won the entire confidence, of the untutored Red Indians ;
so that peace was maintained with his settlement when
all the surrounding colonies were exposed to incessant
treachery and slaughter. The power of kindness has
even proved potent to overcome the hardened criminal
and the hopeless maniac ; so that the discipline of the
prison, and the conduct of the lunatic asylum, have
been modelled anew, with the happiest effects, in
accordance with the manifestations of Divine govern-
ment visible in all God’s works. Hope has once more
gilded the dark prison-house and the maniac’s cell ;
and there also it has been proved that love never
fails,
‘*T crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
Of long, uninterrupted evening know.â€
COWPER.
tinguishing privileges of man, compared
with the inferior creatures endowed with
life by the same Divine Creator, and of civilized man,
in contrast with the savage. It originates no less
essentially in the law of kindness and love, which
begets commiseration for the afflictions of others,
than the forbearance and generous self-denial exem-
plified in the previous chapter. The duties of obedience
and honour to parents are enforced in the same divinely-
instituted code of laws which require the rendering of
love and reverent obedience to God. The Divine
Redeemer, amid all the wonderful manifestations of
Lhe Happy Home. 47
perfect love which he exhibited on earth, set us also an
example in the rendering of obedience and untiring love
to our parents. It is exhibited along with the earliest
manifestation of the Divine nature of the child Jesus.
“His parents went to Jerusalem every year at. the feast
of the passover. And when he was twelve years old,
they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the
feast. When they had fulfilled the days, as they
returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem ;
and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they,
supposing him to have been in the company, went a
day’s Journey; and they sought him among their kins-
folk and acquaintance. When they found him not,
they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And
it came to pass, that after three days they found him
in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both
hearing them and asking them questions. And all
that heard him were astonished at his understanding
and answers. When they saw him, they were amazed :
and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus
dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought
thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that
ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my
Father’s business ?â€
Here the reference is not to his reputed father
Joseph, but to the first person of the Godhead, with
whom the child Jesus was one in his Divine nature,
though he had humbled himself, and for our sakes
48 Lhe Happy Home.
assumed the human form. But then it is added
immediately afterwards: “And he went down with
them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto
them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her
heart.†This was the first exhibition of filial obedience
to his earthly parents which is recorded of the Re-
deemer. The last is still more touching and memorable.
‘When the weary pilgrimage of the Man of Sorrows
was drawing to a close ; when the last passover had
been eaten with his disciples ; when the kiss of Judas
had been received by which he was betrayed ; and de-
serted by all who had seemed most faithful, he had
stood at Pilate’s bar: had been mocked, scourged,
crowned with thorns, and at length led away to the
cross of Calvary, and nailed on the accursed tree ;—
the Apostle John relates—“ Now there stood by the
cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary
the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When
Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple
standing by whom he loved, he saith unto his mother,
Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the
disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour
that disciple took her unto his own home.â€
In that last hour, when earth and hell were combined
against the Redeemer of mankind, and in agony of soul
he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou for-
saken me?†yet even then we find him looking with
compassion upon her, the highly-favoured among women
Lhe Happy Home. 4S
—the mother of that human nature so mysteriously
linked with the divine. It was the hour of fulfilment
of the prophecy of the aged Simeon, when he held the
infant Saviour in his arms, “Yea, a sword shall pierce
through thine own soul also.†This manifestation of
filial tenderness and compassionate love appears to have
been the very last act of Christ in fulfilment of his
earthly mission. Immediately thereafter, the evan-
gelist remarks: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all
things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might
be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.†And when the last pro-
phecy had been accomplished, even to the minutest title
of Old Testament records, and the dying Saviour had
received the vinegar from the Roman soldier, he said,
“Tt is finished, and gave up the ghost.†Familiarity
is apt to lessen the influence of the most remarkable
lessons of Scripture. Enjoying the privileges of daily
reading and hearing the word of God, we grow so
accustomed to its lessons, that we forget all their power.
When we dwell upon the remarkable incidents of this
wonderful narrative of Christ’s last sufferings, and of
the final ‘manifestation of his filial love, we ought to
feel constrained to cry out, like the Roman centurion,
“Truly this was a righteous man ;†still more, ‘“‘ This
was the Son of God.†Let the same spirit that was
in him be in us—a spirit of holy obedience to God,
and of love to man. | |
The illustrations of filial and parental affection are
(149) 4
50 The Happy Home.
happily so numerous that volumes might be filled with
them. Not a chapter, indeed, but a work might be
written under the two titles of the happy and the un-
happy home ;—the home in which the spirit of kind-
ness and the law of love prevail,—and that in which
divisions, angry passions, and the consequent strife
which results from these, convert the true arena of do-
mestic joys into the scene of greatest misery. The
first and happiest of all human homes was that which
God created in the garden of Eden; and it serves as
an illustration of all others. Sin intruded upon it, and
then followed strife, jealousies, quarrelings, and at last
murder. One brother rose up against the other, and
Cain became a wanderer and a vagabond on the earth,
while the blood of his brother called out against him
from the ground, where it had been impiously spilled.
Yet though sin has marred so much of the loveliness
of creation, and has intruded on the perfect happiness
of that domestic life created by God for the complete
interchange of love, yet somewhat of its spirit still
survives, and the Christian poet has justly exclaimed :-—_
‘* Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of paradise, that has survived the fall
Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure,
Or tasting, long enjoy thee! Too infirm,
Or too incautious, to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitter, which neglect
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup.
Thou art the nurse of virtue; in thine arms
She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is,
Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again.
lhe Happy Home. ‘51
Thou art not known where pleasure is adored,—
That reeling goddess, with the zoneless waist
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm
Of novelty, her fickle, frail support;
For thou art meek and constant, hating change,
And finding in the calm of truth-tried love,
Joy that her stormy raptures never yield! "
On no single principle does this precious gift of a
happy home so entirely depend as on the self-denying
spirit of each preferring another better than himself.
It was by such a spirit that the good Philip Henry
made the domestic circle at Broad Oak one of the
fairest exhibitions of family peace and mutual forbear-
ance which English biography records. One of his
biographers remarks :— | |
“The scene of domestic happiness and piety which
the Broad Oak family presented, was one of the love-
liest examples of virtuous contentment and kindly
aifections that was probably ever exhibited among the
happy ‘homes of England,’ Everything moved in
well-ordered harmony and peace ; no discords jarring
its sweet melody. Of the genial domestic piety, and
the sweet interchange of Christian sympathy which
bound him and his wife. so closely together, some idea
may be formed from the following remarks of his son.
After referring to the following reflection of his father
as to secret prayer, ‘There are two doors to be shut
when we go to prayer; the door of our closet, that we
may be secret ; the door of our hearts, that we may be
52 The Happy Home.
serious ;’ Matthew Henry adds, ‘Besides this he and
his wife constantly prayed together morning and
evening ; and never, if they were together, at home or
abroad, was it intermitted: and from his own experi-
ence of the benefit of this practice, he would take all
opportunities to recommend it to those in that relation,
as conducing very much to the comfort of it, and to
their furtherance in that which, he would often say, is
the great duty of yoke-fellows ; and that is, to do all
they can to help one another to heaven. He would
say, that this duty of husbands and wives praying
together is intimated in that of the apostle, where they
are exhorted to ‘live as heirs together of the grace of
lite, that their prayers’— especially their prayers
together—‘be not hindered ;’ that nothing may be
done to hinder them from praying together, nor to
hinder them in it, nor to spoil the success of those
prayers. ‘This sanctifies the relation and fetcheth in
a blessing upon it, makes the comforts of it the more
sweet, and the cares and crosses of it the more easy,
and is an excellent means of preserving and increasing
love in the relation.â€
In a family where such Christian principles reign, as
the actuating principle of each of its members, self-
denial becomes a habitual and an easy duty. Some-
times, however, the Christian is forced to exhibit a self-
‘lenying love, that seems to rob the objects of his affec-
Lhe Happy Home. 53
tion of that which they have a right to, and therefore
seems the most difficult of all duties to practise.
“ A poor negro woman, in the island of Jamaica, was
much valued by the family in which she lived for the
fidelity she had shown in all her duties. They became
so pleased with her conduct, that she was at length
promised liberty, not only for herself, but for her large
family of children. Orders were given for the papers
to be drawn up, which, when they were signed, would
set her free. We may well conceive how it rejoiced
her heart to think that herself and children would
soon be slaves no longer.
“ About this time she was led to attend the preach-
ing of the gospel. Her master was not a pious man,
nor did he wish his slaves to be taught ; and when he
found out that his negro servant went to hear the
missionaries, he was angry. He thought that slaves
had nothing to do with religion ; and threatened, if
she did not give up her attendance on the preaching,
she should not have her promised liberty. The negress
was ready to obey her master in all things that were
right ; but, in this matter, she had already learned
that she must ‘obey God rather than man.’ She had
been brought to love Christ as her Saviour, how, then,
could she keep away from the house of God! Her
master severely reproached her, saying that she was
without a mother’s affection, for, by her obstinate
54 | Lhe Happy Home.
conduct, she would deprive her children of their
freedom. How hard was the trial here of a Christian
mother’s love! It is difficult, indeed, for us fully to
comprehend the painful trial involved in such a conflict.
But she knew that the self-denial which was to rob
both herself and her children of their liberty was a
duty even to them. She sought counsel and direction
in prayer to him who could alone direct and support
her through such a trial. Tears flowed down her dark
cheeks, but she was firm. A few days were given her
to consider whether she would leave the preaching of
the gospel, or remain a slave for life. At the appointed
time she was called into the presence of her master.
The papers which would restore her aud her children
to liberty were shown her, and the terms again pro-—
posed. In prayer she had found grace for this time of
trial: tears fell from her eyes as she said, ‘Massa, me
want to be free, but me cannot deny my Saviour.’
The master, overcome with rage, told her to take up
the papers from the table, and throw them into the
fire. She did so, and saw them destroyed in a moment:
she then returned to her work as a slave, and the
mother of slaves. Yet, would it have been the love of
a mother, even for the freedom of her children, to have
denied the Lord that bought her, and winning their
liberty from man, to have cast from her the liberty
wherewith Christ makes his people free 2
“This proof of Christian steadfastness became known
The Happy Home. 55
to the wife of a missionary. She made great efforts on
behalf of the negro mother ; and, through the blessing
of God, she at last obtained freedom for all the family.â€
It may not be out of place to contrast, with the
anguish of the poor West Indian negress, the last part-
ing scene of an English family, born in a station as
pre-eminently exalted as that of the Christian negress
was humble and degraded. The scene is the palace
of Whitehall ; the period the 29th of January 1649,
the day after doom had been pronounced on the
monarch of England. It tells so keenly of loving
hearts and human affections mingling amid the sternest
deeds of unrelenting justice and retribution, that it may
most fitly find a place here, though the self-denial in-
culcated by the king on his infant son may perhaps
appear a mean sacrifice, if we compare it with that
which the poor negress made in her fidelity to a Divine
Master and King :—
“Charles was then a prisoner in what was once his
royal palace. After morning prayer, he produced a
box containing broken crosses of the order of St. George
and of the garter : ‘ You see,’ he said to Bishop Juxon,
‘all the wealth now in my power to give my two
children.’ The children were then brought to him ;
on seeing her father the princess Elizabeth, twelve
years old, burst into tears; the Duke of Gloucester,
who was only eight, wept also when he saw his sister
50 The Happy Home.
weeping ; Charles took them upon his knees, divided
his jewels between them, consoled his daughter, gave
her advice as to the books she was to read to strengthen
herself against Popery ; charged her to tell her brothers
that he had forgiven his enemies ; her mother, that in
thought he had ever been with her, and that to the
last hour he loved her as dearly as on their marriage-
day ; then turning towards the little Duke, ‘My dear
heart,’ he said, ‘they will soon cut off thy father’s head,’
The child looked at him fixedly and earnestly : ‘Mark,
child, what I say ; they will cut off my head, and per-
haps make thee king; but mark what I say, thou must
not be king so long as thy brothers Charles and James
live, but they will cut off thy brothers’ heads if they
can catch them; and thine too they will cut off at
last! Therefore, I charge thee, do not be made a king.
by them.’ ‘T will be torn in pieces first!’ replied the
child, with emotion. Charles fervently kissed him,
put him down, kissed his daughter, blessed them both,
and called upon God to bless them; then suddenly
rising, ‘Have them taken away,’ he said to Juxon ; the
children sobbed aloud ; the king, standing with his
head pressed against the window, tried to suppress his
tears ; the door opened, the children were going out,
Charles ran from the window, took them again in his
arms, blessed them once more, and at last tearing
himself from their caresses, fell upon his knees and
began to pray with the bishop and Herbert, the only
Lhe Happy Home. 57
witnesses of this deeply painful scene. Already the
sounds of axe and hammer announced that the scaffold
was preparing for the last act of this great tragedy.
The morrow—the 30th of January 1649—was the day
appointed for execution.†_
The delightful picture of domestic happiness ex-
hibited in the family-circle of the good old English
puritan divine, Philip Henry, has already been referred
to; and its entire origin and sustaining source may be
shown to have flowed from the constant operation of
the law of love and mutual self-denial. There, indeed,
we see proof of the apostolic maxim, “ Love never fails.â€
Mr. Matthews, whose daughter Philip Henry loved and
sought for his wife, would by no means consent to the
match. By patient and consistent perseverance he at
length so far overcame the opposition, that he obtained
the wife of his choice. It was not until the 26th of
April 1660 that their marriage was at length accom-
plished, and Mr. Hamilton has well remarked in his
life of his son, “Seldom has a scene of purer domestic
happiness been witnessed than the love of God and one
another created there.†In his own quaint way, the
old divine tells, that after living many years with her,
he was never reconciled to her—because there never
happened between them the slightest jar that needed
reconciliation. The opposition of the father, however
strong while it lasted, appears to have been cordially
58 The Happy fLome.
withdrawn. He gave his full consent to their union at
the last, and himself gave away his daughter, when
they were united in the bands of marriage.
The spirit of patient love by which he thus triumphed,
helped him also to counsel others, and extend the same
happiness through a wide sphere. He was indeed as
a sun in the centre of the district where he resided,
diffusing a vivifying sunshine that made all. around
him smile. To him—as to Job—“men gave ear and
waited, and kept silence at his counsel; after his words
.)
they spake not again ;†and many of the neighbours
who respected him not as a minister, yet loved and
honoured him as a knowing, prudent, and humble
neighbour. In the concernments of private families
he was very far from busying himself; but he was very
frequently applied to to advise many about their affairs, |
and the disposal of themselves and their children, and
in arbitrating and composing differences among relations
and neighbours, in which he had an excellent faculty,
and often good success, inheriting the blessing entailed
upon the peace-makers, References have sometimes
been made to him by rule of court, at the assizes, with
consent of parties. He was very affable and easy of
access, and admirably patient in hearing every one’s
complaint, which he would answer with so much
prudence and mildness, and give such apt advice, that
many a time to consult with him was “to ask counsel
at Abel,†and so to end the matter. He observed, in
Lhe Happy Home. 59
almost all quarrels that happened, that there was fault
on both sides ; and that generally they were most in
the fault that were most forward and clamorous in
their complaints. One making her moan to him of a
bad husband that in this and the other instance was
unkind ; “Sir,†saith she, after a long complaint which
he patiently heard, “what would you have me to do
now?†“Why truly,†saith he, “I would have you to go
home, and be a better wife to him, and then you will
find that he will be a better husband to you.†Labour-
ing to persuade one to forgive an injury that was done
him, he urged thus, Are you not a Christian? and
followed the argument so close that at last he pre-
vailed.
He was very industrious, and oft successful, in per-
suading people to recede from their right for peace’
sake ; and he would for that purpose tell them Luther’s
story of the two goats, that met upon a narrow bridge
over a deep water ; they could not go back, they durst
not fight ; after a short parley, one of them lay down,
and let the other go over him, and no harm was done.
He would likewise relate sometimes a remarkable story,
worthy to be inserted here, concerning a good friend
of his, Mr. T. Yates of Whitchurch, who in his youth
was greatly wronged by an unjust uncle. Being an
orphan, his portion, which was £200, was put into
the hands of that uncle; who, when he grew up,
shuffied with him, and would give him but £40 instead
60 The Happy Flome.
of his £200, and he had no way of recovering his right
but by law; but before he would engage in that, he
was willing to advise with his minister, who was the
famous Dr, Twiss of Newbury; the counsel he gave
him, all things considered, was, for peace’ sake, and
for the preventing of sin, and snares, and trouble, to
take the £40 rather than contend ; and Thomas, said
the Doctor, if thou dost so, assure thyself that God
will make it up to thee and thine some other way, and
they that defraud thee will be the losers by it at last.
He did so; and it pleased God so to bless that little
which he began the world with, that when he died, in
a good old age, he left his son possessed of some
hundreds a-year, and he that wronged him fell into
decay. |
How much wisdom and truth is there in the homely
advice of the good English divine to the complaining
wife. How many a scene of domestic dissension and
strife would be converted into a happy home by the
very simple process of the member of it that conceived
himself most wronged striving to be still kinder, more “_
faithful, more affectionate and self-denying than ever.
An old Arabian proverb says, “It is the second blow
which begins the quarrel.†Herein lies deep wisdom.
It is, indeed, only another version of the noble Christian
maxim, “A soft answer turneth away wrath ;†while
even in return for a blow, a word of kindness and for-
Lhe Happy Home. 61
giving forbearance will often not only put an end to
the quarrel, but make him who begun it more grieved
and ashamed than any triumph of force over him could
have done. In no sphere is this more frequently illus-
trated than in the intercourse of brothers and sisters.
A pleasant, familiar writer, in a little tract which he
has entitled “A Peep at Home,†thus remarks :—~
“A peep at home! Well, what can there be ina
peep at home? My young friends, have a little
patience, and we shall see. I live in a place where
frequently we have the privilege of meeting a number
of little girls who go to repeat a portion of Scripture
to their minister. He is kind enough to explain it to.
them in a manner so plain, affectionate, and familiar,
that he gains the attention and esteem of all who hear |
him. I cannot help feeling my own heart glow with
affection to all of them, when I see their little smiling
faces looking eagerly to catch every word he utters,
and ready to answer the questions he puts to them.
Christianity makes us love each other. God is love;
Christ is-love,and showed his love in a wonderful way,
by dying for us; and we should be all love: but,
alas, this is not the case so much as it ought to be
amongst us. |
“T know two little girls who always attend these
meetings, and who are very anxious to repeat their
verse, and attentive to listen, and they are happy to
62 Lhe Happy Home.
contribute their pence to the Bible Society, and the
Missionary, and the Tract Societies. But see them at
home: they are always quarrelling, not violently, but
quite enough to render it very unpleasant to hear them,
and to give their parents much pain. One, perhaps,
wants a book ; it happens to be the very oné the other
was going to take: this occasions a dispute, neither of
them being disposed to give up, except in that pettish
manner which is quite opposed to the peaceable dis-
position of a Christian. Then, when lessons are to be
learned, instead of helping each other on, they interrupt
one another: if one is disposed to be diligent and
study, the other will make a noise and disturbance ;
or they both play away the time, and are not ready,
and then accuse each other of being the cause of this
fault.
“You would think, to hear their constant disputes,
that they had a great dislike to each other, and that
they had never been taught the commandment to love ;
but I know that their mother has taken great pains to
teach them the good and right way, and that her spirit
is grieved every day with their disputings and apparent
choice of the spirit of strife and contention rather
than of kindness.†|
Homely as this latter tale may appear, it might be
studied with advantage in thousands of families where
contention about trifling things robs the circle of many
Lhe Happy Home. 63
a happy smile, and many a sweet hour of interchanging
love and kindness. It is fit, indeed, to fill the heart of
a good man with the deepest sorrow, to think how
often, for lack of a kind word spoken in due season,
strife is engendered where love would otherwise pre-
vail, Yet a word of wisdom has been known to over-
come the heart better than all the force of reasoning
could have effected. An incident of very recent occur-
rence is told of a man who had an only son, on whom
he had lavished every kindness that affection could
dictate, and at length put him in possession of all that
he had. But this son grew up to return ingratitude
for all this parental love. He was undutiful and un-
kind to his aged father, and at length went so far that
he refused to support him, and turned him out of the
house, where now his own child was growing up under
the eye of his gray-haired grandfather. The old man,
too deeply wounded to remonstrate with his ungrateful
son, rose to depart, saying only to his little grandson,
“ Hasten and fetch me the covering from my bed, that
I may go and sit by the way-side and beg.†The child
burst into tears, and ran for the covering. He met his
father, to whom he said, “I am going to fetch the rug
from my grandfather’s bed, that he may wrap it round
him, and go a-begging.†Tommy went for the rug,
and brought it to his father, and said to him, “ Pray,
father, cut it in two; the half of it will be large enough
for grandfather, and perhaps you may want the other
64 Lhe Happy flome.
half when I grow a man, and turn you out of doors.â€
The words of the child struck him so forcibly, that he
immediately ran to his father, besought his forgiveness,
and continued ever after kind and dutiful to him as
long as he lived.
It was a pretty saying of a little boy, who, seeing
two nestling birds pecking at one another, inquired of
his elder brother what they were doing. “They are
quarrelling,†was the answer. “No,†replied the child,
“that cannot be, they are brothers.â€
In all the exhortations to forgiveness, charity, and
love, which the Scriptures enjoin, it is more frequently
in the character of domestic duty and enjoyment than
in any other form, that the spirit of heavenly love is
inculcated. Heaven is spoken of as our home, Christ
as an obedient and willing son, and his disciples as
brethren, as children, and even as little children. In
the wide compass of Christ’s all-embracing charity, he
seeks to make once more of the children of men one
family, teaching each member of it to look on all men
as his brethren, that all may be actuated towards each
other by the self-denying law of love. “Whoso hath
this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how
dwelleth the love of God in him 2 My little children,â€
adds the beloved disciple, who thus exhorts to practical
lhe Happy Home. 65
manifestations of love, “let us not love in word, neither
in tongue; but in deed, and in truth.†So, too, it is
in the endearing character of a Father that God most
delights to represent himself to us, and when he gives
expression to the unbounded tenderness of his pity
towards man, it is done in the touching comparison
with a mother’s love—“Can a mother forget her child,
that she should not have compassion on the son of her —
womb? She may forget, yet will not I forget thee.â€
Again, it is said, “ Like as a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pities them that fear him.†The New
Testament abounds with similar beautiful illustrations
of Divine love, drawn from the manifestations of
parental affection, or exercised in fulfilment of its
desires——as in the healing of the centurion’s son, the
raising of the daughter of Jairus, and above all, in the
restoring to life of the widow’s son. But perhaps no
narrative could be selected as more touching than the
parable of the Prodigal, wherein God is pictured to us
as a father, having compassion on his wayward, erring
child. “I will arise and go to my Father,†are the
first words of penitence, “and will say unto him,
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee,
and am no more worthy to be called thy son ;†while
the Father, even while he is yet a far way off, has
compassion on the penitent wanderer, and welcomes
him back, with the striking exclamation, which has so
often since suggested itself to the gladdened heart of
(149) D
66 The Happy Home.
an earthly parent—“ This my son was dead, and is alive
again ; he was lost, and is found.â€
Many striking instances might be referred to of
individuals who, after wandering like the prodigal, into
seemingly hopeless courses of sin and misery, have at
length heard the voice of God, and become the heirs of
grace and pardoning mercy. The celebrated John
Newton, one of the ablest and most useful ministers
of the Church of England, was a remarkable example
of this; and no less so was John Welsh, an equally
distinguished minister of the Church of Scotland, who
accomplished, and was honoured also to suffer much in
the cause of Christ.
“Mr. John Welsh was born a gentleman, his father
being Laird of Colieston (an estate rather competent
than large, in the shire of N ithsdale), about the year
1570, the dawning of our Reformation being then but
dark. He was a rich example of grace and mercy, but
the night went before the day, being a most hopeless
extravagant boy. It was not enough to him, frequently,
when he was a young stripling, to run away from the
school, and play the truant; but after he had passed
his grammar, and was come to be a youth, he left the
school and his father’s house, and went and joined
himself to the thieves on the English border, who
lived by robbing the two nations; and amongst them
he stayed till he spent a suit of clothes. Then, when
Lhe Happy Home. 67
he was clothed only with rags, the prodigal’s misery
brought him to the prodigal’s resolutions; so he
resolved to return to his father’s house, but durst not
adventure till he should interpose a reconciler. So, in
his return homeward, he took Dumfries in his way,
_ where he had an aunt, one Agnes Forsyth ; and with
her he diverted some days, earnestly entreating her to
reconcile him to his father. While he lurked in her
house, his father came providentially to the house to
salute his cousin, Mrs. Forsyth; and after they had
talked a while, she asked him whether ever he had
heard any news of his son John. To her he replied
with great grief, ‘O cruel woman, how can you name
his name to me? the first news I expect to hear of
him is, that he is hanged for a thief.’ She answered,
‘Many a profligate boy has become a virtuous man,’
and comforted him. He insisted upon his sad com-
plaint, but asked whether she knew his lost son was
yet alive? She answered, ‘ Yes, he was, and she hoped
he should prove a better man than he was a boy;’ and
with that she called upon him to come to his father.
He came weeping, and kneeled, beseeching his father,
for Christ’s sake, to pardon his misbehaviour, and
deeply engaged to beanew man. His father reproached
him and threatened him ; yet at. length, by the boy’s
tears and Mrs. Forsyth’s importunities, he was persuaded
to a reconciliation. The boy entreated his father to
put him to the college, and there to try his behaviour,
68 The Happy Home.
and if ever thereafter he should break, he said he should
be content his father should disclaim him for ever. So
his father carried him home, and put him to the college,
and there he became a diligent student of great expecta-
tion, and showed himself a sincere convert, and so he
proceeded to the ministry.â€
Mr. Welsh became a distinguished minister in the
Church of Scotland, and proved his fidelity to the
cause of Christ by suffering boldly in defence of the
truth. We shall select, however, a different example of
the domestic affections, from the life of a humbler
sufferer and martyr in the same good cause.
The death of John Brown, the Covenanter, is justly
cherished in the heart of every true Scotsman as a noble
incident of Christian fidelity and conjugal affection.
It is thus related in the “ Biographia Presbyteriana :â€â€”
“The next morning, between five and six hours, the
said John Brown, having performed the worship of
God in his family, was going with a spade in his hand
to make ready some peat ground ; the mist being very
dark, he knew not until bloody cruel Claverhouse com.
passed him with three troops of horse, brought him to
his house, and there examined him. Though he was a
man of a stammering speech, yet he answered him dis-
tinctly and solidly; which made Claverhouse examine
those whom he had taken to be his guides through the
moors, if ever they had heard him preach ? They an-
Lhe Happy Home. 69
swered, ‘No, no, he never was a preacher.’ He said,
‘If he has never preached, much has he prayed in his
time ;’ and then said to John, ‘Go to your prayers, for
you shall immediately die†When he was praying,
Claverhouse interrupted him three times. One time
that he stopped him, he was pleading that the Lord
would spare a remnant, and not make a full end in the
day of his anger. Claverhouse said, ‘I gave you time
to pray, and you are begun to preach.’ He turned
about upon his knees, and said, ‘ Sir, you know neither
ihe nature of preaching nor praying, that call this
preaching ;? and then continued without confusion.
When ended, Claverhouse said, ‘Take good night of
your wife and children.’ His wife standing by, with
her child in her arms, that she brought forth to him,
and another child of his first wife’s, he came to her,
and said, ‘ Now, Isabel, the day is come that I told you
would come, when I spake first to you of marrying me.’
She said, ‘Indeed, John, I can willingly part with you.’
Then he said, ‘ That’s all I desire; I have no more to
do but die—I have been in case to meet with death for
so many- years. He kissed his wife and bairns, and
wished purchased and promised blessings to be mul-
tiplied upon them, and his blessing. Claverhouse
ordered six soldiers to shoot him ; the most part of the
bullets came upon his head, which scattered his brains
upon the ground. Claverhouse said to his wife, ‘What
thinkest thou of thy husband now, woman?†She
70 Lhe Happy fLome.
said, ‘I thought ever much good of him, and as much
now as ever.’ He said, ‘It were but justice to lay thee
beside him.’ She said, ‘If ye were permitted, I doubt
not but your cruelty would go that length ; but how
will you make answer for this morning’s work?’ He
said, ‘To man I can be answerable; and for God, I
will take him in my own hand.’ Claverhouse mounted
his horse, and marched, and left her with the corpse of
her dead husband lying there; she set the bairn upon
the ground, and gathered his brains, and tied up his
head, and straightened his body, and covered him with
her plaid, and sat down and wept over him; it being
a very desert place, where never victual grew, and far
from neighbours. It was some time before any friends
came to her ; the first that came was a very fit hand,
that old singular Christian woman in the Cummerhead,
named Jean Brown, three miles distant, who had been
tried with the violent death of her husband at Pent-
land, afterwards of two worthy sons, Thomas Weir,
who was killed at Drumclog, and David Steil, who was
suddenly shot afterwards, when taken. The said Isabel
Weir, sitting upon her husband’s grave-stone, told me,
that before that she could see no blood but she was in
danger to faint, and yet was helped to be a witness to
all this, without either fainting or contusion, except
when the shots were let off her eyes dazzled. His
corpse was buried at the end of his house where he
was slain.â€
The Happy Home. 71
A monument has been erected on the spot to com-
memorate the heroic death of John Brown; but a far
more worthy and enduring monument is the faithful-
ness with which his memory is cherished by those who
have inherited the Christian liberty for which he died,
The remarkable incidents in the early life of the
eminent Scottish minister, John Welsh, have already
furnished one instance of the returning prodigal; and
that of the well-known John Newton, one of the most
faithful ministers of the Church of England, has been
referred to as another and no less striking one. Both
of these were destined to become, like the great Apostle
of the Gentiles, distinguished as the honoured preachers
of that gospel which once they had despised and
scorned. Numerous other incidents of a similar
character might be referred to, supplying no less strik-
ing examples of the restoration of the prodigal in
answer to a parent’s prayers, though their fulfilment is
not, in many cases, granted until the fond parent by
whom they had been uttered was at rest in his grave.
But sufficient space has already been devoted to the
illustration of the self-sacrificing character of parental
love. Both in Welsh and Newton, we see the good
fruits which rewarded a Christian parent’s prayers ;
and many are the instances which might be recorded in
illustration of the same assurance, that prayer is not
made in vain.
72 The Happy Home.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high.
Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,
The Christian’s native air;
His watchword at the gates of death
He enters heaven by prayer.
Nor prayer is made on earth alone,
The Holy Spirit pleads ;
And Jesus, on the eternal throne,
For sinners intercedes.
s
Doubtless, a future day will reveal thousands of in-
stances in which the secret prayers of Christian parents
have received their abundant answer, though those
who offered them in faith went sorrowing all their days,
and had often their gray hairs brought down with
sorrow to the dust by those with whom they will
rejoice through eternity in singing of the unmerited
mercy and redeeming love of God in Christ,
Leaving, however, these delightful evidences of
parental affection, manifested, in its noblest forms,
under the guidance of Christian principles, we shall
select an instance in illustration of the domestic affec-
tions, as shown in the fidelity of conjugal love. It is
well calculated to teach a lesson to many a sorrowing
wife, suffering under one of the most terrible of all
human trials, by showing her how she may overcome
by love, and enjoy the fulfilment of the apostolic injunc-
Lhe Happy Home. 73
tion and promise, which engages that the unbelieving
husband shall be won by the believing wife :-—
“A lady, who at the time of her marriage had been,
like her husband, gay and thoughtless, and taken up
only with the pleasures of the world, became by Divine
grace an exemplary Christian; but her husband re-
mained unchanged, and was a lover of sinful pleasure.
When spending an evening as usual with his jovial
companiens at a tavern, the conversation happened to
turn on the excellences and faults of their wives, He
pronounced the highest encomiums on his wife, saying
she was all that was excellent, only she was a
Methodist ; ‘notwithstanding which,’ said he, ‘were
I to take you, gentlemen, home with me at midnight,
and order her to rise and get you a supper, she would
do it with the utmost cheerfulness!’ The company
regarded this merely as a vain boast, and dared him to
make the experiment by a considerable wager. The
bargain was made, and about midnight the company
adjourned as proposed. Being admitted, ‘Where is —
your mistress 2’ said the husband to the maid-servant,
who sat up for him. ‘She is gone to bed, sir†‘Call
her up,’ said he. ‘Tell her I have brought some friends
home with me, and that I desire she would prepare
them a supper. The good woman obeyed the un-
reasonable summons ; dressed, came down, and re-
ceived the company with perfect civility: told them
she happened to have some chickens ready for the spit,
74. Lhe Happy Home.
and that supper should be got as soon as possible. It
was accordingly served up, when she performed the
honours of the table with as much cheerfulness as if
she had expected them at a reasonable hour.
“After supper, the guests could not refrain from
expressing their astonishment. One of them par-
ticularly, more sober than the rest, thus addressed him-
self to the lady : ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘your civility fills
me with surprise. Our unreasonable visit is the con-
sequence of a wager, which we have certainly lost. As
you are a very religious person, and cannot, therefore,
approve of our conduct, give me leave to ask, what can
possibly induce you to behave with so much kindness
tous?’ ‘Sir, replied she, ‘when I married, my hus-
band and myself were both unconverted. It has
pleased God to call me out of that condition, My
husband continues in it. I tremble for his future state.
Were he to die as he is, he must be miserable for
ever: I think it my duty at least to render his present
existence as comfortable as possible.’
“This wise and faithful reply affected the whole
company. It left a deep impression on the husband’s
mind. ‘Do you, my dear,’ said he, ‘really think I should
be eternally miserable? I thank you for the warning.
By the grace of God I will change my conduct.’ From
that time he became a changed man; and his faithful
wife enjoyed the reward of her fidelity and patience in
the Christian fellowship of a believing husband.â€
Lhe Happy Home. 75
In contrast to this, the following anecdote is not less
pleasing :—
A man once came to the Rev. Jonathan Scott of
Matlock, complaining of his wife. He said she was so
exceedingly ill-tempered, and so studiously tormented
him in such a variety of ways, that she was the great
burden of his life. Mr. Scott exhorted him to try
what a redoubled affection and kindness would do. He
went away much dejected, resolving, however, if possible,
to follow this advice. He accordingly increased his
attention ; and, as an instance of his kindness, the
next Saturday evening brought to his wife his whole
week’s wages, and, with an affectionate smile, threw
them into her lap, begging her entire disposal of them.
This did not succeed: she threw the wages, in a passion,
accompanied with many bitter execrations, at his head.
Years elapsed, during which he sustained, as patiently
as he could, this wicked and undutiful treatment, when
Providence favoured him with ‘another interview with
his kind friend, Mr. Scott; but, he said, he believed
he had really found out a remedy, which, if it should
meet Mr. Scott’s approbation, would not fail of effecting
a cure; for it had been tried by a neighbour of his on
a wife, who, though she had been in all respects as bad
as his, was, by one application only, become one of the
most obedient and affectionate creatures living. “ And
what is this excellent remedy ?†said Mr. Scott. “ Why,
sir, it is a good horse-whipping ! You hear, sir, what
76 Lhe Happy Home.
good effects have been produced ; do you think I may
venture to try it?â€
Mr. Scott replied, “I read, my friend, nothing about
husbands horse-whipping their wives in the Bible, but
just the reverse; namely, love, which I before recom-
mended ; and I can by no means alter the word of God:
but I doubt not, if you persevere, it will be attended
with a happy result.†This advice was accompanied
with exhortations to more earnest prayer. The man,
though he left Mr. Scott both with a mind and coun-
tenance very different from those with which he came,
resolved to follow his direction, as his esteem for him
was very great ; and Providence calling Mr. Scott some
time after to preach at Birmingham, his old friend, who
then resided there, came into the vestry to him after
he had concluded the service, and with a countenance
_ expressive of exalted happiness, said that he should
have reason to bless God through eternity for the
advice he had given him; and that he had not been
induced, by his weak importunities, to alter or relax
it ; adding, that his wife, who then stood smiling with
approbation by his side, was not only become a con-
verted woman, through a blessing on his kind atten-
tions to her, but was one of the most affectionate and
dutiful of wives.
To this we may add the following simple little in-
cident :—
The Happy Home. 4
“A decent countrywoman,†says an English divine,
“came to me one market day, and begged to speak
with me. She told me with an air of secrecy, that her
husband behaved unkindly to her, and sought the
company of other women ; and that, knowing me to
be a wise man, I could tell what would cure him.
The remedy is simple, said I, always treat your hus-
band with a smile. The woman thanked me, dropped
a courtesy, and went away. A few months after, she
came again, bringing a couple of fine fowls. She told me,
with great satisfaction, that I had cured her husband ;
and she begged my acceptance of the fowls in return.â€
This was the victory of love in one of its sweetest
forms, and, at the same time, one of the most pleasing
examples of the reward of patience. Be not weary in
well-doing, is the Divine maxim ; for, in due season,
ye shall reap, if ye faint not. A simple instance of
the reward of conjugal affection shows, in like manner,
the force of generous self-denial. It is exceedingly
simple, yet not the less fitted to instruct, and furnish
us with an example for our guidance :—
“The wife of a pious man told him one day, that if
he did not give over running after the missionaries, a
name often applied, in the neighbourhood where this
event occurred, to Christian ministers of different
denominations, she would certainly leave him. Find-
ing that he continued obstinate, she, on one occasion,
78 The Happy fLome.
sent for him from the harvest-field, and informed him
that she was about to carry her threats into execution ;
and that, before she left the house, she wished some
articles to be divided, to prevent future disputes. She
first produced a web of linen, which she insisted should
be divided. ‘No, no,’ said the husband; ‘you have
been, upon the whole, a good wife to me: if you will
leave me, though the thought greatly distresses me, you
must take the whole with you; you well deserve i¢ all.’
The same answer was given to a similar proposal re-
specting some other articles. At last the wife said,
‘So you wish me to leave you?’ ‘ Far from that,’ said
the husband ; ‘I would do anything but sin, to make
you stay; but if you will go, [ wish you to go in com-
fort.’ ‘Then,’ said she, ‘you have overcome me by
your kindness ; I will never leave you.Չۉ۪
This subject is, in truth, inexhaustible. It is one
great aim of Christianity to make of every family a
happy home; and though the spirit which it inculcates
is marred by many jealousies and strifes, yet, even in
its imperfect state, Christianity does effect much to-
wards ameliorating the condition of our social life, and
introducing some of its own benignant elements into
the family-circle. Still more does Christianity carry
along with it the spirit of domestic and social love, by
teaching not only every family to emulate the pattern
of love which our Redeemer has set us, but also, by
Lhe Happy Home. | 79
binding all together into one family union, by the in-
spiring anticipation that the whole family in heaven
and earth are one in Christ—one family, of which God
is the Father, and in which Christ condescends to call
himself the Elder Brother. Could such a spirit be
infused into each of us, how would our hearts burn
within us, and our affections find a constant expression
in acts of generous self-denial and mutual forbearance
and love. Edmeston has thus beautifully given ex-
pression to the feelings which this idea of the “ one.
family in heaven and earth,†is so well calculated to
suggest :—
‘Tis but one family,—the sound is balm,
A seraph-whisper to the wounded heart,
It lulls the storm of sorrow to a calm,
And draws the venom from the avenger’s dart.
"Tis but one family,—the accents come
Like light from heaven to break the night of woe,
The banner-cry, to call the spirit home,
The shout of victory o’er a fallen foe.
Death cannot separate—is memory dead ?
Has thought, too, vanished, and has love grown chill?
Has every relic and memento fled,
~ And are the living only with us still?
No! in our hearts the lost we mourn remain,
Objects of love and ever-fresh delight;
And fancy leads them in her fairy train
In half-seen transports past the mourner’s sight.
Death never separates; the golden wires
That ever trembled to their names before,
Will vibrate still, though every form expires,
And those we love, we look upon no more.
80 Lhe Happy Home.
No more, indeed, in sorrow and in pain,
But even memory’s need ere long will cease,
For we shall join the lost of love again
In endless bands, and in eternal peace.
Such are the thoughts which should fill up the hope
and the joy of each of us. Like the sister of the happy
family at Bethany, when he whom Jesus loved, and whom
they all loved, had been taken away, we must be able to
say, “ I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection
at the last day.†On that one occasion, indeed, he who
proclaimed himself as the Resurrection and the Life, re-
stored the buried Lazarus to his mourning sisters, but
how strange are the reflections which that happy
family-circle at Bethany suggest to us. He who had
been dead, and had lain in the grave, once more sat
with his sisters at the social board, and Jesus, as a
friend, united with them in the interchanges of sym-
pathy and love. But death again visited that family
—Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, each was summoned
away to meet no more here below. How delightful
the anticipation to them, as to us, that there is a re-
union to be looked forward to which no death shall
break, which no unkindness shall mar, which no hatred,
or variance, or strife shall even interfere with ; where
the one law which will supersede all others, and suffice
for all, will be the perfect law of love,
II,
Hove to Enemies.
‘Children we are all
Of our great Father, in whatever clime
His providence hath cast the seed of life,
Th’ all-seeing Father—He in whom we live—
He, the impartial Judge of all—regards
Nations, and hues, and dialects alike.â€
SOUTHEY.
fee ea N this duty of love to our enemies, as in every
‘% SA other principle which ought to guide our
conduct, the Christian finds at once his
highest example and his rule of action in the teaching
and the life of our Saviour. There had, indeed,
existed an old law of retaliation among the Jewish
people, dictated not by the spirit of love, but by the
law of revenge, but that was entirely done away by the
great Teacher: “Ye have heard that it was said by
them of old time, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and
hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
(149) 6
82 Love to Enemtes.
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you; that ye may be the
children of your Father which is in heaven; for he
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.â€
How happy a world would ours be if this Divine
maxim were universally acted upon, and men were to
kill their enemies only by kindness. Some conviction
of this seems even now to be gaining ground, and men
who cannot see the sinfulness of retaliating wars are
becoming in some degree alive to their folly. The
law of retaliation to which Christ referred was, in part |
at least, a temporary legislation for the Jewish nation,
designed to put away idolatry and vice from among
them. The saying, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour,
and hate thine enemy,†to which Christ replied, occurs
nowhere in the Old Testament. It was probably a
proverbial maxim of the Jews, as it is sufficiently con-
sistent with the ideas which human nature is generally
found to adopt. But many of the laws against
idolatry and other sins were conceived in accordance
with the Mosaic law, as where the cities of idolaters
were to be utterly destroyed and made heaps, their
inhabitants, the children, and even the cattle, smitten
with the edge of the sword. “With equal abhorrence
of idolatry, and of all the crimes of those who are
holden to be outlaws and doomed enemies under the
former Testament, but in striking contrast with the
Love to Enemies. 83
authorised hatred and vengeance exercised towards
them, Jesus says, love, bless, do good to, and pray for
them, even though they be your bitter foes and per-
secutors. He includes among enemies haters and _per-
secutors, all injurers, whether personal, social, religious,
or national. His words are equally irreconcilable with
all hatred, all persecution, all cruelty, all wrong which
one man, one family, one community, or one nation,
can do to one another. The truly Christian individual
could not devise, execute, or abet any injury against
an offending fellow-man. What, then, ought a truly
Christian family, neighbourhood, community, state, or
nation do? If they loved, blessed, benefited, and
prayed for the worst of aggressors and offenders, what
a spectacle would be presented! What a conquest
would be achieved over all evil doers! Does not
Jesus enjoin this sublime love and heavenly practice ?
Can he mean anything less than appears upon the
beautiful face of his words? What professed Chris-
tian can gird on his weapon for aggressive war, or give
his sanction to any cruelty by individuals or society,
and yet plead that he is in the spirit and practice of
this his Lord’s commandment? Does that man love
his enemies, bless those who curse him, do good to
those that hate him, and pray for his injurers? Let
us hear the Saviour urge his own precepts: ‘That ye
may be the children of your Father which is in heaven;
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the
84. Love to Enemtes.
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust,
For if ye love them only which love you, what reward
have you? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more
than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect.’ Your Father loves his enemies,
blesses those that curse him, and does good to them
that hate him. Else the sun would not shine as it
does on the evil, nor the rain distil on the unjust, nor
salvation descend from heaven for the lost. Imbibe
the spirit of your Father. Imitate his goodness to the
unthankful and evil. Put on his moral character.
Be his children. Be not content barely to love them
that love you. Love, forbear with, benefit, and seek
to save even the guilty and undeserving.â€
But it is objected that the practice of this Divine
maxim is altogether incompatible with the present
state of society. We may be sure that Christ has not
commanded us to do that which is impossible. A few
examples will suffice to show what results do in reality
flow from the practice of such a spirit of forbearance,
for the principle itself has been long recognised, men
being compelled, in spite of their own inclinations and
desires, to own, that if every man would only act on
the principle of doing as he would be done by, and
preferring his neighbour to himself, harmony and hap-
piness would take the place of strife ; ambition would
Love to Enemtes. 85
no longer think it an honourable wish to covet the
laurels won in a violent aggression on neighbouring
states, and retaliating wars and the desire of conquest
would have an end. But on this theme we shall have
occasion to speak more fully when referring to national
kindness. Meanwhile, the power of love can be shown
to be no less effectual and not less beautifully mani-
fested in individual instances,
The following incident, which so happily illustrates
the nature of love to our enemies, is taken from
the diary of Hans Egede Saabye, a grandson of the
celebrated Hans Egede, first missionary to Green-
land :—
“It has ever been a fixed law in Greenland, that
murder, and particularly the murder of a father, must
be avenged. About twenty years before the arrival of
Saabye a father had been murdered in the presence of
his son, a lad of thirteen, in a most atrocious manner.
The boy was not able then to avenge the crime, but
the murder was not forgotten. He left that part of
the country and kept the flame burning in his bosom,
no suitable opportunity offering for revenge, as the
man was high in influence and many near to defend
him. At length his plan was laid, and with some of
his relations to assist him he returned to the province
of the murderer, who lived near the house of Saabye.
There being no house unoccupied where they might
remain but one owned by Saabye, they requested it,
86 Love to -:nemtes.
and it was granted without any remark, although he
knew the object of their coming.
“The son soon became interested in the kind mis-
sionary, and often visited his cabin, giving as his reason,
‘You are so amiable I cannot keep away from you.’
T'wo or three weeks after he requested to know more
of ‘the great Lord of heaven,’ of whom Saabye had
spoken. His request was cheerfully granted. Soon
it appeared that himself and all his relatives were
desirous of instruction, and ere long the son requested
baptism. To this request the missionary answered :
‘Kunnuk’—for that was his name—‘ you know God,
you know that he is good, that he loves you and de-
sires to make you happy; but he desires also that you
should obey him,’
“ Kunnuk answered, ‘I love him, I will obey him.’
“¢ His command is, Thou shalt not murder.†The
poor Greenlander was much affected, and silent. ‘I
know,’ said the missionary, ‘ why you have come here
with your relations, but this you must not do if you
wish to become a believer.’
“Agitated, he answered, ‘But he murdered my
father !â€
“For a long time the missionary pressed this point,
the poor awakened heathen promising to ‘kill only
one.’ But this was not enough. ‘Thou shalt do no
murder,’ Saabye insisted was the command of ‘the
great Lord of heaven.’ He exhorted him to leave
Love to Enemtes. 87
the murderer in the hand of God, to be punished in
another world; but this was waiting too long for re-
venge. The missionary refused him baptism without
obedience to the command. He retired to consult his
friends. They urged him to revenge.
“ Saabye visited him, and without referring to the
subject read those portions of Scripture and hymns
teaching a quiet and forgiving temper. Some days
after Kunnuk came again to the cabin of Saabye. ‘I
will,’ said he, ‘and I will not; I hear, and I do not
hear. I never felt so before; I will forgive him, and
I will not forgive him.’ The missionary told him,
‘When he would forgive then his better spirit spoke,
when he would not forgive then his unconverted heart
spoke,†He then repeated to him the latter part of
the life of Jesus, and his prayer for his murderers. A
tear stood in his eye. ‘But he was better than JI,’
said Kunnuk. ‘But God will give us strength,’
Saabye answered. He then read the martyrdom of
Stephen, and his dying prayer for his enemies. Kun-
nuk dried his eyes and said: ‘The wicked men! He
is happy; he is certainly with God in heaven. My
heart is so moved; but give me a little time—when I
have brought the other heart to silence I will come
again. He soon returned with a smiling countenance,
saying, ‘Now I am happy; I hate no more; I have
forgiven ; my wicked heart shall be silent.’ He and
his wife having made a clear profession of faith in
88 Love to Enemtes.
Christ were baptized and received into the church,
Soon after he sent the following note to the murderer
of his father: ‘I am now a believer, and you have
nothing to fear ;’ and invited him to his house. The
man came, and invited Kunnuk in his turn to visit
him. Contrary to the advice of his friends) Kunnuk
went, and as he was returning home he found a hole
had been cut in his kajak, or boat, in order that he
might be drowned. Kunnuk stepped out of the water,
saying, ‘He is still afraid, though I will not harm
him !’â€
What a noble example of self-conquest does this
exhibit! How rarely, indeed, do we meet, even among
the professing Christians of our own highly favoured
land, with an example to be compared with this illus-
trious exhibition of the power of the gospel in a poor
heathen Greenlander ?
A beautiful instance of the disarming force of kind-
ness has already been furnished in a previous chapter. —
The following narrative is no less illustrative of the
same great truth. It is related of the house of W
and D—— Brothers, a firm of wealthy merchants in
Manchester, consisting of two brothers, from whom, it
is affirmed, that a celebrated living fictitious writer
derived his model of the “ Cheeryble Brothers,â€
“The elder brother of this house of merchant
Love to Enemtes. 89
princes amply revenged himself upon a libeller who
had made himself merry with the peculiarities of the
amiable fraternity. This man published a pamphlet
in which one of the brothers (D.) was designated as
Billy Button, and represented as talking largely of
their foreign trade, having travellers who regularly
visited Chowbent, Bullock-Smithy, and other foreign
parts. Some ‘kind friend’ had told W. of this
pamphlet, and W. had said that the man would live to
repent of its publication. This saying was conveyed
to the libeller, who replied that he should take care
never to be in their debt. But the man in business
does not always know who shall be his creditor. The
author of the pamphlet became bankrupt, and the
brothers held an acceptance of his which had been
indorsed by the drawer, who had also become bank- .
rupt. The wantonly libelled men had thus become
creditors of the libeller. They now had it in their-
power to make him repent of his audacity. He could
not obtain his certificate without their signature, and
without it he could not enter into business again. He
had obtained the number of signatures required by the
bankrupt laws, except one.
“Tt seemed folly to hope that the firm of ‘ Brothers’
would supply the deficiency. What! they who had
cruelly been made the laughing-stock of the public
forget the wrong and favour the wrong-doer! He
despaired ; but the claims of a wife and children
QO Love to Enemies.
forced him at last to make the application. Humbled
by misery, he presented himself at the counting-room
of the wronged. W. was there alone, and his first
words to the delinquent were, ‘Shut the door, sir!’
sternly uttered. The door was shut, and the libeller
stood trembling before the libelled. He told his tale,
and produced his certificate, which was instantly
clutched by the injured merchant.
“You wrote a pamphlet against us once! exclaimed
W. The supplicant expected to see his parchment
thrown into the fire; but this was not its destination.
W. took a pen, and writing something on the docu-
ment, handed it back to the bankrupt. He, poor
wretch, expected to see there, ‘ rogue, scoundrel,
libeller,’ inscribed; but there was, in fair round
characters, the signature of the firm! ‘We make it a
rule,’ said W., ‘never to refuse signing the certificate
of an honest tradesman, and we have never heard you —
was anything else.’ The tear stood in the poor man’s
eyes, a |
““Ah! said W., ‘my saying was true. I said you
would live to repent writing that pamphlet. I did
not mean it as a threat; I only meant that some day
or other you would know us better, and would repent
you tried to injure us. I see you repent of it now.’
‘I do, I do, said the grateful man. < Well, well, my
dear fellow,’ said W., ‘you know us now. How do
you get on? What are you going to do?’ The poor
Love to Enemies, Ql
man stated that he had friends who could assist him
when his certificate was obtained. ‘But how are you
off in the meantime?’ And the answer was, that
having given up everything to his creditors, he had
been compelled to stint his family of even common
necessaries that he might be enabled to pay the cost
of his certificate. ‘My dear fellow,’ said W., ‘this
will never do; your family must not suffer. Be kind
enough to take this ten-pound note to your wife from
me. ‘There, there, my dear fellow—nay, don’t cry—it
will be all well with you yet. Keep up your spirits,
set to work like a man, and you will raise your head
yet.†The overpowered man endeavoured in vain to
express his thanks—the swelling in his throat forbade
words; he put his handkerchief to his face, and went
out of the door crying like a child.â€
Was not this a literal fulfilment of the command,
and also a literal reaping of the proraised reward—
“Tf thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give
him drink ; so shalt thou heap coals of fire on his head.â€
But not only does kindness supply the noblest and
only true revenge ; it also brings back its own reward
sevenfold on the practiser :—
“ A worthy old coloured woman, in the city of New
York, was one day walking along the street, on some
errand to a neighbouring store, with her tobacco-pipe
Q2 Love to Enemies.
in her mouth, quietly smoking. A jovial sailor, ren-
dered a little mischievous by liquor, came along the
street, and, when opposite our good Phillis, saucily
shouldered her aside, and with a pass of his hand
knocked her pipe out of her mouth. He then halted
to hear her fret at his trick, and enjoy a laugh at her
expense. But what was his astonishment, when she
meekly picked up the pieces of her broken pipe, with-
out the least resentment in her manner, and giving him
a dignified look of mingled sorrow, kindness, and pity,
said, ‘God forgive you, my son, as I do.’ It touched
a tender chord in the heart of the rude tar. He felt
ashamed, condemned, and repentant. The tear started
in his eye; he must make reparation. He heartily
confessed his error; and, thrusting both hands into his
too full pockets of change, forced the contents upon
her, exclaiming, ‘God bless you, kind mother, I'll never
do so again.’ â€
Ballou, a zealous advocate for the doctrine of non-
resistance, as carried out in its very fullest sense, relates |
the following anecdote of a circumstance which occurred
within his own sphere of observation :—
“‘I'wo of my former neighbours had a slight contro-
versy about a few loads of manure. One of them was
the other’s tenant. The lessor had distinctly stipulated
to reserve all the manure of the stable, and had offset
it with certain privileges and favours to the lessee.
Love to Enemtes. 93
But as the lessee had purchased and consumed from
abroad a considerable amount of hay, he claimed a
portion of the manure. He proposed leaving the case
to the arbitration of certain worthy neighbours, The
other declined all reference to a third party, alleging
that they both knew what was right, and ought to
settle their difficulties between themselves. But the
lessee contrived to have a couple of peaceable neigh-
bours at hand one day, and in their presence renewed
with earnestness his proposal to leave the case to their
decision. The other, grieved at his pertinacity,
promptly replied: ‘I have nothing to leave out; I
have endeavoured to do as I agreed, and to treat you
as I would be treated. God Almighty has planted
something in all our breasts which tells us what is
right and what is wrong: if you think it right to carry
off that manure, do so just when you please ; and I
pledge myself never to trouble you with even a question
about the matter again.’ This was effectual. The
tenant felt his error ; all was quiet ; the claim expired
at the bar of conscience; and non-resistant kindness
and decision healed all contention. This was related
to me by one of the friends selected as a judge and
decider in the case. His peculiar comment was, ‘7hat
was one of the greatest sermons I ever heard.’ â€
We have little idea, indeed, until we have tried it,
how powerful and effectual a weapon kindness is, and
04. Love to Enemtes.
how rarely it fails, when fairly tried, in disarming the.
— most violent foe. Love, indeed, as the apostle says,
never fails ; and we are well assured that it never has
failed when fairly tried.
“A few years since, a young man, in the vicinity of
Philadelphia, was one evening stopped in a grove, with
the demand, ‘Your money, or your life.†The robber
then presented a pistol to his breast. The young man,
having a large sum of money, proceeded leisurely and
calmly to hand it over to his enemy, at the same time
setting before him the wickedness and peril of his
career. The rebukes of the young man cut the robber
to the heart. He became enraged, cocked his pistol,
held it to the young man’s head, and, with an oath,
said, ‘Stop that preaching, or I will blow out your
brains,’ The young man calmly replied, ‘ Friend, to save
my money I would not risk my life ; but to save you
from your evil course, I am willing to die. I shall not
cease to plead with you.†He then poured in the truth
still more earnestly and kindly. Soon the pistol fell
to the ground; the tears began to flow; and the
robber was overcome. He handed the money all back
with the remark, ‘I cannot rob a man of such prin-
ciples,’ â€
This anecdote recalls another incident to recollection,
which occurred in the experience of the excellent and
pious Rowland Hill :—
Love to Enemtes. 95
“Mr. Hill was returning from an excursion out of
the city. A man suddenly beset him from the way-
side, pistol in hand, and demanded his purse. Mr.
Hill calmly scrutinized his countenance with a look of
compassion, and while taking out his money remarked
. to the robber, that he did not look like a man of that
bloody calling, and he was afraid some extreme distress
had driven him to the crime. At the same time, he
inquired how much he stood in need of. The man
was affected ; declared this was his first offence ; and
pleaded the distress of his family as his only excuse.
Mr, Hill kindly assured him of his sympathy, and of
his willingness to relieve him. He gave him a certain
sum on the spot, and promised him further aid, if he
would call at his house. The robber was melted into
tears, humbly thanked his benefactor, and hastened
towards the city. Mr. Hill, desirous of knowing the
whole truth of the matter, directed his servant to follow
the man home. This was accordingly done, and it was
ascertained that the poor man occupied a miserable
tenement in an obscure street, where his wife and chil-
dren were on the verge of starvation. He was seen
to hasten first to a baker, and then home with a few
loaves of bread. His wife received the bread with joy,
but with astonishment, expressing her hope that her
dear husband had obtained it by none but innocent
means. The children cried for joy, as they began to
satiate their hunger, and the father alone looked sad.
96 Love to Enemies.
Mr. Hill benevolently took this man under his im.
mediate care, provided a tenement for his family, and
made him his coachman. He proved to be a remark-
ably honest and industrious man; and in a little time
became a convert to experimental religion, and con-
nected himself with Mr. Hill’s church. For fifteen
years he walked with such Christian circumspection ag
to command the entire confidence of all who knew him.
At length he died in the triumph of hope. Hig pastor
preached an affecting funeral sermon on the occasion,
in which, for the first time, he communicated the affair
of the robbery, and took occasion to impress on his
auditors the excellency of Christian forbearance, kind-
ness, and compassion towards the guilty. Here was a
man withdrawn from an awful course of crime, and, by
Divine grace, rendered a child of God—an exemplary
and beloved brother in Christ. How different might
have been the result, had Rowland Hill either resisted
him with deadly weapons, or taken the same pains to
hand him over to the government that he did to be-
friend him? Oh, how lovely is true righteousness !
How comely is Christian forgiveness !â€
Mr. John Pomphret, an English Methodist, was a
zealous advocate of the possibility and the duty of
applying, in our daily practice, the lesson which Christ
gives us :—“If a man will sue thee at the law, and
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also; and
Love to Enemies. 97
if he compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him
twain,†—always declaring that if he should be attacked
by a highwayman, he would put it in practice. Being
a cheesemonger, on his return from market one day,
after he had received a large amount of money from his
customers for the purpose of replenishing his year’s
stock, he was accosted by a robber, demanding his
money, and threatening his life if he refused. The
man of peace coolly and kindly replied : “ Well, friend,
how much do you want, for I will give it to you, and
thus save you from the crime of committing highway
robbery 7?†“Will you certainly give me what I re-
quire,†asked the robber. “TI will, in truth, if you do
not require more than I have got,†replied the non-
resistant. “Then I want fifteen pounds.†The re-
quired sum was counted out to him, and in gold instead
of in bank-bills, which, if the numbers had been ob-
served, Mr. Pomphret, by notifying to the bank, could
have rendered uncurrent, besides leaving the robber
hiable to detection in attempting to pass them. Telling
him at the same time why he gave the gold instead of
bank-notes, he said, “ Unfortunate man, I make you
welcome to this sum. Go home. Pay your debts.
Hereafter, get your living honestly.â€
Years rolled on. At length the good man received
a letter containing principal and interest, and a humble
confession of his sins from the robber, saying that his
- appeals waked up his slumbering conscience, which
(149) 7
98 Love to Enemtes.
had given him no rest till he had made both restitution
and confession, besides wholly changing his course of
life. a
The following beautiful extract from one of Lydia
Maria Child’s letters, exhibits in a very happy
manner the doctrine we have been illustrating, and the
way in which it can be enforced to the utmost extent
of which the terms of Scripture admit, in perfect con-
sistency with human reason and the Divine commands
of Scripture :—
“To-day,†Miss Child observes, “is Christmas.
From east to west, from north to south, men chant
hymns of praise to the despised Nazarene, and kneel
in worship before His Cross. How beautiful is this
universal homage to the principle of love !—that
feminine principle of the universe,—the inmost centre
of Christianity. It is the Divine idea which distin-
guishes it from all other religions, and yet the idea in
which Christian nations evince so little faith, that one
would think they kept only to swear by that gospel
which says, ‘Swear not at all.’
“Centuries have passed, and through infinite conflict
have ‘ushered in our brief day ;’ and is there peace
and good will among men? Sincere faith in the words
of Jesus would soon fulfil the prophecy which angels
sung. But the world persists in saying, ‘This doctrine
of unqualified forgiveness and perfect love, though
Love to Enemies. 99
beautiful and holy, cannot be carried into practice now ;
men are not prepared for it.’ The same spirit says, ‘ It
would not be safe to emancipate slaves ; they must first
be fitted for freedom.’ As if slavery ever could fit men
for freedom, or war ever lead the nations into peace ?
Yet men who gravely utter these excuses, laugh at the
shallow wit of that timid mother who declared that
her son should never venture into the water till he had
learned to swim. | |
“Those who have dared to trust the principles of
peace, have always found them perfectly safe. It can
never prove otherwise, if accompanied by the declara-
tion that such a course is the result of Christian prin-
ciple, and a deep friendliness for humanity. Who
seemed so little likely to understand such a position as
the Indians of North America? Yet how readily they
laid down tomahawks and scalping-knives at the feet
of William Penn! With what humble sorrow they
apologised for killing the only three Quakers they were
ever known to attack! ‘The men carried arms,’ said
they, ‘and therefore we did not know they were not
fighters. - We thought they pretended to be Quakers,
because they were cowards.’ The savages of the East
who murdered Lyman and Munson made the same
excuse. ‘They carried arms,’ said they, ‘and so we
supposed they were not Christian missionaries but
enemies. We would have done them no harm, if we
had known they were men of God.’
100 Love to Enemtes.
“If a nation could but attain to such high wisdom
as to abjure war, and proclaim to all the earth, ‘We
will not fight under any provocation ; if other nations
have aught against us, we will settle the question by
umpires mutually chosen ;’ think you that any nation
would dare to make war upon such a people? Nay,
verily, they would be instinctively ashamed of such an
act, a8’ men are now ashamed to attack a woman or a
child. Even if any were found mean enough to pursue
such a course, the whole civilized world would cry fie
upon them, and by universal consent brand them as
poltroons and assassins. And assassins they would be,
even in the common acceptation of the term. . I have
read of a certain regiment ordered to march into a
small town (in the Tyrol, I think), and take it. It
chanced that the place was settled by a colony who
believed the gospel of Christ, and proved their faith by
works. A courier from a neighbouring village informed |
them that troops were advancing to take the town.
They quietly answered, ‘ If they will take it, they must.’
Soldiers soon came riding in with colours flying, and
fifes piping their shrill defiance. They looked round
for an enemy, and saw the farmer at his plough, the
blacksmith at his anvil, and the women at their churns
and spinning-wheels. Babies crowd to hear the music,
and boys ran out to see the pretty trains, with feathers
and bright buttons, ‘the harlequins of the nineteenth cen-
tury.’ Of course, none of these were in a proper position
Love to E-nemtes. IOL
to be shot at. ‘Where are your soldiers ?’ they asked.
‘We have none,’ was the brief reply. ‘But we have
come to take the town.’ ‘Well, friends, it lies before
you.’ ‘But is there nobody here to fight?’ ‘No; we
are all Christians.’ Here was an emergency altogether
unprovided for by the military schools. This was a
sort of resistance which no bullet could hit ; a fortress
perfectly bomb-proof. The commander was perplexed.
‘If there is nobody to fight with, of course we cannot
fight,’ said he. ‘It is impossible to take such a town
as this.’’ So he ordered the horses’ heads to be turned
about, and they carried the human animals out of the
village as guiltless as they entered, and perchance
somewhat wiser.
“This experiment on a small scale indicates how
easy it would be to dispense with armies and navies,
if men only had faith in the religion they profess to
believe. When France lately reduced her army, Eng-
land immediately did the same; for the existence of
one army creates the necessity of another, unless men
are safely ensconced in the bomb-proof fortress above
mentioned.†*
No class of professing Christians have practically
carried out the principle of peace and good will, even
to enemies, further than the Quakers have done; but
its effect is apparent in the general recognition of their
consistent spirit, Men of the world may smile at some
102 Love to Enemtes.
of their peculiarities, but they are compelled to own
that in cases of trial their principles have been found
to stand the severest tests. These principles of peace
and good will were never put to a severer trial than
during the memorable Irish rebellion in 1798 :—
“During that terrible conflict, the Irish Quakers
were continually between two fires. The Protestant
party viewed them with suspicion and dislike, because
they refused to fight or pay military taxes; and the
fierce multitude of insurgents deemed it sufficient cause
of death that they would neither profess belief in the
Catholic religion nor help them to fight for Irish free-
dom. Victory alternated between the two contending
parties ; and, as usual in civil war, the victors made
almost indiscriminate havoc of those who did not march
under their banners. It was a perilous time for all
men; but the Quakers alone were liable to a raking
fire from both sides. Foreseeing calamity, they had,
nearly two years before the war broke out, publicly
destroyed all their guns and other weapons used for
game. But this pledge of pacific intentions was not
sufficient to satisfy the Government, which required
warlike assistance at their hands. Threats and insults
were heaped upon them from all quarters ; but they
steadfastly adhered to their resolution of doing good to
both parties, and harm to neither. Their houses were
filled with widows and orphans, with the sick, the
wounded, and the dying, belonging both to the loyalists
Love to Enemies. 103
and the rebels. Sometimes, when the Catholic insur-
gents were victorious, they would be greatly enraged
tu find Quaker houses filled with Protestant families.
They would point their pistols and threaten death, if
their enemies were not immediately turned into the
street to be massacred. But the pistol dropped, when
the Christian mildly replied, ‘Friend, do what thou
wilt, I will not harm thee or any other human being.’
Not even amid the savage fierceness of civil war, could
men fire at one who spoke such words as these. They
saw that this was not cowardice, but bravery very much
higher than their own.
“Qn one occasion, an insurgent threatened to burn
down a Quaker-house, unless the owner expelled the
Protestant women and children who had taken refuge
there. ‘I cannot help it,’ replied the Friend ; ‘so long
as I have a house, I will keep it open to succour the
helpless and distressed, whether they belong to thy
ranks or to those of thy enemies. If my house is
burned, I must be turned out with them, and share
their affliction.’ The fighter turned away, and did the
Christian no harm.
“The Protestant party seized the Quaker schoolmaster
of Ballitore, saying they could see no reason why he
should stay at home in quiet, while they were obliged
to defend his property. ‘Friends, I have asked no man
to fight for me,’ replied the schoolmaster. But they
dragged him along, swearing that he should at least
104 Love to Enemtes.
stop a bullet. His house and schoolhouse were filled
with women and children who had taken refuge there:
for it was an instructive fact, throughout this bloody
contest, that the houses of the men of peace were the
only places of safety. Some of the women followed
the soldiers, begging them not to take away their friend
and protector, a man who expended more for the sick
and starving than others did for arms and ammunition.
The schoolmaster said, ‘Do not be distressed, my
friends. I forgive these neighbours ; for what they do,
they do in ignorance of my principles and feelings.
They may take my life, but they cannot force me to do
injury to one of my fellow-creatures.’ As the Catholics
had done, so did the Protestants ; they went away, and
left the man of peace safe in his Divine armour.
“The flames of bigotry were, of course, fanned by
civil war. On one occasion, the insurgents seized a
wealthy old Quaker, in very feeble health, and threat-
ened to shoot him if he did not go with them toa
Catholic priest to be christened. They had not led
him far before he sank down from extreme weakness.
‘What do you say to our proposition?’ asked one of
the soldiers, handling his gun significantly. The old
man quietly replied, ‘If thou art permitted to take my
life, I hope our heavenly Father will forgive thee.’
The insurgents talked apart for a few moments, and
then went away, restrained by a power they did not
understand,
Love to Enemies. 105
“Deeds of kindness added strength to the influence
of gentle words. The officers and soldiers of both
parties had had some dying brother tended by the
(Juakers, or some starving mother who had been fed, or
some desolate little ones who had been cherished.
Whichever party marched into a village victorious, the
cry was, ‘Spare the Quakers! They have done good
to all, and harm to none.’ While flames were raging,
and blood flowing in every direction, the houses of the
peacemakers stood uninjured. /
“It is a circumstance worthy to be recorded, that,
during the fierce and terrible struggle, even in counties
where Quakers were most numerous, only one of their
Society fell a sacrifice. That one was a young man,
who being afraid to trust his own principles, put on a
military uniform, and went to the garrison for protec-
tion. The garrison was taken by the insurgents, and
he was killed. ‘His dress and arms spoke the lan-
guage of hostility, ’says the historian, ‘and therefore
invited it.’â€
We shall close the illustrations of this chapter with
the following conversation, which Mr. A. Ballou men-
tions to have taken place between him and an American
sailor :— | |
“A few years ago I met an elderly man in the
Hartford stage, whose conversation led me to reflect on
the baseness and iniquity often concealed behind the
106 Love to L:nemiies.
apparent glory of war. The thumb of his right hand
hung down, as if suspended by a piece of thread ; and
some of the passengers inquired the cause; ‘A Malay
woman cut the muscle with her sabre,’ was the reply.
“¢A Malay woman!’ they exclaimed. ‘How came
you fighting with a woman ?’
“¢T did not know she was a woman, for they all
dress alike there,’ said he. ‘I was on board the U. §.
ship Potomac, when it was sent out to chastise the
Malays for murdering the crew of a Salem vessel. We
attacked one of their forts, and killed some two hundred
or more. Many of them were women; and I can tell
you the Malay women are as good fighters as the
men.’
“ After answering several questions concerning the
conflict, he was silent for a moment, and then added,
with a sigh, ‘Ah, that was a bad business. I do not
like to remember it. I wish I had never had anything
to do with it. I have been a seaman from my youth,
and I know the Malays well. They are a brave and
honest people. Deal fairly with them, and they will
treat you well, and may be trusted with untold gold.
The Americans were to blame in that business. The
truth is, Christian nations are generally to blame,
in the outset, in all the difficulties with less civilised
people.
“*A Salem ship went to Malacca to trade for pepper.
They agreed to give the natives a stated compensation
Love to Enemtes. 107
when a certain number of measures full of pepper were
delivered. Men, women, and children, were busy
picking pepper and bringing it on board. The captain
proposed that the sailors should go on shore and help
them ; and the natives consented with the most con-
fiding good nature. The sailors were instructed to pick
tull evening, and then leave the baskets full of pepper
around the bushes, with the understanding that they
were to be brought on board by the natives in the
morning. They did so, without exciting any suspicion
of treachery. But in the night the baskets were all
conveyed away, and the vessel sailed, leaving the
Malays unpaid for their valuable cargo. This, of
course, excited great indignation, and they made loud
complaints to the commander of the next American
vessel that arrived on that coast. In answer to a
demand of redress from the government, they were
assured the case should be represented and the wrong
repaired. But ‘Yankee cuteness’ in cheating a few
savages was not sufficiently uncommon to make any
great stir, and the affair was soon forgotten. Some
time after, another captain of a Salem ship played a
similar trick, and carried off a still larger quantity of
stolen pepper. The Malays, exasperated beyond
measure, resorted to Lynch law, and murdered an
American crew that landed there about the same time.
The U. 8. ship Potomac was sent out to punish them
for the outrage; and, as I told, we killed some two
108 Love to Enemtes.
hundred men and women. I sometimes think that
our retaliation was not more rational, or more like
Christians than theirs.’
“<«Will you please,’ said I, ‘to tell me what sort of
revenge would be like Christians ?’
“He hesitated, and said it would be a hard question
to answer. ‘I never felt pleasantly about that affair,’
continued he; ‘I would not have killed her if I had
known she was a woman.’
“TY asked why he felt any more regret about killing |
a woman than killing a man ?
“<¢T hardly know why myself,’ answered he. ‘I
don’t suppose I should, if it were a common thing for
women to fight. But we are accustomed to think of
them as not defending themselves ; and there is some-
thing in every human heart that makes a man unwilling
to fight in return. It seems mean and dastardly, and
a man cannot work himself up to it.’
“«Then, if one nation would not fight, another could
not, said I. ‘What if a nation, instead of an individual,
should make such an appeal to the manly feeling, which
you say is inherent in the heart 2’
“
her,’ he replied. ‘It would take away all the glory and
excitement of war, and the hardiest soldier would shrink
from it, as from cold-blooded murder.’
“*Such a peace establishment would be at once
cheap and beautiful,’ rejoined I; and so we parted.â€
Love to Enemies. IOQ
To the pointed question of Mr. Ballou, “What
revenge would be like Christians ?†some of the previous
illustrations have supplied some answer, We have
seen in what way the Christian may disarm his enemies,
in what way he may kill them; and to those who
would retort in reference to some of the opinions
advanced here, that they are Utopian or extravagant,
we can only reply, that in so far as they have yet been
tried, they have been proved to be thoroughly practical
and effective in producing all the results that we could
desire,
dtlotibes for Lobe to Enemies,
‘“‘ The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from Heaven,
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed ;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
SHAKSPEARE,
BOG fe O command in the whole New Testament is
AM «more simple and unambiguous than that
which says, “ Love your enemies; do good
to them who hate you; and pray for them who de-
spitefully use you and persecute you.†A hard duty
truly, yet one incumbent on all, and in the honest and
sincere fulfilling of which there is great reward. It is
a hard duty, we say, as indeed are all Christian obliga-
tions and duties to the unregenerate heart ; yet it may
be still more correctly named an easy duty, for, once
begun, all obstacles disappear. If you have an enemy,
and wish to love him, do him a kindness, perform
towards him some generous act of liberality and
Motives for Love to Enemtes. III
self-denial; try to make him better, freer, happier, and
you will at once find that he has become an object of
interest to you instead of one of fear or hate. Nay
more, it is by no means improbable that you also will
become very speedily an object of kindly interest to
him; and thus a change is brought about in the moral
world akin to that which in the natural world con-
verts the arid desert, or the waste and desolate moor,
into smiling gardens and richly-laden harvest fields.
Love never fails; it disarms enemies, it overcomes all
obstacles, it achieves the most noble and glorious of all
triumphs, since in its rejoicings there are no mourning
captives. They that have been subdued are alike
victors with those who have vanquished them—both
participate in the gain, divide the spoils of the victory,
and share in the triumph.
Few examples of the good policy of true Christian
uprightness and singleness of purpose have been more
manifest in the history of nations, than is shown in the
early career of the Pilgrim Fathers, who planted the
colony and state of New England on the American
continent. They had hardly established a footing on
the wild shores of the New World, when the selfish-
ness of one of the merchant adventurers, under whose
auspices they had gone out, threatened to involve them
in total ruin. Not content to wait for the returns of
their honest and patient industry, Mr. Weston had
gathered together a body of needy and unprincipled
I12 Motives for Love to Enemies.
adventurers, whom he sent out to rival these pioneers
of colonization, to thwart their projects, undermine
their schemes, and rob them of the fruits of their
negotiations and agreements with the natives. Had
the pilgrim colonists been content to take as their
guide and rule of conduct the maxim propounded by
them of old time—“ Ye shall love your neighbour, and
hate your enemy,†their policy would have seemed
sufficiently simple, and they might speedily have ex-
terminated their enemies by merely leaving them to
starve. But they acted on a nobler principle, and
reaped a better reward, though the sufferings they were
involved in by their unprincipled rivals compelled them
to try to the utmost their faith and perseverance, ere
they'realized the promise, “ Be not weary in well doing,
for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.†The
pilgrims had placed no slight reliance on Mr. Thomas
Weston; but the first notice they had of his short-
sighted selfishness was from the chance communication
of the crew of a boat belonging to the Sparrow, a fish-
ing vessel despatched by Mr. Weston in the first move-
ments of his impatient eagerness to reap the promised
harvest of the new plantation. This fishing vessel, the
Sparrow, with its unfriendly shallop and crew, proved
but the forerunner of evils that threatened utterly to
overturn the whole labours of the New England colonists,
pursued with such unwearied constancy in defiance of
every obstacle, A letter received by that opportunity,
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 113
addressed to Governor Carver, conveyed to the colonists
the first notice of rivalry and disunion among the
adventurers, on whose good faith their success seemed
then so greatly to depend. “The shallop,†says
Bradford, “ brings a letter from Mr. Weston, of January
17, by which we find he has quite deserted us, and is
going to settle a plantation of his own.†The un-
gracious conduct of those who delivered the letter was
a sufficiently intelligent illustration of the intentions of
the writer, but the journals of the Pilgrims record no
complaints or desponding forebodings, though they must
now have sometimes cast an anxious look towards the
distant horizon, not with the fond hope of descrying a
friendly sail bearing down on them from the far-off
land of their nativity, but with the fear of unfriendly
rivals coming to reap where they had sown, and to
dispute with them the hard-won fruits of their per-
severing industry. Their worst fears could hardly
surpass the reality. Towards the close of the pleasant
month of June, the expected colonists arrived. From
their citadel on Burial Hill, the Plymouth settlers be-
held two vessels round the point of Cape Cod, and. cast
anchor in the bay. They proved to be the Charity and
the Swan, two ships freighted by Mr. Thomas Weston,
and bringing some sixty emigrants, sent over at his
own cost, and commissioned to plant and colonize for
his exclusive benefit.
The Charity was a large emigrant ship, having on
(149) 8
114 Motives for Love to Enemies.
board a numerous body of colonists destined for
‘Virginia, in addition to those who landed at Plymouth.
The Pilgrims soon found that their character amply
corresponded with that which has been described ag
most commonly pertaining to the vagabond settlers of
the Virginia Company’s plantations. They-dreamt of
no aim to “do good or to plant religion.†No wounded
conscience had driven them to forsake the land of
their birth, and to break the fond ties of home, in the
hope of finding liberty to worship God amid the wilds
of the New World. Even Mr. Weston owned that
many of them were rude and profane fellows, and
Robert Cushman wrote a warning letter to his friends
at New Plymouth, in which he says, “They are no
men for us, and I fear they will hardly deal so well
with the savages as they should. I pray you, therefore,
signify to Squanto that they are a distinct body from
us, and we have nothing to do with them, nor must —
be blamed for their faults, much less can warrant their
fidelity.†This, indeed, was the greatest of all the
dangers they had to fear. Their most difficult task
had been to deal with their Indian neighbours, and
establish an intercourse equally based on the founda-
tion of respect for their courage, and confidence in
their integrity. The danger, therefore, of being held
responsible for the excesses of such men was great ;
the impossibility of guaranteeing their fidelity was
speedily still more apparent, for Mr. John Pierce, in
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 115
writing to them, remarks—“ They are so base in con-
dition for the most part, as in all appearance not fit
for an honest man’s company.†An inroad of savage
Narragansetts, armed with tomahawk and scalping-
knife, could hardly have been more dreaded by the
virtuous colonists of New Plymouth, as the arrival of
- such a band of vagabond adventurers, to taint their new
settlement with the worst vices of the Old World.
Nevertheless, the colonists failed not in good services
of kindly hospitality to the unwelcome strangers.
“We received them,†says Winslow, “into our town,
affording them whatsoever courtesy our mean con-
dition could afford.†And yet their condition was
such as might amply have justified the dismission cf
their visitors to seek for themselves such a welcome as
the forest wilds had afforded to the first settlers, under
more inclement skies. But it was a trial of strength
between selfishness and principle, wherein the former
overreached herself, and proved how worthless is the
policy of shrewd dishonesty and greed.
It was not alone in the simple rites of hospitality to
the intruders that the sterling principles of the Ply-
mouth Pilgrims were made manifest. Their generous
faith triumphed over every selfish consideration, so
that we almost rejoice in reviewing trials which led to
the display of such true Christian nobility. So far
from giving way to indignant feelings at the desertion
of their cause by one who had made such protestations
116 Motives for Love to Enemies.
of friendly zeal and disinterested sympathy on their
behalf, the colonists still generously recurred to the
early services of Mr. Weston; and Winslow, after
| _ narrating the base ingratitude of their guests, remarks,
“ Nevertheless, for their master’s sake, who formerly
had deserved well from us, we continued to do them
whatsoever good or furtherance we could.†Truly it
was taking on their enemy the Christian’s revenge,
and “heaping coals of fire upon his head.†“In the
mean time,†says Winslow, “ the body of them refreshed
themselves at Plymouth, whilst some most fit sought out
a.place for them. That little store of corn we had was
exceedingly wasted by the unjust and dishonest walk-
ing of these strangers; who, though they would some-
times seém to help us in our labour about our corn,
yet spared not day and night to steal the same, it being
then eatable and pleasant to taste, though green and
unprofitable ; and though they received much kindness,
set light both by it and us, not sparing to requite the
love we showed them with secret backbitings, revilings,
&c., the chief of them being forestalled and made
against us before they came, as after appeared. Never-
theless, for their master’s sake, who formerly had
deserved well from us, we continued to do them what-
soever good or furtherance we could, attributing these
things to the want of conscience and discretion, ex-
pecting each day when God in his providence would
disburden us of them, sorrowing that their overseer?
Motives for Love to Enemies. 117
were not of more ability and fitness for their places,
and much fearing what would be the issue of such raw
and unconscionable beginnings, |
“ At length their coasters returned, having found, in
their judgment, a place fit for plantation within the
bay of the Massachusetts, at a place called by the
Indians Wichaguscusset; to which place the body of
them went with all convenient speed, leaving still with
us such as were sick and lame, by the Governor’s per-
mission, though on their parts undeserved; whom our
surgeon, by the help of God, recovered gratis for them,
and they fetched home, as occasion served.
“They had not been long from us, ere the Indians
filled our ears with clamours against them for stealing
their corn, and other abuses conceived by them. At
which we grieved the more, because the same men, the
Indians, in mine own hearing, had been earnest in per-
suading Captain Standish, before their coming, to
solicit our Governor to send some of his men to plant
by them, alleging many reasons how it might be com-
modious for us.â€
It was evil enough for the Pilgrims to have such
neighbours planted in ungenerous rivalry beside them
on the New England coast, but it would have been in-
finitely worse had the merchant-adventurers, on whose
good will they so much depended, insisted on intrud-
ing such a vicious rabble into their own community.
Then, indeed, it would have been vain for them to
118 Motives for Love to Enemies.
warn the Indians that they were blameless of the new
comers’ deeds, and scarcely less vain would it have
proved for the elders of New Plymouth to strive to
guard the rising generation, the hope and life of the
colony, from their contaminating influence. But as
the season of harvest drew near, the colonists were
once more threatened with a renewal of privations
which had sorely tried them in the earlier months of
the year. Heedless of the stinted and hard-won
stores which they had obtained when seemingly on the
verge of want, they had generously shared them with
their unwelcome guests. Added to this, their crop
proved scanty, partly by reason of the weakness of its
planters, through want, and partly owing to the base
ingratitude and dishonesty of the new emigrants, who
had plucked much of it while the ear was still.
green. |
Tt seemed as if the greed of the dishonest ad-
venturers was destined to involve the entire scheme
of colonization in speedy ruin, and the whole colonists
in destruction, In due season, however, the Chris-
tian Pilgrims reaped their reward. After the unprin-
cipled agents of Weston had involved the colonists in
a war with the Indians, and had nearly reduced them
to absolute want, they were themselves nearly all
massacred by the Indians whom they had roused
against their generous precursors. Their employer and
head, Weston, was himself indebted for charity, and
Motives for Love to Enemies. 119
almost for life, to their forgiving kindness, and while
his new plantation utterly failed, and nearly all its
agents miserably perished, the New Englanders of
America still look back with pride on the Pilgrim.
colonists who landed fiom the Mayflower as the chief
founders, not of New England only, but of the great
American Republic.
We may select, from the incidents belonging to the
infant history of another American state, an equally
powerful illustration of the motives to kindness, for-
giveness, and generosity, instead of the spirit of enmity
and revenge. The state of Pennsylvania was founded
by William Penn, the son of an English Admiral, but
himself a Quaker, and prepared to carry out in the
new colony which he founded, and which still bears
his name, the principles of charity and kindness, and
the doctrine of non-resistance, or of overcoming evil
with good, which so practically and effectually begets
the spirit and the fruits of the Christian maxims we
have referred to at the commencement of this chapter.
When William Penn visited America, he carried with
him no arms or ammunition with which to withstand
the savage Indians of the wilderness, but resolved to
oppose them solely with the weapons of integrity and
kindness. He bought their land and paid them; he
made a treaty with them and observed it; and he always
treated them as men As aspecimen of the manner in
120 Motives for Love to Enemtes.
which he met the Indians, the following instance affords
a very striking example :— |
“There were some fertile and excellent lands, which,
in 1698, Penn ascertained were excluded from his first
purchase, and as he was very desirous of obtaining
them he made the proposal to the Indians that he
would buy those lands if they were willing. They re-
turned for answer, that they had no desire to sell the
spot where their fathers were deposited, but to ‘please
their father Onas,’ as they named Penn, they said that
he should have some of the lands. This being decided,
they concluded the bargain that Penn might have as
much land as a young man could travel round in one
day, beginning at the great river Cosquanco, now King-
ston, and ending at the great river Kallapingo, now
Bristol, and, as an equivalent, they were to receive a
certain amount of English goods. Though this plan
of measuring the land was of their own selection, yet
_ they were greatly dissatisfied with it after it had been
tried, for the young Englishman chosen to walk off
the tract of land walked so fast and far as to greatly
astonish and mortify them. The governor observed
this dissatisfaction, and asked the cause. ‘The walker
cheated us,’ said the Indians, ‘Ah, how can that be?’
said Penn; ‘did you not choose yourself to have the
land measured in this way?’ ‘ True,’ replied the In-
dians, ‘but white brother make a big walk,’
“Some of Penn’s commissioners, Waxing warm, said
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Motives for Love to Enemies. 121
the bargain was a fair one, and insisted that: the In-
dians ought to abide by it; and if not, should be com-
pelled to it. ‘Compelled !’ exclaimed Penn, ‘how can
you compel them without bloodshed? Don’t you see
this looks to murder?’ Then, turning with a benignant
smile to the Indians, he said: ‘ Well, brothers, if you
have given us too much land for the goods first agreed
on, how much more will satisfy you?’
“This proposal gratified them, and they mentioned
the quantity of cloth, and number of fish-hooks, with
which- they would be satisfied. These were cheerfully
given, and the Indians, shaking hands with Penn, went
away smiling. After they were gone, the governor,
_ looking round on his friends, exclaimed, ‘How sweet
and cheap a thing is charity! Some of you spoke just
now of compelling these poor creatures to stick to their
bargain, that is, in plain English, to fight and kill them,
and all about a little piece of land.’
“For this generous and truly Christian line of con-
duct, followed out in all his actions to the Indians, he
was nobly rewarded. The untamed savage of the forest
became the warm friend of the white stranger, towards
Penn and his followers they buried the war-hatchet, and
ever evinced the strongest respect for them, When the
colony of Pennsylvania was pressed for provisions, and
none could be obtained from other settlements, and
which scarcity arose from the increasing number of in-
habitants not having time to raise the necessary food,
122 Motives for Love to Enemtes.
the Indians cheerfully came forward and assisted the
colony by the fruits of their labours in hunting. This
kindness they practised with pleasure, because they
considered it an accommodation to their ‘good father
Onas’ and his friends. And though Penn has long
been dead, yet he is not forgotten by the red men, for
many of the Indians possess a knowledge of his peace-
able disposition, and speak of him with a tone and
feeling very different from what they manifest when
speaking of whites who came to them with words of
treachery on their tongues, kegs of ‘ fire-water’ in their
hands, and oppression, and the unprincipled supremacy
of power, in their whole dealings.â€
The spirit which animated and guided the founders
of Pennsylvania continues to influence their descend-
ants. An American writer relates the following incident
in illustration of the disarming force of kindness :—
“An intelligent Quaker of Cincinnati related to me
the following circumstance, as evidence that the prin-
ciple of non-resistance possesses great influence, even
over the savage. During the last American war a
Quaker lived among the inhabitants of a small settle-
ment on our western frontier. When the savages com-
menced their desolating outbreaks every inhabitant fled
to the interior settlements, with the exception of the
Quaker and his family. He determined to remain, and
tely wholly upon the simple rule of disarming his
Motives for Love to Enemies. 123
enemies with entire confidence and kindness, One
morning he observed, through his window, a file of
savages issuing from the forest in the direction of his
house. He immediately went out and met them,
and put out his hand to the leader of the party. But
neither he nor the rest gave him any notice ; they,
entered his house and searched it for arms, and; had
they found any, most probably would have murdered
every member of the family. There were none, how-
ever, and they quietly partook of the provisions which
he placed before them, and left him in peace. At the
entrance of the forest he observed that they stopped
and appeared to be holding a council. Soon one of
their number left the rest, and came running towards
the dwelling. He reached the door, and fastened
a simple white feather above it, and returned to his
band, when they all disappeared. Ever after, that
white feather saved him from the savages, for whenever
a party came by and observed it, it was a sign of peace
to them. In this instance we discover that the law of
kindness disarmed even savage foes, whose white feather
told their red brethren that the Quaker was a follower
of Penn, the friend of their race.â€
No reward can be more gratifying to a generous spirit
than that which converts an enemy into a friend, and
a wronger and evil-doer into one guided by a like spirit,
and actuated by principles similar to his own. The
124 Motives for Love to Enemies.
power of kindness to produce reformation in the wicked
and depraved, or in the passionate, vindictive, and re.
vengeful, has frequently been most strikingly illustrated,
To the ordinary worldly and unreflecting mind many of
the maxims of the New Testament seem never to have
been designed for any liberal acceptance,-and they
accordingly explain them altogether away. To give the
other cheek to be smitten by him who has already un-
provokedly smitten the one; to give the cloak also to
him who has taken the coat; to extend the utmost
returns of love for the strongest manifestations of en-
mity and hatred, seem to the untaught mind as mere
figures of speech; yet even these have been tried and
practised in their literal sense, and have been found
productive of the happiest and most gratifying results.
The power of kindness to produce reformation is
nobly illustrated in a story from real life, narrated in
the “ Monthly Repository †for August 1825, and which
the editor observes he extracted from a letter addressed
to himself :—
“Seven or eight years before his decease, our friend
found that one of his clerks had wronged him consider-
ably, and, I believe, even put his life into his power.
Without appearing to have discovered the circumstance
Mr, —— desired the young man to come to his dwell-
ing-house in the afternoon. He watched for his arrival,
opened the door himself, and after leading him up inte
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 125
the chamber and locking the door, informed him that all
his conduct was made known. Pale and trembling, the
offender dropped upon his knees; the master bade him
not be terrified at the punishment, but think of the guilt
of the deed which he had done, and after saying as much
as he thought would be profitable, he left him, carrying
the key from the outside of the door. Before night he
took him refreshments, talking to him again, and de-
siring him to go to bed and reflect. When the succeed-
ing day drew to a close he visited him for the last
time, saying, ‘I now come to release you; here is a
letter to a friend of mine in London who knows nothing
of your crime, and will give you immediate employment.
Here is money,’ added he, putting a purse into his
hand, ‘to support you till your quarter’s salary becomes
due.’ He then conducted him out of the house unseen
by any one. This benevolent treatment awakened the
gratitude and effected the reformation of the young
man, who now bears a respectable character.â€
Sucb was the result of kindness in this case. Had
harshness and retaliation been substituted for it, it
would not have been surprising if the clerk, instead of
becoming “a person of highly respectable character,â€
had gone deeper into crime, and ended his days either
in Botany Bay or on the gallows, as many a one has
done before and since he was melted by subduing
affection.
126 Motives for Love to Enemtes.
Another example, of an entirely different character,
may be accepted as a pointed illustration of the litera]
practice of the maxim already referred to—“To him
that taketh your coat give your cloak also :â€â€”
“The late Dr. Bowditch of Salem, Massachusetts,
was a man as eminent for his great and useful talents,
as he was beloved by all who were acquainted with him.
An instance is related of him, which is a complete
manifestation of obedience to the command, ‘If thine
enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;
for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.’
“Dr. Bowditch had been preparing a plan of Salem,
which he intended soon to publish. It had been the
fruit of much labour and care. By some means or
other an individual in town surreptitiously got posses-
sion of it, and had the audacity to issue proposals to
publish it as his own. This was too much for Dr.
Bowditch to bear. He instantly went to the person,
and burst out in the following strain :—‘You villain !
how dare you do this? What do you mean by it?
If you presume to proceed any further in this business
I will prosecute you to the utmost extent of the
law.’ The poor fellow cowered before the storm of
his indignation, and was silent—for his wrath was
terrible. Dr. Bowditch went home and slept on it;
and the next day, hearing from some authentic source
that the man was extremely poor, and had _pro-
bably been driven by the necessities of his family to
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 127
commit this audacious plagiarism, his feelings were
touched, his heart relented, his anger melted away like
wax. He went to him again, and said: ‘Sir, you did
very wrong, and you know it, to appropriate to your
own use and benefit the fruit of my labours. But I
understand you are poor, and have a family to support.
I feel for you, and will help you. That plan is un-
finished, and contains errors that would have disgraced
you and me had it been published in the state in which
you found it. Tl tell you what I will do. I will
finish the plan, I will correct the errors, and then you
shall publish it for your own benefit, and I will head
the subscription list with my name.’ â€
This delightful anecdote perhaps more directly illus-
trates the consistent carrying out of the principle, than
the reaping of its direct rewards. Yet the benevolent
and generous Christian physician had doubtless a far
more ample reward, even in the pleasure he derived
from the fruits of his self-denying liberality, than he
could have acquired by any credit to be obtained from |
his plan of Salem, though that also he ultimately
reaped, along with the far nobler credit of his generous
deed. He gained a self-approving conscience instead
of a doubtful triumph, and of an enemy made a friend.
The last, indeed, is not seldom the most gratifying
reward which results from the conscientious practice of
the commands of our divine Master, and even in the
128 Motives for Love to Enemties.
practices of the world, when, following a far lower
standard of excellence, we frequently witness an ap-
proximation to the true standard of rectitude meet with
a corresponding return, as in the following sufficiently
simple yet pleasing example of an enemy converted into
a friend :—
Some Indians, in March 1783, attacked and scattered
in every direction a party of men, women, and children,
belonging to a settlement established in Kentucky by
a brother of the celebrated Daniel Boone. Colonel
Floyd, having heard of the affair, instantly collected
twenty-five men, and hastened to the place of battle.
The colonel was very nearly losing his life; but Captain
Wells noticing that he was on foot, and that the enemy
was after him, generously gave up his own horse,
mounted the colonel upon it, and then walked by the
side of the horse to support Floyd, lest he should faint
from his wounds and fall off. “This act of Captain
Wells,†says the original narrator of the anecdote, “was
the more magnanimous, as Floyd and himself were not
friends at the time. But the consequences of this very
generous conduct were most excellent. The enmity of
Floyd was destroyed, and he and Wells were ever after
firm and steadfast friends.â€
Most of our readers, we presume, are familiar with
an anecdote of the once celebrated and benevolent Dr
Woodward, an English physician of the eighteenth
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 129
century, whose name still lives in the remembrance for
his generous deeds of charity and kindness. It serves,
however, so well to illustrate the disarming power of
kindness, and is, moreover, so happy an incident in the
history of the good old physician, that its repetition here
cannot prove unacceptable to the reader. The origin of
the incidents in which it originated are also, in some
degree, characteristic of the age, and of the habits of
society at the period to which it refers,
A comic author employed an actor, celebrated for
mimicry, to visit Dr. Woodward for the purpose of
gaining a knowledge of his manner and awkward
delivery. The object was to create laughter by having
the actor mimic the doctor on the stage. To accom-
plish this, the actor, in the dress of a countryman,
waited upon the doctor, declaring that his wife was
sorely afflicted with diseases, and amazed him by stating
that she was borne down with an oppressive burden of
accumulated pains of the most opposite nature. After
having gained the knowledge he wished, the actor
awkwardly offered a guinea to the doctor as a fee.
“Put up thy money, poor fellow!†cried the doctor,
“put up thy money. Thou hast need of all thy cash,
and all thy patience too, with such a bundle of diseases
tied to thy back.†The actor returned to the author,
and gave such a correct and ludicrous imitation of the
doctor, that his employer absolutely screamed with
delight. But it appears that the kindness of the
(149) 9
130 Motives for Love to Enemies.
doctor had a very different effect from what the author
anticipated ; for the mimic petrified him by declaring,
in the voice of warm and subdued feeling, that he
would sooner die than prostitute his talents to the
rendering such genuine humanity a public laughing.
stock. Had the doctor treated him harshly, it would
undoubtedly have given the mimic unbounded satis-
faction to cover him with ridicule. But to imitate the
man who had used him with such tender kindness, for
_ the purpose of administering to the laughs of an un-
thinking rabble, was beyond his power. His better
feelings, and the re-action of generosity on his own
heart, rebelled against such an ungrateful return. It
is, indeed, the happy result of generous and Christian
deeds, that they beget a like spirit in others, and call
into action, even by sympathy, the worthiest feelings
and motives of the human breast.
Acts of kindness have indeed an irresistible power.
“When I was a youth,†says Southey, “there was a
black boy in the neighbourhood of the name of Jim
Dick. I and a number of my playfellows were one
evening collected together at our sports, and began
tormenting the poor black, by calling him ‘negro,
blackamoor,’ and other degrading epithets: the poor
fellow appeared excessively grieved at our conduct, and
soon left us. We soon after made an appointment to
go a-skating in the neighbourhood, and on the day of
Motives for Love to Enemies. — I31
the appointment I had the misfortune to break my
skates, and I could not go without borrowing Jim’s
skates, I went to him, and asked him for them. ‘O
yes, you may have them, and welcome,’ was his answer.
When I went to return them, I found Jim sitting by
the fire in the kitchen, reading the Bible. I told him
I had returned his skates, and was under great ob-
ligations to him for his kindness. He looked at me
as he took his skates, and, with tears in his eyes, said
to me, ‘ Don’t never call me blackamoor again,’ and
immediately left the room. The words pierced my
heart, and I burst into tears, and from that time
resolved never again to abuse a poor black.â€
But a nobler illustration of the true spirit of love to
enemies may be drawn once more from the conduct of
a poor negro,
“A slave in one of the West India Islands, originally
from Africa, having been brought under the influence
of religious instruction, became so valuable to his owner
on account of his integrity and general good conduct,
that his master employed him to assist in the manage-
ment of his plantation. On one occasion his owner,
wishing to purchase twenty additional slaves, employed
him to make the selection from those who were offered
for sale. Soon after commencing his examination of
those who were in the market, he fixed his eye intently
on an old decrepit slave, and told his master he must
132 Motives for Love to Enemtes.
take him for one, The master was greatly surprised,
and objected; but the slave entreated so earnestly for
this indulgence, that the offer of the seller to add the
old man to the twenty without increasing the price,
was accepted. The newly purchased slaves were con-
ducted to the plantation, and placed under the charge
of the slave who had made the selection. On the poor
old decrepit African he bestowed uncommon care, He
took him to his own habitation, and laid him down on
his own bed; he fed him at his own table, and gave
him drink out of his own cup; when he was cold, he
carried him into the sunshine; and when he was hot,
he placed him under the shade of the cocoa-nut trees.
The master, astonished at the careful attention bestowed
by him upon his fellow-slave, interrogated him on the
subject. ‘Is that old man,’ said he, ‘your father, that
you take so much interest in him?’ ‘No, massa,’
answered the poor fellow, ‘he no my fader.’ ‘Perhaps,
then, he is your elder brother?’ ‘No, massa, he no —
my broder.’ ‘Then he must be your uncle or some
other relation.†‘No, massa, he be no of my kindred
at all; he be no my friend.
“Why, then, do you bestow on him so much care
and attention?’ ‘Oh, massa,’ replied the slave, ‘he be
my old enemy; he sold me to the slave-dealer, and my
Bible tell me to love my enemy ; when he hunger, feed
him ; when he thirst, give him drink; and so me only
do what my Bible tell me.’â€
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 133
How very simple and touching is this practical ex-
hibition of obedience to the Divine command! yet it
finds a parallel in the following display of Christianity
by some poor Indian converts, possessed of no other
teaching but that which the Bible affords :—
“A few poor Cherokee women, who had been con-
verted to Christianity, formed themselves into a society
for the propagation of the gospel, which was now
become so dear to them. The produce of the first year
was about ten dollars, and the question was—To what
immediate object this should be applied? At length
a poor woman proposed that it should be given to
promote the circulation of the gospel in the Osage
nation ; ‘for,’ said she, ‘the Bible tells us to do good
to our enemies, and I believe the Osages are the
greatest enemies the Cherokees have.’ â€
Quitting the scenes of rude African and Indian life,
perhaps few evidences of generous forgetfulness of
wrongs among a civilized people have been displayed
under circumstances more creditable than the fol-
lowing :—
“ After the dispersion of the Spanish Armada in
1588, Joan Lomes de Medina, who had been general
of twenty hulks, was, with about two hundred and
sixty men, driven in a vessel to Anstruther in Scotland,
after suffering great hunger and cold for six or seven
days. Notwithstanding the object for which this fleet
134 Motives for Love to Enemies.
had been sent, and the oppressive conduct of the
Spaniards to the Scottish merchants who traded with
them, these men were humanely treated. Mr. James
Melville, the minister, told the Spanish officer first sent
on shore, that they would find nothing among them
but Christianity and works of mercy. The laird of
Anstruther, and a great number of the neighbouring
gentlemen, entertained the officers; and the inhabitants
gave the soldiers and mariners kail, pottage, and fish ;
the minister having addressed _ his flock, as Elisha did
the king of Israel in Samaria, ‘Give them bread and
water.’ When we remember that the Armada had
been freighted with instruments of torture for the ex-
termination or forced conversion of these Protestant
Christians, we shall appreciate the extent of their
forgiveness and charity. It was another, but a no less
striking practical example of obedience to the command,
‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him.’†|
“During the persecuting times in England, two
persons from Bedford went early to the house of a
pious man, who rented a farm in the parish of Keysoe,
with the intention of apprehending and imprisoning
him in Bedford jail for nonconformity. The good
man knew their intention, and desired his wife to
prepare breakfast, at the same time kindly inviting
his visitors to partake with them. In asking a blessing,
or in returning thanks for the food, he pronounced
Motives for Love to Enemies. 135
emphatically these words, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink;’ by which means
the hearts of his persecutors were so far softened, that
they went away without taking him into custody.â€
It was the laudable ambition of Cotton Mather to
say, “He did not know of any person in the world
who had done him any ill office, but he had done him
a good one for it.†It should be in the power of every
Christian to say the like; nor are examples of such a
spirit wanting elsewhere.
The Rev. John Brown of Haddington, a truly pious
Christian minister, manifested a singular readiness to
forgive his enemies. Notwithstanding the abuse he
received from some ministers when a student, it was
remarked that he was never heard to speak evil of
them, nor so much as to mention the affair. A dis-
senting clergyman, who had used him rudely, being
reduced to poverty, he sent him money, and in a way -
which concealed the benefactor. After the clergyman’s
decease, he offered to take one of his destitute orphans,
and bring him up with his own children. ‘To certain
writers who reviled him from the press, he meekly
| replied: “ But now that the fact is committed, instead
of intending to resent the injury these reverend brethren
have done me, I reckon myself, on account thereof, so
much the more effectually obliged, by the Christian
law, to contribute my utmost endeavours towards the
136 Motives for Love to Enemies.
advancement of their welfare, spiritual or temporal,
and am resolved, through grace, to discharge these
obligations, as Providence gives me opportunity for
the same. Let them do to or with me what they will,
may their portion be redemption through the blood of
Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace ; and call me what they please, may the Lord
call them ‘the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord.’â€
“Mr. Herring, one of the Puritan ministers, was
eminently distinguished for Christian meekness, and
for love to his greatest enemies. Dr. Lamb, a violent
persecutor of the Puritans, and especially of this good
man, being on a journey, unhappily broke his leg, and
was carried to the inn where Mr. Herring happened to
be staying for the night. Mr. Herring was called on
to pray that evening in the family, when he prayed
with so much fervour and affection for the doctor as to
surprise all who heard him. Being afterwards asked
why he manifested such respect to a man who was so
utterly unworthy of it, he replied: ‘The greater enemy
he is, the more need he hath of our prayers. We must
prove ourselves to be the disciples of Christ by loving
our enemies, and praying for our persecutors.’â€
Such examples are less uncommon than the world
is aware of. Mr. Burkitt observes, in his journal, that
some persons would never have had a particular share
Motives for Love to Enemies. 137
in his prayers but for the injuries they had done him ;
and doubtless other Christian men have found, in the
like reason, a motive for the remembrance of their
fellow-men in their prayers.
At an anti-slavery meeting held at Pittsburgh, in
Pennsylvania, the Rev. Mr. Dickey, of Ohio, told the
following anecdote :—
“T will relate a case that occurred within the circle
of my acquaintance. A slave, who could neither read
nor write, heard the gospel, and the Spirit of God
made it effectual to his conversion. Like all true
converts, he felt a missionary spirit. He was anxious
for the conversion of his brethren; and at length it
became his uniform practice, frequently after the toils
of the day were over, to walk two or three miles and
hold a meeting among the slaves. On one occasion
this meeting was discovered by the patrol, who are
authorised to inflict summary punishment of ten lashes
upon all slaves they find assembled together, whatever
the reason. This was done immediately with all pre-
sent, but old Gabriel. As he was the ringleader, they
thought he must be punished more severely; so they
took him to the magistrate. As they were tying up
his hands, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, this is just the way
Pontius Pilate did to my Massa!’ Here his per-
secutors relented. One of them afterwards was
troubled in his conscience for what he had done; and
138 Motives for Love to Enemies.
after a long time, finding no peace, he went to old
Gabriel and asked him if he would forgive him.
‘Forgive you!’ said old Gabriel, ‘why, massa, me have
been praying for you ever since you tied me up !’â€
We must cull yet another anecdote from the history
- of Christian slaves :—
“A wealthy planter in the South, who had a great
number of slaves, found one of them reading the Bible, —
and reproved him for the neglect of his work, saying
there was time enough on Sundays for reading the
Bible, and that on other days he ought to be in the
tobacco-house. The slave repeating the offence, he
ordered him to be whipped. Going near the place of
punishment soon after its infliction, curiosity led him
to listen to a voice engaged in prayer; and he heard
the poor black implore the Almighty to forgive the
injustice of his master, to touch his heart with a sense
of his sin, and to make him a good Christian. Struck
with remorse, he made an immediate change in his life,
which had been careless and dissipated, burnt his pro-
fane books and cards, liberated all his slaves, and
appeared now to study how to render his wealth and
talents useful to others.â€
Before we proceed to consider one of the highest
motives of all which should guide the Christian to the
manifestation of such a spirit of love, it may be well
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 139
to point out how strikingly it has sometimes been ex-
hibited even by heathens :—
It is related of Pericles, that he was of so patient a _
spirit, that he was hardly ever troubled with anything |
that crossed him. There was a man who did nothing
all the day but rail at him in the market-place, before
all the people, notwithstanding Pericles was a magis-
trate. Pericles, however, took no notice of it, but
despatching sundry cases of importance till night
came, he went home with a sober pace. The man
followed him all the way, defaming him as he went.
Pericles, when he came home, it being dark, called his
man, and desired him to get a torch and light the
fellow home.
It is said of Julius Cesar, that, upon any provoca-
tion, he would repeat the Roman alphabet before he
suffered himself to speak, that he might be more just
and calm in his resentments; and, further, that he
could forget nothing but wrongs, and remember nothing
but benefits.
It is commonly said that “revenge is sweet;†but
it can only be so to those weak minds that are
incapable of bearing an injury. An elevated mind
is superior to injuries, and pardons them. The
Emperor Adrian, meeting a man who had insulted
him before he came to the government, said to
him, “ Approach, you have nothing to fear; I am an
Emperor.†This is an example well worthy of being
140 Motives for Love to Enemies.
imitated by those who are called to return good for
evil.
Socrates, who was as pure a teacher of morals, and
approached as near the spirit of a true Christian as any
of the ancient heathen, says, “The person who has re-
ceived an injury must not return it, as is the opinion
of the vulgar.â€
- Euclid, a disciple of Socrates, having offended his
brother, the brother cried out in a rage, “Let me die,
if Tam not revenged on you one time or other;†to
whom Euclid replied, “And let me die, if I do not
soften you by my kindnesses, and make you love me as
well as ever.†What a reproof to unforgiving pro-
fessors of Christianity !
Phocion was an Athenian, born some four hundred
years before Christ, and one of the most upright and
benevolent heathen that ever lived. Yet he was con-
demned to die as a criminal, and denied even a grave
in the country to which he had devoted his life. What
could be more unjust in the Athenians, than putting
their public benefactor to death in such a way as this?
They sadly repented their madness afterwards, put the
accuser to death, and erected a statue to Phocion’s
memory. But when Phocion had taken the poison
which he was condemned to drink, and was about to
die, “he charged his son, with his last breath, that he
should show no resentment against his persecutors.â€
What taught him to feel such forbearance and kind-
Motives for Love to Enemies. I4I
ness towards those who had so wickedly wronged him ?
The voice of conscience—the law God hath written
on the heart.
A short time before the war between the English
and the Indians in Pennsylvania broke out, an English
gentleman, who lived on the borders of the province,
was standing one evening at his door, when an Indian
came and desired a little food. He answered, he had
none for him; he then asked for a little beer, and re-
ceived the same answer. Not yet discouraged, he
begged for a little water; but the gentleman only
answered, “Get ye gone for an Indian dog.†The
Indian fixed his eye for a little time on the English-
man, and then went away.
Some time after, this gentleman, who was fond of
shooting, pursued his game till he was lost in the
woods. After wandering awhile, he saw an Indian
hut, and went to it to inquire his way to some planta-
tion. The Indian said, “It 1s a great way off, and the
sun is near going down; you cannot reach it to-night,
and if you stay in the woods the wolves will eat you
up; but if you have a mind to lodge with me, you
may.†The gentleman gladly accepted the invitation, and
went in. The Indian boiled a little venison for him, gave
him some rum and water, and then spread some deer-
skins for him to lie upon; having done this, himself and
another Indian went and lay at the other side of the hut
142 Motives for Love to Enemtes..
He called the gentleman in the morning, telling him
that the sun was up, and that he had a great way to
go to the plantation, but that he would show him the
way. ‘Taking their .guns, the two Indians went for-
ward, and he followed. When they had gone several
miles, the Indian told him he was within two miles of
the plantation he wanted. He then stopped before
him, and said, “Do you know me?†In great con-
fusion, the gentleman answered, “I have seen you.â€
The Indian replied, “Yes, you have seen me at your
own door. And I will give you a piece of advice: when
a poor Indian, that is hungry, and dry, and faint, again
asks you for a little meat or drink, do not bid him get
him gone for an Indian dog.†So he turned and went
away. |
Which of these two was to be commended, or which
acted most agreeably to the Saviour’s golden rule?
Above all, the highest motive which we have for
showing kindness and love to our enemies is, that it
not only makes of them friends, but it has often led:
them to become Christians. Of this, many gratifying
proois might be produced, and a selection of one or
two examples cannot fail to be acceptable to the
reader :—
“ Mr. Ravencross was a slaveholder in Virginia, and
reputed a hard master. His poor distressed slaves
were in the habit of meeting at night in a distant hut,
Motives for Love to Enemies. 143
for the purpose of worshipping God. He was informed
of this, and at the same time put on his guard, as it
was suspected their motives for meeting were different
from what they held out, and that an insurrection
might be the consequence. Under this impression, he
determined to prevent their assembling in future,
chastised the promoters of this work, and gave positive
orders, under the most serious penalty, that they should
_hever assemble again, under any pretence whatever,
A short time after, he was told they had been seen
going in a body into the hut. Much displeased at
their disobedience, and resolving that night to put a
stop to their proceedings, he approached the hut with
all the feelings of an offended master. When he
reached the door, it was partly open. He looked in;
they were on their knees. He listened; there was a
venerable old man, who had been long in his service,
pouring out his soul in prayer to God. The first words
which caught his ear were, ‘Merciful God, turn my
poor massa’s heart; make him merciful, that he may
obtain mercy ; make him good, that he may inherit the
kingdom of heaven.’ He heard no more, but fainted.
Upon coming to himself, he wept; went into the sacred
hut, knelt by the side of his old slave, and prayed
also! From this period he became a true penitent,
studied the Scriptures, took orders, and became a
useful and valued minister of the gospel. He preached
at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, in
144 Motives for Love to Enemies.
the city of Philadelphia, before more than two hundred
of the clergy, in the year 1820.â€
No situation can be conceived of more trying, or
more difficult for the practice of a spirit of Christian
forgiveness, than that of the poor slave; yet, in this
very state of life, some of its most pleasing exhibitions
have been made, and with the happiest results :—
“A slave-holder in the South, extremely irascible and
severe, found at length a slave as bad-tempered as him-
self. No severity of punishment could subdue or bow
his stern, indomitable spirit ; and even when smarting
under the lash, and reeking with blood from head to
foot, he would still defy that master to his face, and
pour upon him a torrent of bold, fierce, withering im-
precations, It was Turk meeting Turk. But the
gospel came ere long to that negro’s heart; it tamed
the tiger into a lamb; and then did that very slave,
once so full only of wrath and revenge, make it the
burden of his daily prayers, that God would have
mercy on his cruel, relentless oppressor. His infidel
master, doubting his sincerity, and an utter stranger to
his present spirit, treated him with greater severity
than ever, and fiercely swore ‘he’d whip the devil out
of the villain ;’ but the poor slave, even while smarting,
and writhing, and bleeding under the lash, would fall
on his knees, and pray so much the more, ‘God bless
massa! God bless my massa!’ This was too much
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 145
even for depravity like his to bear long; and that very
master, under the blessing of God upon such an ex-
hibition of the Christian spirit, good returned for evil,
love for hatred, prayers for bloody stripes, at length
came himself to pray, and weep, and rejoice in Christ
with his much abused, yet still affectionate and
devoted, solely because regenerated, slave. And when
the time came for a public profession of their faith in
their common Saviour, you might have seen that
master and his slave going hand in hand to the
baptismal font, there to seal the consecration of them-
selves to Him whose matchless love it is, rather than
his almighty wrath, that subdues rebellious hearts to
his sceptre.â€
Kindness and forgiveness to those who insult and
abuse us, is often the means, in the hand of God, of
making them Christians. You exhibit religion before
them in a most attractive and engaging form, if you
are known as one of its professors. Besides, when, by
treating an enemy in this way, you have roused his
_ conscience, and led him to feel shame and contrition
for what he has done to you, it is natural, at such a
time, that his excited conscience should turn on his
sins towards God, and lead him to repentance.
The Holy Spirit, I doubt not, often avails itself of
this softened state of the heart, to bring it down into
penitence before God.
(149) 10
146 Motives for Love to E-nemtes.
As some rude and irreligious sailors were at work
caulking a vessel in a certain harbour, they noticed, at
a little distance, a very aged and exemplary Christian
quietly engaged in his business. He was noted for his
generous, peaceful, forgiving disposition.
One sailor says to another, “You can’t make that
old man angry by any offence you can offer him.â€
The sailor who was addressed, at once accepted the
challenge. He snatched up the bucket of tar that
stood by him, ran up to the old man, and very unex-
pectedly dashed its contents upon him.
He looked up at the sailor with surprise at this
wanton and unprovoked act of malignity, and said to
him in a mild voice: “Young man, the Saviour says,
‘Whoso shall offend one of these little ones that believe
in me, it were better for him that a millstone were
hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the
depths of the sea.’ Now, if I am one of these little
ones, you have very much offended me.â€
The young sailor turned away perplexed and
chagrined at the spirit the injured saint exhibited.
He felt convinced that the man’s religion was of a
more sublime, noble, and vital character, than he had
usually thought the Christian religion to be He
came back to his companions, confessing that the old
man had triumphed.
The image of the old man bearing the marks of his
abuse, and looking with so much mingled pity and dis-
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 147
pleasure at him, was painted indelibly upon his
memory. He was gone, but the sailor seemed to see
him still! And that mild but terrible reproof, too;
the language still rung in his ear. The more he
thought of the old man, the more he thought of the
power and beauty of religion. The more he thought
of himself, the more ashamed and miserable did he
become, until at length his feelings became insup-
portable. |
Some time afterwards he went to see the old man
whom he had so wickedly treated; he asked him to
forgive him, and to pray for him too. He was very
ready to do both; and not long after, the sailor became
a hopeful Christian.
There is reason to believe that many sinners might
be converted from the error of their ways, if they should
meet such a spirit as the sailor did in every professed
Christian whom they might insult or abuse. Need we
say how such a spirit is to be obtained ?
There was a man of middle age, of cold, slow, doubt- -
ing tendency of soul, who obtained at last the Chris-
tian’s hope. He hoped his name was in the book of
life, but his progress was exceedingly slow. He seemed
to grow little in the course of six or eight years. He
dreaded his deficiency in one feature of Christian
character. The apprehension gave him pain. He
read in one section of his Master’s letter, “Love your
148 Motives for Love to Enemies.
enemies.†or a long time, like thousands of others,
he concluded he would not hurt them, or fight them,
or return evil for evil, and he hoped this was love.
He could hear others say of injuries received, “I can
forgive, but I will not forget it;†and he could see
in their case clearly, that this was Satan’s kind of for-
giveness. It made him fear, in his own case, that he
did not love his enemies. He remembered that Christ
would not accept of a false love. He knew that it did
not mean a love of approbation for their sins, but the
love of compassion. He tried to feel it, tried again,
and for a year, but did not succeed. He read, thought,
prayed over the subject. He did not love his enemies.
He continued trying for several years. He thought,
at times, that his feelings were softer; but he soon
found that it was not love. At length he learned that,
by mere effect of will, he could not move his affections.
He became alarmed. He prayed in earnest; and, at
an hour when he was not looking for it, at a moment
when he was least expecting, he loved his enemies.
It was a real love. He knew it in the same way,
reader, that you know mirth from woe, when you feel
it yourself.
When he afterwards forgot the need of this heavenly
help, he would sometimes fall again into his former
feelings, and be almost as far from loving his enemies
as before. But when he threw himself on his knees
again, and received the dew of heavenly influence, the
Motives for Love to Enemtes. 149
drooping grace of love to his enemies was quickened
into new life, and bloomed with its wonted beauty and
fragrance, |
Justin Martyr, one of the earliest writers, in his
“ Apology†to the heathen in behalf of the Christians,
says: “ We who once hated and murdered one another,
we who would not enjoy the hearth in common with
strangers, on account of the difference of our customs,
now live in common with them since the appearance of
Christ; we pray for our enemies; we seek to persuade
those who hate us unjustly, that they may direct their
lives according to the glorious doctrines of Christ, and
may share with us the joyful hope of enjoying the same
privileges from God the Lord of all things.â€
Origen, one of the greatest scholars and theologians
of the Christian Church in the third century, when he
was cruelly persecuted by Demetrius, and through his
efforts excommunicated by the Synod, beautifully ex-
hibited the same mild and forgiving spirit. Speaking
in his defence against the Synod, he mentions wicked
priests and rulers thus: “We must pity them rather
than hate them, pray for them rather than curse
them, for we are created for blessing rather than
cursing.†|
In the time of a great pestilence, Cyprian, another of
the early Christians, who was bishop of the church in
Carthage in the third century, thus exhorts his flock to
I50 Motives for Love to Enemies.
take care of the sick and dying, not only among their
friends, but their foes :—“TIf,†says he, “we only do
good to our own people, we do no more than publicans
and heathens. But if we are the children of God, who
makes his sun to shine and his rain to descend upon
the just and upon the unjust, who sheds abroad his
blessings, not upon his friends alone, but upon those
whose thoughts are far from him, we must show this
by our actions, blessing those who curse us, and doing
good to those who persecute us.â€
Stimulated by their bishop’s admonitions, the
members of the church addressed themselves to the
work, the rich contributing their money and the poor
their labour. Thus the sick were attended to, the
streets soon cleared of the corpses that filled them,
and the city saved from the dangers of universal
pestilence.
Such are the various happy fruits which follow on
our obedience to this maxim of the divine Founder of
Christianity, “ Love your enemies.†We perceive from
these that the command was not meant to be a dead
letter, or to be understood only as a figure of speech.
What Christ himself, and the first martyr of his
church, Stephen, did, we also must do, if we would
_ follow in the footsteps of our Saviour, and share in the
possessions he has purchased for us with his blood.
But, even if we take up lower ground, we find that the
Motives for Love to Enemies. I51
results are in themselves an abundant reward—“ that
wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her
paths are peace.†By every motive that can influence
the best feelings of our nature, we are impelled to
forgiveness, charity, and love.
ey M4
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v.
Philanthropy.
‘¢ Mercy is above the sceptred sway ;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God,
When mercy seasons justice.â€
SHAKESPEARE.
pereati KRE are certain men whose names mark the
see, great epochs of important changes in the
progress of the world; and among these
that of Howard is familiar to all, as the memento of —
that remarkable change in the opinions of men, which.
introduced the mighty power of love as a counterpart
to crime, a corrector of violence, and a subduer even of
the madman in his chains. The idea of the philan-
thropist entering the dungeon of the criminal, or the
cell of the insane, armed with no other means of in-
fluence or of defence than the firmness and tender
compassion of a benevolent and well-regulated heart,
seemed at one time too extravagant a fancy to enter
=
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BAST pk
THE
GAT Orr
ARD AT THe
CG W
4
Philanthropy. 153
into any sane mind. The gulf that separated crime
and insanity from virtuous and sane life, was deemed
an impassable one; and thus, by the very limits
assigned by men to their ideas of possible improvement,
they affixed to the dread portal of the prison, as to the —
sad asylum of the victim of mental aberration, the
terrible sentence which Dante reads over the gates of
the infernal regions—*“ All hope abandon, ye who enter
here!†John Howard was the noble missionary of a
better order of things, who broke this fearful spell, and
once more admitted into these regions of despair the
light of hope, the idea of mercy, and the influences of
human sympathy and Christian charity. He dedicated
his life to the generous duty of ministering to the wants
of the wretched and the criminal. After inspecting
the receptacles of crime and misery throughout Great
Britain and Ireland, he left his native country, and
relinquished his own ease to visit the abodes of those
who were in want, and bound in fetters of iron, in
other parts of the world. He travelled three times
through France, four through Germany, five through
Holland,-twice through Austria and Italy, once through
Spain and Portugal, and also through Denmark, Sweden,
Russia, and part of Turkey. These excursions occupied
(with some short intervals of rest at home) the period
of twelve years, In the course of one of his progresses
through Austria, the following incident occurred :—
A German count, governor of Upper Austria, with
154 Philanthropy.
his countess, called one day on a man who had excited
so large a share of the public attention. The count
asked him the state of the prisons within his depart-
ment. Mr. Howard replied, “The worst in all Ger-
many ;†and advised that the countess should visit the
female prisoners. “TI,†said she haughtily, “I go into
prisons !†and rapidly hastened down stairs in great
anger. Howard, indignant at her proud and unfeeling
disposition, loudly called after her, “Madam, remember
that you are a woman yourself, and you must soon, like
the most miserable female prisoner in a dungeon, in-
habit but a small space of that earth from which you
equally originated.â€
Never before was such a considerable portion of the
life of aman applied to a more benevolent and laudable
purpose. He gave up his own comfort that he might
bestow it upon others. He was often immured in
prison that others might be set at liberty. He exposed
himself to danger that he might free others from it,
He visited the gloomy cell that he might inspire a
ray of hope and joy in the breasts of the wretched.
Yea, he not only lived, but died in the noble cause of
benevolence ; for in visiting a young lady who lay
dangerously ill of an epidemic fever, in order to ad-
minister relief, he caught the distemper, and fell a
victim to his humanity, J anuary 20, 1790.
To this noble sacrifice of a life in the cause of
Philanthropy. 155
humanity we owe the origination of that philanthropic
system which now aims to deal with criminals, even as
God deals with us; to extend mercy, and love, and
hope, ungrudgingly to the vilest of the vile, and thus to
bring back the erring prodigal even when furthest
astray from the right way. “The apostle holds out the
promise of a noble reward to incite us onward in the
pursuit of such an aim; the highest, indeed, of all
rewards that man can aspire to in dealing with his
fellow-men,—“ He that converteth a sinner from the
error of his ways, shall save a soul from death, and
hide a multitude of sins.â€
In times past, criminals have been visited with con-
stant severity, and in multitudes of instances with
cruelty which had no object in view but to gratify the
worst passions of unprincipled jailers. Nor is this
system even now entirely at an end at the present day ;
it 1s not only the fact that in many prisons prisoners
are subjected to vindictive and frequent corporeal
punishments, but multitudes still cherish the erroneous
notion, that prisoners cannot be controlled in any other
manner than by unrelenting severity. This is a great
and, indeed, a fatal mistake. In every instance where
kindness has been properly exhibited in governing
criminals, it has succeeded in its object, not only
proving the easiest and most effectual means of con-
trolling them, but, in not a few cases, going much
further, and leading to their effectual reformation. Men
156 Philanthropy.
are slow to learn “ the power of mighty love,†but they
are attaining to some better appreciation of its power ;
and not only is the Divine view that the law of over-
coming evil with good is the noblest power which can
be exerted in subduing criminals, but. a large portion
of the civilized world begins even to own the authority
of the precept that we should “love the enemies†of
the State as well as of individuals. That in this all-
powerful principle we find the genial dew to fertilize
the barren heart, the key to unlock the hidden feeling,
the magnet to attract the love of the hardened soul,
many touching incidents suffice to prove.
During the Irish rebellion in 1798, Joseph Holt, one
of the rebel generals, was captured by the ruling
authority. In consequence of his goodness of character,
which excited even the respect of those against whom
he had rebelled, he was saved from capital punishment,
and banished to New South Wales. The commutation
of his sentence from death to transportation was brought
about by the kindness which he had extended to a
captive officer, who was about to be slain by the rebels:
Holt interfered, and saved his life. The influence which
the officer possessed enabled him to repay this debt of
obligation, and to deliver Holt from a disgraceful exe-
cution. After his arrival, he was employed as an over-
seer on the estate of a Mr. Cox, and had forty-five
convicts and twenty-five freemen under his guidance.
Philanthropy. 157
These convicts met at his hands nothing but kindness
and confidence; and the result ig given in his memoirs,
published in the year 1838.
“As to the convicts, there was a certain quantity of
work which, by the government regulations, they must
do in a given time, and this may be given them by the
day, week, or month, as you pleased, and they must be
paid a certain price for all the work they did beyond a
certain quantity. If they were idle, and did not do
the regulated quantity of work, it was only necessary
to take them before a magistrate, and he would order
them twenty-five lashes of the cat on their backs for
the first offence, fifty for the second, and so on ; and if
that would not do, they were at last put into a rail-
gang, and made to work in irons from morning till
night.
“In order to keep them honest, I paid them fully
and fairly for everything they did beyond their stipu-
lated task, at the same time I paid the freemen; and
if I thought the rations not sufficient for their com-
fortable support, I issued to each man six pounds of
wheat, fourteen of potatoes, and one of pork, in addition.
By this means the men were well fed, for the old saying
is true, ‘ Hunger will break through stone walls,’ and
wt as all nonsense to make laws for starving men. When
any article was stolen from me, I instantly paraded all
hands, and told them that if it was not restored in a
given time, I would stop all extra allowances and in-
58 Philanthropy.
dulgences. ‘The thief,’ said I, ‘is a disgrace to the
establishment and all employed in it. Let the honest
men find him out, and punish him among yourselves,
Do not let it be said that the flogger ever polluted this
place by his presence. You all know the advantages
you enjoy above gangs on any other estate in the
colony ; do not, then, throw them away. Do not let
me know who the thief is, but punish him by your own
verdict.’ I then dismissed them.
“The transports would say among themselves, that
what I had told them was all right. ‘We won't,’ they
would reason, ‘be punished because there happens to
be an ungrateful thief among us.’ They then called a
jury, and entered into an investigation, and on all occa-
sions succeeded in detecting and punishing the offender.
I was by this line of conduct secure from plunder, and
the disgusting operation of flaying a man alive with a
cat-o’-nine-tails did not disgrace the farms during my
superintendence. Mr. Cox said one day to me, ‘ Pray,
Joseph, how is it that you never have to bring your
men to punishment? You have more under you, I
_ believe, than any man in the colony, and, to the surprise
of all, you have never had one flogged, or indeed have
made a complaint against one of them. They look
well, and appear contented, and even happy.’ ‘Siz,’
said I, ‘I have studied human nature more than books,
U had the management of many more men in my own
country, and I was always rigidly just to them. I
Philanthropy. 159
never oppressed them, or suffered them to cheat their
employers or each other. They knew, if they did their
duty, they would be well treated, and if not, sent to
the right about. I follow the same course with the
men here..... I should think myself very ill qualified
to act as your overseer, were I to have a man or two
flogged every week. Besides the horrible inhumanity
of the practice, the loss of a man’s week or fortnight’s
work will not be a trifle in a year, at twelve shillings
and sixpence per week, for a man who gets the cat is
incapable of work till his back is well; so, in prudence,
as well as in Christian charity, it is best to treat our
fellow-creatures like men, although they may be de-
graded to the state of convict slaves.’ â€
Mr. Holt also gives an account of Colonel Collins,
who was governor of the settlement at the Derwent
River, in Van Dieman’s Land, from 1804 till his death
in 1810, whose conduct furnishes a most admirable
illustration of the influence of kindness. “ This gentle-
man had the good will, the good wishes, and the good
word of every one in the settlement. His conduct was
exemplary, and his disposition most humane. His
treatment of the runaway convicts was conciliatory, and
even kind. He would go into the forests among the
natives to allow these poor creatures, the runaways, an
opportunity of returning to their former condition ;
and, half dead with cold and hunger, they would come
and drop on their knees before him, imploring pardon
160 Philanthropy.
for their behaviour. ‘Well,’ he would say to them,
‘now that you have lived in the bush, do you think
the change you made was for the better? Are you
sorry for what you have done?’ ‘Yes, sir.†‘And will
you promise never to go away again?’ ‘ Never, sir,’
‘Go to the storekeeper, then,’ the benevolent Collins
would say, ‘and get a suit of slops, and your week’s
ration, and then go to the overseer, and attend your
work. I give you my pardon, but remember that I
expect you will keep your promise to me.’†All this
was genuine kindness, and the result was peculiarly
pleasing and excellent. “I have been assured,†says
Mr. Holt, “that there was less crime, and much fewer
faults committed among the people under Governor
- Collins, than in any other settlement ; which I think
is a clear proof that mercy and humanity are the best
policy.â€
Another instance of the extraordinary influence of
interest in the welfare of prisoners, and the exercise of
kindness towards them, is found in the conduct of Mrs.
Tatnall, wife of the governor of Warwick gaol, At the
age of twenty-four, and on the 3rd of March 1803, she
was married, and on the same day went to her husband’s
abode. But the wretchedness of the gaol, and the
misery seen in it, made greater by the contrast with
the quiet home which she had left, so filled her with
despair, that on one occasion, when her husband was
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Philanthropy. 161
absent, she returned to her father’s house ; and it re-
quired all her husband’s power of reason and solicitation
to induce her to return with him. After witnessing
the bad habits, the profanity, the wretchedness, mani-
fested by the prisoners, who were of all ages and sexes,
the thought occurred to her whether she might not be
able to effect some degree of reformation, at least, in
the thoughts, manners, and conduct of the convicts,
This thought was immediately reduced to practice, and
for twenty-five years did this admirable woman per-
severe in it, surrounded by the blessedness arising from
conduct which flowed from the purest motives of kind-
ness and genuine Christian charity. She commenced
her labours by reading the Bible and prayers to the
prisoners, until, after a time, she had secured their at-
tention and confidence. She then introduced the means
of industry, so that the convicts should not be left to
the influence of idleness ; and, in addition, after a long
struggle with great difficulties, a school was opened
through her exertions for the boys and girls, that they
might be redeemed from the influence of ignorance, and
consequently be better guarded against the seductions
of vice. By this judicious kindness, Mrs. Tatnall ob-
tained a strong power over the affections of the convicts,
especially of the boys and the girls, who became so far
regenerated from the depravity into which ignorance
and crime had thrown them, as to return a kindred
response to the voice of her goodness. As an example
(149) | j]
162 Philanthropy.
of the great regard and love which they cherished for
their benefactress, the following affecting relation of
the death of two boys, given in Mrs. Tatnall’s own
language, is full of meaning :—
“Two little boys, the one thirteen, the other four-
teen years of age, were brought to the prison. Both
were in the last stage of consumption, emaciated, and
destitute of clothing. Neither of them had any
remembrance of their parents; they had been left
destitute at too early an age to know who or what the
beings were to whom they owed their birth, and had
been in the habit of wandering about during the day,
subsisting on precarious charity and theft, Their
nights had been passed near a brick-kiln. I watched,
I may say, with a mother’s care, the progress of the
disease, and administered all the little comforts in my
power to bestow. Such had been their extreme des-
titution, that it was with great difficulty they were
made to believe that some sheets hanging at the fire
were intended for their use. After their removal to
the infirmary, a few weeks terminated their lives. The
night previous to the death of the first, he asked re-
peatedly how long it would be before the clock struck
nine (the hour at which I usually went to see them).
On entering the room, I perceived a marked alteration
in his appearance. When I was seated by his bed, he
put out his emaciated hands, wished to be raised, laid
his head on my shoulder, looked at me with a smile of
Philanthropy. 163
delight, then kissed me, and instantly expired. The
other poor child departed in the same happy com-
posed manner, a few days after.â€
Thus did this admirable woman become the monitor
and the kind mother of the degraded and depraved.
By meeting them with tender affection, she aroused
the long dormant and better feelings of their nature,
called out the generous capacities of their souls, while,
at the same time, their bad habits and desires were re-
pressed, and love for virtue excited and strengthened.
Nor was this the entire result of her noble conduct,
and its consequences upon convicts. She procured the
establishment of an asylum for boys who became
reformed, where they continued until they could be
put out to situations affording them an opportunity of
establishing themselves for life; while she instituted
schools for the young convicts of both sexes. She
effected a separation of the untried from the tried
prisoners, of the young from the old, of the less guilty
from the depraved, and furnished to each class the
‘ means of industry, that their thoughts might be drawn
from sin to the benefits and pleasures of usefulness.
Yet all this was gradually effected by her practice of
the law of kindness; for, had she used harshness and
blows, the convicts would have been hardened in their
wickedness, and would have sullenly resisted every
effort for their improvement. Well did she merit a.
164 Philanthropy.
service of plate presented to her by the magistrates of
Warwick, “in acknowledgment of her meritorious con-
duct to the persons in the gaol;†and well is she
worthy of the highest admiration of the philanthropic,
and the blessings of the unfortunate.
Another example of the successful adoption of the
same principle of sympathy and love, in dealing with
criminals of the most degraded class, must convince
the most sceptical that the law of kindness is almost
omnipotent in subduing convicts and criminals of every
class, and in producing reformation among them.
In 1815 there were nearly three hundred women
confined in the jail at Newgate, some untried, some
under sentence of death, some condemned to transporta-
tion, while all were sent there for every form and stage
of crime. Their condition was most deplorable; the
utmost wickedness was practised among them; visitors
were robbed by them; and they were so violent. that
even the governor of the prison was loth to go among
them. Mrs. Fry, a benevolent lady of the denomina-
tion of Friends, on hearing of their condition, was in-
duced to examine into their situation. After her first
visit, when writing to a friend, she said: “ All I tell
thee is a faint picture of the reality; the filth, the
closeness of the rooms, the ferocious manners, and the
abandoned wickedness which everything bespoke, is
indescribable.†In 1816 she succeeded in associating
Philanthropy. 165
with herself twelve ladies, eleven of them Friends, for
the avowed purpose of reforming the degraded females
of Newgate prison. In the execution of this ennobling
object, they put aside all severity, assuming, for their
sole means of operation and defence, the law of kind-
ness; and, with hearts overflowing with love for the
sinful objects of their care, they commenced the ex:
periment. Of that experiment it was predicted—and
by many, too, whose wisdom and benevolence added
weight to their opinions—that those who had set at
defiance the laws of the land, with all its terrors, would
very speedily revolt from an authority which had no-
thing to enforce it, and nothing more to recommend it
than its simplicity and gentleness, The result, however,
proved this prediction unfounded in every particular.
In the short period of one month, under the admo-
nitions and kindness of these ladies, in conjunction
with the school of knowledge and industry which they
established, a complete revolution was established in
Newgate; so that when the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs,
and several of the Aldermen of London, visited the
prison, the attention, the cleanly dress and appearance,
the respect and obedience, as well as the propriety and
decency, of all the female convicts, filled them with
admiration and wonder at the beneficial effects which
had been produced in so short a period. When any of
their number were taken to be transported to Botany
Bay, instead of breaking everything inside of their
166 Philanthropy.
prison, and marching off with every indication of a
bold and reckless depravity, as was formerly the case,
they now parted from their companions with decorum
and tears, and with deep gratitude to the ladies who
had watched over them. All these results were pro-
duced by mercy. “TI found,†says a visitor to Newgate,
“that the ladies ruled by the LAW OF LOVE written in
their hearts and displayed in their actions. They
spoke to the prisoners with affection and prudence.
These had been long rejected by all reputable society.
It was long since they had heard the voice of real com-
passion, or seen the example of real virtue. They had
steeled their minds against the terrors of punishment;
but they were melted at the warning voice of those who
felt for their sorrows, while they gently reproved them
for their misdeeds.â€
The grand jury of London, after their visit to New-
gate in 1818, made “a report to the court at the Old
Bailey.†After enumerating the blessings produced by
Mrs. Fry and her friends, the report says: “If the
principles which govern their regulations were adopted
towards the males as well as the females, it would be
the means of converting a prison into a school of reform ;
and instead of sending criminals back into the world
hardened in vice and depravity, they would be repentant,
and probably become useful members of society.â€
“ Tn the example set by this noble woman, we have a
Philanthropy. 167
most beautiful illustration of the far-reaching extent of
that divine maxim and promise, “Love never fails.â€
The human mind can scarcely conceive a scene of
greater wretchedness and hopeless misery than that on
which Mrs. Fry entered in her self-imposed labour of
love. Many difficulties may be surmounted; but
scarcely another woman was then living in England
who conceived that victory possible, or who dared to
have undertaken the initiatory steps by which it was
accomplished. The dreary cells of Newgate, whose
dark and grated walls and loop-holes frown on the
passengers that thread their way by the busy thorough-
fares of London, which there converge towards its
centre, were then filled with women lost to all hope
and to all shame. Scarcely anything more dreadful
can be conceived than a woman when she has thrown
off all the gentleness and the modesty of her sex, and
with oaths and imprecations, with lascivious words and
obscene actions, blazons forth her degradation. It is
the most fearful picture of the humiliation which sin
can effect, that it is possible for us to picture. No
human being can be conceived of in a more hopeless
state. ‘To tame the tiger or wash the Ethiopian white
seems scarce a more desperate attempt than to take
woman, abandoned of her virtue, her modesty, and all
the natural characteristics of her sex, and attempt to
restore her to the dignity of a hopeful and virtuous
being. Yet all this the noble Christian philanthropist
168 Philanthropy.
attempted and accomplished—accomplished, indeed,
with apparent ease. The sight of her calm, benevo-
lent countenance, and the sound of her genial voice,
whispering words of consolation and promises of hope,
awoke once more the image of God within the hearts
of his degraded and long-abandoned creatures. She
spoke to them as one woman to another, and they felt
the more keenly the gulf which their own vice had
placed between them and her. She spoke to them as
a sinful woman to sinners; while, as a Christian, she
proclaimed to them the glorious hopes and promises of
the gospel in which she believed. The effect was in-
conceivable. Every one of these degraded outcasts
had within her breast a woman’s heart, still capable of
gratitude and love, though it had long lain there un-
conscious that any human voice would ever again have
power to recall it to life. How sad, yet how true to
life, is the picture which Charles Dickens draws of a
depraved and abandoned female, touched to the heart
by the kindness of a woman, whose unexpected sym-
pathy and favour had melted her to ears: “ Oh, lady,
lady!†she exclaims, in the sudden outburst of long-
forgotten emotions, and clasping her hands passionately
before her face, “if there were more like you, there
would be fewer like me—there would, there would!â€
It is to examples like these that we owe the entire
reformation of the cruel and heartless system of the old
prison management which has since taken place. To
Philanthropy. 169
Howard, beyond all dispute, the whole initiatory steps
are due; but to Mrs. Fry belongs the credit of demon-
strating, In our own day, the power of love to subdue
the worst passions, and to recover the most wretched
and degraded outcasts to hope and virtue. Oh, how
do such noble Christian philanthropists exhibit to us
the full meaning of such precepts as that most compre-
hensive one in the New Testament: “Let the same
mind be in you as was in himâ€â€”as was in Christ,
How like to the spirit of their divine Master were the
sabours of these generous missionaries of love to the
outcasts of their race! Like Him, they went to preach
deliverance to the captive, to heal the broken-hearted,
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
America has not wanted, among her Christian phil-
anthropists, those who have followed successfully in the
footsteps of these benevolent reformers of our prisons.
The most successful of those who first aimed at carrying
the principle of the rule of kindness into the prison-
houses of the United States is Captain Pillsbury, the
active and able superintendent of the Weathersfield
Prison, in Connecticut. Before the establishment of
this prison, the old system of harshness and hopeless
restraint had been universally employed throughout
the American prisons—their wretched inmates being
literally outcasts from hope and mercy, and treated as
we would deal with savage beasts. The management
of the convicts confined in the old Newgate prison war
I70__ Philanthropy.
characterized by an amount of cruelty such as seemed
more like the fruits of an age of ignorance and
barbarity, than the recognised system of a country
enjoying the privileges of universal education and in-
telligent freedom. The cells were filthy, flogging was
frequent and severe, while many of the convicts were
kept continually in irons. This state of things was
not only detrimental to industry—for the institution
ran the State in debt every year—but its effects upon
the temper of the convicts was very injurious, pro-
ducing in them “a deep-rooted and settled malignity.â€
There were also so many re-commitments to this and
other prisons, of convicts who had been sentenced to
it in the first instance, as to demonstrate that such
treatment did not produce reformation. But when
Captain Pillsbury took charge of the new prison in
Weathersfield, and the convicts were removed to it from
Newgate, he instituted a very different course of treat-
ment. He was kind in every respect, yet inflexibly
firm in the discharge of his duty. He substituted the
law of kindness for severity. A subsequent report of
his system conveys the result of his proceedings in the
following words: “He mingles authority and affection
in his government and instructions, so that the prin-
ciples of obedience and affection flow almost spon-
taneously towards him from the hearts of the convicts.â€
The consequences of such a course were immediate and
obvious. The convicts were liberated from their irons,
Philanthropy. 17]
their respect and obedience to the agent were gained,
and the institution began to pay for itself by its own
labours. The success of kindness, as practised by the
governor, is nobly exhibited in a few particular in-
stances, detailed by Miss Martineau in her work entitled,
“ Retrospect of Western Travel :â€â€”
“The wonderfully-successful friend of criminals,
Captain Pillsbury, of the Weathersfield Prison, has
worked on this principle, and owes his success to it.
His moral power over the guilty is so remarkable, that
prison-breakers who can be confined nowhere else, are
sent to him to be charmed into staying their term out.
I was told of his treatment of two such. One was a
gigantic personage, the terror of the country, who had
plunged deeper and deeper in crime for seventeen
years. Captain Pillsbury told him when he came, that
he hoped he would not repeat the attempts to escape
which he had made elsewhere. ‘It will be best,’ said
he, ‘that you and I should treat each other as well as
we can. I will make you as comfortable as I possibly
can, and shall be anxious to be your friend; and J
hope you will not get me into any difficulty on your
account. There is a cell intended for solitary confine-
- ment, but we have never used it, and I should be
sorry ever to have to turn the key upon anybody in it.
You may range the place as freely as I do; if you will
trust me, I shall trust you.’ The man was sulky, and
for weeks showed only very gradual symptoms of
172 Philanthropy.
softening under the operation of Captain Pillsbury’s
cheerful confidence. At length information was
given to the captain of this man’s intention to break
the prison. The captain called him, and taxed
him with it; the man preserved a gloomy silence.
He was told that it was now necessary for him to be
locked up in the solitary cell, and desired to follow the
captain, who went first, carrying a lamp in one hand
and a key in the other. In the narrowest part of the
passage, the captain (who is a small, slight man) turned
round and looked in the face of the stout criminal,
‘Now,’ said he, ‘I ask you whether you have treated
me as I deserved? I have done everything I could
think of to make you comfortable ; I have trusted you,
and you have never given me the least confidence in
return, and have even planned to get me into difficulty.
Is this kind? And yet I cannot bear to lock you up.
If I had the least sign that you cared for me—
The man burst into tears. ‘Sir, said he, ‘I have
been a very devil these seventeen years; but you
treat me like a man,’ ‘Come, let us go back,’ said the
captain. The convict had the free range of the prison
as before. From this hour he began to open his heart
to the captain, and cheerfully fulfilled his whole term
of imprisonment, confiding to his friend, as they arose,
all impulses to violate his trust, and facilities for doing
so which he imagined he saw. _
“The other case was a criminal of the same char-
Philanthropy. {73
acter, who went so far as to make the actual attempt
to escape. He fell, and hurt his ankle very much.
‘he captain had him brought in and laid on his bed,
and the ankle attended to, every one being forbidden
to speak a word of reproach to the sufferer. The man.
was sullen, and would not say whether the bandaging
of his ankle gave him pain or not. This was in the
night, and every one had retired to bed. But the cap-
tain could not sleep. He was distressed at the attempt
to escape, and thought he could not have fully done
his duty by any man who would make it. He was
afraid the man was in great pain. He rose, threw on
his gown, and went with a lamp to the cell. The
prisoner’s face was turned to the wall, and his eyes
were closed, but the traces of suffering were not to be
mistaken, the captain loosened and replaced the ban-
dage, and went for his own pillow to rest the limb
upon, the man neither speaking nor moving all the
time. Just as he was shutting the door, the prisoner
started up and called him back. ‘Stop, sir. Was it
all to see after my ankle that you have got up 2’
“Yes; it was. I could not sleep for thinking of you.’
“*And you have never said a word of the way I
have used you !’ |
“¢T do feel hurt with you, but I don’t want to call
you unkind while you are suffering as you are now.’
“The man was in an agony of shame and grief. All
he asked was to be trusted again when he should have
174 Philanthropy.
recovered. He was freely trusted, and gave his
generous friend no more anxiety on his behalf.
“Captain Pillsbury is the gentleman who, on being
told that a desperate prisoner had sworn to murder
him, speedily sent for him to shave him, allowing no
one to be present. He eyed the man, pointed to the
razor, and desired him to shave him. The prisoner’s
hand trembled, but he went through it very well.
When he had done, the captain said, ‘I have been
told you meant to murder me, but I thought I might
trust you.’ ‘God bless you, sir! you may,’ replied the
regenerated man. Such is the power of faith in man.â€
No individual can avoid the conclusion which flows
from these facts, namely, that good will overcome evil.
And it can be as little doubted that the fact now to be
named, adds strength to this conclusion. When Major
Goodell took charge of the State Prison at Auburn, he
was told that there was one particular convict who
was such a desperate villain that he could not be kept
in subjection except by the lash. The first time Major
Goodell met this convict was in the yard of the prison.
He spoke to him kindly, inquired of his situation,
where he came from, when he entered the prison, and
whether he was comfortable. The major then told
the convict what he had heard concerning the necessity
of checking his violent and revengeful conduct by the
lash—how he had been informed that there was no
Philanthropy. 175
other method of keeping him in awe. “Now,†said
the major, “I do not believe this. I believe that you
can and will obey the rules of the prison, without in-
curring severe whipping. I am placed over this prison
to keep you at work, and prevent you from escaping—
to see that the punishment contemplated by the laws
for crime is executed. But I also will be your friend
—to make you just as comfortable as your situation
will permit. In return, I expect that you will bea
friend to me, by obeying the rules of the prison, and
by performing your duty.†All this, and much more,
spoken in a kind tone and manner, softened the feel-
ings of the convict, so that he was soon in a gush of
tears. Nor was this all: from that day forward it was
not necessary to strike him a blow, for there was not
a more faithful convict in the prison.
In all these instances, we perceive the triumph of
benevolence united with firmness. And we find it
softening the indurated heart, melting feelings hard-
ened into iron by crime, making the bold offender bow
in gushing tears of sorrow, and sending better thoughts
to the soul long steeped in iniquity. How touchingly
the following incident adds proof to this position!
_ Previous to the destruction of the Walnut Street prison,
and before the convicts were removed to Moyamansing,
Mr. J oseph R. Chandler, editor of the United States
Gazette, was permitted to visit it, which he did in 1835,
176 Philanthropy.
The extract which we give is taken from the account
of his visit. a
‘Beneath the eastern wing, projecting into the yard
of the prison, is a long arched passage, dimly lighted
- with one or two lamps fastened to the masonry of the
wall. Doorways at the side of this long subterranean
chamber opened into dark arched cells, where no ray
of light but by the door could find entrance, and where
all that is imagined of the solitary and subterranean
dungeon-holes of feudal castles might be fully realized.
Strong massy chains were fastened to the floor, and the
grating, and the thick iron-studded doors, now thrown
down, showed that an attempt to escape must have
been futile. No prisoner has occupied these horrible
abodes for near forty years. The last prisoner had
been thrust in for some crime out of the usual course,
his situation was not made known to the keeper, and
he perished miserably, without being able to make his
voice heard. What must have been the sensations of .
the poor wretch, thus to feel life passing away in the
horrors of famine and darkness! The upper rooms on
Walnut Street are, we believe, chiefly used for the sick,
and so also with one or two in the rear. Beyond these,
in the upper story, is a series of cells, wherein are con-
fined several prisoners for crimes of various degrees of
atrocity. We passed to this place over a kind of bridge,
and it seemed to us as ‘a bridge of sighs ;’ heavy
chains rattled at the doors of the corridors that passed
Philanthropy. 177
between the range of cells, and numerous bars were
removed, and strong locks turned, before the iron doors
rolled heavy upon their reluctant hinges. We could
see, through the gratings, the miserable prisoner
stretched out upon the floor of his narrow abode, little
curious to ascertain what had caused the disturbance,
certain that it could not reach through the iron of his
dungeon, or suspend the steady, galling operation of
the deep and just vengeance of the law.*
“We paused at the grating of a cell, and the gentle-
man who accompanied us spoke to the inmate. The
voice was that of kindness, and it was evident that the
prisoner was used to that tone from the keeper. He
stepped forward from the dark rear of the cell, and
placed himself against the grated door. Ten long
years had been passed in durance by this offender
against our laws, and a strong iron frame that had
stood up against war and the elements was yielding
as a consequence of inaction. A strong light from an
open grate in the passage where we stood, fell on the
pallid features of the prisoner, and placed him in bold
relief on the dark ground of his unlit cell. |
“The multitude in the yard and the workshops
were busy ; they seemed little different from the in-
* “
yes, even revengeful in some cases. Oh, Judge of all the earth, may they soon
become as Thou requirest us to be, as Thou art, benevolent, forgiving, kind;
remembering mercy amid chastisement, and seeking the reformation of the
- sufferer in all punishments!â€â€” Rev. A.B. Grosh, of Utica.
(149) | 12
178 Philanthropy.
mates of an almshouse ; their number and movements
prevented reflection ; but here was food for thought.
Hope had almost ceased with the man. Sixteen years
of his sentence were yet unexpired, and there was
scarcely a ground to expect that he would survive that
period in confinement. With this world thus receding,
we questioned him of his hopes of that towards which he
was hastening. His mind was clouded ; there was a lack
of early favourable impressions, and he seemed to share
in the common feelings of convicts, that his crime had
not been more than that of men who had escaped with
less punishment; and when we asked him of his sense
of guilt towards Him who was yet to be his Judge,
the poor man confessed his offences, but so mingled
that confession with comparisons of crime, that we
feared he saw darkly the path of duty ; there was no
complaint ; much humility, much sense of degradation
distinguished his speech, and a deep sense of gratitude
towards the keeper who accompanied us was manifest
in his manner and language.
“Having answered the questions which he put to us
on important subjects with what little ability we had,
and added the advice which mankind are more ready
te give than follow, we prepared to depart ; a slight
flush came to the cheek of the prisoner as he pressed
his forehead against the bars of his cell, and his hand,
which long absence from labour and from light had
blanched to the lustre of infancy, was thrust through
Philanthropy. 179
the aperture, not boldly to seize ours, not meanly to
solicit, but rather as in the hope that accident. might
favour him with a contact. Man, leprous with crime,
is human—and a warm touch of pity passes with
electric swiftness to the heart. Tears from that foun-
tain that had long been deemed dried up, fell fast and
heavy upon the dungeon floor.
“The keeper had moved away from the grate, and
we were about to follow, when the prisoner said, in a
low voice,—
“*Qne word more, if you please. You seem to un-
derstand these things. Do the spirits of the departed
ever come back to witness the actions and situation of
the living 2’
“*Many people believe it,’ we replied, ‘and the
Scripture says that there is ‘joy in heaven over a
sinner that repenteth’ on earth. It may, therefore,
be true.’
““It may be,’ said the man. ‘My poor, poor
mother !’†| |
That fearful imprisonment could not touch him, but
when the thought came rushing into his mind that his
mother witnessed his situation, his degradation, im-
prisonment, and sufferings, his heart felt its power,
‘and he bowed before the shrine of that mother’s
memory who had watched over him in infancy, and
with maternal fondness sought many methods to secure
his happiness and welfare, But, though fact might be
180 | Philanthropy.
piled upon fact, yet it could not be rendered more
demonstrably true that the law, “overcome evil with
good,†is the only correct principle upon which to
found all prison discipline intended to cure offenders,
and render them useful members of society. Still,
‘notwithstanding Christianity, experience, and humanity,
very many European and American prisons carry out
their internal regulations solely through fear of the
whip. If a prisoner infringes a law governing his
actions while in confinement, his person is seared with
the bloody marks of the lash, every stroke of which
not only inflicts pain upon his body, but strikes degra-
dation and infamy deeper into his soul, until the last
hope of reformation is extinguished. Oh, with all our
boasted light and civilization, in many things we grope
in darkness which belongs to the thirteenth, rather
than to the nineteenth century. For we give up the
- holy, governing power which Christianity puts into our
hands, and consent to use a barbarism which is char-
acteristic of an age of ignorance and cruelty.
- There is an important reason why criminals should
be treated with kindness while suffering the penalty of
our offended laws, which is not often considered. The
great majority of criminals are very ignorant, and
consequently have comparatively feeble moral con-
ceptions. ‘There are multitudes of persons who, from
infancy, are placed in circumstances beyond their
Philan thropy. 181
control, and who are in continual contact with crime ;
who commit sin under the influence of an infatuated
ignorance, and are degraded because they never had
means of emerging from the moral darkness in which
fate had thrown them. As evidence of this position,
let it be remembered, that though 1512 prisoners were
confined in the New York state prisons, at Auburn and
Sing Sing, in the year 1834, yet of that number only
nineteen had received a superior education. And among —
the 20,984 committed or held to bail in England and
Wales for the year 1836, only 192 had received a
superior education. A large majority could neither
read nor write, and nearly all the rest were imperfectly
educated. In the report of the British and Foreign
School Society for 1831, we are informed that out of
nearly 700 prisoners put on trial in four counties,
upwards of two hundred and sixty were as ignorant as
the savages of the desert—they could not read a single
letter. Of the whole 700, only 150 could write, or
even read with ease; and nearly the whole number
were totally ignorant with regard to the nature of true
religion. - In the reports of the Society for 1832-8, it
is affirmed, “in September 1831, out of fifty prisoners
put on trial at Bedford, only four could read. In
January 1833 there were, in the same prison, between
fifty and sixty awaiting their trials, of whom not more
than ten could read, and even some of these could not
make out the sense of a sentence, though they knew
{82 Philanthropy.
their letters. At Wisbeach, in the isle of Ely, out of
nineteen prisoners put on trial, only six were able to
read and write, and the capital offences were committed
by persons in a state of the most debasing ignorance.†*
When a jailer was describing his prisoners to Leigh
Hunt, he termed them “poor ignorant creatures.â€
This phrase will describe almost every person convicted
of crime, for it is undoubtedly true that the vast
majority of those who fall into crime are chained by
the most hopeless ignorance to their degraded lot in
life. Now, if those persons had been cherished by
aifectionate and virtuous parents in infancy, and had
received a good education, perchance among their
number might have been found the statesman, the
philosopher, the patriot, the philanthropist, and the
Christian, while all might have been useful members of
the community.
How great is the responsibility which such a truth
brings home to each of us. If we, by any exertion of
our own, could have saved one of these souls from death,
shall we not be called for an account of our steward-
ship, and required to answer for the use we have made
of the talents committed to our charge? But this
comprehensive subject requires a distinct chapter for
its illustration,
* Dick's Mental Iumination, p. 338.
VI.
Aindness and Juvenile Destitution.
‘‘ His country’s name,
Her equal rights, her churches, and her schools—
What have they done for him? And, let me ask,
For tens of thousands uninformed as he?â€
WORDSWORTH.
Gel pee | remember those who are in bonds as bound
See with them, is a precept of the divine
Redeemer which calls the philanthropist to
compassionate one of the most deplorable of all states
of human misery, since it is one of suffering without
the alleviation of hope, or the sustaining power of an
approving conscience. In one of the most touching
petitions of the Litany of the Church of Engiand, we
are taught thus to plead with God for the young and
the wretched—“ That it may please thee to preserve
all young children ; and to show thy pity upon all
prisoners and captives ; we beseech thee to hear us,
good Lord.†Of the prisoners and captives we have
184 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
already spoken in the previous chapter. It will now.
be our part to plead for the young children, and to
beseech, not the Almighty God and Father of all for
his condescending mercy, but to bid man extend his
regard to a class of long-neglected outcasts, calling no
less feelingly for our compassion and regard; than the
most miserable of those whom Howard visited in
loathsome dungeons, and strove to deliver from a living
death. | |
At length we are beginning to see, that if a child is
abandoned to vice, left without any education, save
such as it may receive from drunken parents, or
criminal associates of riper years, then vice, which must
be the consequence, will be its misfortune, but perhaps
our crime. We who could have rescued it in time, but
did not, must bear the guilt, and will not, nor do not,
escape the punishment.
Let us look at the dangers of evil communication on
the Christian’s child, and think of what it must be with
those who never hear of a Bible, a God, or a hereafter,
but in ribaldry and oaths.
In one of our little villages which stands on the
sea-shore, says a pious clergyman, there lately lived a
widow and her little son, a lad of about ten years of
age. She had formerly seen better days. Her husband
was a respectable sea-captain, and supported his family
in ease and affluence. But amidst his own and the
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution 186
hopes of his family, he was lost at sea. The widow
had two little sons, one of six years old, and the other,
above-mentioned, then an infant. She retired from
the circle in which she had so long moved with esteem,
und purchased a neat little cottage, which stands by
the water’s side. Here she brought up her little boys,
and early endeavoured to lead them “in the way they
should go.†She felt herself to be a pilgrim below, and
taught her sons that this world was never designed for
our home. | |
In this manner this little family lived retired, be-
loved, and respected. The mother would often lead
her children on the hard sandy beach, just as the setting
sun was tipping the smooth blue waters with his last
yellow tints. She would then tell them of their father
who was gone, and with her finger would often write
his name upon the sand, and as the next wave ob-
literated every trace of the writing, would tell themâ€
that the hopes and joys of this world are equally
transient. When the eldest son had arrived at the
age of twelve, he was seized with an incurable desire
of going to sea, He had heard sailors talk of their
voyages, of visiting other climes, and other countries,
and his imagination threw before him a. thousand
pleasures, could he visit them. The remonstrances and
entreaties of a tender parent, and an affectionate little
‘brother, were all in vain. He at length wrung a re-
luctant consent from his mother, and receiving from
186 Kindness and Fuventle Destitution.
her a Bible, a mother’s blessing and prayers, he
embarked on board a large brig. He promised his
mother, as he gave a last parting hand, that he would
daily read his Bible, and as often commit himself to
God in prayer. A few tears and a few sighs escaped
him, as he saw the last blue tints of his native land
fade from his sight—for there was the cottage of his
mother, and all the joys of his childhood ; but all was
novelty around him, and he soon forgot these pangs
amidst other cares and other scenes. For some time
he remembered his promise to his mother, and daily
read his Bible; but the sneers of the wicked crew
recalled his mind from reviewing the instructions of
his pious mother, and he placed his Bible in the bottom
of his chest, to slumber with his conscience. During
a Severe storm, indeed, when it seemed as if destruc-
tion was yawning to receive every soul on board, he
thought of his mother—his home—and his promises ;
and in the anguish of his heart resolved to amend, —
should his life be spared. But when the storm had
subsided, the seas were smooth, and the clear sun
brought joy and gladness over the great waters, he
forgot all his promises, and it now seemed as if the
last throb of conscience was stifled. No one of the
srew could be more profane—no one more ready to
scoff at that religion which, in his childhood and
innocence, he had been taught to love and revere.
After an absence of several years, he found himself
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution, 187
once more drawing near his native land, He had tra-
versed the globe over, but during all this time he had
neither written to his mother nor heard from her.
Though he had thrown off restraint, and blunted the
finer feelings of his nature, yet his bosom thrilled with
pleasure at the thought of once more meeting his
parent and brother. It was in autumn that he re-
turned ; and on a lovely eve in September walked
towards his long-deserted home. Those only are ac-
quainted with the pleasures of the country, who have
spent their early days in youthful retirement. As the
young sailor drew near the spot where he spent his
early days—as he ascended the last sloping hill which
hid from his sight the little stage on which he had
acted the first scenes in the drama of life, his memory
recalled to his mind all the scenes of his “happier
days,†while fancy whispered deceitfully that hours
equally agreeable would again be realised. He now
saw the rising hills over which he had so often roamed
—the grove through which he had so often wandered
while it echoed with the music of the feathered tribe
—the gentle stream on whose banks he had go often
sported—and the tall spire of the temple of Jehovah;
——all tended to inspire the most interesting sensations.
' He drew near the cottage of his mother, and there all
was stillness. Nothing was to be heard save the
gentlest murmurs of the unruffled waves, or the distant
barking of a village dog. A solemnity seemed to be
188 Kindness and Fuvenitle Destitution.
breathed around him, and, as he stopped at his mother’s
door, his heart misgave him, though he knew not why.
He knocked, but no one bade him enter. He called—
but no answer was returned save the echo of his own
voice. It seemed like knocking at the door of a tomb,
The nearest neighbour, hearing the noise,-came and
found the youth sitting and sobbing on the steps of
the door. “ Where,†cried he with eagerness, “ where
is my mother, and my brother ?—Oh, I hope they are
9
not
“Tf,†said the stranger, “you inquire for widow
, 1 can only pity you. I have known her but a
short time ; but she was the best woman I ever knew.
Her little boy died of a fever about a year ago, and in
consequence of fatigue in taking care of him, and
anxiety for a long absent son at sea, the good widow
herself was buried yesterday.â€
“Oh, heavens!†cried the youth, “have I stayed just
long enough to kill my mother! Wretch that I am— —
show me the grave—I have a dagger in my bundle—
let me die with my mother—my poor, broken-hearted
parent !â€
“Hold, friend,†said the astonished neighbour ; “if
you are this woman’s eldest son, I have a letter for
you, which she wrote a few days before she died, and
desired that you might receive it, should you ever
return.â€
They both turned from the cottage, and went to
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution, 189
the house of the neighbour. A light being procured,
the young man threw down his bundle and hat, and
read the following short letter, while his cheeks were.
covered with tears.
“My dearest only Son,—When this reaches you, I
shall be no more. Your little brother has gone before
me, and I cannot but hope and believe that he was
prepared. I had fondly hoped that I should once
more have seen you on the shores of mortality, but this
hope is now relinquished. I have followed you by my
prayers through all your wanderings. Often, while
you little suspected it, even in the dark cold nights of
winter, have I knelt for my lost son. There is but one
thing which gives me pain at dying; and that is, my
dear William, that I must leave you in this wicked
— world, as I fear, unreconciled to your Maker! I am
too feeble to say more. As you visit the sods which
cover my dust, oh, remember that you too must soon
follow. Farewell—the last breath of your mother will
be spent in praying for you—that we may meet
above.â€
The young man’s heart was melted on reading these
few words from the parent whom he so tenderly loved;
and we will only add, that this letter was the means in
the hands of God of bringing this youth to a saving
knowledge of the truth, and that he is now a highly-
esteemed and truly pious man. Such is the history of a
wandering prodigal, from the home of a fond Christian
190 6Kindness and Fuventle Destitution,
parent ; but if his risk was so great, what hope can
there be for those who never knew such lessons, but
whose homes are associated only with remembrance of
misery, and of instruction in vice and crime ?
To this subject public attention has at length been
drawn, and benevolent men have devoted their energies
with assiduity and triumphant success to the rescue of
juvenile criminals from the course of vice to which
they seemed irretrievably destined. Among these good
men, Sheriff Watson of Aberdeen, and the Rev. Dr.
Guthrie of Edinburgh, hold a prominent place. To the
institutions established by their means, the name of
Ragged Schools was originally given, though this has
now generally been replaced by the more appropriate
and promising term of Industrial Schools. In these
the aim of supplying the direct wants of the ignorant
are supplemented by a peculiar and most valuable
feature suggested by the benevolent thoughtfulness of
one of their founders. Gazing on the wretched picture
of juvenile mencleancy, he exclaimed, in the words of
the poet— |
‘Can hope look forward to a manhood raised
On such foundations?â€
Education was wanted. Industrious habits were no
less indispensable to raise the outcasts from their de-
gradation, and to arrest the influence of poverty as a
nursery of crime. The poet of the “Excursion†had
already pictured the scene, but sentimental readers
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 191
perused it unmoved, or at least unimpelled to any
practical act of beneficent sympathy.
‘“‘ At this day
Who shall enumerate the crazy huts
And tottering hovels, whence do issue forth
A ragged offspring, with their upright hair,
_ Crowned like the image of fantastic Fear;
Or wearing (shall we say ?) in that white growth
An ill-adjusted turban, for defence
Or fierceness, wreathed around their sun-burnt brows
By savage Nature? Shrivelled are their lips;
Naked, and coloured like the soil, the feet
Or which they stand, as if thereby they drew
Some nourishment, as trees do by their roots,
Brom earth, the common mother of us all.
Figure and mien, complexion and attire,
Are leagued to strike dismay; but outstretched hand
And whining voice denote them suppliants
For the least boon that pity can bestow.â€
But we have said that the direct wants of this miser-
able class of outcasts must be supplied, and charity
needs not to be told that neither schooling nor handi-
craft will suffice for the most clamant necessities of the
hungry and the naked. “The first Industrial School,â€
says a writer in the British Quarterly Review, “was
formed in Aberdeen. In 1840, some benevolent gentle-
men were convinced that there was a great deficiency
of education among the destitute poor of the city, and
that this ignorance was the parent of much crime.
These gentlemen formed themselves into an association,
divided the city into districts, and visited every family
where destitution was known to prevail. It was ascer-
192 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
tained that many children had grown up in a most
uninstructed state, and it was feared that in some cases
their parents were living by the fruits of their crime.
Arrangements having been made for sending a given |
number of poor children to the public schools, where
they would be educated free of cost, tickets of certifi-
cation were prepared, and divided amongst the members
of the committee and their friends. Efforts were then
made to cause every destitute child in the city to be
sent to school, but they failed. ‘Often have I felt,’
says Sheriff Watson, the chairman of the committee,
‘when a poor ragged boy came to my door begging,
and I handed him a ticket for the school, as if he had
asked for bread and I had given him a stone.’ And
then he would reason with himself thus :—‘It is mani-
fest mockery to offer a starving child training or. in-
struction without first providing him with food ; if we
do so, the child feels in his heart that we do not really
love him, and no eloquent arguments on the beauty
and excellence of our instructions will persuade him
that we truly desire to do him good. There is an un-
answerable argument at work within him, which
admits of no reply but one—namely, we must supply
his bodily need before we can expect him to receive
our instructions.
“In the spirit of this philosophy, Sheriff Watson
conceived the idea of an Industrial School. To work
it out, he invited the city authorities, the ministers of
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 193
the gospel, and other philanthropic gentlemen, to meet
and discuss his plans, and decide as to their practica-
bility and desirableness. The invitation met with a
generous response—a numerous and influential meeting
was held, and the Provost was called to preside.
Sheriff Watson, in effect, put his case thus:—‘ From
certain police returns that I have obtained, it appears
that there are 280 children in this city, under fourteen
years of age, who live partly by begging and partly by
theft. Of these, 77 were committed to prison for
short periods, and dismissed again during the last year.
They have been allowed to beg, because they declare
that they have no other means of procuring daily food.
They commit crime, and often say they would rather
go to gaol than starve at home. In such nurseries of
vice and crime our adult criminals were for the most
part trained. If we reclaim the young, most of the old
offenders will in a few years disappear, and as our
criminal police and prison discipline have not given
satisfaction to the public, I propose to try the experi-
ment of industrial schools.’
“The -project was cordially approved. £100 were
subscribed as a nucleus fund to defray expenses, and
“Sheriff Watson set himself to work out the social
problem he had proposed. His care now was to hire
the plainest possible building that could be obtained,
in one of the more destitute localities of the city—to
fit it up with rough, substantial furniture—to engage
(149) 13
194 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
a teacher, with suitable qualifications—to invite the
co-operation of all who could supply work for the boys
—and then announce the opening of the school. The
primary claim to admission was destitution, and that
claim once established entitled the boy to attend and
receive food and education, in return for the profits of
his labour, it being the wish of the promoters of the
institution to divest it as much as possible of an
eleemosynary character. |
“Thus appointed, the school was opened on the Ist
of October 1841, ‘the pupils consisting partly of home-
less boys from the House of Refuge, and partly of
boys who were gathered from the lowest parts of the
town.’ Although the attendance was left to be purely
voluntary, such were the attractions of the institution,
that during the first six months one hundred and six
boys were admitted, the average daily attendance being
thirty-seven ; but this number speedily increased,
until the maximum attendance of sixty scholars was
realized.
“*Fully established, and prosperous beyond expec-
tation,’ says a correspondent of the Morning Chronicle,
‘in the autumn of 1846 we visit this school, now
occupying more commodious premises in the north
wing of the House of Refuge. Leaving Union Street
and its splendid buildings, the stranger is conducted
along Broad Street, and thence, by a crossing, to a
narrow street or alley, called ‘Guest Row,’ where he
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 1Q5
enters a gateway, which leads to the court of a castel-
lated building, one of whose turretted window-sills
bears the date, in old Saxon character, of 1623. Here
the keeper politely guides him, by a winding stair in
one of the tower compartments, to a large room in the
attic floor, where he finds from seventy to eighty
‘ragged rascals ’—as one of the domestics called them—
busily at work. The boys had just breakfasted on
porridge and milk when we called, and were now
seated, apart from each other, along the four sides of
the room, teasing hair, and superintended by a vigilant
and intelligent guardian. Notwithstanding their cloth-
ing was poor and mean, and the rugged wildness of
their first appearance indicated a rude and arbitrary
disposition, the slightest acquaintance with their con-
duct and discipline dissipated every apprehension, and
impressed the mind with the conviction that in that
school was the germ of a moral and social revolution
that will yet bless the world. While admiring the —
ease, freedom, and cheerfulness, with which the boys
executed their work, the monotony of the scene was at
once relieved by a signal from the teacher, which in-
stantly called forth a display of vocal music that would
have done no disgrace to the pupils of Hullah. First
a hymn, then a simple Scotch melody, and then the
Chivalrous Troubadour, were executed with such
harmony, and voice, and skill, as were perfectly
surprising.
196 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
“Tt is now two o'clock, when the boys dine. On
the first floor there is a well-aired, well-lighted, and
ventilated apartment, plainly furnished, and remark-
ably neat and clean. This is the boys’ dining-room,
They are now seated at deal benches, each with his
can of broth before him, the general diet being ‘broth,
beef, and bread, and occasionally potatoes, soup, and
hodge-podge.’ With characteristic solemnity grace is
said by the teacher, who has taken his place at the
head of the table, and then the practical character of
that philosophy which appeals to the body as well as
to the mind, becomes palpably evident. From three
to four the boys work either within doors, or, if weather
permit, are employed in the gardens, where they grow
the vegetables that are used in the school.
“Turning into the school-room, we find the educa-
tional apparatus in a high state of completeness, and
proof enough in the appearance of the writing-books,
that the time spent, from ‘four to seven,’ when the
pupils are instructed in ‘reading, writing, and arith-
metic,’ has not been misapplied. The boys, on being
received into the school, were in most cases unable
either to read or write; but, by the zealous and well- _
directed efforts of their teacher, few of them who had
been in the school for upwards of a year were without
a very general knowledge of the elemental principles of
a popular and useful education, and could write well.â€
With children thus selected from the very lowest
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 197
possible class, and very many of them of tender years
—one half, indeed, averaging altogether, younger and
older, only ten years—their industrial earnings yield to
the Institution a sum of from thirty shillings to two
pounds each per annum, a satisfactory, though not,
perhaps, a very remarkable proof of the employment of
a portion of their time in acquiring habits of industry.
“Encouraged by the successful results in the Boy’s
School of Industry, Sheriff Watson was induced to
make a similar effort to establish a school for destitute
girls, In this, too, he has succeeded, and there are
many facts connected with its history, as well as that of
a second girls’ school subsequently formed under other
auspices, well worth attention; but we must pass them
over to describe another institution of a still more novel
and ragged character—we mean, a congregation of
urchins at first compelled to assemble in a place called
the ‘soup kitchen,’ and distinguished from the boys’
school of industry by the not very distinctive title of
the ‘Juvenile Industrial School.’ Notwithstanding
all that had been done, there were many of the two
hundred and eighty boys, to whom reference has been
made, who still lived by begging and petty delinquency.
It had been observed that the oldest boys were re-
moved, but the younger remained. By the local police
act, power was taken to clear the streets of beggars;
but as the poor-law only provided for orphans, the
children whose parents were destitute or dissolute had
198 Kindness and Fuventle Destitution.
really no home to which they could be taken. It was
therefore resolved at a public meeting of the inhabit-
ants, that a school for these outcasts should be
established, and on the 19th of May 1845 orders were
given to the police to take all the children they could
find begging to the public soup kitchen, where provi-
sion was made for giving them food and education on
the same plan as that pursued in the boys’ Industrial
School, which had long been filled. Seventy-seven
children were collected on that day, arid this juvenile
school was instituted.
“ Difficulty was soon experienced in making a proper
selection of applicants. To meet this, a ‘Child’s
Asylum Committee’ was formed, and composed of
‘certain public bodies, who should hold their sittings
at the House of Refuge, where the police should carry
all juvenile vagrants and delinquents to an apartment
fitted up for the occasion, to be called the Child’s
Asylum.’ The case of every child brought into this
asylum is immediately inquired into,—the details
entered in a register, and such measures adopted as
may restore him to his parents, if he have any alive, or
he is sent to the Juvenile School of Industry, or to ~
the Poor Orphans’ Hospital, as circumstances may
suggest. During the years 1846-7, ninety-five children
_ were brought to this asylum—viz,, fifty-six boys and
thirty-nine girls, thirty-four of whom were found guilty
of petty delinquencies, thirty-six for begging, and the
Kindness and Fuventle Destitution. 199
rest for various causes of offence. Twenty-seven of
these were recommended to the School of Industry,
twenty-five delivered over to their parents, six sur-
rendered to the police, to be dealt with under the police
act, and the rest admonished and dismissed on a pro-
mise to return to their employers.
“¢This institution,’ says the Committee in their first
report, ‘insignificant as it may appear, is capable of
subserving the most important purposes. The first
step in the criminal course of the young delinquent is
often fatal. If not arrested in the outset, he passes on
from vice to vice, until he becomes incorrigible, and
punishment after punishment is found to be utterly
ineffectual to correct or reclaim. But if kindly taken
by the hand, gently yet faithfully admonished and led
to the Industrial School, the whole complexion of his
life may be changed.’ â€
The practical results have been of the most satisfac-
tory and encouraging description. During nine years
that the plan has been in operation—from 1841—
juvenile delinquency and mendicancy have been greatly
reduced, and some hundreds of children rescued from
apparently hopeless training in vice and crime, to be-
come, we have good reason to hope, useful and virtuous
members of society. Not only juvenile, but also adult
crime, has been sensibly diminished since the establish-
ment of industrial schools in Aberdeen. In 1841, the
daily average of criminals committed to prison was
200 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
115; in 1846 it was only 80, having gradually but
uninterruptedly decreased during each successive in-
termediate year. Still more striking are the police re-
turns during the same period. In 1841, these show
that the police apprehended 328 vagrant boys; in the
month of December 1847, their report for -the whole
year, then drawing to a close, noted only the appre-
hension of six. Sheriff Watson thus writes to Mr.
Hill, the Inspector of Prisons, in relation to the same
subject:—“We have no begging children either in
town or county. I was rather surprised at the effects
produced in the county districts. During the three
months preceding 6th July 1843, upwards of a hundred
children were found wandering in the county, and re-
ported by the rural police. During the corresponding
period of 1844, fifty were found. In the correspond-
ing period of 1845, only eight; and from the 8th of
June to the 5th of July, none were found.†Here,
surely, is a noble triumph of love. It says to us, in
unmistakable language—Take these unfortunate out-
casts from social care and virtue, neglect their wants,
remain heedless of their dangers and sufferings, and in
one provincial town alone you will have upwards of
800 preying on the community, begging, stealing,
and growing up to take their place among the perpe-
trators of every heinous crime. But Jove them, treat
them as the Christian’s enemy should be treated; feed
them, give them drink, educate them, train them to
Kindness and Fuvenile Destttution, 201
habits of industry, and out of 328 nursling vagrants
and criminals, you will have 322 grateful, smiling,
happy and hopeful children, praying for blessings on
your head; and only six outcasts, whom your plans of
mercy and generous philanthropy have failed to em-
brace.
What Sheriff Watson did for Aberdeen, the Rev.
Thomas Guthrie has accomplished no less effectually
for Edinburgh. In 1848 he published his first “Plea
for Ragged Schools.†In this noble appeal he pictures
himself entering the Scottish capital from the west,
surveying its numerous charitable institutions, and ex-
plaining to a stranger-visitor their nature, their uses,
and their shortcomings. He next conducts the same
stranger into the obscure streets and alleys of the city,
where poverty and vice retreat for shelter or conceal-
ment :—“ Skirting along the ruins of the old city wall,
and passing down the Vennel, we descend into the
Grassmarket—a large capacious place, with the excep-
tion of some three or four modern houses, standing as
it did two centuries ago—the most perfect specimen in
our city of the olden time. Its old massive fronts,
_ reared as if in picturesque contempt of modern uni-
formity—some with the flat roofs of the East, and
others of the Flemish school, with their sharp and
lofty gables topped by the rose, the thistle, and the fleur
de tas—still look down on that square as in the days
when it was one sea of heads, every eye turned to the
202 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution,
great black gallows which rose high over all, and from
which, amid the hushed and awful silence of assembled
thousands, came the loud last psalm of a hero of the
Covenant, who had come there to play the man.
“In a small, well-conditioned town, with the excep-
tion of some children basking on the pavement, and
playing with the dogs that have gone over with them
to enjoy the sunny side, between the hours of ten and
one, you miss the Scripture picture of ‘boys and girls
playing in the street.’ Not so in the Grassmarket.
On one side of this square, in two-thirds of the shops
(for we have counted them) spirits are sold. The
sheep are near the slaughter-house, the victims are in
the neighbourhood of the altars. The mouth of almost
every close is filled with loungers, worse than Neapoli-
tan lazzaroni,—bloated and brutal figures, ragged and
wretched old men, bold and fierce-looking women, and.
many a half-clad mother, shivering in cold winter, her
naked feet on the frozen pavement, a skeleton infant in
her arms. On a summer day, when in the blessed
sunshine and warm air, misery itself will sing; dashing
in and out of these closes, careering over the open
ground, engaged in their rude games, arrayed in flying
drapery, here a leg out and there an arm, are crowds
of children: their thin faces tell how ill they are fed;
their fearful oaths tell how ill they are reared; and
yet: the merry laugh, and hearty shout, and screams of
delight, as some unfortunate urchin, at leap-frog,
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 20 3
measures his length upon the ground, also tell that
God made childhood to be happy, and that in the
buoyancy of youth even misery will forget itself.
“We get hold of one of these boys. Poor fellow! it
is a bitter day; he has neither shoes nor stockings ;
his naked feet are red, swollen, cracked, ulcerated with
the cold; a thin, thread-worn jacket, with its gaping
rents, is all that protects his breast; beneath his shaggy
bush of hair he shows a face sharp with want, yet sharp
also with intelligence beyond his years. That poor
little fellow has learned to be already self-supporting.
He has studied the arts ;—he is a master of imposture,
lying, begging, stealing ; and—small blame to him, but
much to those who have neglected him—he had other-
wise pined and perished. So soon as you have satis-
fied him that you are not connected with the police,
you ask him, ‘Where is your father?’ Now, hear his
story,—there are hundreds could tell a similar tale.
‘Where is your father?’ ‘He is dead, sir.†‘Where
is your mother?’ ‘Dead too.’ ‘Where do you stay?’
‘Sister and I, and my little brother, live with granny.’
‘What is she?’ ‘She is a widow woman.’ ‘What
does she do?’ ‘Sells sticks, sir.†‘And can she keep
youall?’? ‘No,’ ‘Then how do youlive?’ ‘Go about
and get bits of meat, sell matches, and sometimes get
a trifle from the carriers for running an errand.’ ‘Do
you go to school?’ ‘No, never was at school; at-
tended sometimes a Sabbath school, but have not been
204. Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
there for a long time.†‘Do you go to church?’
‘Never was in achurch.â€â€™ ‘Do you know who made
you?’ ‘Yes; God made me. ‘Do you say your
prayers?’ ‘Yes; mother taught me a prayer before she
died; and I say it to granny afore I lie down.’ ‘ Have
you a bed?’ ‘Some straw, sir.’
“ Our stranger friend is astonished at this,—not we;
alas! we have ceased to be astonished at any amount
of misery suffered, or suffering, in our overgrown cities.
You have, says he, splendid hospitals, where -children
are fed and clothed and educated, whose parents, in
instances not a few, could do all that for them; you
have beautiful schools for the gratis education of the
children of respectable tradesmen and mechanics! what
provision have you made for these children of crime,
misery, and misfortune? Let us go and see the remedy
which this rich, enlightened Christian city has provided
for such a crying evil. We blush, as we tell him there
is none. Let us explain ourselves. Such children
cannot pay for education, nor avail themselves of a gratis
one, even though offered. That little fellow must beg
and steal, or he starves: with a number like himself,
he goes as regularly to that work of a morning as the
merchant to his shop, or the tradesman to his place of
labour. They are turned out—driven out, sometimes
—to get their meat, like sheep to the hills, or cattle to
the field ; and if they don’t bring home a certain supply
a drunken father and a brutal beating await them.â€
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution, 205
Such is the fearfully vivid picture which this bene-
volent clergyman pictured to his fellow-citizens in his
appeal to them for the means to rescue these outcasts
from their otherwise inevitable fate. How stil] more
touching and eloquently pathetic is the following appeal
to the sympathies of the Christian parent on behalf of
the same neglected class, the children of poverty—the
Pariahs of the street :—“I was returning from a meet-
ing,†he remarks, “one night about twelve o’clock : it
was a fierce blast of wind and rain. In Princes Street
a piteous voice and a shivering boy pressed me to buy
a tract. I asked the child why he was out in such a
night, and at such an hour. He had not got his
money ; he dared not go home without it; he would
rather sleep in a stair all night. I thought, as we
passed a lamp, that I had seen him before. I asked
him if he went to church. ‘Sometimes to Mr. Guthrie’s,’
was his reply. On looking again, I now recognised
him as one I had occasionally seen in the Cowgate
Chapel. Muffled up to meet the weather, he did not
recognise me. I asked him what his father was. ‘I
have no father, sir; he is dead.’ His mother? ‘She
is very poor.’ ‘But why keep you out here?’ and then
reluctantly the truth came out. I knew her well, and
had visited her wretched dwelling. She was a, tall,
dark, gaunt, gipsy-looking woman, who, notwithstand-
ing a cap of which it could be premised that it had
once been white, and a gown that it had once been
206 Kindness and Suvenile Destitution.
black, had still some traces of one who had seen better
days; but, now she was a drunkard, sin had turned
her into a monster, and she would have beaten that
poor child within an inch of death if he had been short
of the money, by her waste of which she starved him,
and fed her own accursed vices. Now, by this anec-
dote, illustrating to my stranger-friend the situation of
these unhappy children, I added ‘that, nevertheless,
they might get education, and secure some measure
both of common and Christian knowledge. But mark
how, and where. Not as in the days of our blessed
Saviour, when the tender mother brought her child for
his blessing. The jailer brings them now. Their only
passage to school is through the police-office; their
passport is a conviction of crime; and in this Christian
and enlightened city it is only within the dark walls
of a prison that they are secure either of school or
Bible. When one thinks of their own happy boys at
home, bounding free on the green, and breathing the
fresh air of heaven,—or of the little fellow that climbs
a father’s knee, and asks the oft-repeated story of Moses
or of Joseph,—it is a sad thing to look in through the
eyelit of a cell door, on the weary solitude of a child
spelling its way through the Bible. It makes one sick
to hear men sing the praises of the fine education of
our prisons. How much better and holier were it to
tell us of an education that would save the necessity
of a prison school! I like well to see the life-boat,
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution, 207
with her brave and devoted crew; but with far more
pleasure, from the window of my old country manse, I
used to look out at the Bell Rock Tower, standing
erect amid the stormy waters, where in the mists of
day the bell was rung, and in the darkness of the night
the light was kindled, and thereby the mariners were
not saved from the wreck, but saved from being wrecked
at all, Instead of first punishing crime, and then,
through means of a prison education, trying to prevent
its repetition, we appeal to men’s common sense, com-
mon interest, humanity and Christianity, if it were not
better to support a plan which would reverse this pro-
cess, and seek to prevent, that there may be no occa-
sion to punish.â€
Again, another equally vivid picture is drawn by the
same pencil, such as it is scarcely possible to read with-
out being moved to tears. Dr, Guthrie, pursuing his
benevolent inquiries into the destitution of his own
parish, as a city minister, before the happy thought had
been devised, thus pictures a midnight visit to the
police-oftice, then the sole house of refuge of the juve-
nile outcast. “TI had often heard,†he remarks, “of
' the misery it presented ; and, detained at a meeting till
past midnight, I went with one of my elders, who was
a Commissioner of Police, to visit the scene. In a
room, the walls of which were hung with bunches of
skeleton keys, the dark lanterns of the thief, and other
instruments of housebreaking, sat the lieutenant of the
208. Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
watch, who, when he saw me at that untimely hour,
handed in by an officer and one of the commissioners
looked surprise itself. Having satisfied him that there
was no misdemeanour, we proceeded, under the charge
of an intelligent officer, to visit the wards.
“ Our purpose is not to describe the strangest, saddest
collection of human misery I ever saw, but to observe
that there were not a few children, who, having no
home on earth, had sought and found a shelter there
for the night. ‘They had not where to lay their head.
Turned adrift in the morning, and subsisting as they
best could during the day, this wreck of society, like
the wreck of the sea-shore, came drifting in again at
evening tide. I remember looking down, after visiting
a number of wards and cells, from the gallery on an
open space, where five or six human beings lay on the
pavement buried in slumber; and right opposite the
stove, with its ruddy light shining full on his face, lay
a poor child, who attracted my special attention. He
was miserably clad; he seemed about eight years old;
he had the sweetest face I ever saw; his bed was the
stone pavement, his pillow a brick; and, as he lay calm |
in sleep, forgetful of all his sorrows, he looked a picture
of injured innocence, His story, which I learned from
the officer, was a sad one, but such a one as too many
could tell. He had neither father nor mother, brother
nor friend, in the wide world; his only friends were
the police, his only home their office. How he lived,
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 209
they did not know; but sent away in the morning, he
often returned. The floor of a ward, the stone by the
stove, was a better bed than a stair-foot. I could not
get that boy out of my head or heart for days and
nights together. I have often regretted that some
ettort was not made to save him. Some six or seven
years are now by and gone, and before now, launched
on the sea of human passion, and exposed to a thou-
sand temptations, he has too probably become a melan-
choly wreck. What else could any man who believes
in the depravity of human nature, and knows the danger
of the world, expect him to become? These neglected
children, whom we have left in ignorance and starved
into crime, must grow up into criminals—the pest, the
shame, the burden, the punishment of society ; and in
vhe increasing expenses of public charities, work-houses,
poor-rates, prisons, police-officers, and superior officers
of justice, what do we see but the judgments of a righte-
ous God, and hear but the echo of these solemn words,
‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ â€
But, as the benevolent Sheriff of Aberdeen had justly
reflected; “it is a mockery to offer a starving child
training or education without providing him with food ;â€
and to this argument Dr. Guthrie addresses himself
with no less vigour than success. After picturing the
older system of cheap or even gratis schools established
in destitute localities, but wanting this essential element
of success, he thus follows the teacher in his inquiries
(149) 14
210 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
after the absentees who so necessarily belong to such
an imperfect plan:—“ The teacher seeks the abode of
the child, climbs some three or four dark stairs, and
finds himself in such an apartment as we have often
seen, where there is neither board, bed, nor Bible.
Round the cinders, gathered from the street, sit some
half-naked children, his poor ragged pupil among the
number. ‘Your child,’ says he to the mother, ‘has
been away from school.’ I pray the Christian public
to listen to her reply. ‘TI could not afford to keep him
there, she answers; ‘he mawn do something for his
meat.’ I venture to say—nay, I confidently affirm—
that there are many hundreds of children in these cir-
cumstances this day in Edinburgh. I ask the Chris-
tian public, What are we to do? One of two things
we must do—look at them. First, we may leave the
boy alone; by and by he will qualify himself for school.
Begging is next neighbour to thieving: he steals, and
is apprehended, cast into prison, and having been
marched along the public street shackled to a police-
man, and returning to society with the jail-brand on
his brow, any tattered shred of character that hung
loose about him before is now lost. As the French
say, and all the world knows, ‘Ce n’est gue le premier
pas gue coute.†He descends, from Step to step, till a
halter closes his unhappy career; or he is passed away
to a penal settlement, the victim of a poverty for which
he was not to blame, and of a neglect on the part of
Kindness and Fuventle Destitution. 211
others for which a righteous God will one day call
them to judgment.â€
The first essential element in any plan for effectually
averting such terrible results, is thus happily illustrated
by Dr. Guthrie in a narrative of a pleasant little in-
cident coming within his own experience, and deriving
additional force from the exceedingly graphic touches
of its narrator. “Strolling one day with a friend
among the romantic scenery of the Crags and green
valleys round Arthur Seat, we came at length to St.
Anthony’s Well, and sat down on the great black
stone, to have a talk with the ragged boys that were
pursuing their vocation there. Their tinnies were
ready with a draught of the clear cold water, in hope
of a halfpenny. We thought it would be a kindness
to them, and certainly not out of place in us, to tell
- them of the living water that springeth up to life
eternal, and of Him who sat on the stone of Jacob’s
well, and who stood in the Temple, and cried, ‘If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ By way
of introduction, we began to question them about
schools.. As to the boys themselves, one was father-
less,—the son of a poor widow ; the father of the other
was alive, but a man of low habits and character.
Both were poorly clothed. The one had never been at
school ; the other had sometimes attended a Sabbath-
school. These two little fellows were self-supporting,
—living by such shifts as they were then engaged in.
212 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
Encouraged by the success of Sheriff Watson, who had
the honour to lead this enterprise, the idea of a
Destitute School was then floating in my brain ; and
so, with reference to the scheme, and by way of experi-
ment, I said, ‘Would you go to school, if, besides your
learning, you were to get breakfast, dinner, and supper
there?’ It would have done any man’s heart good to
have seen the flash of joy that broke from the eyes of
one of the boys,—the flush of pleasure on his cheek,—
as hearing of three sure meals a-day, he leapt to his feet,
and exclaimed, ‘ Ay will I, sir, and bring the haill land
too ;’ * and then, as if afraid I might withdraw what
seemed to him so large and magnificent an offer, he
again exclaimed, ‘I’ll come for but my dinner, sir.’ â€
Again, the benevolent clergyman asks, in his appeal,
“ What man of sense,—of common sense,—would mock
with books a boy who is starving for bread? Let
Christian men answer our Lord’s question ; let every
one who is a parent think of it—‘ What father, if his
child ask for bread, would give hima stone?’ And
let me ask, What is English Grammar, or the Rule of
Three, or the A, B, C, to a poor hungry child,—what
is it but a stone ?
“I have often met this difficulty in dealing with the
grown up, who possessed what the child does not,—
sense to understand the importance of the lesson. I
have seen it in a way not to be forgotten. It was in
* The whole tenement,
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution, 213
the depth of a hard winter day, when, visiting in the
Cowgate, I entered a room, where, save a broken table,
there was nought of furniture, to my recollection, but
a crazy bedstead, on which, beneath a thin ragged
coverlet, lay a very old gray-headed woman. I began
to speak to her about her soul, as to one near eternity :
on which, raising herself up, and stretching out her
bare withered arm, she cried most piteously, ‘I am
cauld and hungry.’ ‘My poor old friend,’ I said, ‘ we
will do what we ean to relieve these wants; but let me
in kindness remind you that there is something worse
than either cold or hunger.’ ‘ Ay, but, sir,’ was the
reply, ‘if ye were as cauld and as hungry as I am, ye
could think o’ naething else.’ She read me a lesson
that day which I have never forgotten, and which, as
the earnest advocate of these poor forlorn children, I
ask a humane and Christian public to apply to their
case. ‘The public may plant schools thick as trees of
the forest ; but be assured, unless, besides being trees
of knowledge—to borrow a figure from the Isles of the
Pacific—they are also bread-fruit trees, few of these
children will seek their shadow, far less sit under it
with great delight.â€
Such were some of the touching appeals and moving
incidents by which the philanthropist appealed to his
fellow-citizens, and to his fellow-Christians throughout
the world, to arise and bestir themselves on behalf of
those who “perish in the public streets—beneath the
214. Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
pitiless pelting of the storm—of cold, and hunger, and
broken hearts.†The appeal was not made in vain.
His motto was, “Prevention is better than cure ;†and
hundreds besides him had broked in deepest sadness
on such scenes as that melancholy picture of the poor
orphan infant, sheltered for the night beside the police
stove, and had felt that they dared not say, “Am I my
brother’s keeper?†Yet what could the benevolent
clergyman, or the benevolent layman, do? Had this
poor child been a solitary case, it would have been easy
to deal with it ; but there were hundreds, if not thou-
sands. The case seemed hopeless. But when a plan
was suggested to meet such necessities—shown to be
feasible and fairly matured—then a generous response
was made, some of the largest subscriptions from almost
every class flowed in that had ever been offered in
Edinburgh for any scheme of benevolence. An In-
dustrial School was established, which still flourishes,
Hundreds of poor, naked, abandoned orphans, and
children even worse than orphaned, whose parents be-
came their instructors in vice and crime, are now
receiving a useful education, moral and religious train-
ing, and instruction in trades, by which they will here-
after obtain an honest living, and become respectable
members of society. A report of this admirable insti-
tution, drawn up by its philanthropic originator, com-
municates the following singular but moving facts:
“ About the necessity for maintaining schools, endowed
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 215
at the public expense, there may be room for difference ;
but if these wretched, neglected, uncared for, and un-
happy outcasts, are to be taught and saved, there is no
room to deny, or even doubt, the indispensable neces-
sity of a Ragged School. If the objects of our charity
are not instructed there, where else are they to find a
school and an asylum? Nowhere else. Theirs is in-
deed a hard and woeful lot; nor could it perhaps be
better described than iu the following table, drawn up
by our superintendent, and descriptive of the cases of
the children who have attended our school during the
last twelvemonth :—
Boys Girls
Above eight years ofage. Infants. Total.
Fatherless, with drunken mothers, eve 22 18 23 63
Motherless, with drunken fathers, vee 22 18 17 57
Both parents utterly worthless, ... ... 30 26 21 77
Certainly known as children of thieves, 23 28 18 69
Believed to be SO, —s ae nen cee ee wee 8D 48 47 130
Who have been beggars, 1. ss oe «es 88 79 65 232
Who have been in jail, ... .s. so. »- ILL 7 — 18
Who have been in the police-office, ... 32 19 -- 51
Who were homeless, ... sso see soe vee LO 12 — 27"
Such dry statistics are eloquent facts. They seem
scarcely-to stand in need of the added words of the
generous pleader for the cause of these destitute waifs,
whom our diseased social state seemed to have shut
out from hope and mercy. But we must produce an
example of the noble transformation that is thus being
wrought on the offspring of such parents. “ The fol-
lowing case,’ says the author of the Plea for Ragged
216 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
Schools, “was related to. ourselves by a humble but
honest neighbour of the mother of one of these boys.
Dismissed, for her glaring misconduct, from a comfort-
able situation, and unable, from bodily infirmity, to ~
work for her bread, the mother betook herself to beg-
ging on the public streets, where her misery and her
boy proved a source of wealth, which she wasted in
habits of drunkenness. The more money to the mother,
the more misery to the child. Let that be observed
and remembered by the reader: it furnishes an argu-
ment for our schools in many other cases besides this.
When the mother was intoxicated she was infuriated,
and the hapless boy often fled from her cruelty to the
common stair, where, with a step for his pillow, he lay
the long winter night, to sleep—when the cold would
let him. Some kind Samaritan brought the child to
our school, ignorant as a heathen—neither knowing a
letter, nor a God, nor a Saviour. The little fellow has
now been some twelve months or more with us ; and
our humble friend, the widowed tenant of a room five
stories up, and living, to use her own expression, but
and ben from them, tells us that she has often heard
him, on his return in the evening, speaking to his
mother as if he were an old gray-haired Christian.
With more sense than some beyond his years, he has
learned the lesson of Divine wisdom,—‘ Give not that
which is holy unto the dogs; neither cast ye your
pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 21 7
feet, and turn again and rend you.’ When he finds his
wretched parent in a condition which unfits her to
listen to counsel, he is silent ; but on her sober even-
ings it is his practice to read the Bible to her—to tell
her how the Master said this and that,—and, graciously
inverting the order of nature, to be the monitor and
instructor of his own mother. Through the thin parti-
tion which usually divides these upper rooms of poverty,
our informant has often listened with amazement to
this child affectionately warning his parent of the sad
consequences of her sin, saying, ‘Ah, mither, mither,
what a dreadful thing it will be, when Jesus Christ comes
to judgment, if I, standing at his right hand, should see
my mither on the left ; and you’re sure to be there if
ye live on as you’re doing.’ In the humble locality
where these parties dwell, the remarkable demeanour
of this boy, and visible change wrought on his habits
and appearance, have recommended our Ragged School
to the neighbours round about; and it is our reward
and encouragement to know, that this child has ob-
tained for us the kindliest regards of that humble
neighbourhood, and a name there ‘above all Greek or
Roman fame ;’ for of how much truer value than the
_ passing applause of the world is the blessing of those
who are ready to perish !â€
Yet the idea of these noble institutions, which are
already working such fruits, did not first originate
with our philanthropic clergy and sheriffs, but was
218 Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution.
conceived and carried out in Portsmouth by a humble
mechanic, whose whole worldly means never more
than barely sufficed, with unrelaxing industry, to secure
for him the necessaries of life. ‘“ Were we,†says Dr.
Guthrie, “to make a pilgrimage anywhere, as soon as
to the lonely heath where the martyr reposes, -we would
direct our pilgrim-steps to the busy streets of Ports-
mouth, and, turning aside from the proud array of Old
England’s floating bulwarks, we would seek out the
humble shop where John Pounds achieved his works
of mercy, and earned an imperishable fame. There is
no poetry in his name, and none in his profession ; but
there was more than poetry,—the highest, noblest
piety,—in his life. Every day within his shop he
might be seen cobbling shoes, and surrounded by some
score or two of ragged urchins, whom he was convert-
ing into useful members of the State. Honour to the
memory of the patriot cobbler, beneath whose leathern
apron there beat the kindest heart—there glowed a
bosom fired with the noblest ambition—and who,
without fee from scholar or reward from man, while he
toiled for his hard-earned bread with the sweat of his
brow, educated not less than five hundred outcasts,
before they laid him in the lowly grave! Honour, we
say again, to the memory of this illustrious patriot!
Nor is there in all the world any sight we would have
travelled so far or so soon to see, as that self-same man,
when he followed some ragged boy along the quays of
Kindness and Fuvenile Destitution. 219
Portsmouth, keeping his kind, keen eye upon him, and
tempting the young savage to his school with the bribe
of a smoking potato. Princes and peers, judges and
divines, might have stood uncovered in his presence ;
and now marble monuments might be removed from
the venerable walls of Westminster—poets, warriors,
and statesmen, might give place—to make room for
him.
“His history proves what a single-handed but right-
hearted man may do; it isa proof of what—would the
reader but address himself in earnest to the work—he
himself might do.â€
This work is one of the noblest philanthropic schemes
of the age; but it is still only begun. Much remains
to be accomplished. Thousands are still perishing un-
cared for, and our sympathies are yet but partially
awakened to the misery of these sad outcasts of
humanity. “These miserable creatures,†exclaims the
eloquent pleader of this cause, “ are the children of our
common Father—the members of our common family.
Man of humanity, they are thy brothers and sisters—
bone of thy bone, and flesh of thy flesh; their hard
and melancholy lot may be thy crime—it cannot be
their own. Sinner, they are thy fellows: in them see
an emblem of thy state when thou wast an outcast too,
lying in thy blood, and a God of mercy, passing by,
looked on thee, and said, ‘ Live.’ Christian, they were
pitied by thy dying Lord: for them, as well as thee,
220 Kindness and Fuventle Destitution.
he bled, and groaned, and breathed his last, on Calvary ;
and both of and for such he said, ‘ Suffer little children
to come unto me.’
“Parents, you who know a father and a mother’s
heart, look on these helpless outcasts, and thank God,
who maketh one to differ from another, that their
aiflicted and affecting lot is not that.of your more for-
tunate offspring ; and as you smile on your sweet and
merry children, and see their pleasant faces beaming
round your replenished board or cheerful fire—as you
bless their heads, and hear their hymns, and kiss them
to their warm couch of rest—surely you will not refuse
a tear, a prayer, a contribution, for those, many of
whom know a parent's curses, but never knew a
Christian parent’s care.â€
This is, indeed, only another form of the Divine
injunction, “Let the same mind be in you which was
in Christ.†It recalls the example and the lessons of
our Saviour, and appeals to us in the same thoughts
which England’s poet has so beautifully set forth—
‘' ‘We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.â€
VIl.
Kindness and Insanity.
‘Dread shadow, deeper than the grave, can hope
Tlumine thee? Can mercy find him out
Who prostrate lies, with reason’s ray divine
In madness quenched ?â€
DovDswoRrtTu.
(eo MAN, it is obvious, however degraded by sin,
CY gi «lost to shame, and abandoned to every
crime, never so utterly loses every trace of
the Divine image in which he was framed, as to be
incapable of feeling the overmastering influence of the
law of love. Love overcomes all obstacles; love never
fails. In the dungeons of Newgate; in the penal
settlements; in the hovels where vice and crime are
training up the young to the willing service of the
devil; still love has been proved to be omnipotent, and
has triumphed over every obstacle. Where chains, and
stripes, and every restraint were found utterly unavail-
ing, and the abandoned wretches seemed to delight in
words and deeds fit only for the place of eternal woe,
222 Kindness and Insanity.
a few words of sympathy and kindness have seemed,
as by an electric touch, to restore them to the human
family, and unite them to the charities and the hopes
of God’s children. In some respects, a sadder scene
of human woe even than the dungeon of the abandoned
criminal, is the cell of the poor lunatic. No crime
degraded him to that terrible lot. The inscrutable
dispensations of an all-wise Providence have deprived
him of the light of reason, and the control of his
own powers and faculties. Yet he also was long
abandoned to chains and scourges; was forsaken by
his friends; shut out from the sympathy of human
kind, and dealt with only as the fiercest and most un-
tameable of brutes. But on. this sad scene of human
life, also, the eye of the philanthropist has been turned
with compassionate sympathy, and the star of hope
has once more gleamed on its dark and miserable
waste. Here, too, love has superseded cruelty and
harsh restraint, and the law of kindness has produced
the most happy results—results which are contrary to
all former experience. Those unfortunate beings in
whom the light of reason has been quenched in mad-
ness, have at length been embraced within the compass
of Christian benevolence, and we are learning not only
to feel for, but to alleviate the sufferings of those on
whom so sad a dispensation has been permitted to fall.
It was long universally believed that insane persons
must be governed by violence, and that such is the
Kindness and Insanity. 223
only manner in which they can be treated. Hence, in
the past history of insanity, we find it one sad account
of chains, filth, harshness, and misery— while the
violent and refractory have been subjected to severe
corporeal punishment in order to subdue them. Thus
these poor, afflicted sufferers, whose minds were dis-
ordered, not only endured the misery of the utter
blasting of reason, but they were visited with cruelty,
and abandoned to despair. Happily, such views no
longer exist. It is seen and admitted, not only that
harshness and violence aggravate the complaint of the
insane, but that it is both necessary and efficacious to
counteract the violence and assuage the sufferings of
insanity by kindness, sympathy, and pleasing occupa-
tions; and that soothing manners and interesting
objects gain their attention, and render the chance of
recovery more certain and complete. Hence, at the
present day, in most of the hospitals for the insane,
the kindest mode of government is pursued, and the
whole discipline adopted is entirely in the spirit of the
law, “overcome evil with good.†Over the gate of the
institution where the most success in curing insane
persons is manifested, there ought always to be written,
“ Kindness reigns here.†But though kindness is, or
soon will be, the universal rule of action in reference
to all maniacs, yet there is an instance on record, which
is worthy of preservation, as a generous and a daring
exhibition of its power.
224 Kindness and Insanity.
Hanwell Asylum was formerly conducted on the old
principle of violence, confinement, chains, strait-jackets,
threats, and whips, until Dr. Ellis and his wife took
charge of the establishment. They went into it, resolved
to guide their whole conduct on the broadest principles
of benevolence—their only governing power was “good
sense and kindness.†They determined, from the very
first, to visit every lunatic with leniency and liberty.
Though such an experiment endangered their lives, yet
they opened every door of the building, and gave its
inmates free access to every part of the asylum, treating
them as much as possible as though they were sane.
The result is ennobling; after pursuing such a course
for twenty years, no accident happened from it. Miss
Martineau, who visited the asylum, after speaking of
the mode of government there, and the mingling of the
inmates together, says—
“I saw the worst patients in the establishment, and
conversed with them, and was far more delighted than
surprised to see the effect of companionship on those
who might be supposed the most likely to irritate each
other. Some are always in a better state when their
companions are in a worse ; and the sight of woe has
evidently a softening effect upon them. One poor
creature, in a paroxysm of misery, could not be passed
by ; and while I was speaking to her as she sat, two of
the most violent patients in the ward joined me, and
the one wiped away the scalding tears of the bound
ne
mS
Oe
GF
IFS
ae
eG
XPERIMENT WITH THE MANIAC
ELSE
PIN
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of
Kindness and Insanity. 225
sufferer, while the other told me how ‘genteel an
education she had had, and how it grieved them all to
see her there.’ Why should it be supposed that the
human heart ceases its yearnings whenever confusion
is introduced among the workings of the brain? And
what is so likely to restore order, as allowing their —
natural play to the affections which can never be at
rest? For those who cannot visit Hanwell, it may be
enough to know, that no accident has happened among
Dr. Ellis’ many hundred patients during the twenty
years that he has been their guardian; but there has
been a far higher satisfaction in witnessing and feeling
the evident security which prevails in the establishment,
where the inmates are more like whimsical children,
manageable by steadiness, than wretched maniacs, con-
trollable only by force.†|
When an individual is cured, and his mental equili-
brium is restored, he leaves the asylum with the most
grateful recollections; for so great is the attention and
kindness there practised, that he feels when he is un-
comfortable he can return and find a home under the
care of his old friends. The “parting blessing†to the
cured patient, when going to the busy scenes of life,
accompanied with the affectionate smile of Mrs. Ellis,
and her kind invitation to return “home†whenever
they are in difficulty, are the attractions which make
the establishment so desirable to them. “A painter,
who had long experienced the kindness of Dr. and Mrs.
(149) 15
220 Kindness and Insantty.
Ellis, was grieved to leave them. Some time after he
had returned to his business in the world, he had a
typhus fever; and when he was recovering, his first
desire was to get back into his old quarters. ‘I will
go up to the Asylum,’ said he; ‘I am sure they will
give me a nursing till I get strong.’ And so they did.â€
Could anything be more delightful than such kind-
ness, or more refreshing to the mind? Or could per-
sons exhibit a more magnanimous and Christian spirit
than Dr. and Mrs. Ellis, in devoting their whole time
to the welfare and comfort of insane paupers! Pure
must have been the feelings and motives which actuated
them—delightful must have been their thoughts when
dwelling upon the results of their labours. Those re-
sults are extraordinary ; for not only does their kind-
ness and judicious management firmly win the love
and gratitude of the insane, but they have rendered
chains entirely useless, so that, though in 1834 they
had 566 patients, there were only ten whose arms it
was necessary even gently to confine. Thus, while in
some institutions for the insane there are still heard
howlings, screeches, the rattling of chains, and the
like evidence of human woe, there all is peace, freedom,
and comparative enjoyment. What is more extra-
ordinary still, is, that under their management, ninety
out of every hundred patients are cured, and again
blessed with reason.
Another most noble illustration of the law of kind-
Kindness and Insanity. 227
ness as a power to subdue and soften insanity, is found
in a scene which occurred in the Bedlam or Mad
House of Paris. The account of it is extracted from
a letter read at the Academy of Sciences by the son of
the celebrated Pinel, who was, as appears from the
account, keeper, or head overseer, in the Bicetre.
“ Towards the end of 1792, Pinel after having many
times urged the government to allow him to unchain
the maniacs of the Bicetre, but in vain, went himself
to the authorities, and with much earnestness and
warmth advocated the removal of this monstrous
abuse. Couthon, a member of the Commune, gave
way to Mr. Pinel’s arguments, and agreed to meet him
at the Bicetre. Couthon then interrogated these who
were chained, but the abuse he received, and the con-
fused sounds of cries, vociferations, and clanking of
chains, in the filthy and damp cells, made him recoil
from Pinel’s proposition. ‘You may do what you will
with them,’ said he, ‘ but I fear you will become their
victim.’ Pinel instantly commenced his undertaking.
There were about fifty whom he considered might, with-
out danger to others, be unchained ; and he began by
releasing twelve, with the sole precaution of having
previously prepared the same number of strong waist-
coats, with long sleeves, which could be tied behind
the back, if necessary.
“The first man on whom the experiment was to be
tried, was an English captain, whose history no one
228 Kindness and Insanity
knew, as he had been in chains forty years. He was
thought to be one of the most furious among them.
His keepers approached him with caution, as he had,
in a fit of fury, killed one of them on the spot with
a blow from his manacles. He was chained more
vigorously than any of the others. Pinel entered his
cell unattended, and calmly said, ‘Captain, I will order
your chains to be taken off, and give you liberty to
walk in the court, if you will promise me to behave
well, and injure no one.’ ‘Yes, I promise you,’ said
the maniac: ‘ but you are laughing at me—you are all
too much afraid of me.’ ‘I have six men,’ said Pinel,
‘ready to enforce my commands, if necessary. Believe
me, then, on my word, I will give you your liberty, if
you will put on this waistcoat.’ He submitted to this
willingly, without a word. His chains were removed,
and the keepers retired, leaving the door open. He
raised himself many times from his seat, but fell back
again on it; for he had been in a sitting posture so
long that he had lost the use of his legs. In a quarter
of an hour he succeeded in maintaining his balance,
and with tottering steps came to the door of his dark
cell, His first look was at the sky, and he cried out
enthusiastically, ‘How beautiful!’ During the rest of
the day he was constantly in motion, walking up and
down the staircases, and uttering short exclamations
of delight. In the evening he returned, of his own
accord, to his cell, where a better bed than he had
Kindness and Insanity, 229
ipeen accustomed to had been prepared for him, and he
slept tranquilly. During the two succeeding years
which he spent at the Bicetre, he had no return of his
previous paroxysms, but even rendered himself useful,
by exercising a kind of authority over the insane
patients, whom he ruled in his own fashion.
©The next unfortunate being whom Pinel visited was
a soldier of the French Guards, whose only fault was
drunkenness. When once he lost his self-command
by drink, he became quarrelsome and violent, and the
more dangerous from his great bodily strength. From
his frequent excesses he had been discharged from his
corps, and he speedily dissipated his scanty means.
Disgrace and misery so depressed him that he became
insane; in his paroxysms he believed himself a general,
and fought those who would not acknowledge his rank.
After a furious struggle of this sort, he was brought
to the Bicetre in a state of great excitement. He had
now been in chains ten years, and with greater care
than the others, from his having frequently broken
his chains with his hands only. Once, when he broke
loose, he defied all his keepers to enter his cell until
they had each passed under his legs; and he compelled -
eight men to obey this strange command. Pinel, in
his previous visits to him, regarded him as a man of
original good nature, but under excitement, incessantly
kept up by cruel treatment; and he had promised
speedily to ameliorate his condition, which promise
230 Kindness and Insanity.
alone had made him more calm. Now he announced
to him that he should be chained no longer. And to
prove that he had confidence in him, and believed him
to be a man capable of better things, he called upon
him to assist in releasing those others who had not
reason like himself; and promised, if he conducted
himself well, to take him into his own service. The
change was sudden and complete. No sooner was he
liberated than he became attentive, following with his
eye every motion of Pinel, and executing his orders
with much address and promptness; he spoke kindly
and reasonably to the other patients, and during the
rest of his life was entirely devoted to his deliverer.
‘I can never hear without emotion,’ says Pinel’s son,
‘the name of this man, who some years after this
occurrence shared with me the games of my child-
hood, and to whom I shall feel always attached.’
“Tn the next cell were three Prussian soldiers, who
had been in chains for many years, but on what account
no one knew. They were, in general, calm and in-
offensive, becoming animated only when conversing
together in their own language, which was unintelligible
to others. They were allowed the only consolation of
which they appeared sensible—to live together. The
preparations taken to release them alarmed them, as
they imagined the keepers had come to inflict new
severities ; and they opposed them violently when re-
moving their irons. When released they were not
Kindness and Insanity. 231
willing to leave their prison, and remained in their
habitual posture. Either grief or loss of intellect
rendered them indifferent to liberty.
“Near them was an old priest, who was possessed
with the idea that he was Christ; his appearance indi-
cated the vanity of his belief; he was grave and
solemn, his smile soft and at the same time severe,
repelling all familiarity; his hair was long, and hung
on each side of his face, which was pale, intelligent,
and resigned. On his being once taunted with a ques-
tion, that ‘if he was Christ, he could break his chains,’
he solemnly replied, Fuestria tentaris Dominum tuum.
His whole life was a romance of religious excitement.
He undertook, on foot, pilgrimages to Cologne and
Rome, and made a voyage to America for the purpose
of converting the Indians; his dominant idea became
changed into actual mania, and on his return to France
he announced himself as the Saviour. He was taken
by the police before the Archbishop of Paris, by whose
orders he was confined in the Bicetre as either impious
or insane. His hands and feet were loaded with heavy
chains, and during twelve years he bore with exemplary
patience martyrdom and constant sarcasms. Pinel did
not attempt to reason with him, but ordered him to
be unchained in silence, directing, at the same time,
that every one should imitate the old man’s reserve,
and never speak to him. This order was rigorously |
observed, and produced on the patient a more decided
232 Kindness and Insanity.
effect than either chains or the dungeon; he became
humiliated by this unusual isolation, and after hesitating
a long time, gradually introduced himself to the society
of the other patients. From this time his notions
became more just and sensible, and in less than a
year he acknowledged the absurdity of his previous
prepossession, and was dismissed from the Bicetre.
‘In the course of a few days Pinel released fifty-
three maniacs from their chains, among them were men
of all conditions and countries—workmen, merchants,
soldiers, lawyers, &c. The result was beyond his hopes.
Tranquillity and harmony succeeded to tumult and
disorder, and the whole discipline was marked with a
regularity and kindness which had the most favourable
effect on the insane themselves, rendering even the most
furvous the more tractable.â€
To these cases many more might be added, but they
are sufficient for our purpose. In them the mightiness
of the law of kindness is strikingly apparent. It had
not to deal with the wise, the reasonable, and the
Christianized—those who understood its Divine origin,
and felt its requirements. But it came in contact
with the insane—those whose mental light had been
quenched in madness, and the star of whose reason had
set In darkness—those who could not appreciate the
influences and tendencies of kindness—those who had
been confined and chained for years—who had been
Kindness and Insanity. — 233
rendered fierce by ill-treatment, and whose insanity
had been aggravated by violence. And what was the
result of the operation of this law? It made the
maniac gentle as a child, it changed violent opposition
into obedience, it gave comparative happiness to those
whose previous days of insanity were not relieved by
a single hour of pleasure. And how did it effect this ?
It reared no gloomy dungeon, with filth and damp
straw; 1t threw no chains upon the limbs of those who
came under its charge; it uttered no threats ; it wielded
no lash. It opposed only gentleness to violence; it
wove its web of silk round the blighted soul ; it threw
its light on mental darkness; and it knocked gently
for admittance into the fleshly house which was de-
prived of its lamp of reason. And, lo! not only did
insanity bow to its holy influence, but in almost every
instance it succeeded in rearranging the disturbed brain,
and in restoring the light of reason to fit and prepare
its subjects once more for the varied duties of life. If
aught is wanting to convince the sceptical of the power
of kindness, it is found here. For if that law will
subdue even the maniac, calm down the raging storms
of insanity, and render the poor victim of dethroned
reason as mild and obedient as a child, it certainly will
have a powerful influence over those who are sane,
whatever may be their situation. If the Deity has so
constituted his creatures that violent madness will bow
before the law of kindness, we may well believe that, in
— 234 _ Kindness and Insanity,
reference to sane men, it is far the best to obey the Divine
precept, which inculcates the all-subduing power of love.
But while enforcing thus by precept and example
both the duty and the necessity of adopting such gentle
means for dealing with this fearful malady, it may not
be out of place to inculcate also another obligation of
the same law of kindness in its influence both on our-
selves and others. No man would deliberately do that
which he believed could risk the loss of his own sanity,
and it is difficult to conceive of any one so heartless as
to risk the sanity of others in the pursuit of his own
gains, Yet how many instances do we know of in
which the greatest minds have given way before the
overstrained demands on their power. Rest is no less
indispensable to the mind than to the body, that both
may retain their health and vigour. “TI have practised
as a physician,†said Dr. J. R. Farre, in giving evidence
before the House of Commons in 1832, “ between thirty
and forty years; and during the early part of my life
as the physician of a public medical institution, I
had charge of the poor in one of the most populous
districts of London. I have had occasion to observe
the effect of the observance and non-observance of the
seventh day of rest during this time. I have been in
the habit during a great many years of considering the
uses of the Sabbath, and observing its abuses. The
abuses are chiefly manifested in labour and dissipation,
Its use, medically speaking, is that of a day of rest,
Kindness and I, nsantity, 235
“As a day of rest, I view it as a day of compensation
for the inadequate restorative power of the body under
continued labour and excitement. A physician always
has respect to the preservation of the restorative power,
because, if once this be lost, his healing office is at an
end.
of circulation, as necessary to the restorative power of
the body. The ordinary exertions of man run down
the circulation every day of his life; and the first
general law of nature, by which God prevents man
from destroying himself, is the alternating of day and
night, that repose may succeed action. But although
the night apparently equalizes the circulation, yet it
does not sufficiently restore its balance for the attain-
ment of a long life. Hence, one day in seven, by the
bounty of Providence, is thrown in as a day of com-
pensation, to perfect by its repose the animal system.
“TI consider, therefore, that in the bountiful provi-
sion of Providence for the preservation of human life,
the sabbatical appointment is not, as it has been
sometimes theologically viewed, simply a precept par-
taking of the nature of a political institution, but that
_ itis to be numbered amongst the natural duties—il
the preservation of life be admitted to be a duty—and
the premature destruction of it a suicidal act.â€
Nor is it true that men who labour six days in a
week, and rest on one, are more healthy merely, and
live longer than those who labour seven; but they do
236 Kindness and Insanity.
more work, and wn a better manner. The experiment
was tried in England upon two thousand men. They
were employed for years seven days in a week. To
render them contented in giving up their right to the
Sabbath as a day of rest, that birthright of the human
jJamily, they paid them double wages on that day—
eight days’ wages for seven days’ work. But they
could not keep them healthy, nor make them moral.
Nor can men ever be made moral or kept most healthy
in that way. Things went badly, and they changed
their course—employed the workmen only six days in
a week, and allowed them to rest on the Sabbath.
The consequence was that they did more work than
ever before. This, the superintendent said, was owing
to two causes,—namely, demoraiization of the people
under the first system, and exhaustion of bodily strength,
which was visible to the most casual observer. Such
a course will always demoralize men, and diminish their
strength.
Of the effects of the same periodical rest on the
mind the testimony is no less striking and direct. A
distinguished merchant, who for twenty years did a
vast amount of business, remarked to Dr. Edwards,
“Had it not been for the Sabbath, I have no doubt I
should have been a maniac long ago.†This was men-
tioned in a company of merchants, when one remarked:
“That is the case exactly with Mr.
of our greatest importers. He used to say that the
He was one
Kindness and Insanity. 237
Sabbath was the best day in the week to plan success-
ful voyages; showing that his mind had no Sabbath.
He has been in the Insane Hospital for years, and will
probably die there.†Many men are there, or in the
maniac’s grave, because they had no Sabbath. They
broke a law of nature, and of nature’s God, and found
“the way of the transgressor to be hard.†Such
cases are so numerous, that a writer on the subject
remarks, “We never knew a man work seven days
in a week who did not kill himself, or kill his
mind.â€
Thomas Sewall, M.D., professor of pathology and the
practice of medicine in the Columbian College, Wash-
ington, writes thus: “While I consider it the more
important design of the institution of the Sabbath to
assist in religious devotion, and advance men’s spiritual
welfare, I have long held the opinion that one of its
chief benefits has reference to its physical and intellec-
tual constitution; affording him, as it does, one day in
seven for the renovation of his exhausted energies of
body and mind,—a proportion of time small enough,
- according. to the results of my observation, for the
accomplishment of this object. I have remarked, as a
general fact, that those to whom the Sabbath brings
the most entire rest from their habitual labours, per-
form the secular duties of the week more vigorously
and better than those who continue them without
intermission.â€
238 Kindness and Insanity,
It would be easy greatly to extend the evidence in
proof of these points. The moral to be deduced from
them cannot be mistaken. The man who, in contempt
of the Divine law, employs himself or his servants in
secular labour on the Lord’s day, sets the laws of nature,
as well as the direct command of God, at defiance, and
reaps both a present and a future loss. It was not as
a harsh or ceremonial imposition, but as a pure law of
love, adapted to the frailty of the human frame, that
God said of the Sabbath, “On it thou shalt do no
manner of work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter,
thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, thy cattle, nor
the stranger that is within thy gates.†How elevated
and delightful a view does it give us of the great God
and Father of all, thus to find that, while crime and
suffering, and even insanity, all flow from our sins, and
are increased by our ignorance and our want of resem-
blance to the Divine image, that all may be modified,
ameliorated, and even to some extent restored to the
happy state in which it came from God’s hand, by a
simple reliance on the apostolic precept, “ Love never
fails.â€
VIII.
National ARmdness.
‘* Are we not brethren, children of one father,
Heirs of the same inheritance, and bound .
By every tie of duty and of right
To mutual love?â€
pati whole argument by which we seek to
SA Be enforce the universal influence of the law of
love, springs from motives of a lofty char-
acter, and such as ought to influence the Christian
mind. We are told to love our neighbour, our brother,
and our enemy, entirely from the same generous prin-
ciples. Yet lesser motives may also be urged; for even
by the selfishness of our nature we might learn that
love is the best motive-power. The principle of non-
resistance, so much urged in our own day, is based on
the truest grounds of political economy as well as on
the lofty basis of the Divine will.
Whence originated the term Christian non-resistance !
Non-resistance comes from the injunction, “ Resist not
240 National Kindness.
evil†(Matt. v. 39). The words “resist not,†being
changed from the form of a verb to that of a substan-
tive, gives us non-resistance. This term is considered
more strikingly significant than any other of the prin-
ciple involved and the duty enjoined in our Saviour’s
precept. Hence its adoption and established use. It
is denominated Christian non-resistance, to distinguish
it, as the genuine primitive doctrine, from mere philo-
sophical, sentimental, and necessitous non-resistance.
Literally, then, Christian non-resistance is the original
non-resistance taught and exemplified by Jesus Christ ;
the bearings, limitations, and applications of which are
to be learned from the Scriptures of the New Testa-
ment, the only rule of conduct to which we can safely
apply for guidance in every question of duty, whether
it be to God or to our neighbour. And what are those
bearings, limitations, and applications? What is aimed
at is, to carry the obligations of non-resistance just
as far, and no farther, than Jesus Christ has. It is
easy to go beyond or to fall short of his limits. Even
those of all classes who profess to abide implicitly by
his teachings, construe and interpret his language go as
to favour their respective errors. Some seize on the
strong, figurative language of Scripture, and make it
seem to mean much more than we can believe to have
been conveyed in its precepts. Others ingeniously
fritter away and nullify the very essence of Christ’s
teaching, in such a manner as to make him seem to
National Kindness. 241
mean much less than he must have intended. There
is, however, a general rule for such cases, which can ©
scarcely fail to expose the errors of both classes. I¢ is
this—“ Consider the context; consider parallel texts ;
consider examples ; consider the known spirit of Chris-
tianity.†Any construction or interpretation of the
recorded language of Christ, or of his apostles, in which
all these concur, is sound. Any other is most probably
erroneous. |
“T say unto you, resist not evil,†&. This single
text, from which, we believe, the term non-resistance
took its rise, if justly construed, furnishes a complete
key to the true bearings, limitations, and applications
of the doctrine under discussion. This is precisely one
of those precepts which may be easily made to mean
much more, or much less, than its author intended. It
is in the intensive, condensed form of expression, and
can be understood only by a due regard to its context.
What did the divine Teacher mean by the word “ evil,â€
and what by the word “resist?â€
There are various kinds of resistance which may be
offered to personal injury, when threatened or actually
inflicted. There is passive resistance—a dead silence,
a sullen inertia, a complete muscular helplessness—
an utter refusal to speak or move. Does the context
show that Jesus contemplated any such resistance in
his prohibition? No. There is an active, righteous,
moral resistance—a meek, firm remonstrance—rebuke,
(149) 16
242 National Kindness.
reproof, protestation. Does the connection show that
Jesus prohibits this kind of resistance? No. There
is an active, firm, compound, moral and physical resist-
ance, uninjurious to the evil-doer, and only calculated
to restrain him from deadly violence or extreme out-
rage. Was Jesus contemplating such modes of resist-
ing personal injury? Does the context show that he
intended to prohibit all resistance of evil by such means?
No. There is a determined resistance of personal in-
jury by means of injury inflicted, as when a man de-
liberately takes life to save life, destroys an assailant’s
eye to save an eye, inflicts a violent blow to prevent a
blow; or as when, in retaliation, he takes life for life,
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, &.; or as
when, by means of legal agencies, he causes an injuri-
ous person to be punished by the retaliation of some
injury equivalent to the one he has inflicted or attempted.
It was of such resistance as this that our Saviour was
speaking. It is such resistance as this that he pro-
hibits. His obvious doctrine is, resist not personal
injury with personalinjury. This plain statement may
suffice to determine the important bearings and limi-
tations of the general doctrine. It bears on all man-
kind in every social relation of life. It contemplates
men as actually injured, or in imminent danger of being
injured, by their fellow-men, and commands them to
abstain from all personal injuries, either as a means of
retaliation or suppression of injury. If smitten on the
National Kindness, 243
one cheek, they must submit the other to outrage,
rather than smite back. If the life of their dearest
friend had been taken, ex an eye or a tooth thrust out,
or any other wrong been done to themselves or their
fellow-men, they must not render evil for evil, or rail-
ing for railing, or hatred for hatred. But they are not
prohibited from resisting, opposing, preventing, or
counteracting the injuries inflicted, attempted, or threat-
ened, by man on man, in the use of any absolutely
uninjurious forces, whether moral or physical. On the
contrary, it is their bounden duty, by all such benevo-
lent resistances, to promote the safety and welfare, the
holiness and happiness, of all human beings, as oppor-
tunity may offer.
But we have said it may be urged, even on the low
grounds of economic expediency, that war is an unwise,
as well as in most cases an unjustifiable thing. We
need not turn only to the Bible or to Protestant Chris-
tians for testimonies against war. We could not expect
the heathen to denounce a custom so emphatically their
own; yet we find the wisest and best of them repro-
bating it in the strongest terms. Cicero speaks of war,
“contention by violence, as belonging to the brutes,â€
and complains bitterly of its effects on liberal arts and
peaceful pursuits. “All our noble studies, all our re-
putation at the bar, all our professional assiduities, are
stricken from our hands as soon as the alarm of war is
sounded. Wisdom itself, the mistress of affairs, is
244 National Kindness.
driven from the field. Force bears sway. The states:
man is despised; the grim soldier alone is caressed.
Legal proceedings cease. Claims are asserted and pro-
secuted, not according to law, but by force of arms.â€
Seneca, the great moralist of antiquity, is still more
strong in his condemnation of war. “How are we to
treat our fellow-creatures? Shall we not spare the
effusion of blood? How small a matter not to hurt
him to whom we are bound by every obligation to do
all the good in our power! Some deeds, which are
considered as villanous while capable of being prevented,
become honourable and glorious when they rise above
the control of law. The very things which, if men
had done them in their private capacity, they would
expiate with their lives, we extol when perpetrated in
regimentals at the bidding of a general. We punish
murders and massacres committed among private per-
sons; but what do we with wars—the glorious crime
of murdering whole nations? Here avarice and cruelty
know no bounds; enormities forbidden in private per-
sons are actually enjoined by legislatures, and every
species of barbarity authorized by decrees of the senate
and votes of the people.â€
The absolute inconsistency of war with the gospel,
was the prevalent belief of the early Christians. Justin
Martyr, A.D. 140, quoting one of the prophecies of
Isaiah, says, “That these things have come to pass,
you may be readily convinced ; for we, who were once
National Kindness. 245
slayers of one another, do not now fight against our
enemies.†Irenzeus, bishop of Lyons, discusses the
same prophecy, and proves its relation to our Saviour,
by the fact that the followers of Jesus had disused the
weapons of war, and no longer knew how to fight.
eitullian, indeed, alludes to Christians who were en-
gaged in military pursuits, but, on another occasion,
informs us that many soldiers quitted those pursuits in
consequence of their conversion to Christianity; and
repeatedly expresses his own opinion, that any partici-
pation in war is unlawful for believers in J esus, not
only because of the idolatrous practices in the Roman
armies, but because Christ has forbidden the use of the
sword, and the revenge of injuries. Origen, in his
work against Celsus, says, “We no longer take up the
sword against any nation, nor do we learn any more
to make war. We have become, for the sake of Jegus,
the children of peace. By our prayers we fight for
our king abundantly, but take no part in his wars, even
though he urge us.â€
They also witnessed a good confession in bearing
their testimony against its bloody deeds. Maximilian,
a primitive Christian, having been brought before
the tribunal to be enrolled as a soldier, Dion, the
pro-consul, asked him his name. Maximilian, turning
to him, replied, “ Why wouldest thou know my name?
I am a Christian, and cannot fight.†Then Dion
ordered him to be enrolled, and bade the officer
246 National Kindness.
mark him; but Maximilian refused to be marked, still
asserting that he was a Christian; upon which Dion
instantly replied, “Bear arms, or thou shalt die.†To
this Maximilian answered, “I cannot fight, if I die; I
am not a soldier of this world, but a soldier of God.â€
He refused the expostulations of Dion, and was accord-
ingly executed.
Franklin, the American philosopher, was a strong
opposer of the war system. “If statesmen,†says he,
“were more accustomed to calculation, wars would be
much less frequent. Canada might have been pur-
chased from France for a tenth part of the money Eng-
land spent in the conquest of it; and if, instead of
fighting us for the power to tax us, she had kept us in
good humour by allowing us to dispose of our own
money, and giving us now and then a little of her own
by way of donation to colleges or hospitals, for cutting
canals, or fortifying ports, she might easily have drawn
from us much more by occasional voluntary grants and
contributions, than ever she could by taxes. Sensible
people will give a bucket or two of water to a dry pump
in order to get from it afterwards all they want.
“ After much occasion to consider the folly and mis-
chiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advan-
tage obtained even by those nations which have con-
ducted it with the most success, I have been apt to
think there has never been, nor ever will be, any such
thing as a good war ora bad peace. All wars are
National Kindness. 247
follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones,
When will mankind be convinced of this, and agree to
settle their difficulties by arbitration? Were they to
do it even by the cast of a die, it would be better than
by fighting and destroying each other. We daily
make great improvements in natural philosophy ;
there is one I wish to see in moral—the discovery
of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to
settle their disputes without first cutting one another's
throats.â€
Louis Bonaparte, the brother of the greatest conqueror
of modern times, and himself a sharer in its fruits, thus
expresses his thoughts on war:—“TI have been as en-
thusiastic and joyful as any one after victory; yet I
confess that even then the sight of a field of battle not
only struck me with horror, but even turned me sick.
And now that I am advanced in life, I cannot under-
stand any more than I could at fifteen years of age,
how beings who call themselves reasonable, and who
have so much foresight, can employ this short existence,
not in loving and aiding each other, and passing through
it as quietly as possible, but in striving, on the contrary,
to destroy each other, as though time itself did not
do this with sufficient rapidity. What I thought at
fifteen years of age I still think, that war, and the
pain of death which society draws upon itself, are but
organized barbarisms—an inheritance of the savage
state,â€
248 National Kindness.
It is not often remembered that society, as composed
of individuals, is frequently actuated by revenge, and
that much of the evil which exists in it may be clearly
traced to its neglect of the law of kindness. Society,
or a community, or a nation, becomes unkind when it
gives no heed to the education of the poor; when it
raises such walls of distinction as to discourage and
shut out from notice the humble in life, however
worthy and virtuous; when it makes a god of riches
and fashion, frowns upon the industrious, and sets them
aside like worthless weeds, because they cannot shine
in silks and revel in luxury; when it crushes the feeble
for the least deviation from the path of rectitude,
chasing him or her to desperation with unrelenting
severity, while, at the same time, it will receive with
open arms the man of wealth or rank into its highest
circles, without investigating the rumours that point
to him as the libertine, the duellest, or the gambler;
when its laws are oppressive, cruel, and without a ten-
dency to reform the criminal; and when established
custom sanctions sin in a variety of its forms, thus
leading multitudes on to ruin;—in all these, and many
other things, a nation or a community may be unkind,
and walk contrary to the Christian law of love. What
is it but the unkindness of the community which suffers
an unnatural speculation to raise provisions above the
price of labour, grinding the labouring-clasges in poverty
and sorrow, and, through absolute want, driving many
National Kindness. 249
of them to beggary and theft? What is it but such
unkindness that takes from multitudes of the poor all
hope of rising above their necessitous condition, and by
condemning them to perpetual drudgery, causes many,
through mere despair, to become thieves and prosti-
tutes? There is so much misery to be traced to the
customs and fashions of life, that many a poor man
may date his ruin at the door of society, from being
pressed into vice by the follies, vices, and oppression
of those who owe to the poor a good example.
The following extract from Mr, Ainsworth’s work,
entitled “ Jack Sheppard,†may be admitted here from
its impressive truth, though the general tendency of
the work is such as must induce every parent to ex-
clude it from the reading of youth. A benevolent
individual urging upon a woman cast into the lowest
dregs of life, and whose husband had been executed
for housebreaking, to give him her infant, is refused.
When he appears angry at her refusal, she exclaims,
sobbing bitterly, “Don’t be angry with me, sir; pray
don’t. I know that I am undeserving of your bounty ;
but if I-were to tell you what hardships I have under-
gone—to what frightful extremities I have been re-
duced—and to what infamy I have submitted, to earn
a scanty subsistence, for this child’s sake—if you could —
feel what it is to stand alone in the world as I do,
bereft of all who ever loved me, and shunned by al!
who have ever known me, except the worthless and
250 National Kindness.
the wretched—if you knew (and Heaven grant that
you may be spared the knowledge!) how much afflic-
tion sharpens love, and how much more dear to me
my child has become for every sacrifice I have made
for him—if you were told all this, you would, I am
sure, pity rather than reproach me, because-I cannot
at once consent to a separation which I feel would
break my heart.†Many a female, like the one here
represented, has been plunged deeper and deeper in
infamy because society has had no smile to win the
wanderer from sin, but rather has frowned her away
from repentance. |
Returning, however, to the direct consideration of
international relations, no nation on the face of the
earth cherishes such bitter prejudice and proud con-
tempt for other people as the Chinese, whose self-styled
“celestial†inhabitants look with most inveterate dis-
like upon “barbarians,†as they designate foreigners,
So thoroughly are they indoctrinated into this prejudice
and contempt, that their pride causes them to reject
almost every effort which civilized people have made
to give them information in religious and scientific
truth ; while so carefully have they wrapped themselves
up in that secresy by which they have almost entirely
prevented the hated barbarians from examining their
institutions, that their empire is very nearly a sealed
book tous. But there is one power which, to a certain
National K indness. 251
extent, has melted their iron prejudices, scattered their
pride, and warmed their hearts with gratitude even to
a “barbarian.†That power is Christian charity; and
its operations are manifested in the instance now to be
described.
In 1835, Mr. Parker, an American missionary,
founded an ophthalmic hospital in Canton; or rather,
the intention was to devote it entirely to the treatment
of eye diseases; but as other diseases presented them-
selves, many of the patients were received. The prin-
ciple upon which the hospital is established, is Lindness
—to heal the afflicted without expense to them; for
Dr. Parker never received a fee, and when a present is
made, it is put into the funds of the hospital. At
first, applications for admittance was confined to the
lower orders of people; but as the fame of the estab-
lishment greatly spread abroad, and the benevolence
of its head was made known, the higher orders began
to furnish patients from their ranks. When Mr.
Downing visited Dr. Parker in 1836 and 1837, he
ascertained that more than two thousand persons had
been under treatment, most of whom had received
help. Such conduct as this is rapidly melting the
prejudices of the Chinese—their respect is becoming
excited ; while those who have been restored to health
are warmly attached to their benefactor. If the
hospital is continued, there can be no doubt that by it
a door will be opened into China, through which
252 National Kindness.
Christian truth and the improvements of science may
be introduced among that people. It would seem,
from the success of kindness in this case, and the
failure of experiments of another character, that the
Chinese can be reached only through the law of love;
for even their iron stubbornness and pride cannot
resist the glow of affection and goodness.
One instance of the lively gratitude of a Chinese to
Dr. Parker for his great kindness, we cannot forbear
mentioning. It is the case of a “private secretary to
an officer of government,†whose name is Masre-yay,
and who had been totally blind for many years from
the disorder termed cataract. An operation was per-
formed upon his eyes by Dr. Parker, with such complete
success that he was perfectly restored to sight. In
the enthusiasm of his gratitude, he desired he might
have the doctor’s portrait, that he might “bow down
before it every day.†This, of course, was refused, He
then, among other things, sent the present of a gilded
fan, on which was inscribed a short biography of Dr.
Parker, and a poem strongly expressive of his own
grateful feelings. This poem was translated, and
appeared in the “Chinese Repository â€-—a few verses
of which we give. On hearing of Dr. Parker, he
says,—
‘I quick went forth; this man I sought—this generous doctor found;
He gained my heart; he’s good and kind; and high above the ground
‘He gave a room, to which he came, at morn, at eve, at night;
Words would be vain if I should try his kindness to recite.â€
National Kindness. 253
After describing the operation, and the joy of his soul
on first beholding his friends, he says,—
‘With grateful heart and heaving breast—with feelings flowing o’er,
I cried, ‘Oh, lead me quick to him who can the sight restore!’
I tried to kneel; but he forbade, and forcing me to rise,
‘To mortal man bend not the knee;’ then pointing to the skies:
““*T am,’ said he, ‘the Workman’s tool—another’s is the hand;
Before His might, and in His sight, men feeble, helpless stand;
Go, virtue learn to cultivate, and never thou forget
That for some work of future good thy life is spared thee yet.’
** No token of my thankfulness or reverence would he take;
Silver or gold—they seemed as dust; ’tis but for virtue’s sake
His works are done. His skill divine I ever shall adore,
Nor lose remembrance of his name till life’s last day is o'er.†*
Such were the expressions of gratitude drawn from
a Chinese by the kindness of Dr. Parker, And who
shall venture to predict what glorious changes might
not be wrought in China, if a systematic course of
kindness was pursued in regard to its people? Per-
chance such conduct might be as efficient as sunshine ©
and showers upon seed in the earth. At all events, it
would be more Christ-like than to slaughter the
Chinese, because their emperor desires to save his
subjects from intoxication by opium.
Instances are already sufficiently familiar to the
reader to show, that the more a nation is engaged in
war, the more its people will lose sight of the practice
* Penny Magazine for 1832.
254 National Kindness.
of kindness, and become sanguinary in their tastes and
habits. If nations would consider this fact thoroughly,
in connection with the simple truth, that mcst wars
srow out of trivial circumstances, and endeavour to
settle difficulties amicably, and in the wise and
generous spirit of mutual concession, they might devote
those treasures lavished on armies to the arts of peace.
Think of it as we may, yet it is truth, that most wars
have no better reason for their origin, than the boys
spoken of in one of the lay sermons of the Ettrick
Shepherd, had for their quarrel. The boys of two
different schools met on the ice. One boy said, “ What
are ye glowrin’ at, Billy?†The answer was, “What's
that to you? T’ll look where I have a mind, an’
hinder me if ye daur.â€. A blow followed—then the
battle became general. A boy of one party was asked
what the other boys had done, that they should fight
them so. “Oh, nothing at a’, man; we just want to
gie them a good thrashing!†After fighting till they
were tired, one of the leaders, streaming with blood,
and his clothes in tatters, said to the opposite party,
“Weel, Dll tell you what we'll do wi’ ye: if ye'll let
us alone, we'll let you alone.†So the war ended, and
they went to play. Do not children of a larger growth
engage in deadly war often with no better cause than
that which the boy assigned, and with about the same
results ?
The ways in which society or a nation can practise
National Kindness. 255
the law of kindness, are full as many as those in which
they can be unkind; and how much more glorious,
and how fraught with choice blessings are such deeds!
A nation practises the law of love, when it uses every
means to settle difficulties with other nations amicably
—when it has no craving to seize the territory of
another by military conquest; but, in all its transac-
tions, pursues a course of conciliation, integrity, and
high-mindedness ; and especially when, with noble
effort, it induces two nations on the eve of war to
arrange the subject of contention without bloodshed.
A nation practises a noble forbearance, when it gives
orders to its generals and admirals not to molest,
during war, expeditions of utility pursued by the
enemy-—as was done by France, in reference to Captain
Cook, when directions were given to the officers of
their ships to treat Cook as the commander of a
neutral or allied power, should they meet him while
war continued. The directions were issued in March
1779. By this act of kindness, France gained more
true credit than though it had conquered a thousand
ships. The same spirit was manifested by Franklin,
when, as the plenipotentiary of the United States in
Paris during the Revolution, he earnestly recommended
the officers of the American navy to spare the ships of
“that most celebrated discoverer, Captain Cook.â€
But it is not alone in dealing with our enemies that
the law of love must be obeyed, and national kindness
25 6 National Kindness.
exhibited. We act as a nation by means of our Parlia-
ment, our courts of law, our civic institutions, out
colleges and public schools, our charitable institutions,
our prisons, and our workhouses. In all these we are
debtors to the law of God, and responsible as a nation
for the degree of obedience we render to it. In all
these we have the opportunities, as a nation, of yielding
obedience to the divine precepts of love.
A nation practises the law of kindness when its
energies are directed to the advancement of education,
in reference to each and every one of its members ;
especially when its attention is directed to the educa-
tion of the poor children who may now be found in |
every community, growing up in ignorance, vice, and
crime of all kinds, to fill jails and prisons, and at last
to form a debased rabble, subject to the nod of any
demagogue who may use them to endanger or destroy
government. The kindness consists in preparing them
by knowledge to become good citizens, as well as lovers
of religion and virtue. A nation or community prac-
tises the law of kindness when it stretches the broad
hand of its protection over the poor as well as the rich,
and seeks to raise the condition of the lowly and
degraded—when it aims at removing poverty and
distress by encouraging industry, by compelling the
idle to be active, by removing the causes of crime, and
by holding out encouragements to the weak and feeble.
In these, and in many other ways, a nation or a com-
National Kindness. 257
munity may manifest obedience to that law in which
our Saviour summed up the whole duty of man to
man—‘“ Love thy neighbour as thyself.†We can feel
no hesitation in saying, that a nation or community
practising such will become the abode of truth, virtue,
peace, justice, temperance, and love towards God and
man,
(149! 17
IX, .
Che Hetowrd of Pructical Rindness.
‘Who blesses others in his daily deeds,
Will find the healing that his spirit needs;
For every flower in others’ pathway strewn,
Confers its fragrant beauty on our own.â€
| CHILD.
Bed be aii life of the Christian is represented to us
N34 NG in the Scriptures as a pilorimage through a
dreary wilderness, beset by many snares,
dangers, and temptations. It is a period of probation
and trial; of self-denial and personal sacrifice. Yet it
is not Christianity which creates the snares, and trials,
and sufferings. The preceding chapters have exhibited
some of the true fruit of Christ’s perfect law of love,
and in these examples we see it pouring balm into the
wounded soul, lighting up with hope the dark dungeons
of despair, and raising up the suffering and degraded
to a rank of equality with their fellow-men.
The law of love, of kindness, of non-resistance, we
have seen, 18 often one which the heart finds it very
Lhe R eward of Practical Kindness. 259
difficult to yield obedience to. Yet it brings with it
its abundant reward ; and, even in the noblest imitations
of it, when we learn to cultivate a generous, a self-
denying, and a forgiving spirit, we never fail to meet
with an ample return. The following story, which
Mrs. Child has entitled “The N eighbour-in-law,†most
happily illustrates the reward which a gracious and
self-sacrificing disposition secures :—
“So you are going to live in the same building with
Hetty Turnpenny,†said Mrs. Lane to Mrs. Fairweather.
“You will find nobody to envy you. We lived there
a year, and that is as long as anybody ever tried it,â€
“Poor Hetty!†replied Mrs, Fairweather; “she has
had much to harden her. Her mother died too early
for her to remember; her father was very severe ; and
her lover borrowed the savings of years of toil, and
spent them in dissipation, But, notwithstanding her
sharp features, she has a kind heart. In the midst of her
greatest poverty, many were the stockings she knitted,
and the warm waistcoats she made, for the poor drunken
lover, whom she had too much good sense to marry.
Then, you know, she feeds and clothes her brother’s
orphan child.†,
“If you call it feeding and clothing,†replied Mrs. |
Lane. “The poor child cold and pinched, and fright-
ened all the time, as if she were chased by the east
wind. I used to tell Miss Turnpenny that she would
make the girl just such another sour old crab as herself.â€
260 Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness.
“That must have been very improving to her dis-
position,†replied Mrs. Fairweather, with a good-
humoured smile. “But, in justice to poor Aunt
Hetty, you ought to remember that she had just such
a cheerless childhood herself. Flowers grow where
there is sunshine.â€
“IT know you think everybody ought to live in the
sunshine,†rejoined Mrs, Lane; “and it must be con-
fessed that you carry it with you wherever you go.â€
Certainly the prospect was not very encouraging ;
for the house Mrs. Fairweather proposed to occupy was
not only under the same roof with Miss Turnpenny,
but the buildings had one common yard in the rear,
and one common space for a garden in front. The day
she took possession of her new habitation, she called
on her neighbour. Aunt Hetty had taken the precau-
tion to extinguish the fire, lest she should want hot
water before her own wood and coal arrived. Her
first salutation was, “If you want any cold water,
there’s a pump across the street; I don’t like to have
my house slopped all over.â€
“Tam glad you are so tidy, neighbour Turnpenny,â€
replied Mrs. Fairweather; “it is extremely pleasant to
have neat neighbours. I came in merely to say good
morning, and to ask if you could spare little Peggy to
run up and down stairs for me, and I will pay her
threepence an hour.†|
Aunt Hetty had begun to purse up her mouth for a
J
FOE
EUG RA
BS
NICE, HANDY LIT
T A
WHA
a
Lhe Reward of Practical K wndness. 261
refusal, but the promise of threepence an hour relaxed
her at once. Little Pegoy sat knitting a stocking very
diligently, with a rod lying on the table beside her.
She looked up with a timid wistfulness, as if the pro-
spect of any change was like a release from prison.
“‘ Now, mind and behave yourself,†said Aunt Hetty;
“and see that you keep at work the whole time. If I
have one word of complaint, you know what youll get
- when you come home.†The rose-colour subsided ‘rom
Pegey’s pale face, and she answered, “ Yes, ma’am,’
very meekly.
In the neighbour’s house all went quite otherwise.
No switch lay on the table; and instead of—“ Mind
how you do that—if you don’t I'll punish you,†she
heard the gentle words, “ There, dear, see how carefully
you can carry that upstairs. Why, what a nice, handy
|?
little girl you are!†Under this enlivening influence,
Peggy worked like a bee, and soon began to hum much
more agreeably than a bee. Aunt Hetty was always
in the habit of saying, “Stop your noise, and mind
your work!†but the new friend patted her on the
head arid said, “ What a pleasant voice the little girl
has! It is like the birds in the fields.†The happy
child tuned up like a lark as she tripped lightly up and
down stairs on various household errands. At last
Mrs. Fairweather said, “I think your little feet must
be tired by this time; we will rest awhile, and eat some
gingerbread.†The child took the offered cake with a
262 Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness.
humble little courtesy, and carefully held out her apron
to prevent any crumbs from falling on the floor. Then
she took out a pile of books from one of the baskets of
goods, and told Peggy she might look at the picture€
till she called her. Assured by the encouraging voice
of Mrs. Fairweather, she gave herself up to the full
enjoyment of the picture-books, and when she was
summoned to her work, she obeyed with a cheerful
alacrity that would have astonished her stern relative.
When the labours of the day were concluded, Mrs.
Fairweather accompanied her home, paid for the hours
she had been absent, and warmly praised her docility
and diligence. “It is lucky that she behaved so well,â€
replied Aunt Hetty; “if I had heard any complaint, I
should have given her a whipping, and sent her to bed
without her supper.â€
Poor little Peggy went to sleep that night with a
lighter heart than she had felt since she became an
orphan. Her first thought in the morning was whether
her neighbour would want her service again. Her
desire that it should be so soon became obvious to
Aunt Hetty, and excited an undefined jealousy and
dislike of one who so easily made herself beloved.
Without exactly acknowledging to herself what were
her motives, she ordered Peggy to gather the sweepings
of the kitchen into a small pile, and leave it on the
frontier of her neighbour’s premises. Peggy ventured
to ask, timidly, whether the wind would not blow it
wan
Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness. 26 3
about, and received a box on the ear for her impertin-
ence. It chanced that Mrs, Fairweather, quite unin-
tentionally, heard the words and the blow. She gave
Aunt Hetty’s anger time enough to cool, then stepped
out into the court, and called aloud to her domestic—
“Sally, how came you to leave this pile of dirt here ?
Didn’t I tell you Miss Turnpenny was very neat?
Pray make haste and sweep it up, I would not have
her see it on any account. She is so particular, and
it is such a comfort to have tidy neighbours.†The
girl, who had been previously instructed, smiled as she
came out with the brush and dust-pan, and swept
quietly away the pile that was intended as a declaration
of frontier war. But another source of annoyance pre-
sented itself which could not be quite so easily disposed
of. Aunt Hetty had a cat, that looked as if she were
often kicked and seldom fed; and Mrs, Fairweather
had a fat, frisky little dog named Pink, always ready
foracaper. He took a dislike to poor poverty-stricken
Tab the first time he saw her, and no coaxing could
induce him to alter his opinion. Tab could never set
foot out-of doors without being saluted with a growl
and a sharp bark that frightened her out of her senses,
and made her run into the house with her fur all on
end. If she even ventured to dose a little on her own
door-step, the moment her eyes closed, he would waken
her with a bark and a box on the ear, and off he would
run, Aunt Hetty vowed she would scald him. It
2604. The Reward of Practical Kindness.
was a burning shame, she said, for folks to keep dogs
to worry their neighbours’ cats. Mrs. Fairweather
invited Tabby to dine, and made much of her, and
patiently endeavoured to teach her dog to eat from
the same plate; but Pink sturdily resolved he would
be scalded first—that he would! While his mistress
was patting Tab on the head, and reasoning the point
with him, he would at times manifest a degree of
toleration; but the moment he was left to his own free
will, he would give the invited guest a heavy cuff with
his paw, and send her home spitting like a small
steam-engine. Aunt Hetty considered it her own
peculiar privilege to cuff the poor animal, and it was
too much for her patience to see Pink undertake to
assist. On one of these occasions she rushed into
her neighbour’s apartments, making the most wrathful
gesticulations. “TI tell you what, madam, I won’t put
up with such treatment much longer,†said she; “ T’ll
poison that dog—you'll see if I don’t. What you keep
such an impudent little beast for, I don’t know, with-
out you do it on purpose to plague your neighbours.â€
“T am really sorry he behaves so,†replied Mrs.
Fairweather mildly. “Poor Tab !â€
“ Poor Tab!†screamed Miss Turnpenny. “Do you
mean to fling it at me that I don’t give her enough to
eat 2â€
“T did not think of such a thing,†replied Mrs.
Fairweather, mildly. “T agree it is not right to keep a
Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness. 265
dog that disturbs the neighbourhood. Iam attached
to poor little Pink, because he belongs to my son who
is gone to sea. I was in hopes he would soon leave
off quarrelling with the cat; but if he won't be neigh-
bourly, Pll send him out in the country to board.
Sally, will you bring me one of the pies we baked this
morning? I should like Miss Turnpenny to taste
them.â€
The crabbed neighbour was helped abundantly, and
while she was eating the pie the friendly matron edged
in many a kind word concerning little Pegey, whom
she praised as a remarkably capable, industrious child,
“I am glad you find her so,†replied Aunt Hetty ;
“I should get precious little work out of her, if I
didn’t keep a switch in sight.â€
“ But, neighbour Turnpenny,†interrupted Mrs. Fair-
weather, “since you like my pies so well, pray take one
home with you. I am afraid they will mould before
we can eat them up.â€
Aunt Hetty had come in for a quarrel, and she was
astonished to find herself going out with a pie! “Well,
neighbour Fairweather,†she said, “you are a neigh-
bour. JI thank you a thousand times.†When she
reached her own door, she hesitated for an instant, then
turned back, pie in hand, to say, “Neighbour Fair-
weather, you needn’t trouble yourself about sending
Pink away. It’s natural you should like the little
creature, seeing he belongs to your son. Tl try to
206 Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness.
keep Tab indoors, and, perhaps, after awhile they will
agree better.†—
— “T hope they will,†replied the friendly matron.
“We will try them awhile longer, and if they persist
in quarrelling, I will send the dog into the country.â€
_ Pink, who lay sleeping in a chair, stretched himself
and gaped. His kind mistress patted him on the head,
“Ah! you foolish little beast,†said she, “what’s the
use of plaguing poor Tab?â€
“Well, I do say,†observed Sally, “you are a master
woman for stopping a quarrel !â€
That same afternoon the sunshiny dame stepped
into Aunt Hetty’s rooms, where she found Peggy
serving as usual with the switch on the table beside
her. “TI am obliged to go to Harlem on business,â€
she said; “TI feel rather lonely without company, and I
always like to have a child with me. If you will
oblige me by letting Peggy go, I will pay her fare in
the omnibus.â€
“She has her spelling-lesson to get before night,â€
replied Aunt Hetty. “TI don’t approve of young folks
going a-pleasuring, and neglecting their education.â€
“Neither do I,†rejoined her neighbour; “ but I
think there is a great deal of education which is not
found in books. The fresh air will make Peggy grow
stout and active. I prophesy that she will do great
eredit to your bringing up.†The sugared words, and
the remembrance of the sugared pie, touched a soft
Lhe Reward of Practical K indness. 267
place in Miss Turnpenny’s heart, and she told the
astonished Peggy that she might go and put on her
best frock and bonnet. The poor child began to think
that this new neighbour was certainly one of those
good fairies she had read about in the picture-books.
The excursion was enjoyed as only a city child can
enjoy the country. The world seems such a pleasant
place when the fetters are off, and Nature folds the
young heart lovingly on her bosom. A flock of live
birds, and two living butterflies, put the little orphan
into a perfect ecstasy. She ran and skipped. One
could see that she might be graceful, if she were only
free.
Mrs, Fairweather was a practical philosopher in her
own small way. She observed that Miss Turnpenny
really liked a pleasant tune; and when winter came,
she tried to persuade her that singing would be excel-
lent for Peggy’s lungs, and perhaps keep her from
| going into a consumption.
“My nephew, James Fairweather,†said she, “ will
teach her. You need not feel under great obligation,
for her voice will lead the whole school; and her ear
is so quick, it will be no trouble at all to teach her.
Perhaps you would go with us sometimes? It is very
pleasant to hear the children’s voices.â€
The cordage of Aunt Hetty’s mouth relaxed into a
smile. She accepted the invitation, and she was sc
much pleased, that she went every Sunday evening,
268 The Reward of Practical Kindness.
The simple tunes, and the sweet young voices, fell like
dew on her dried-up heart, and greatly aided the genial
influence of her neighbour’s example. The rod silently
disappeared from the table. If Peggy were disposed
to be idle, it was only necessary to say, “When you
have finished your work, you may go and ask whether
Mrs. Fairweather wants any errands done.†How the
fingers flew!
When spring came, Mrs. Fairweather busied herself
with planting roses and vines. Miss Turnpenny
readily consented that Peggy should help her, and
even refused to take any pay from such a good neigh-
bour. But she maintained her own opinion, that it
was a mere waste of time to cultivate flowers. The
cheerful philosopher never disputed the point, but she
would sometimes say,—“ I have no room to plant this
rose-bush. Neighbour Turnpenny, would you be will-
ing to let me plant it on your side of the yard? It
will take very little room, and will need no care.â€
Thus, by degrees, the crabbed maiden found herself
surrounded by flowers; and she even declared of her
own accord that they did look pretty.
One day, when Mrs. Lane called upon Mrs. Fair-
weather, she found the old weed-grown yard bright and
blooming; Tab, quite fat and sleek, was asleep in the
sunshine, with her paw on Pink’s neck; and little
Peggy was singing at her work, as blithe as a bird.
“How cheerful you look here,†said Mrs. Lane,
Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness. 269
“And so you have really taken the house for another
year. Pray, how do you manage to get on with the
neighbour-in-law ?â€
“I find her a very kind, obliging neighbour,†replied
Mrs. Fairweather.
“Well, this 2s a miracle!†exclaimed Mrs. Lane.
“Nobody but you could have undertaken to thaw
Aunt Hetty’s heart.†| |
“That is probably the reason why it never was
thawed,†rejoined her friend. “TI always told you that
not having enough of sunshine was what ailed the
world. Make people happy, and there will not be
half the quarrelling, or a tenth part of the wickedness,
there is.â€
From this gospel of love, preached and _ practised,
nobody derived so much benefit as little Peggy. Her
nature, which was fast growing crooked and knotty,
under the malign influence of constraint and fear,
straightened up, budded and blossomed in the genial
atmosphere of cheerful kindness,
Her affections and faculties were kept in such plea-
sant exercise, lightness of heart made her almost hand-
some. The young music-teacher thought her more
than almost handsome; for her affectionate soul shone
more beamingly on him than on others, and love makes
all things beautiful. |
When the orphan removed to her pleasant little
cottage on her wedding-day, she threw her arms around
270 Lhe Reward of Practical Kindness.
the blessed missionary of sunshine, and said,—“ Ah!
thou dear, good aunt—it is thou who hast made my
life Fairweather ! â€
Such an example is better than a thousand moral
_ precepts in showing how true is the old proverb, that
“virtue has its own reward.†Whenever a neighbour-
hood is disturbed with jars, a family vexed with
quarrels, a master irritated by undutiful servants or
assistants, be sure that some portion of the blame
rests also with the sufferers.. Forbearance, patience,
charity, and love, all have their rewards. We can
never safely forget the great lesson, implied in a simple
question of Christ’s, After narrating the beautiful
parable of the good Samaritan, designed to teach us
that all men are our neighbours and our brethren, he
asks: “Who was neighbour to him that fell among
the thieves ?â€
Ghe Loving Aindness of God to Wan.
‘* All that in angel-breasts can flow—
Compared, O Lord of Hosts! with thine—
Eternal—fathomless— divine!
That love whose praise, with quenchless fire,
Inflames the blest seraphie choir ;
Where perfect rapture reigns above,
And love is all—for Thou art love!â€
DALE.
psa iE preceding chapters have been directed to
‘N4 264 illustrate, in a variety of ways, the mighty
and all-subduing powers of love, as the only
effectual governing principle by which man can be
controlled, subdued, reformed, and restored to the
Divine image in which he was first created. We have
seen, from many examples, that human kindness can
awaken charity, overrule domestic happiness, change
enemies to friends, restore the lost and depraved to
hope and to virtue, and even illuminate once more the
long-darkened mind of the insane with the influences
272 Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Man.
of human sympathy and the light of reason. Engaged
in such work, man once more seems, in some degree,
to resemble the original sinless creation of God, when
Adam, made in his own image, stood in his original
purity in the garden of Eden. But while we look on
the noble fruits of benevolence and philanthropy, we
must not overlook the great Philanthropist—he who so
loved man, that he unclothed himself of the divine to
assume the human nature, and humbled himself to
walk our earth, a man of sorrows, and the rejected of
his people. Jesus Christ is our great exemplar in
every duty of benevolence and love. He who was one
with God in the divine nature, took upon him the
form of his own creatures, that he might bear the
punishment to which they had become liable, and
redeem the lost ones to himself as his own sons.
What manifestation of human love can compare with
this, or what philanthropy resemble his who went
about continually doing good !
An eminent divine, Dr. Love, has thus pictured one
scene of benevolence inspired and exalted by the
presence of Christ :—“ Jesus sat over against the
treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into
the treasury. Happy, had they known their happiness,
were those people who presented their offerings under
the immediate eye of our divine Lord ! Fatigued with
his. holy labours, wearied with the obstinate strugglings
of that hypocrisy which refused his healing hand, he
Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Man. 273
sat down over against the treasury, and the show of
pious liberality engaged his notice—he beheld how the
people cast money into the treasury. His gently
piercing human eyes surveyed their countenances, their
demeanour, their donations; the eyes of his Godhead
searched their inmost hearts, And among the crowd
one aspect, one heart, pleased this infallible J udge.
There came a certain poor widow. Her looks were
downcast, her countenance bore the marks of sorrow
and of penury, clouding the nobility of her exalted
mind; some Pharisee had devoured her house, she is
ashamed of her small offering. She little expected to
draw the deep regard of her Creator and her God. He
pronounced to his attending disciples, ‘Verily, I say
unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than
they all.’
“Ah, He is no more here! No more do mortals
behold those eyes from which streamed the peculiar
radiance of wisdom, purity, compassion; those eyes
through which the Godhead shone. No longer is heard
_ on earth that voice, more majestic than the thunder of
the skies, sweeter than the music of heaven. That
voice was silenced, those eyes were closed, by the
violence of death. ‘ He was cut off out of the land of
the living.’
“ And is our intercourse with him then cut off? It
is not. ‘Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet
have believed.’ â€
(149) 18
274 The Loving Kindness of God to Man.
When we think of Christ as he is now exalted, a
Prince and Saviour, our hearts may be apt to sink
within us at the thought of approaching to the Divine
Majesty ; but let us remember that he is so exalted to
give remission to his people. “ Lifted up by the spirit
of wisdom and revelation, we see Jesus, who-was made
a little while lower than the angels, crowned with glory
and honour. By the medium of his present divinity
we hold converse with the Man Christ; we are with
him in heaven, he is with us on earth. Strange, but
real intercourse! Glorious sympathetic harmony
between the heart of Christ, reigning on high, and the
hearts of Christians sojourning, suffering below !
“Come, my brethren,†exclaims Dr. Love, urging his
people to a missionary spirit, “retire from this poor
world, and soar into the eternal regions. Enter into
the holiest place within the veil. Press through the
throng of celestial powers. Ascend towards the throne
of Deity, and behold him flaming as the sun amidst
that throne; behold the worshipped Lamb, who was
slain! Christian, come near; contemplate him whose
heart melts over thee. Before him are spread out, in
vast assemblage, the counsels and decrees of eternal
love; and in that book which fills his right hand, his
sacred eyes glance upon those lines which unfold the
appointed progress of truth and salvation over the
regions of the globe. And there is a sounding of those
divine emotions which reverberates within the breasts
Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Man. 275
of his Christian disciples. Its language, if mortals may
presume to conceive it, is such as this: ‘Whom shall I
send, and who will go for us? Where are the people
whose pure zeal and benevolence shall be as the wheels
of my gospel chariot? Go, ye cherubs, spread out
your wings over that little assembly; and thou, Holy
Spirit, fountain of wisdom, inspirer of love, breathe
upon them, clear off the film from their eyes, fan thy
rising flame in their hearts, grant them according to
their heart, and fulfil all their counsel.’
“ Mountains, islands of my country! mansions of
care and poverty, retreats of darkness, let my spirit
melt over you, while I rehearse in the ears of your
benefactors the words of ancient prophecy: ‘The
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for
them, and the desert shall blossom as the rose. It
shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy
and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto
it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon: they shall
see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our
God.’â€
The sublime language of prophecy, and the simple
narratives of the Evangelists, alike tell of love as the
moving power, and the happiness of man as the end
that Christ had in view from the first dim foreshadow-
ing of the promised seed, to the final accomplishment
and finishing of his mission in the fulness of time.
Noble, therefore, and infinitely perfect, is the great
276 The Loving Kindness of God to Man.
exemplar of human kindness and love; and it is no
overstraining of the spirit of the gospel, or of the
capacity of man, to urge the example of Christ for the
imitation of the Christian. There was in him such a
mingling of humility and dignity, such an association
of gentleness, benevolence, and forgiveness; such a
blending of virtue, truth, and love, combined with such
simplicity of thought, such beauty, of doctrine, such
admirable illustration in the most winning manner of
communication, and sealed by such devotion to the
welfare of mankind, that even infidels who have refused
to believe in Revelation, and Socinians, who have
challenged the divinity of Christ, have yet been com-
pelled, like the Roman centurion, to exclaim, “Surely
this was a righteous man!†§So comprehensive is the
character of Christ, that if the whole precepts of the
Bible be gathered together, the actions of the Saviour
form the noblest, because practical, commentary upon
them all. If we bring to view every instance of
devotion for country, of purest benevolence, of generous
sacrifice, which the history of the world presents—the
devotion, the benevolence, and the sacrifice of Christ
infinitely exceed them all, Of this we shall find new
evidence by directing our thoughts to the traits of
character, and the acts of love and mercy which
adorned the earthly career of the Redeemer.
Willis, the American poet, has thus beautifully
paraphrased the scene of the Jewish leper, struck down
Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Man. 277
ander the mighty hand of God, and restored once more
to the charities and sympathies of life by the com-
passionate Saviour :—
THE LEPER.
‘Room for the leper! Room!" And, as he came,
The cry passed on—‘ Room for the leper! Room!â€
Sunrise was slanting on the city gates,
Rosy and beautiful, and from the hills
The early risen poor were coming in.
* * * oe
‘‘ Room for the leper!†And aside they stood,
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood—all
Who met him on his way—and let him pass,
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering, stepping painfully and slow,
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying, ‘* Unclean! Unclean!"
"Twas now the depth
Of the Judean summer, and the leaves,
Whose shadows lay so still upon his path,
Had budded on the clear and flashing eye
Of Judah’s loftiest noble. He was young,
And eminently beautiful, and life
Mantled in eloquent fulness on his lip,
~ And sparkled in his glance; and in his mien
There was a gracious pride, that every eye
Followed with benisons—and this was he!
With the soft airs of summer there had come
A torpor on his frame, which not the speed
Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast
Of the bold huntsman’s horn, nor aught that stirs
The spirit to its bent, might drive away.
The blood beat not as wont within his veins;
Dimness crept o’er his eye; a drowsy sloth
278 Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Mc.
Fettered his limbs like palsy, and his port,
With all its loftiness, seemed struck with eld.
Even his voice was changed—a languid moan
Taking the place of the clear, silver key;
And brain and sense grew faint, as if the light
And very air were steeped in sluggishness.
He strove with it awhile, as manhood will,
Ever too proud for weakness, till the rein
Slackened within his grasp, and in its poise
The arrowy jereed like an aspen shook.
Day after day he lay as if in sleep.
His skin grew dry and bloodless, and white scales,
Circled with livid purple, covered him.
And then his nails grew black, and fell away
From the dull flesh about them, and the hues
Deepened beneath the hard, unmoistened scales,
And from their edges grew the rank white hair
— And Helon was a leper}
Day was breaking
When at the altar of the temple stood
The holy priest of God. The incense lam p
Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant
Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof
Like an articulate wail: and there, alone,
Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.
The echoes of the melancholy strain
Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up,
Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head
Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off
His costly raiment for the leper’s garb,
And, with the sackcloth round him, and his lip
Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still
Waiting to hear his doom :—
Depart! depart, O child
Of Israel, from the temple of thy God;
For he has smote thee with his chastening rod;
And to the desert wild,
From all thou lov'st, away thy feet must flee,
That from thy plague his people may be fre3,
the Loving Kindness of God to Man, 2 79
Depart! and come not near
The busy mart, the crowded city, more;
Nor set thy foot a human threshold o’er,
And stay thou not to hear
Voices that call thee in the way; and fly
From all who in the wilderness pass by.
Wet not thy burning lip
In streams that to a human dwelling glide;
Nor rest thee where the covert fountains hide;
Nor kneel thee down to dip
The water where the pilgrim bends to drink,
By desert well, or river’s grassy brink.
And now depart! and when
Thy heart is heavy, and thine eyes are dim,
Lift up thy prayer beseechingly to Him
Who, from the tribes of men, -
Selected thee to feel his chastening rod.
Depart, O leper! and forget not God!
And he went forth—alone; not one of all
The many whom he loved, nor she whose name
Was woven in the fibres of the heart
Breaking within him now, to come and speak
Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,
Sick, and heart-broken, and alone, to die;--
For God hath cursed the leper!
Jt was noon,
And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool
in the lone wilderness, and bathed his brow,
Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched
The loathsome water to his fevered lips.
Praying that he might be go blessed—to die!
Footsteps approached, and, with no strength to flex,
He drew the covering closer on his lip,
Crying, ‘‘ Unclean! Unclean!†and, in the folds
Of the coarse sackcloth, shrouding up his face,
He fell upon the earth till they should pass.
Nearer the stranger came, and, bending o’er
The leper’s prostrate form, pronounced his name,
280 Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Man.
‘*‘ Helon! **~-the voice was like the master-tone
Of a rich instrument—most strangely sweet;
And the dull pulses of disease awoke,
And for a moment beat beneath the hot
And leprous scales with a restoring thrill.
‘* Helon, arise! '’ and he forgot his curse,
And rose, and stood before him.
Love and awe
Mingled in the regard of Helon’s eye
As he beheld the stranger. He was not
In costly raiment clad, nor on his brow ~
The symbol of a princely lineage wore:
No followers at his back, nor in his hand
Buckler, or sword, or spear ;—yet in his mien
Command sat throned serene, and, if he smiled,
A kingly condescension graced his lips,
The lion would have crouched to in his lair.
His garb was simple, and his sandals worn;
His stature modelled with a perfect grace;
His countenance, the impress of a God,
Touched with the open innocence of a child.
His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky
In the serenest noon; his hair, unshorn,
Fell to his shoulders; and his curling beard
The fulness of perfected manhood bore.
He looked on Helon earnestly awhile,
As if his heart was moved, and, stooping down,
He took a little water in his hand,
And laid it on his brow, and said, ‘* Be clean!â€
And, lo! the scales fell from him, and his blood
Coursed with delicious coolness through his veins,
And his dry palms grew moist, and on his brow
The dewy softness of an infant stole.
His leprosy was cleansed, and he fell down
Prostrate at Jesus’ feet, and worshipped him.
Such is the form in which the poet has depicted one
of the most beautiful traits in the character of tlie
Saviour—his compassion—sgo intimately connected as
The Loving Kindness of God to Man. 281
it was with the most active benevolence. His miracles,
while they exhibit his divine nature, no less clearly
manifest his compassion and benevolence with a power
which falls upon the soul like the dews of heaven,
causing the better feelings of our nature to gush forth
like fresh waters from the spring. The miracles of the
Son of God not only establish his divine mission, they
‘beam with benevolence, and shine with the love of
Heaven. In all our afflictions he was afflicted. When
he heard the voice of the blind man crying, “ Jesus,
thou Son of David, have mercy on me,†he opened his
eyes to the countless beauties of nature. When he saw
the victim of palsy, chained in physical decrepitude, he
returned vigour to the nerves and power to the muscles.
When he met the dumb and deaf, shut out from all the
music of the human voice, he loosed the tongue and
restored the sense of hearing. When he beheld the
weeping sister of Lazarus, and remembered that his
friend was dead, the Son of God wept ere he delivered
Lazarus from the power of death. And when he
looked upon the melancholy train bearing the only son
of the widow of Nain, he stopped the bier, and said,
“ Daughter, weep not,†as he restored to her a living
son. In all these things, how does the divine com-
passion and benevolence of the Saviour shine forth!
Blessings ever grew in his pathway, and the praises of
the poor and afflicted followed his steps. Yet was he
the Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief; the
282 Lhe Loving Kindness of God to Man.
rejected of his own; the lone wanderer, who had not
where to lay his head; the King to whom royal
honours were paid in mockery ; the Redeemer, whom
those he came to save rejected and crucified. Yet in
all this he was the willing victim. He laid down his
own life; and endured, of his own will, the sufferings,
the agony, the death, that he might be for us a merciful
and a faithful High Priest—the Captain of our salvation,
made perfect through suffering.
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