Lancaster gazette. [volume] (Lancaster, Mass.) 1828-1830, 1828-11-11
MZORAE,.
FOR THE LANCASTER GAZETTE.

FOR THE LANCASTER GAZETTE.
As Aaron's rod swallowed up all the other rods,
SO the sin of scandal swallows up all other sins.
There is nothing more difficult than to
gain knowledge of our own hearts.
The heart may be truly called city. 1t
is filled with large and busy population,
and man is its king. Yet he seldom visits
his capital; and, if he would enter it, he
finds it almost in open rebellion. His
desire to reform it raises general spirit
of opposition against him. The passions
are at once in arms; and the aid of an
alluring world is called in to oppose him !;
whilst selfish vanity hides many nui-
sance from his eye; and perhaps before
he fairly enters, Incidence and procrasti-
nation stops his investigation forever.
The thousand errours we entertain re-
specting our own characters, show daily
how our hearts deceive US for there are
none so bad but they think that they pos
sess some redeeming qualities. Even the
slanderous reforming meddler is led to
believe himself to be christian-yes, the
child of a better world; whilst the princi-
pie of every thought and act seems to have
had its birth in hell. No character is SO
vile as that of reformer without good
heart; whose feelings have not been
warmed by christianity. Christianity has
one great, glorious peculiarity-it is love
ITSELF 1t represents God as a tender
father, and man as his children; who
lose the rights of children on refusing
forgiveness to repenting brother. An
gel or arch-angel and all intelligent Gre
alton, so far as in them lies, are bound to
raise and restore the humbled, fallen VIC
tim of sin. The meek Saviour ever re-
ceived the penitent. He triumphed not
over the fallen and sinful and when he
viewed Jerusalem, that Jerusalem in
which he was soon to suffer a cruel death,
he wept over it and mourned its coming
desolation. This love, this spirit, is the
soul of christianity; yet the reforming
meddler lays claim to peculiar sanctity
hate of the vicious he calls virtue and
II the fault Of any poor man comes to his
ear, he nouns through the village until
the poor wretch becomes an object Of
scorn. After this the pious meddler may
blast him with his advice and the fallen
man, who, under better influences, mi ght
have recovered his own good opin-
ion and that Of others, now sinks, des-
pairs, and is lost forever. Has SANDER
opened her poisonous throat, the busy
meddler is then ever ready to whisper
forth his whitening suspicious, and oft he
strikes fiendlike blow at good character,
or aims deadly shaft at sinking one.
Satan 1t is said tempts man and can Sa-
tan have a more active agent than him
who wantonly robs man of his good name !;
that great prop of virtue and chlls many
a good feeling by his cold blooded enyen-
omed advice. Oh how we love to dwell
on that glorious Saint-like being whose
heart is warmed by that holy charity, that
thinketh no evil, and that covereth null
titude of sins. With what delight many
dwell on the virtues of a Howard. that
friend of the wretched, or of Fry, who
has turned the female part of Newgate,
that sink of sin, from degrading vice to
active virtue, with no other weapon than
meek christianity. And how does the
soul sicken at seeing the spiritual pride
and hypocricy, that swell almost to burst
ing, the hearts of those whose attempts to
reform only embitter the passions, and
tend to destroy, where kindness might
have saved.
SANDER, let it be cloathed as it will, let
it assume the garb of reform or Of reli-
gion, let it appear as it may-for like
Proteus, it takes a thousand shapes-is
worse than murder, drunkenness. or
gambling. These vices are like rocks.
raising their heads above the waters
whilst SANDER is a vortex, whose insidious
whirl sweeps its victim to destruction.
ere it is aware of its danger. The bee
collects honey from the offals of creation,
as well as from natures fairer works
but the wasp from the loveliest flowers
only augments its envenomed bag, con-
Verting healthy sweets into deadly poison.
The meddler's head, (for brevity sake
we use the name meddler instead of that