Martinsburg gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1833-1855, 1846-03-26
MI8seellanyo
~~N~N~NNNN>N~NNNN NNNNN~~~~~~>~>
"GoD HELP THE BABRSr',
From Saint Giles and Saint james

From Saint Giles and Saint james,
BY DOUGLAS GERRoLD.
Mrs. Aniseed plucked the shawl aside. and
discovered a sleeping infant. "What heaven
] ly babe" she cried and, truly, the child IN
its marble wilderness looked beautiful. lovely
human bud--a sweet unsulhed sojourner of
earth. Graded on the knees of vice.
/ For an instant, the watchmen in silence
gazed upon the babe Even their natures, har-
dened in scenes of crime and desttuton, Were
touched by the appealing innocence Of the
child. "Poor little hearth" said one. "God
help i'll" cried another.
! Yes; God help i'll And with such easy adj
Duration do we leave thousands and tens of
thousands OF human souls to want and lgno-
rance; doom them, when yet sleeping the sleep
of gulltessness, TO future devils--thelr own I'M
guided passions. We make them outcasts,
wretches and then punish, IN their wlckedness,
our own selfishness--our own neglect We
cry, "God help the babes !" and hang The men.
| Yet moment The child is still before us.
May we not see about it---eontending for II
the principal of good and evil A contest
between the angels and the tends Come
hither, statesmen; you. who live within a
party circle you who nightly fight some mis-
cradle fight; continually strive IN some selfish
struggle for power and place, considering men
only as tools, the merest instrument of your ag-
grandizement; come here in the wintry street,
and look upon Gods image in its babyhood !
Consider this little man. Are not creatures
such as these the noblest, grandest things of
earth2 Have they not solemn natures--are
they not subtly touched for the highest purpo-
SEES of human life? Come they not into this
world to grace and dignity III There is ospot,
no eoarser stuff in the pauper flesh before you,
that indicates a lower nature. There is no Eel
on mark upon it--no natural formation, lndi-
eating the thief in its baby ingers-no lnevita-
BILE blaspherny upon its lips. Ii lies before you
fair, unsullied thing, fresh from the hand Of
God. Will YOU, without an effort, let the great
fend stamp his fery brand upon NJ Shall
it, even in Its sleeping innocence, be made a
trading thing by misery and vicel creature
borne from street TO street, piece OF living mer-
chandse for mingled beggary and crlmel Say:
what, with its awakened soul, shall il learn
What lessons whereby to pass through life, ma
king an item in the social sunni Why, cunning
will be its wisdom hypocrisy its truth theft
its natural law of self preservation. To this
child, SO nurtured, so taught, your whole code
of morals. nay, your brief right andwrong, are
written in stranger figures than Egyptian hero
glyphics, and-time passes-and you scourge
tne Creature never thugnt, LOT tie neinous gum
of knowing nought but i'll! The good has been
sealed book to him, and the Ounce is punished
with the fail.
Doubtless, there are great statesmen wiz
ards in bullion and bank paper; thinkers pro-
found in cotton, and every turn and variation
in the markets, abroad and at home. But there
are statesmen yet to come; statesmen of no
bier aim--of more heroic action teachers Of
the people indicators the universal dlgni-
ty Of man; apostles Of the great social truths
that knowledge, which is the spiritual light OF
God, like his material light, was made to COM
fort and bless all men. And when these men
arise--and it is worse than weak, it is sinful,
to despair of them--the youngling poor will not
be bound upon the very threshold Of human
life, and made, by want and ignorance, liie's
shame and curse There is not a babe lying
in the public street on its mothers lap--the
unconscious mendcant, to ripen into the crim-
inal--that is not reproach to the State a scan
DIAL and crying shame upon him who study
all politics, save the politics of the human
heart.