Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-11-20
MISCELLANEOUS.
A TEXT FROM THE STREETS.
A TALE OF 1916.
BY ARNHELDT WEAVER.

"And by chance there came down certain
priest shat way, and when he saw him, he
passed by on the other side-but a certain Sa-
marian, as he journeyed,-came where he
was, and when he saw him, he had compass
sion on him,-and set him on his own beast,
and brought him to an inn, and took care of
him."-ParaJIe Of Christ.
Another year was born. The old year died
hard-had fought and struggled with its la
test breath, going to its stern account as re-
~luctantly as a human misdoer. 1t departed
with the blessings of many and the ban of
many. But those who blessed it hailed its
successor every whit as readily as those who
banned it. The chimes pealed from hun
dreds of steeples; and thousands of people
some with glass in hand, nodding to their
1eIlows-some raising themselves on their
beds OF down, and listening to catch the
sound OF the swinging bells-sone reused
by the peal, and budding to each other on
their iraW-SomC in manSiouS-some i'm cell
lars-somr in their only home, the streets
greeted the advent of ISIG. Some, and
these perhaps were not the fcwest, in their
only home-t the streets. The words will
bear repetition. Only let us reflect upon
them, and we shall discover how fearful thew
are. And contemplating the picture they
present, does not humanity bow its face to
the hem of its garment, and gather M its
folds 10 hide its emotionl 1916, so many
years ago came wise men from the East to
the mauger cradle Of the poor mans friend.
SO many Yeas ago-aud yet in GhflsteH-
dOm's most enlightened country, $50 it boasts
itself) there Is q population whose only home
is the streets. Oh! Divine Friend, how have
we wronged thee! how have we m|isinter-
preted thy mission and thy words Of love.
Perhaps Of all the wretches that wandered
in the streets, and heard the bells break forth
in their peal of jubilee, there was none more
deserving of commisseraliOn than a poor boy,
who, without shoes to his blistered feet,
dragged himself slowly down Holborn hill,
and pausing when he came in sight of the
gloomy walls Of Newgate, burst into tears,
e%vincing the most unequivocal signs of heart
wrung agony. There he stood at the corner
Of the Old Bailey, gazing on those stern,
massive walls, which men should no longer
pass without b~lu,hing for the ignorance of
their fathers who preferred 10 rear prisons in
the place of schools; choosing to deface
Gods image and transform its earthly tene-
nent into the lurking haunt of demon guests,
instead of building ii mp IA fit tabernacle for
angels. There he stood. the thing that his
fellow beings had trampled upon from his
cradle-days-the thing which they had made
him-a vagrant in the streets-yet with ma
ture pleading in the yearnings of his heart
and the rivulets Of his eyes for a destiny
lie had never been taught to pray-had new
er heard the name of God pronounced save
as a handle to some drunken oath. No one
with Christian pity for his wretched condi-
ton, had taken him by the hand and led
him to the Sunday school. Ignorant as the
beasts that perish, and more neglected-for
the beasts are profitable to their OWNERSHIP
had reached the present age of fifteen years,
a weed growing in the gardeno Of humanity
an eXcrescence upon the body-polltic. lie
had never, as we have said, been taught to
pray--had never heard of God--of the hui
man soul--knew neither hope of heaven nor
; fear Of hell--and yet, strange circumstance !
he lid as he gazed on the walls Of Newgate.
He did pray--not in words--not in gesture.
No clasped hands did lie lift no s%upplica-
=. ting action did he use. But he dbl pray
with the yearning with which his heart
seemed to quit the body, and vault upward
into boundlesS space, TO fetch help from
where the bright stars shine on serene nights
in glory everlasting, TO free his brother from
the crime-engendering cells of Newgate.-
In all the wide world he had no relation, no
friend, but this brother, 2ent up in a cell of
c that great blot upon England's too besmirch-
ed escutcheon. Abandoned by their parents,
Migrants like themselves; in their early
childhood they had festered together in the
streets, the growth of our rotten social com
pact. They could not be other than they
!; were. From %untaught, unsought |outcasts.
u they must, by a fatal necessity, defying the
distracted idrgon of rubicund sophists to re.
flute, become thieves. Sisiphus might soon.
er have stayed his stone, than these have
been arrested in their course of guilt. Anc
heavy is the responsibility of those who rul,
and legislate, and make no provision for sucl
orphans of the state.
Separated from his only friend, the bo,
had no one with whom TO exchange a wore
wherewith 10 ease his overburdened heart
From the hidden springs of his better natur
the angel that, yelled to the world, still
pleaded for him with the Orphans God
there gushed forth such an intensity of sor
row, such a deep oppressive sense of hi
loneliness, that the very stones, more easill
touched than senator's hearts, might havr
v grown softer at the sight and sound of woe.
; ST. Sepulchre's Church, a temple erecte,
for the purpose of Christian worship--whos,
clock strikes the hour at which the hangman
in bold defiance of Christ, ties his dexterou.
knot and strangles a fellow sinner beneath
the inSulted skies-sent forth from its stee
pie a merry peal of bells, welcoming the in
FAINT year; the boy turned upward to the bel