The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-02-26

as but small districts have been aroused at time.
| so their past efforts have been only partially sue
| cessiul; but now by roads and travel, and free
press, there sort of universal heavng up of the
| masses, and the days of despotsm numbered.
| The same hard government that produces defoImi-
ties in the physical features of the people, produces
| corresponding malfOrmations in their minds and
| hearts. The physical deformilies of the lower
| and want, exceed the credulity of an American
| who has not seen it for himself. And who is to
| blame !! Hard governments and the forms of cor
| rupted Christianity are to blame. The ignorance
and stupidity, and want of religion among the
slaves of the Spanish lsands-is all this to be at
tributed to the negroes to their masters will
not insult your intelligence by showing that the
| responsibility rests upon the Spanish Government
| and Church.
One of the effects of the recent revolutions of
Europe has been to unfetter the press. And as
| knowledge Is impaired TO the people through
free press, will they gain information concerning
| this country and about their own rights ; and in
| the same degree a majority of them will grow
stronger their aversion to their Oppressors and In
| the desire of finding home in America. Our
duty to Immigrants does not properly come within
| my present purpose, but | cannot forbear to say
| that it certainly comprehends the three following
| things:
FIRST, To receive them kindly. The earth is the
| Lords and the fulness thereof The Almighty has
| not given this continent to a few families of any
one nation and to their descendants only. He has
not patented out this glorious land 10 any royal lines
| He has made it the asylum of the oppressed from
| every cme-the home of the free and the land of
the brave. The ragged the outcast, the starving,
| the ignorant, well the educated, the refined
and the wealthy who seek a home amongst
us, should be welcomed to our shores. And the
country of their adoption should not be their step
mother, but fold them to her bosom as those born
of her own vitals. / know not how any one who
has ever seen Europe, can blame emigrants to
America. know not how any American who has
ever, when in a foreign land been constrained to
say, and as he has journeyed amidst the most
| sublime scenery of nature and of art been made
feel how blessed and gOodly is the heritage which
the Almighty has given him, can do otherwise than
open wide his arms to receive all that are so for
tunate as to reach the shores of his own highly
favored land. Instead of acknowledgement of
heaping opprobrious epthets upon the emaciated
stranger who has escaped famine, and violence,
and the perils of the sea-instead OF driving them
harshly from ollr doors, should speak kindly to
them; relieve their necessities give them good
counsel; make them feel that they not aban-
doned of God and man; that yet there is some human
being that sympahzes with them that there yet
hope for them and their children. Talk to of
their unworthiness of their vices. 1t is enough
that they wretched. 1t is enough that they are
within reach of our sympathes. stranger, and
you took in-is worth infinitely more than all the
sagacity ever displayed in detecting imposters ]
repeat it, then, our first duty is to receive them
| kindly; make them feel that we are Christian
people, and that we look upon them, not brutes,
but as men, made in the image of God, and heirs
of glorious immortality.
Secondly, We should provide for their immediate
wants. have not time now to ampllfy the way in
which this should be done. Doubtless, however,
poor foreigners, who are thrown into our large
towns and cities, should be sent soon as possible
into the interior, where there is room enough and
to spare and where, in one twelve month after
their arrival they can all support themselves. They
chpuII ho tod thp VI
infest our wharves. They should, by means of
cheap tracts and newspapers, be instructed in the
nature of our climate and soil, and the way TO get
into the interior, and the way to make an indie
pendent living. am not now speaking OF religious
or political tracts but of tracts for the people on
common subjects
A House of Refuge, or an Asylum for the Poor Of
all ages, is very much needed in this city, As our
police is administered there is great cruelty and
injustice in CHASING the poor with the convict. To
treat the youthful offender in the same way that
the hardened villain is dealt with, is the way to
destroy all selfrespec, and to increase every spe
cies of crime. Schools of Reformation and
Home for the friendess stranger are greatly needed
in our vicinity. The man of wealth, who shall
endow such institutions in New Orleans, will be a
benefaclor to his race, that many generations will
bless The foreign poor in streets is not 1.-THE
of what it will be in few years. Aud the sooner,
and the more effectively some judicious mode of
assisting them is devised by us, the better for them
anu IOT us. AfNeTlCdl pduptIlsm is 1iiiA s'io'
happily has hitherto had no place in our history;
but in Atlantic towns, at least, IL VIII soon
call so loudly for relief that legislators and clt
Zens and property holders as well as phllanthro
piss, will be obliged to attend to It,
THirdIu We must educate the children of for
eioners, and by every proper means seek to imbue
them both old and young, with the spirit of Christ
The two great instruments by which this can be
done, are public schools and domestic missions
These are the two great agencies entrusted 10
4 rhri,t hui nh
to regenerate so much of the Old World, as God in
his Providence, may cast upon the bosom of the
New. Of all secular agencies, by which to do
good to foreigners, there is nothing to compare to
our Free Public School System. And if there was
not single native born child benefited by pub
lie schools, they should be fostered and upheld
through every obstacle, for the sake of the child of
the stranger within gates, and for the sake of
the orphan committed TO the State by its Almighty
Father. do not mean that public schools should
be for such only-by no means; they are, and
should be, open to all, rich and poor, native and
foreign But mean that they are of the very first
importance in view of immigrants to this country
1t is there they begin to taste the sweets of liberty
it is there they begin to learn something of our
blessed institutions, and to know how to enjoy
Them Next to public schools is the Printing
Press but above all, and that which is of infinite
importance to their welfare in this and the world to
come, is the Gospel of Christ, preached and left
to us by our adorable Redeemer and his holy Apos-
ties. Among the mighty agencies which 1t hath
pleased God to ordain for the conversion of the
world, the preaching of the Gospel is the chief
The cause of domestic missions, therefore, is the
first and greatest cause of our age and country;
and just in the proportion that our population in
creases, and as the agitations of the Old World
cause its inhabitants TO seek a home in the Few, in
the same degree are our obligations increased to
support schools, coporteurs missionaries and pas
tors, throughout the length and breadth of our
country.
The importance of religion, the superiority Of
christianity to every other system of religious wor-
ship and the sufficiency of the means which we
possess for carrying into execution more direct
and extensive plans for the preaching of the Gospel
are subjects that none of you call in question. We
live in missionary age, and in the midst of vast
missionary field 1t is obvious to the mere stranger
that this city and its neghborhood present wide
field for steadfast, persevering and weldrected
efforts for erecting churches and gathering Sabbath
schools and congregations From the United States