Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-05-12
CARNIVAL OF THE PH1LANTHRoPIsTs.

IN
CARNIVAL OF THE PHILANTHRoPIsTs
If Abou Ben Adhem may his tribe increase!
could revisit the glimpses of the moon during
anniversary week, how the dear soul would
rejoice in the prospect that such multitude
of names were sometime to be recorded in the
celestial book as high as his own. The kind
hearted founder and eloquent advocate of pub
lie charities, the colporteur and the missiona-
ry, the priest of progress the apostle OF re-
form, come together with their peculiar and
independent schemes of amelioration, but all
recognizing the same benignant theory-that
the human race is of one brotherhood, and
that the field for unselish and persistent en-
deayor. is wherever men suffer and ara de-
prived of light. For the encouragement of
such effort. New York is annually made the
Mecca of our Christian pilgrims suggesting,
as they travel-fwe could forget the frailties
to which all are subject-the quaint couplets
YIN the suburb, in the town,
On the railway, in the square,
Comes beam of goodness down,
Doubling daylight everywhere
But something of doubt concerning the util-
ity of this vast and complicated system of be-
nevolence, sometimes assails the best of men,
whether they believe unreservedly with Plato,
that 'unwillingly the soul is deprived of
truth" or with Solomon, that "the heart is
decettul above all things and desperately
wicked" To one considering how intelligent
how selfsacriicing, how far above reproach,
how charitable toward human frailty, every
one should be who aspires to be an instrument
of regeneration, or an almoner of the worlds
bounty, the palpable wonder rises in spite OF
him, that so much cstentatious mediocrity can
ride on the top wave of these popular charl-
ties that they entice so many Mrs JehyoyS
from humber lives of usefulness and honor;
that so many Chadbands are fatteneu anu
pampered upon the sacred ACCOMMODATIONS Vi
beneyolence, before its tearfully diminished
stream is permitted to brighten the sterile neiuS
of Borrioboola.gha; that so much OF startlhgue-
prayity is tolerated from tract societies, Whether
in compromising with popular sins, or IN the
mutilation and forgery OF tracts; that so much
upcharitableness should be shown by your
admired oracles of reform, who compel you to
believe, if there is any virtue in blows, that
there is no virtue left in the world outside OF
their church militant of dissent.
But these are merely the incidents on which
nearly every good as well as Indifferent enter
religious culture, of physical ameloration, of
moral reform, are often better than their
agents. Whatever abuse may be made OF
them, they are still the medium through which
the faith of civilization blossoms into good
works. 1t is the worst superstition-the cred
ulity of distrust-to condemn them because
they fail already to represent the bright con-
summate flower" which the poets of Christian
chivalry have prefgured in their dreams
The poor Methodist, who, when he rode into
all the uproar of the elements was a hint to
him not to preach at Mr.. Romaine's chapel, |
is the type of many half skeptic, who, hear
ing some frivolous jar in the system OF phi
endeavor, shuts his aperient purse
with snap, and iustifes his indifference with
the swift assumption that the endeavor itself
is a fallacy. But while the silly preacher was
flying from Picadilly with the unconscious
thunder breaking over his head, perhaps
hundred hungry souls were gathered in MT.
Romaine's chapel waiting for the bread OF lie
The only just way of treating this great va
riety of organizations is to measure them oy
their results. The missionaries have gone to
"heathen lands" planted the seeds of thrifty
civilization in its soil, and completed their he
roic martyrdom before the first leaf opened to
the sun. But many are the moral desolations
which to day are covered with the promise of
fruitfulness and beauty, developing in the
character and in the religious life of people,
whose first conscious ambition is to be better
than their circumstances and their institutions,
was derived from the forgotten missionaries
who sleep in their rude graves. They should
not be esteemed too lightly, Men do not get
on without help. Let US not distrust the best
helpers they have. Possibly the tract society
may have done some good in some con6ding
household where its misconduct is not known,
and some good resolutions may be the fruit of
its labors, still unaffected by the living and dali
ly example of Generalization which it sets be-
fore the world. And while there remain in
the country, under our constitution, and to a
large extent within the range of our response
bility, more slaves than there were free men
when freedom fought her first battles on the
continent, there is no time to quarrel with 9TH
er men about the phrases which they use, and
the weapons which they WELD against that
barbarism of the age. If the abolitionists
break the stained windows which we have rev.
ercnced, surely they will admit nothing worse
than Gods light.
Political.
G,Ib bo fha eannnd of