New-York daily tribune., 1864-04-12

III Iue iubOlcuCo vi OuI pIOopci IVY, """"'" """"
the eternal statutes OF nature, and. while other
hearts were breaking, we have 100 completely
hardened our own against all merciful intu-
itons. Men thought, or at least they asserted,
that crime, if but the Constitution stood sponsor
for it, became decent and cleanly virtue, and
that the hideous sins and shames of Slavery
were yenial while sanctioned by written law.
AS our wrong has been, so has been our retrl-
button. Witness the fresh graves which cover
the land Witness our desOlate firesides!
Witness the vacant chairs at our melancholy
tables! She who has given the life Of her first
born son 10 the cause OF justice Will
speak no more with fippant Indifference OF
the orphanage enforced, under the rudest
of commercial forms, at the auction-block
She who has sent the husband OF her
heart TO field from which be will
never return to gladden. her eyes, will no
longer regard as but small sorrows those
mercantile divorces which have made the mar
riages of bOndmen and bOndwomen an unclean
mockery She who, thinking of the soldier
languishng with unbound wounds upon his bed
of pain, brings the product of her industrious
skill to be sold for price, that the needy may
be succored, will not be likely to forget those
whose lives have been all one long smart and
to whom death alone once promised to bring
relief,
These are the considerations, We confess,
which most forcibly impress our minds, as we
gaze upon the brilliant show which at present
engrosscs the attention of the city. 1t is the
moral of the great Fair which makes it so beau
tiful. IL is this coercion of taste and industry
and art to the service of munificent charity
which rescues the exhibition from the common
category of public amusements, and gives dig
nifty TO all its particulars. There is no object In
the whole exhibition so fine as the manly or
womanly impulse which placed it there. There
is no painting upon the walls so true to the
souls ideal as the considerate charity which
lent it to increase the aggregate OF pleasant IN
yitation. There is no music heard within those
enchanted walls so melodicus as the great hymn
of thanksgiving and praise which will 60 up to
Heaven from the best heart OF this land, when
every chain has been broken, and we have let
the oppressed go free. There is no form OF mar
ble loyeliness which tempers by its sanity purity
the warm glare ofindscrimhate prOfusion, which
can boast of the rounded perfection OF kindness,
and the sweet symmetry of ofcharitable deeds. All
beauty, all grace, all elegance, are coarse and
clumsy and crooked when they are measured
against generous hearts and chiyalrous natures.
If our misfortunes have shown us our public
they have none the less exhibited the
public strength. Wemay well be confident Tour
future, so far as human provision can discern it,
when we find the people of the Republic not
merely generous but just-not merely enthuslas-
tic. but practical and sensible in their zeal. It's
certainly not of i'll augury, when community
even in the pursuit Of amusement, is guided by
ts better impulses. The great Sanitary Fair
will soon be over. The rare collection will be
gay walls will be dismantled-
The sweet convention of beauty and OF goodness
will be dissolved; but the kindness which af-
forded us this passing spectacle will remain, and
the costly charm which makes the assembly so
attractive will be scattered through countless
channels. TO render all our communities still
more and more abidingly faithful to that central
idea of Human Brotherhood, upon the develop
ment of which the whole future happiness of the
world depends.