Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-12-30
7 DtnOIU III GIltG
An image of Him who died on the tree;
Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,-

The wounds in the hands and feet and side"
There was charity. indeed, in the old
Pagan world, before Christ came. Many
Pagan examples of charity have come
down to us. The pious son of Anchises
and Venus bore off his aged father from
the flames of Troy to the hospitable
shores of Latinus. Among the Greeks,
Epaminondas was won't to ransom cap
tives and collect bowers for poor girls
Cimon to feed the hungry and clothe
the naked Bias to emancipate the cap
tive girls of Messina. Rome, in the
reign of Trajan, supported 5000 poor
children, and at Velleria are still the
ruins of an imperial orphan asylum. An
toninus lent money to the poor at four
percent. and Marcus Aurelius dedicated
to his wife an institution for the support
of girls.
There can be no question, however,
that neither in practice nor in theory,
neither in the institutions that were
founded, nor in the places that were as
signed to it in the scale of duties, did
charity occupy in antiquity position
at all comparable to that which it has
obtained by Christianity. Nearly all
relief was State measure, dictated more
by policy than benevoience, and inu-
merable habits connected with pagan
ism show that charity was not a princi-
pie, but an impulse; that it sprang from
selfshness or ostentation and not from
the character or wants of the recipient.
But there is no fact more obvious in
the history of Christendom than the
vast and unostentatious movement of
Christian charity. There are no achieve
ments of the Christian church greater
than those which it has effected in the
sphere of charity. The spirit which had
its birth into our world 1872 years ago,
has inspired myriads of men and women
to sacrifice all worldly interests, and un.
der circumstances of peril or evil, con.
secrate their lives to the single object Of
assuaging the sufferings of humanity,
It has covered the globe with countless
institutions of mercy absolutely unknown
before Christ came It has united il
the minds of men the idea of perfec
goodness and perfect berefcence. L
has placed in every parish or small dis
trict of the Christian world, minister
who finds in his office, as one of the lie
! ultimate sources of his power, the super
intendence of the organization of CHAIR
!, ty and benevolence.
= There are two qualifications only t.
the brightness of the history of Christian
charity. One is, that strange madnes
of bigotry and intolerance of faith, whicl
j would not brook any antagonism of re
ligious opinions and relegated all hereto
and unbelievers to the rack, the thumb
' screw, the flames, and the nameless tol
= lures of the inquisition. The last an
highest lesson which Christ is teachin
this world, is religious and social tolel
ance. That is the meridian brigntnes
= of His Gospel. Benefcencc to the poe
and the miserable has been shorn of ha
its glories by the torments which hay
IS been administered, in the name of, Chris
$ to those who did not accept our faith, {
worship in our church, or according I
i, our form When the Christmas festiv;
he shall look down on world that pitt,
r. unbelief and sin as much as it pitt,
as poverty and suffering, and is as tolera1
n. to wrong opinion as it is to wrong CO..
d, duct, we shall have reached the vest
d, bule of the millennium. 1t is ecclesiast
e, cal bigotry. and sectarianism, and e
n clusiyeness, that now as ever mars Il
beauty of this Christian Festival.