The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-02-22
CHARITY sna the Awaksaaag OF Public
Spirit.

| spirit
We arc now passing through the deepes,
hours of winter. and what we propose to do in
the way OF alleviating the mseries OF those who
suffer and are in want must be done at once.
There is nothing easier than to DO charitable
tomorrow. nothing more necessary than to be
charitable to-day. We are reminded of this
by many evidences of the profound emotion
which has stirred the hearts of so many in ref
erence to the poor among US. There seems to
be an emulation in we'll doing. a competition
IN good works, strife tc accomplish charitable
results. After all, whatever our people may
think ON politics or religion. or upon any dis
puted question, whatever bitterness may arise
between sections or classes from any cause
whatever. the natural benefcence of human
nature will always find expression when the
occasion demands
New York is an admirable city when re-
solved upon anything. Those who remember
the metropolis after the fall of Sumter, or
when thoroughly angry and aroused after the
exposure of the Tammany frauds, will know
the magni6cence of her courage and her wrath.
What we see now is the magnihcence of her
charity. Those of us who are enabled to keep
pace with the active affairs of the world are.
many of US, too busy. too eager in our pur-
suits, too much absorbed in business or plea
sure, to think of the poor, forlorn brother who
falls and is trampled in the press. 1t is not
that we are selfish or wanting In humanity,
but that we do not know the extent of suffer
ing We see the world q good deal in our
selves The man who is happy and content.
with cheerful faces around his freside, who
has prospered in business and has the bless
ings of friends and kinsmen and children. is
apt to see sunshine in the cloudiest weather
and to think cheerfully of all things. He only
knows in a lingering. sentimental way that
there are those who starve, or march homeless
on the highways or lie down to perish
in misery and shame. He has heard
of such things. He reads about them
in novels. He believes there are pray
ers and proper responses in the prayer
book for all who are weary or heavy-laden or
in distress. Furthermore, on Charity Sermon
Day he listens tearfuly to the eloquent ap-
peals and admonitions of his pastor, and
doubles his contribution to the collection box.
TO him Want is q phantom which never dis
tresses which he dismisses with his con-
tribution to the poor, in which he only partly
believes He does not feel that it is at his
doorstep, that it meets him on his errands of
business or pleasure, that it may come to the
bedside Of his children as typhus or fever. He
knows there has been panic, that few great
men in q business sense have failed, that bust
ness is depressed But he thinks of other
panics, and says these are but as the teInpests
which We see in nature. The tallest trees are
first stricken. They fall blasted and die, and
are resolved again into ashes and dust But
nature still lives, and the forest is no less o
forest after all. and for one tree that falls
twenty spring up with new life AS to the
panic, therefore, it only affects few-the
great mass of business. Activity and enterprise
roll on and society is content
This seems to have been the pervading SEN
timent Of New York. Comfortable, self
reliant, resolute in her ways and full of re-
sources, with the seas bringing wealth to her
Shores and all the fertility and richness of
America adding to her store, the panic was
only an accident after all A shock or two
and all would rally again with renewed
strength. But the city learned that there
were multtudes who were injured in the
panic who were not among the merchant
princes or rich bankers of the land. The
panic in destroying the few brought wretched-
ness to the many. 1t came at the edge of
winter almost; in the autumn, when the
leaves were falling and sharp winds were
giving warning Of the cold and frost and
snow. Thousands found themselves out of
employment from no fault Of their own, only
because men who had been supposed to have
vast wealth, who had been at any rate large
employers of labor, had failed. What could
they do? 1t is but little that the poor man
can do at best, when all is prosperous. His lot
is not an easy one. What could he do but drift
down the stream-buffeted, rent and broken
helpless and with no one TO help him?
There may come time when, under
an improved social system, shall have the
relations of man to his brother man so deli
cately adjusted that there will be no poverty
that does not come from crime or idleness or
thriftlessness, when work will await all who
want work. when no man or no woman need
have moments privation. But, unhappily,
we have not fallen upon such happy time,
and until we do we must either assist honest
misfortune or stand by and see it perish.
The hard winter that so many dreaded
brightens up, and the want and misery which
seemed to gather like terrible cloud dark
ening our homes, and even menacing the
peace with the bloody wrath of the bread
riots of the French Revolution seemed
beyond all control. But New York has seen
the truth and now awakens to it, Our readers
know much that has been done, and we need
not dwell upon that now. But every day we