Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-03-18
Charity.

| Is Impossible TO make dOmeStlc and So
cial life delightful. Deeds and words
of conventional courtesy, grown familiar
are comparatively empty forms. The
charitable soul carries with it charmed
atmosphere of peace and love, breathing
which, all who come within its benign
influence unfold their noblest qualities
and develop their most amiable traits.
Inharmonious influences are neutral
lied, the harsh discipline of life is
changed to wholesome training, the
crooked places are made straight, and
the rough smooth.
The uncharitable and censorious are
generally found among the narrow the
bigoted, and those who have never read
the full page of their own hearts, or
been subjected to various and crucial
tests. How can man whose tempera-
ment is phlegmatic, judge justly of him
whose blood is fiery, whose nature is
tropical, and whose passions mount in
an instant and as quickly subside How
can one in the seclusion of private life
accurately measure the force of the in
huences those are subjected to who live
and act In the centre of vast and power
AuA NiNAi VI oOSiai SiASAScs
No man in this country has been q
target for SO much abuse of all kinds,
and perhaps justly, as Aaron Burr. But
can any one doubt that If his mother
had lived to form his character he would
have been different man? Could she
have restrained him within the bounda-
ries of virtue, by the power of love and
example. and presented the Christian
faith to him in the contrite form of q
sanity and lovely life, instead of in the
harsh outlines of a doctrinal theology,
is it probable that he would have alb
jured the faith of his fathers and lived,
as he did, utterly without God in the
world? COnfided to the care of stern
old Puritan uncle, having religion forced
upon him in its most repulsive forms of
bigotry, self-denial and dogma, no won-
der a free, bold, sunny, and defiant ma
ture like his revolted. We 90 not pro-
pose to justify Aaron Burr in any of his
misdeeds, but simply to suggest ways
by which, while we hate the sin with all
our hearts, we may still the sinner love.
Frank and expressive people are not
nearly SO liable to misconstruction as
are those who by reason of trials known
only to themselves, of adverse or pros
porous circumstances, of powerful temp
tatiOns, or peculiar course of life are
beyond the reach of ordinary sympathy
and incapable of being easily under
stood by their fellows. If man for a
series of years gives himself to the
study of disease by the aid of the mi
croScopc, ard will believe nothing but
what he sees with his own eyes through
his lens, while his accurate knowledge
of disease is enlarged, and his powers
OF observation and judgment strength
ened, may not his wings of faith lack
exercise and grow weak? Some of our
scientists study so closely the silver
side of the shield, the handwriting upon
rocks and forms, the elemental consti-
tuition and laws of the physical world,
that they neglect the golden side where
on in letters of light is inscribed the
revelation of God himself. Shal, we
condemn them for this? Nay, and yet
their indifference need not shake our
faith.
Could we know the secret influences
b. which the characters of those around
US are formed, we should have key
wherewith to decipher what is now in
hieroglyph. Wanting this We frequently
censure or condemn what could we read
we might admire or pity. 81 know TN
deceitful," said young lady tie other
day, but father has always been so
stern, so blunt and so cross, that in
putting a pleasant face upon matters
and smoothing things over, couldn't
help becoming deceitful." The charac-
ters of children and young people are
often warped in this manner, and stran-
gers ignorant of their domestic history
are at loss how to explain inconsist-
ences. The best of us are bound to
confess that but for the circumstances
from birth and training we, too, might
swell the multitude of convicts that till
our penitentiaries.
He who carries ever with him the
spirit of boundless charity to man often
does good when he knows not of it. An
influence goes forth from him which
soothes the distressed, encourages the
dropping, stimulates afresh the lover of
virtue, and begets its own image and
likeness in all beholders.