New-York tribune., 1878-10-04
e poRrs AND HAPPY HAvESs..

Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson! as our readers
will have observed, has offered to bear the ex-
peDses of a scientific commission which viii
endeayor to discover the causes and cure OF
yellow fever. Never was money put to wiser
or nobler purpose. Prevention. rather than
cure, is after all the truest charity, though
least appreciated. Scarcely day passes now
which does not bring to light some instance
of heroism or generosity from Individual men
or women, In connection with this plague.
which warns the heart and fills the eyes with
sudden tears No sermon could equal these
brief records in power and pathos. Now 1t IS
physician, wealthy, high In his profession,
safe in happy home. with well-earned CON-
fort and ease before him for his remaining
years, who turns his back on it all, and goes
to die in misery and squalor for strangers
or band of devoted women, Catholic or
Protestant, who have no name or place in the
world but that of SISTER" who offer up their
lives; or unknown members of the Howard
Association who end their long fight with
Death by falling like sentinels at their posts
Nobody can blame us if we go back to
speak of these things, day after day. Unfor-
tunately. it is the vice and meaDness OF the
world which usually fill the public ear with
news The columns of every mornings paper
the year round are filled with records of war,
Of political fraud, of crime in the market
place and crime in the sanctIty of home. We
have surely had enough lately of swindlers,
adulterers, and murdererc-sO much indeed
that any reference to the doctrine of the uni
versal brotherhood Of humanity is apt to pro-
duce nausea in any decent man. Let us lis
.I,.l, - Il aaVs
and women, also our brothers and sisters, who
have gone forth from our own streets to die
IN the nOblest of martyIdoms-"F For what can
"a man do more than this, that he shall give
"his life for his friend ~ As we read
these records of sacrifice, day by day,
how all the pursuits and ambitions
that usually fill the thoughts of mankind
are suddenly dwarfed. What success is like
his who finds death insignificant before his
purp0se7 What il the accumulation of mass
of money, or q shrewd stroke of statesman
ship, or q great poem or picture, to this noble
ending of noble life 7 The quiet gathering
up of all the remembrances of past years. all
loves and pleasures, the powers of body, and
brain and soul, and the giving them over TO
Death, simply to save brother mani Christ
himself, when He would win the world to His
side, struck this as the highest note of heroism.
One of these men, DR.. Taylor, a Southern
physician of this city, when urged by his
friends not to go into the most hopeless OF
the fever-stricken districts, replied: 1t is
not the place but manner OF my death which
concerns me !" adding the old words: "All
places which the eye of God doth visit are TO
"the wise man ports and happy havens." He
found the" happy haven of his life in the
midst of the misery which he had helped to
assuage. The liar, the coward, the trickster,
though he be wrapped IN the royal purple
through life, goes into the region OF death the
animal that he is this brave gentleman finds
IN the agony and fOulDess of fever hospital
but quiet port after a long voyage, where
a friend waits for him who has long loved
him well. We have no tears for such life
or such death. Rather thank God for them,
and for all other great facts in life which
summon US as with trumpet call TO be glad
that we are men. Men with the same flesh
and blood and possibilities as these who have
so nobly died. We cannot all die in as high
service as theirs, but we eau at least make
our lives 80 clean, so sweet so fall OF Christ
like sympathies, that to us, too, the place
where we end them shall be but "a port and
- happy haven"
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