Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1898-09-18
Sanitary Police or scavengers.

Friend Of Ours.)
III there's hole In a. your coats,
/ bide ye tent It;
child's amang ye taking notes.
And, faith, he'll prent it,"
Burns
There is nothing covered that shall not
be revealed"
Matthew.
Nature has her sanitary police, or
scavengers, all about; fish, flesh, fowl, and
human: one honored, the other hated.
Even air and water, light and electricity
arrest nuisances. absorb and disintegrate
bad things, and do grand and general po-
lice duty in cleaning up and purifying and
removing offences. 1t is a little odd that
such difference is made between the
honor that is paid to the different police
Why should buzzards and jackals be held
In such disrepute, while hogs and crabs
are made so much OF. and flies are allowed
great privileges? Is 1t TO be wondered at
that, in disgust, iackals take to the
woods, and buzzards confne themselves
to upper circles, when they are off duty?
Both OF them are exclusives: One Of the
parties turning their backs on the general
world, the other soaring above It; both
despising and being despised. Those that
are utilized-hogs and crabs-are not so
badly treated, in spite Of their ugliness;
and are more sociable; though none the
less scavengers.
Earth and water. light and air and
electricity are as distinctly disentegra-
tors, consumers, and purifiers as the birds
animals, and insects that attend TO their
proper business in a different manner.
They have a genteel and high and hand
some way Of Analysing, Of dissipating'
and annihilating noxious and offensive
things; Of turning bad into good, disagree
able into pleasant So it is that useful
science gathers honey from the weed and
makes moral of the very old DEVIL not
painting him white or gliding him. but
making him a background to the good,
and swallowing or digesting his bad in
fiuences.
Sanitary police Of a high and low style
have existed from the beginning. In So
cial life they are counterparts 10 light
and electricity, and the lower sort We
call them prophets, censors, reprovcrs
preachers, satirists; or Of the other sort,
critics, cynics, defamers. sianderers, scan
dal mongers, and gossips. accusers-a
progeny of the original devil; and cur
caricaturists and little city Arabs.
Jobs comfOrters have immortalZed
their services and name. They undertook
to tell the old man the plain truth about
himself; TO show him all his faults and
tell him what he ought TO do; they didn't
care fig how much they hurt him. They
were miserable fault-finders. And OLD
Job defended himself, answered them
back, and tore them all to pieces. He
turned the light upon their motives,
piercing through TO the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, bone, and marrow.
They held their tongues and had nothing
to say. The closing chapters of the Book
Of Job turned the light of Heaven upon
the scene, and scattered the obscurities
that darkened the general counsel.
The Psalms of David are like the upper
air and light, or very waters or lie
pleasing while they cure, and eXalting the
soul while they humble it. The Proverbs OF
Solomon plough through the heart and
soul OK man, and the ways Of men, turn
up the heart and mind. and expose the
conscience, that the light Of Heaven may
shine on and purify them. The words or
the prophets rend the caul Of the heart OF
an idolatrOus nation, and lay open all
their deceits and lying refugees Yet they
present the balm for all the wounds they
make, a divine compensation Tor all the
harm they inflict.
Out in the GENTLE world, In the earlier
days, the police and scavengers were
os a different sort from the fathers and
the prophets. The Cynics, represented
by Diogenes and Timon, We're fierce, Bit
ter. denunciatory, and killing. No balm
came TO heal their wounds: only abstract
virtue 10 dazzle.
But the whole race was DETAINED: and
hope was very hopeless. The soul was en-
Filtered by its reading, rather than sad
dened OF these respectable scavengers
were Juvenal and Perseus, Tacitus in his
annals, and the satirists and revilers
Of men and Of humanity that have fol-
lowed in their train. The world has
abounded in cynics, critics, and denuncia-
tors. The most splendid and highest
writer that England has produced, In
spite OF his elegance, is counted by some
as but q higher style Of scavenger, Tor
his age. And in our times there are
novelists enough whose writings COM
mend themselves to many, because OF the
work they do as moral scayengers.
Not long since a distinguished writer
prcpounded: The people dearly love scan
men and women do listen to the scandal
monger. and help TO pick characters to
pieces! OF course that is men and wo-
men at their lowest estate. And what
would be their counterparts with animals,
birds, and insects? How different Is the
office that Light and Electricity that
fresh air and pure water perform! The
Divine Man came not into the world
to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. lie
was the Light of the World. The words
that He spake were spirit and life. The
water that He commended was to cleanse
from every impurity. And by His
resurrection we believe the earth and the
sea are to give up their dead. His words
are: / am come that they might have
Life: and that they might have 1t more
abundantly.