The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1909-11-12
Half Hour With Dickens.

Is the master vice that rules
AN so ineXorably an unnatural char
cteristic? It might be worth while
ometimes to inquire what nature is
nd how men work to change It, and
whether in the enforced distortions
o produced. il is not natural to be
unnatural Coop any son or daughter
VI our mighty mother, within a mar
ow range and bind the prisoner to-
ne idea and foster It by servile wor
hip of it by few timid or designing
ersons and what is nature to the
Filling captive who has never riser
on tho winrr Of free mind
dropping and useless soon--to see her
in her comprehensive truth!
Alas. there are so few things In
the world about us, most unnatural
and yet natural in being SOL Hear
the magistrate or Judge admonish the
unnatural outcasts of society UNI
natural in brutal habits, in want of
decency, in losing and confounding
all distinctions between good ond evil,
in ignorance, in vice, In recklessness,
in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in
everything. But follow the good cler.
gyman or doctor, who, with his life
| imperiled with every breath he draws,
goes down into their dens, lying with
in the echoes of our carriage wheels
and daily tread upon the pavement
stones. Look around the world of
odious sights--millions of immortal
creatures have no other world on
earth - at the slightest mention OF
which humanity revolts, and dainty
delicacy living in the next street stops
her ears, and lisps, IL don't believe
IT," Breathe the polluted air, foul
with every impurity that Is poisonous
to health and life, and every other
sense conferred upon our race for its
delight and happiness offended, sick,
ened and disguised, and make chan.
mel whereby misery and death alone
can enter Vainly attempt to think
of any simple plant or flower, or
wholesome weed that set in this fetid
bed could have its natural growth, or
put its little leaves out to the sun as
God. designed it. And then, calling up
some CHASTITY child, with stunted form
and wicked face, hold forth on its
unnatural sinfulness and lament its
being so early far away from heaven
but think little of its having been
conceived and born and bred in hell!
Those who study the physical
sciences, and bring them to bear up
on the health of man, tell us that II
the noxious particles that rise from
, vitiated air were palpable to the sight
: we should see them lowering in q
dense black cloud above such haunts
, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the
, better portions of town. But II
the moral pestilence that rises with
them, and in the eternal laws of out
, ragged nature is inseperable from them
, then should we see depravity, impiety
drunkenness, theft, murder and Ions
, train Of nameless sins against the
I natural affections and repulsions q
mankind overhanging the devoted
, spots and creeping on to blight the
innocent and spread contagion among
the pure. Then should we see how
the same poisoned fountains that flow
into our hospitals and lazar- houses
inundate the jails, and make the con
vict ships swim deep and roll acros:
the seas and ove-Tun vast continents
with crime. Then should we stant
appalled, to know that where we gen
crate disease to strike our children
down, and entail itself on unborn gen
erations, there, also we breed, by tn,
same certain process, infancy tina
!, knows no innocence, youth withou
: modesty or shame, maturity that il
mature in nothing but in suffering ant
4 guilt, blasted old age that is a scanda
e on the form we bear. Unnatural hu
$ manity! When we shall gather grapes
l from thorns and figs from thistles
: when fields of grain shall spring III
i from the offal in the by-ways of on
wicked cities, and roses bloom in ia
D church yards that they cherish, thel
g we may look for natural humanit,
e and find it growing from such seed.
e Oh! for a good spirit who woult
}, take the house tops off with a NOR
a potent and benignant hand than thu
a lame demon in the tale, and show
:. christian people what dark shapes is
Q sue from their homes to swell tn
:, retinue of the destroying angel as h
+ moves forth among them! For onl,
one nights view of the pale phantom
rising from the scenes of our too lon
neglect, and from the thick and SUI
len air where vice and fever propa
e gate together, raining the tremendou
social retibutions which are eve
n pouring down and ever coming
t thicker! Bright and blest the morn
s ing that should rise on such a night
|. for men, delayed no more by stumbling
s blocks of their own making, which ar
|. but specks of dust upon the path be
tween them and eternity, would the,
!. apply themselves like creatures O
j.. one common origin, owing one dut
e to the father of one family and tend
a ing to one common end to make tn
r world better place!
g Not the less bright and blest wonl
A that day be for rousing some VIII
2 have never looked out upon the worl
o of human life around them, to know
= ledge Of their own relation to It, an