Year: 1862

A shrewd mOralizer, " 4. II. X. B."
publishes in Good Words-a London Mag
azine Cor which he writes-sOme pleasant
reflections on what he calls 1.-THE treuen-
dous difference between being Inside and
Outside" We cut out some fat slices
from the piece, and present them to our
readers -


You may be outside physically as you
would be if you were to fall, unnOticed,
and IN the night, overheard from ship !;
and il to pass on, aud leave you to perish
in the black waters. Many human beings
have done that an old school .trllOw Of
mine did. 1t must be a dreadful thing.
1t would be better, in such case, not to
be able to swim; for then the suffering
would be the sooner over; and the mind
would be in such a bewiIdered, hurried
state, that there would be less room for
the agony Of thought. But in warmer
e9ss where the chill of the yater would
not speedIy oenumO into loss Ul power
and consciousness, the single hour thro'
which, as Cowper tells us an Hnaided
swimmer might sustain himself in life,
would seem like HfeiM8a know a
man who supported himself for whole
night, by the help Of two oars, after his
vessel had gone down in the Indian Ocean.
His wife and child went with it; and after
desperate efforts to save them, he found
himself in the water, clinging to his two
oars. Three times, through that awful
night, he cast the oars away from him,
and dived deep under the surface, hoping
that be might never come up: but the
instructive clinging TO life was too strong
aud each time he family struggled back
TO his oars again.


Then you may be outside morally
You may somehow have turned out of
the track in which thnSe who started with
you are going Oh in life. Perhaps thro
folly: perhaps through sin you have got
beyond the pale. There is narrow pas
sage in certain city, steep aud narrow
passage Of evil OdourS, through which
many clergymen are wont to 60 to a GER
tain uilding, in which a great ecclesias-
teal council meets. In dark recess,
opening into that narrow passage, and
leading to various wretched dwellings,
have beheld dcpOSed and degraded min.
lister standing in the darkest shadow he
could find, and watching those who were
once his brethren going up by the way
he Once used to 60; but shrinking back
from their notice. Alas for the poor out.
slider! so near physically to the place
where he used to be; but morally so far
away! Surely his case is worse than
that Of the castaway, swept from the deck
into the boiling ocean. After that sad in
stance, We shall feel the less sympathy
for such moral outsiders as those who
suffer through the existence of lines of So
cial cleavage: the people who chafe at
being excluded from the society of the
great and exclusive First Circle Of little
country town; or who complain keenly
that some wealthy or perhaps noble neigh
Dor keeps them on the outside Of his
dwelling. Probably you have known
people to feel this moral exclusion very
bitterly. You may have heard lady IN
some small community complain with ex.
trcme severity that she was thus made an
outsider; and that, in the festive tea-par-
ties which went Oh in the halls of light
around her she was permitted to have no
part. At the same time she probably
showed, with great force Of statement and
argument, that she was in all respects a
great deal better than the people inside
that charmed circle to whose outside she
was condemned. You cannot but sym


pathize with the individual in her sorrow !;
! and advise her not to mind. Every one
has known the wrath and jealousieS which
have arisen from thus putting people NOR
ally outside: from not sending them cards
on the occasion Of marriage: from not
inviting them to some entertainment
You may remember classical instance Of
the wiathIul spirit awakened in human
being stung by the sense Of being outside.


Moral outsideness may cO-eXist with
physical insideness. This truth is well
known to unpopular officers in regiments,
who though physically inside are morally
outside; also to schOOlbOys, who, for some
offenSe, have been temporarily sent to
Coventry Ly their young companions.
And probably such lind it heavy trial to
be placed outside the pale of society: to
sit on form at school with thirty other
boys, none OF whom will speak tt' them:
to be cut oil from joining in the games of
the playground. There used to be u VII
gar expression current among Scotch
school bOys-probably it is current still
which was founded OH this principle:
that human being though physically an
insider may be morally an outsider. You
spoke of being ''in with" such youthful
companion, and "Out with" such another.
You are aware how consignment to moral
OutsldeneSs often serves as fearful pun
isiInent of OttrnSes to which laws cannot
reach. To be entirely repudiated and
cast off by the society amid which you
live, whether lofty or lowlyi; to be made
social outlaw and outsider; is some
thing, not easily borne even Sy' eao, GA,ss
callOus: something which right thinking
men could support only by the firm con.
viction that solemn principle prompted
the conduct which brought down this
reprobation. 1t is not nearly so lonely a
thing 10 dwell in the wilderness, never
seeing human face, as it would be- to live
in the town in which you were born and
brought up, and to see, as you walked the
streets, scores of faces you know well,
but each averted as you pass. You have
seen women bear this; with what cruel
fixiOn Of the whole nature, they only
know. You may have beheld them face
the unconsciOuSness Of their presence on
the part of old friends with disdainful
smile, or meet it with the look that beto-
kened breaking heart, have witnessed
this, my reader, more than once; and
doubt not you have done so too. As for
men, they can stand all this better. They
can always find a certain class who are
content to associate with ihem-a class of
people like themselves. And with great
injustice, not indeed without some reasons
in its favor, you know how even the most
reputable society passes lightly in man
what it visits with its seVerest reproba-
lion in a woman. Yes; you may have
witnessed brazen outsider, who ought
never to have been suffered Inside again,
gradually elbowing himself, by force of
r.. - Il