mankind. He has visited all Europe,-not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples, not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art, not to collect medals or collate manuscripts,-but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt, to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original, and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery -a circumnavigation of charity. Already the benefit of his labor is felt more or less in every country; I hope he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own. He will receive, not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be, I trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevolence hereafter.-Burke. True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear; it consists not in starting or shrinking at tales of misery, but in a disposition of heart to relieve it. True humanity appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves, and prompts men to use real and active endeavors to execute the actions which it suggests.-C. J. Fox. You might have traversed the Roman empire in the zenith of its power, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, without meeting with a single charitable asylum for the sick. Monuments of pride, of ambition, of vindictive wrath, were to be found in abundance; but not one legible record of commiseration for the poor. It was reserved for the religion whose basis is humility, and whose element is devotion, to proclaim with authority, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."-ROBERT HALL Purity. Unspotted from the world -James I. 27. S birds that are not free Pine for their native air, So longs my soul, O God, for Thee, For only to the pure Thou dost Thy vision give: Impurity cannot endure Within Thy sight to live. There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names; it is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, when the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, they become brethren.-JOHN Woolman. The stained lives. Where is the man or woman who does not know what it means? There is the most outward sort of stain-the stain upon the reputation. It is what men see as they pass us, and know us by it for one who has struggled and been worsted. What man has come to middle life, and kept so pure a name that men look at it for refreshment and courage as they pass? When we remember what a source of strength the purest reputations in the world have always been, what a stimulus and help, then we get some idea of what the world loses in the fact that almost every reputation becomes so blurred and spotted that it is wholly unfit to be used as a light or a pattern before the man is old enough to give it any positive character or force. Then there are the stains upon our conduct, the impure and untrue acts which cross and cloud the fair surface of all our best activity. And then, far worst of all, there is the stain upon the heart, of which nobody but the man himself knows anything, but which to him gives all their unhappiness to the other stains, the debased motives, the low desires, the wicked passions of the inner life. These are the stains which we accumulate. We set out for the battle in the morning strong and clean. By and by we catch a moment in the lull of the struggle to look down upon ourselves, and how tired and how covered with dust and blood we are. How long back our first purity seems-how long the day seems sometimes-how long since we began to live. You know what stains are on your lives. Each of us knows, every man and woman, as we are here this morning. They burn to your eyes even if no neighbor sees them. They burn in the still air of the Sabbath even if we do not see them in the week. You would not think for the world that your children should grow up to the same stains that have fastened You dream for them of a "life unspotted from the world," and the very anxiety of that dream proves how you know that your own life is spotted and stained. upon you. And that dream for the children is almost hopeless. At any rate the danger is that you will give it up by and by, and get to expecting and excusing the stains that will come upon them as they grow older. The worst thing about all this staining power of the world is the way in which we come to think of it as inevitable. We practically believe that no man can keep himself unspotted. He must accumulate his stains. Hear how much there is of this low, despairing tone on every side of us. You talk about the corrup No man can No man can tion of political life that seems to have infected the safest characters, and the answer is, “Oh, there is nothing strange about it. go through that trial and not fall. live years in Washington, and be wholly pure." You talk with a great many business men about some point of doubtful conventional morality, and they look at you in your professional seclusion, with something that is more than half pity. "That is all very well for you," they say, "but that will not do upon the street. I should like to see you to apply that standard to the work I have to do to make my bread." And just so when you talk about earnestness to the mere creature of society. "It is a mere dream," the answer is, "to think that social life can be elevated and made noble. Whoever goes there must expect the spots upon the robe; and so, if he is wise, will go with robes that will show spots as little as possible,-robes as near the world's color as he is |