medy which will secure the sufferers against the recurrence of the evils in question, is the great desideratum in the work of benevolence. It is sufficiently obvious that while thorough inquiries, like those recently made in respect to the state of the London poor, are of great utility, and while that system of relief which connects all eleemosynary efforts with a careful investigation of the character and condition of the recipients is of vast consequence, still these investigations and exertions do not touch the cause of the difficulty. In this respect they are only as efforts "to salt a running brook." On the contrary, the gospel can be so applied as to change the character of the fountain itself. We intend to show that a far-seeing philanthropy, enlightened and animated by the influence of Christianity, will abound in efforts of this kind. To accomplish our object we must fetch a compass of considerable dimensions, but we hope the conclusion to which we shall be led will compensate the reader for accompanying us with patience. We mean to insist upon that kind of philanthropic endeavor which has for its direct object the improvement of the character, as being of vastly greater consequence than mere gifts for the supply of sensible wants. Yet we do not mean to depreciate the humanity that gives food to the hungry, and clothing to the naked, and shelter to the unfortunate houseless sons and daughters of want. We do not wish the widow's tears and the orphan's woes to be neglected. We do not desire the prisoner's cell and the captive's chains to be forgotten. We would not have any poor invalid left to languish and die without comforts and nurses and physicians. But we do wish to maintain satisfactorily that there is a higher charity, and that there are principles and methods of administering it that are worthy of profound consideration. The present age is, doubtless, one of remarkable progress. Some of the principal difficulties that have stood in the way of the advancement of society at large have been removed. Geographical discovery is mainly completed. The globe has been circumnavigated. Every great country has been explored. The facilities of travel and of commercial exchange have become great. Science has augmented its power vastly, and that in two respects. It has made more profound discoveries in all ་་ its departments. It has also extended its domain. Larger numbers are devoted to its interests. Its savans can almost join hands while they encircle the globe. The tendency of these movements have been to produce a broader humanity. The middle class of society has grown more numerous and more influential. It has extended its power in opposite directions, to the low and to the high. By its merchant-princes, its shrewd inventors, its opulent manufacturers, its scholars and philanthropists, it has entered the halls of princes and nobles, and made alliances with their sons and daughters. Men of active genius that have, ever and anon, risen from the nethermost stratum of society, have drawn up with them in their ascent vast numbers that had else remained in their native prostrate position. The proportion of that class which derives wealth and power as an inheritance from its ancestry, to a respectable middle class, which is mainly the fabricator of its own fortune, is diminished. The proportion of the meanly dependent to the whole population is also less than it was one or two centuries ago. True, there are vast races that have not been greatly affected by these changes. But the most vigorous portion of the human family is so thoroughly aroused, and so aggressive in its action, as to render it certain that the present impulse will, ere long, possess the manifest importance of a world-movement. It is not to be forgotten, however, that human nature is not changed. The individual man, now, is subject to the same passions as those which swelled his bosom when he did not traverse vast regions with such celerity; when he had no machines as unpaid and unsuffering servants to perform his thrall-work; when he could not enstamp his thoughts in permanent forms, and scatter them among the million; and when he could not commission the lightning to run his errands across a continent, and bring him word again the same hour. This augmentation of power does not, by any necessity, bring with it a better self-government in the individual. It does not of itself produce an increased gentleness and goodness. On the contrary, the sudden and great increase of power has developed some tendencies of an opposite character. A newly awakened earnestness cannot always be held within the bands of a just restraint. Its first manifestations will often appear in a reckless radicalism. The conservative portion of the community deprecate the excesses which are apparent, and wisely may they do so. But, what wisdom requires to be done to counteract the evil, is a grave question. Shall we make an outcry against the earnestness, the mere energy, and lofty, though ill defined aims of the self-styled reformers of the present age? No wise man would counsel such a procedure. The energy which has been awakened is, in itself, of inestimable value. Lofty purposes, even though they fail of their accomplishment, have something ennobling in them. Radicalism, it must be conceded, is not entirely destitute of utility. Evil, under an all-controlling Providence, has an instrumentality of beneficence. The hurricane that prostrates forests, destroys the standing corn, and overthrows valuable structures, still does good. It purifies the atmosphere; it teaches a lesson of the instability of earthly things; it stimulates men to fresh industry. So socialism and the various schemes for suddenly revolutionizing society, work out certain useful results. The conservative portion of the community receive some admonitions, which, if they be not entirely just, are partly deserved, and yet are just such rebukes as true and sympathising friends would never have administered. Bad methods of encountering enormous evils, yet impress upon the benevolent the necessity of some sort of earnest endeavor. When foolish and rash men will not allow a matter of great moment to remain in stagnant inaction, wise men are incited to exertion. The corn-law rhymes, the touching appeals in behalf of sewing-women, and the complaints that have been poured forth against the uses of capital to depreciate labor, all erroneous as they are in certain respects, are nevertheless indications of a general yearning towards an improved condition of our common humanity. More than this. As the sayings of some of the ancient philosophers and poets threw a crepuscular light on the eastern sky, and indicated the rising of that "Sun of Righteousness," which had been denominated by an inspired prophet the "Desire of all nations;" so it may be that these lurid coruscations are really a morning-red tinging the heavens, and foretokening a purer light, and the advent of a true Christian charity that shall wrap the shivering world in the warm mantle of its brotherly feeling. All thoughtful and well-balanced minds are satisfied that society cannot be regenerated by a sudden revolution. The subject-masses are not to be elevated by an invention, as when a power-engine is contrived to raise water from a stagnant lagoon. Ameliorating influences in the cause of humanity, from their very nature, operate in a different manner. All great and sudden changes, however gradual the process of preparation for them, produce, when they occur, painful sensations. In the silent processes of nature we are prepared, as gradually as possible, both for our introduction into this world and our departure from it. Yet a death-groan accompanies one of these changes, and a birth-cry the other. It is the same with the birth and the dissolution of nations. Magna Charta was obtained with a painful struggle. American Independence was born amid throes of anguish, and the Roman State, when it expired, shook the world by the terror of its death-spasms, and caused the sun itself to set in blood. We need not expect, then, that any degree of conservative wisdom will preclude all violent changes, will ward off all disasters. The gentlest movements of the gospel itself will sometimes and indirectly bring, "not peace, but a sword." Yet, it is obviously one of our first duties to aim, by a peaceful influence, to ameliorate the condition of that vast portion of the human family which is sunk into a state of comparative wretchedness. Our active duties consist, almost entirely, in works of philanthropy. We cannot, properly speaking, do any thing for God. He is exalted infinitely above the need of all our ministries. We can only cherish the sentiments, and breathe out the desires of piety by joining with the angels in ascriptions of "glory to God in the highest." But, our "good will to men" may find abundant opportunity of expressing itself in beneficent action. It is easy to cherish philanthropic sentiments. The incitements to humanity are immense, and in this world of sin and suffering they continually encircle us and touch us on every side. Yet there is not a more difficult thing in the world than to give the wisest and best direction to the current of benevo They are the lence. We know who are its proper objects. poor; and the poor we have always with us. vanced the general state of society may be, there must always be variety, and all persons are to be reckoned by us as poor whose comforts and advantages are very greatly inferior to our own. By the Divine Constitution the strong ought, always and everywhere, in some sense to bear the burdens of the weak. As a father should take his little children by the hand, and be more solicitous to lead them up to a participation in his own advantages, than to overtake for himself those that are before him in the race of prosperity, so every man ought to be mainly anxious to promote the well-being of those below him. We may gain a clear conception of the difference between the selfish ambition which characterizes the greater proportion of men, and the philanthropic career which God demands, by forming in our minds a pictorial illustration of the idea to which we have just adverted. We may conceive of the whole race of men as placed on a series of ascending steps in a vast amphitheatre. The degrees of their prosperity are represented by the altitude of their positions respectively. They are all grouped by family relations, by business connections, by various affinities and localities, with one another. Some are seen by us to be higher, some lower, and some on a level with ourselves in the scale of prosperity. Now you will observe that not a few are bending forward, and striving to the utmost of their power to place themselves in a higher position. Others are toiling up the ascent with equal earnestness, but are unwilling to advance one step without taking with them, or drawing closely after them, their family and near kindred and intimate friends. Others still, with a noble self-forgetfulness, are wholly employed in aiding the ascent of great numbers that occupy a far less desirable position than their own. They scarcely ascend themselves at all by a direct endeavor to do so. They are rather borne up backwards by the movement of the whole mass below them, which they have stimulated to action by their kind aid and encouragement. It is no small part of our difficulty in the work of philanthropy that we cannot discriminate the proper objects of benevolent regard and beneficent action. In a great city espe |