REFORM AND POLITICS

 BY

 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

CONTENTS:

 UTOPIAN SCHEMES AND POLITICAL THEORISTS PECULIAR INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS LORD ASHLEY AND THE THIEVES WOMAN SUFFRAGE ITALIAN UNITY INDIAN CIVILIZATION READING FOR THE BLIND THE INDIAN QUESTION THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OUR DUMB RELATIONS INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN

 REFORM AND POLITICS

 UTOPIAN SCHEMES AND POLITICAL THEORISTS. 

THERE is a large class of men, not in Europe alone, but in this countryalso, whose constitutional conservatism inclines them to regard anyorganic change in the government of a state or the social condition ofits people with suspicion and distrust. They admit, perhaps, the evilsof the old state of things; but they hold them to be inevitable, thealloy necessarily mingled with all which pertains to fallible humanity. Themselves generally enjoying whatever of good belongs to the politicalor social system in which their lot is cast, they are disposed to lookwith philosophic indifference upon the evil which only afflicts theirneighbors. They wonder why people are not contented with theirallotments; they see no reason for change; they ask for quiet and peacein their day; being quite well satisfied with that social condition whichan old poet has quaintly described:--

 "The citizens like pounded pikes; The lesser feed the great; The rich for food seek stomachs, And the poor for stomachs meat. "

This class of our fellow-citizens have an especial dislike of theorists, reformers, uneasy spirits, speculators upon the possibilities of theworld's future, constitution builders, and believers in progress. Theyare satisfied; the world at least goes well enough with them; they sit ascomfortable in it as Lafontaine's rat in the cheese; and why should thosewho would turn it upside down come hither also? Why not let well enoughalone? Why tinker creeds, constitutions, and laws, and disturb the goodold-fashioned order of things in church and state? The idea of makingthe world better and happier is to them an absurdity. He who entertainsit is a dreamer and a visionary, destitute of common sense and practicalwisdom. His project, whatever it may be, is at once pronounced to beimpracticable folly, or, as they are pleased to term it, _Utopian. _

The romance of Sir Thomas More, which has long afforded to theconservatives of church and state a term of contempt applicable to allreformatory schemes and innovations, is one of a series of fabulouswritings, in which the authors, living in evil times and unable toactualize their plans for the well-being of society, have resorted tofiction as a safe means of conveying forbidden truths to the popularmind. Plato's "Timaeus, " the first of the series, was written after thedeath of Socrates and the enslavement of the author's country. In thisare described the institutions of the Island of Atlantis, --the writer'sideal of a perfect commonwealth. Xenophon, in his "Cyropaedia, " has alsodepicted an imaginary political society by overlaying with fictionhistorical traditions. At a later period we have the "New Atlantis" ofLord Bacon, and that dream of the "City of the Sun" with which Campanellasolaced himself in his long imprisonment. 

The "Utopia" of More is perhaps the best of its class. It is the work ofa profound thinker, the suggestive speculations and theories of one whocould

 "Forerun his age and race, and let His feet millenniums hence be set In midst of knowledge dreamed not yet. "

Much of what he wrote as fiction is now fact, a part of the frame-work ofEuropean governments, and the political truths of his imaginary state arenow practically recognized in our own democratic system. As might beexpected, in view of the times in which the author wrote, and theexceedingly limited amount of materials which he found ready to his handsfor the construction of his social and political edifice, there is a wantof proportion and symmetry in the structure. Many of his theories are nodoubt impracticable and unsound. But, as a whole, the work is anadmirable one, striding in advance of the author's age, and prefiguring agovernment of religious toleration and political freedom. The followingextract from it was doubtless regarded in his day as something worse thanfolly or the dream of a visionary enthusiast:--

"He judged it wrong to lay down anything rashly, and seemed to doubtwhether these different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire men in a different manner, and be pleased with thevariety. He therefore thought it to be indecent and foolish for any manto threaten and terrify another, to make him believe what did not strikehim as true. "

Passing by the "Telemachus" of Fenelon, we come to the political romanceof Harrington, written in the time of Cromwell. "Oceana" is the name bywhich the author represents England; and the republican plan ofgovernment which he describes with much minuteness is such as he wouldhave recommended for adoption in case a free commonwealth had beenestablished. It deals somewhat severely with Cromwell's usurpation; yetthe author did not hesitate to dedicate it to that remarkable man, who, after carefully reading it, gave it back to his daughter, Lady Claypole, with the remark, full of characteristic bluntness, that "the gentlemanneed not think to cheat him of his power and authority; for what he hadwon with the sword he would never suffer himself to be scribbled out of. "

Notwithstanding the liberality and freedom of his speculations upongovernment and religion in his Utopia, it must be confessed that SirThomas More, in after life, fell into the very practices of intoleranceand bigotry which he condemned. When in the possession of the great sealunder that scandal of kingship, Henry VIII. , he gave his countenance tothe persecution of heretics. Bishop Burnet says of him, that he caused agentleman of the Temple to be whipped and put to the rack in hispresence, in order to compel him to discover those who favored hereticalopinions. In his Utopia he assailed the profession of the law withmerciless satire; yet the satirist himself finally sat upon thechancellor's woolsack; and, as has been well remarked by Horace Smith, "if, from this elevated seat, he ever cast his eyes back upon his pastlife, he must have smiled at the fond conceit which could imagine apermanent Utopia, when he himself, certainly more learned, honest, andconscientious than the mass of men has ever been, could in the course ofone short life fall into such glaring and frightful rebellion against hisown doctrines. "

Harrington, on the other hand, as became the friend of Milton and Marvel, held fast, through good and evil report, his republican faith. Hepublished his work after the Restoration, and defended it boldly and ablyfrom the numerous attacks made upon it. Regarded as too dangerous anenthusiast to be left at liberty, he was imprisoned at the instance ofLord Chancellor Hyde, first in the Tower, and afterwards on the Island ofSt. Nicholas, where disease and imprudent remedies brought on a partialderangement, from which he never recovered. 

Bernardin St. Pierre, whose pathetic tale of "Paul and Virginia" hasfound admirers in every language of the civilized world, in a fragment, entitled "Arcadia, " attempted to depict an ideal republic, withoutpriest, noble, or slave, where all are so religious that each man is thepontiff of his family, where each man is prepared to defend his country, and where all are in such a state of equality that there are no suchpersons as servants. The plan of it was suggested by his friend Rousseauduring their pleasant walking excursions about the environs of Paris, inwhich the two enthusiastic philosophers, baffled by the evil passions andintractable materials of human nature as manifested in existing society, comforted themselves by appealing from the actual to the possible, fromthe real to the imaginary. Under the chestnut-trees of the Bois deBoulogne, through long summer days, the two friends, sick of the noisyworld about them, yet yearning to become its benefactors, --gladlyescaping from it, yet busy with schemes for its regeneration andhappiness, --at once misanthropes and philanthropists, --amused and solacedthemselves by imagining a perfect and simple state of society, in whichthe lessons of emulation and selfish ambition were never to be taught;where, on the contrary, the young were to obey their parents, and toprefer father, mother, brother, sister, wife, and friend to themselves. They drew beautiful pictures of a country blessed with peace, indus try, and love, covered with no disgusting monuments of violence and pride andluxury, without columns, triumphal arches, hospitals, prisons, orgibbets; but presenting to view bridges over torrents, wells on the aridplain, groves of fruit-trees, and houses of shelter for the traveller indesert places, attesting everywhere the sentiment of humanity. Religionwas to speak to all hearts in the eternal language of Nature. Death wasno longer to be feared; perspectives of holy consolation were to openthrough the cypress shadows of the tomb; to live or to die was to beequally an object of desire. 

The plan of the "Arcadia" of St. Pierre is simply this: A learned youngEgyptian, educated at Thebes by the priests of Osiris, desirous ofbenefiting humanity, undertakes a voyage to Gaul for the purpose ofcarrying thither the arts and religion of Egypt. He is shipwrecked onhis return in the Gulf of Messina, and lands upon the coast, where he isentertained by an Arcadian, to whom he relates his adventures, and fromwhom he receives in turn an account of the simple happiness and peace ofArcadia, the virtues and felicity of whose inhabitants are beautifullyexemplified in the lives and conversation of the shepherd and hisdaughter. This pleasant little prose poem closes somewhat abruptly. Although inferior in artistic skill to "Paul and Virginia" or the "IndianCottage", there is not a little to admire in the simple beauty of itspastoral descriptions. The closing paragraph reminds one of Bunyan'supper chamber, where the weary pilgrim's windows opened to the sunrisingand the singing of birds:--

"Tyrteus conducted his guests to an adjoining chamber. It had a windowshut by a curtain of rushes, through the crevices of which the islands ofthe Alpheus might be seen in the light of the moon. There were in thischamber two excellent beds, with coverlets of warm and light wool. 

"Now, as soon as Amasis was left alone with Cephas, he spoke with joy ofthe delight and tranquillity of the valley, of the goodness of theshepherd, and the grace of his young daughter, to whom he had seen noneworthy to be compared, and of the pleasure which he promised himself thenext day, at the festival on Mount Lyceum, of beholding a whole people ashappy as this sequestered family. Converse so delightful might havecharmed away the night without the aid of sleep, had they not beeninvited to repose by the mild light of the moon shining through thewindow, the murmuring wind in the leaves of the poplars, and the distantnoise of the Achelous, which falls roaring from the summit of MountLyceum. "

The young patrician wits of Athens doubtless laughed over Plato's idealrepublic. Campanella's "City of the Sun" was looked upon, no doubt, asthe distempered vision of a crazy state prisoner. Bacon's college, inhis "New Atlantis, " moved the risibles of fat-witted Oxford. More's"Utopia, " as we know, gave to our language a new word, expressive of thevagaries and dreams of fanatics and lunatics. The merciless wits, clerical and profane, of the court of Charles II. Regarded Harrington'sromance as a perfect godsend to their vocation of ridicule. The gaydames and carpet knights of Versailles made themselves merry with theprose pastoral of St. Pierre; and the poor old enthusiast went down tohis grave without finding an auditory for his lectures upon naturalsociety. 

The world had its laugh over these romances. When unable to refute theirtheories, it could sneer at the authors, and answer them to thesatisfaction of the generation in which they lived, at least by a generalcharge of lunacy. Some of their notions were no doubt as absurd as thoseof the astronomer in "Rasselas", who tells Imlac that he has for fiveyears possessed the regulation of the weather, and has got the secret ofmaking to the different nations an equal and impartial dividend of rainand sunshine. But truth, even when ushered into the world through themedium of a dull romance and in connection with a vast progeny of errors, however ridiculed and despised at first, never fails in the end offinding a lodging-place in the popular mind. The speculations of thepolitical theorists whom we have noticed have not all proved to be of

 "such stuff As dreams are made of, and their little life Rounded with sleep. "

They have entered into and become parts of the social and politicalfabrics of Europe and America. The prophecies of imagination have beenfulfilled; the dreams of romance have become familiar realities. 

What is the moral suggested by this record? Is it not that we shouldlook with charity and tolerance upon the schemes and speculations of thepolitical and social theorists of our day; that, if unprepared to ventureupon new experiments and radical changes, we should at least considerthat what was folly to our ancestors is our wisdom, and that anothergeneration may successfully put in practice the very theories which nowseem to us absurd and impossible? Many of the evils of society have beenmeasurably removed or ameliorated; yet now, as in the days of theApostle, "the creation groaneth and travaileth in pain;" and althoughquackery and empiricism abound, is it not possible that a properapplication of some of the remedies proposed might ameliorate the generalsuffering? Rejecting, as we must, whatever is inconsistent with orhostile to the doctrines of Christianity, on which alone rests our hopefor humanity, it becomes us to look kindly upon all attempts to applythose doctrines to the details of human life, to the social, political, and industrial relations of the race. If it is not permitted us tobelieve all things, we can at least hope them. Despair is infidelity anddeath. Temporally and spiritually, the declaration of inspiration holdsgood, "We are saved by hope. "

 PECULIAR INSTITUTIONS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

 [1851. ]

BERNARDIN ST. PIERRE, in his Wishes of a Solitary, asks for his countryneither wealth, nor military glory, nor magnificent palaces andmonuments, nor splendor of court nobility, nor clerical pomp. "Rather, "he says, "O France, may no beggar tread thy plains, no sick or sufferingman ask in vain for relief; in all thy hamlets may every young woman finda lover and every lover a true wife; may the young be trained arightlyand guarded from evil; may the old close their days in the tranquil hopeof those who love God and their fellow-men. "

We are reminded of the amiable wish of the French essayist--a wish evenyet very far from realization, we fear, in the empire of Napoleon III. --by the perusal of two documents recently submitted to the legislature ofthe State of Massachusetts. They indicate, in our view, the real gloryof a state, and foreshadow the coming of that time when Milton'sdefinition of a true commonwealth shall be no longer a prophecy, but thedescription of an existing fact, --"a huge Christian personage, a mightygrowth and stature of an honest man, moved by the purpose of a love ofGod and of mankind. "

Some years ago, the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the suggestion ofseveral benevolent gentlemen whose attention had been turned to thesubject, appointed a commission to inquire into the condition of theidiots of the Commonwealth, to ascertain their numbers, and whetheranything could be done in their behalf. 

The commissioners were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, so well and honorably knownfor his long and arduous labors in behalf of the blind, Judge Byington, and Dr. Gilman Kimball. The burden of the labor fell upon the chairman, who entered upon it with the enthusiasm, perseverance, and practicaladaptation of means to ends which have made him so efficient in hisvaried schemes of benevolence. On the 26th of the second month, 1848, afull report of the results of this labor was made to the Governor, accompanied by statistical tables and minute details. One hundred townshad been visited by the chairman or his reliable agent, in which fivehundred and seventy-five persons in a state of idiocy were discovered. These were examined carefully in respect to their physical as well asmental condition, no inquiry being omitted which was calculated to throwlight upon the remote or immediate causes of this mournful imperfectionin the creation of God. The proximate causes Dr. Howe mentions are to befound in the state of the bodily organization, deranged anddisproportioned by some violation of natural law on the part of theparents or remoter ancestors of the sufferers. Out of 420 cases ofidiocy, he had obtained information respecting the condition of theprogenitors of 359; and in all but four of these eases he found that oneor the other, or both, of their immediate progenitors had in some waydeparted widely from the condition of health; they were scrofulous, orpredisposed to affections of the brain, and insanity, or had intermarriedwith blood-relations, or had been intemperate, or guilty of sensualexcesses. 

Of the 575 cases, 420 were those of idiocy from birth, and 155 of idiocyafterwards. Of the born idiots, 187 were under twenty-five years of age, and all but 13 seemed capable of improvement. Of those above twenty-fiveyears of age, 73 appeared incapable of improvement in their mentalcondition, being helpless as children at seven years of age; 43 out ofthe 420 seemed as helpless as children at two years of age; 33 were inthe condition of mere infants; and 220 were supported at the publiccharge in almshouses. A large proportion of them were found to be givenover to filthy and loathsome habits, gluttony, and lust, and constantlysinking lower towards the condition of absolute brutishness. 

Those in private houses were found, if possible, in a still moredeplorable state. Their parents were generally poor, feeble in mind andbody, and often of very intemperate habits. Many of them seemed scarcelyable to take care of themselves, and totally unfit for the training ofordinary children. It was the blind leading the blind, imbecilityteaching imbecility. Some instances of the experiments of parentalignorance upon idiotic offspring, which fell under the observation of Dr. Howe, are related in his report Idiotic children were found with theirheads covered over with cold poultices of oak-bark, which the foolishparents supposed would tan the brain and harden it as the tanner does hisox-hides, and so make it capable of retaining impressions and rememberinglessons. In other cases, finding that the child could not be made tocomprehend anything, the sagacious heads of the household, on thesupposition that its brain was too hard, tortured it with hot poulticesof bread and milk to soften it. Others plastered over their children'sheads with tar. Some administered strong doses of mercury, to "solder upthe openings" in the head and make it tight and strong. Othersencouraged the savage gluttony of their children, stimulating theirunnatural and bestial appetites, on the ground that "the poor creatureshad nothing else to enjoy but their food, and they should have enough ofthat!"

In consequence of this report, the legislature, in the spring of 1848, made an annual appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars, for threeyears, for the purpose of training and teaching ten idiot children, to beselected by the Governor and Council. The trustees of the Asylum for theBlind, under the charge of Dr. Howe, made arrangements for receivingthese pupils. The school was opened in the autumn of 1848; and its firstannual report, addressed to the Governor and printed by order of theSenate, is now before us. 

Of the ten pupils, it appears that not one had the usual command ofmuscular motion, --the languid body obeyed not the service of the imbecilewill. Some could walk and use their limbs and hands in simple motions;others could make only make slight use of their muscles; and two werewithout any power of locomotion. 

One of these last, a boy six years of age, who had been stupefied on theday of his birth by the application of hot rum to his head, couldscarcely see or notice objects, and was almost destitute of the sense oftouch. He could neither stand nor sit upright, nor even creep, but wouldlie on the floor in whatever position he was placed. He could not feedhimself nor chew solid food, and had no more sense of decency than aninfant. His intellect was a blank; he had no knowledge, no desires, noaffections. A more hopeless object for experiment could scarcely havebeen selected. 

A year of patient endeavor has nevertheless wrought a wonderful change inthe condition of this miserable being. Cold bathing, rubbing of thelimbs, exercise of the muscles, exposure to the air, and other applianceshave enabled him to stand upright, to sit at table and feed himself, andchew his food, and to walk about with slight assistance. His habits areno longer those of a brute; he observes decency; his eye is brighter; hischeeks glow with health; his countenance, is more expressive of thought. He has learned many words and constructs simple sentences; his affectionsbegin to develop; and there is every prospect that he will be so farrenovated as to be able to provide for himself in manhood. 

In the case of another boy, aged twelve years, the improvement has beenequally remarkable. The gentleman who first called attention to him, ina recent note to Dr. Howe, published in the report, thus speaks of hispresent condition: "When I remember his former wild and almost franticdemeanor when approached by any one, and the apparent impossibility ofcommunicating with him, and now see him standing in his class, playingwith his fellows, and willingly and familiarly approaching me, examiningwhat I gave him, --and when I see him already selecting articles named byhis teacher, and even correctly pronouncing words printed on cards, --improvement does not convey the idea presented to my mind; it iscreation; it is making him anew. "

All the pupils have more or less advanced. Their health and habits haveimproved; and there is no reason to doubt that the experiment, at theclose of its three years, will be found to have been quite as successfulas its most sanguine projectors could have anticipated. Dr. Howe hasbeen ably seconded by an accomplished teacher, James B. Richards, who hasdevoted his whole time to the pupils. Of the nature and magnitude oftheir task, an idea may be formed only by considering the utterlistlessness of idiocy, the incapability of the poor pupil to fix hisattention upon anything, and his general want of susceptibility toimpressions. All his senses are dulled and perverted. Touch, hearing, sight, smell, are all more or less defective. His gluttony isunaccompanied with the gratification of taste, --the most savory viandsand the offal which he shares with the pigs equally satisfy him. Hismental state is still worse than his physical. Thought is painful andirksome to him. 

His teacher can only engage his attention by strenuous efforts, loud, earnest tones, gesticulations and signs, and a constant presentation ofsome visible object of bright color and striking form. The eye wanders, and the spark of consciousness and intelligence which has been fannedinto momentary brightness darkens at the slightest relaxation of theteacher's exertions. The names of objects presented to him mustsometimes be repeated hundreds of times before he can learn them. Yetthe patience and enthusiasm of the teacher are rewarded by a progress, slow and unequal, but still marked and manifest. Step by step, oftencompelled to turn back and go over the inch of ground he had gained, theidiot is still creeping forward; and by almost imperceptible degrees hissick, cramped, and prisoned spirit casts off the burden of its body ofdeath, breath as from the Almighty--is breathed into him, and he becomesa living soul. 

After the senses of the idiot are trained to take noteof their appropriate objects, the various perceptive faculties are nextto be exercised. The greatest possible number of facts are to begathered up through the medium of these faculties into the storehouse ofmemory, from whence eventually the higher faculties of mind may draw thematerial of general ideas. It has been found difficult, if notimpossible, to teach the idiot to read by the letters first, as in theordinary method; but while the varied powers of the three letters, h, a, t, could not be understood by him, he could be made to comprehend thecomplex sign of the word hat, made by uniting the three. 

The moral nature of the idiot needs training and development as well ashis physical and mental. All that can be said of him is, that he has thelatent capacity for moral development and culture. Uninstructed and leftto himself, he has no ideas of regulated appetites and propensities, ofdecency and delicacy of affection and social relations. The germs ofthese ideas, which constitute the glory and beauty of humanity, undoubtedly exist in him; but there can be no growth without patient andpersevering culture. Where this is afforded, to use the language of thereport, "the idiot may learn what love is, though he may not know theword which expresses it; he may feel kindly affections while unable tounderstand the simplest virtuous principle; and he may begin to liveacceptably to God before he has learned the name by which men call him. "

In the facts and statistics presented in the report, light is shed uponsome of the dark pages of God's providence, and it is seen that thesuffering and shame of idiocy are the result of sin, of a violation ofthe merciful laws of God and of the harmonies of His benign order. Thepenalties which are ordained for the violators of natural laws areinexorable and certain. For the transgressor of the laws of life thereis, as in the case of Esau, "no place for repentance, though he seek itearnestly and with tears. " The curse cleaves to him and his children. In this view, how important becomes the subject of the hereditarytransmission of moral and physical disease and debility! and hownecessary it is that there should be a clearer understanding of, and awilling obedience, at any cost, to the eternal law which makes the parentthe blessing or the curse of the child, giving strength and beauty, andthe capacity to know and do the will of God, or bequeathingloathsomeness, deformity, and animal appetite, incapable of therestraints of the moral faculties! Even if the labors of Dr. Howe andhis benevolent associates do not materially lessen the amount of presentactual evil and suffering in this respect, they will not be put forth invain if they have the effect of calling public attention to the greatlaws of our being, the violation of which has made this goodly earth avast lazarhouse of pain and sorrow. 

The late annual message of the Governor of Massachusetts invites ourattention to a kindred institution of charity. The chief magistratecongratulates the legislature, in language creditable to his mind andheart, on the opening of the Reform School for Juvenile Criminals, established by an act of a previous legislature. The act provides that, when any boy under sixteen years of age shall be convicted of crimepunishable by imprisonment other than such an offence as is punished byimprisonment for life, he may be, at the discretion of the court orjustice, sent to the State Reform School, or sentenced to suchimprisonment as the law now provides for his offence. The school isplaced under the care of trustees, who may either refuse to receive a boythus sent there, or, after he has been received, for reasons set forth inthe act, may order him to be committed to prison under the previous penallaw of the state. They are also authorized to apprentice the boys, attheir discretion, to inhabitants of the Commonwealth. And whenever anyboy shall be discharged, either as reformed or as having reached the ageof twenty-one years, his discharge is a full release from his sentence. 

It is made the duty of the trustees to cause the boys to be instructed inpiety and morality, and in branches of useful knowledge, in some regularcourse of labor, mechanical, agricultural, or horticultural, and suchother trades and arts as may be best adapted to secure the amendment, reformation, and future benefit of the boys. The class of offenders forwhom this act provides are generally the offspring of parents depraved bycrime or suffering from poverty and want, --the victims often ofcircumstances of evil which almost constitute a necessity, --issuing fromhomes polluted and miserable, from the sight and hearing of loathsomeimpurities and hideous discords, to avenge upon society the ignorance, and destitution, and neglect with which it is too often justlychargeable. In 1846 three hundred of these youthful violators of lawwere sentenced to jails and other places of punishment in Massachusetts, where they incurred the fearful liability of being still more thoroughlycorrupted by contact with older criminals, familiar with atrocity, androlling their loathsome vices "as a sweet morsel under the tongue. " Inview of this state of things the Reform School has been established, twenty-two thousand dollars having been contributed to the state for thatpurpose by an unknown benefactor of his race. The school is located inWestboro', on a fine farm of two hundred acres. The buildings are in theform of a square, with a court in the centre, three stories in front, with wings. They are constructed with a degree of architectural taste, and their site is happily chosen, --a gentle eminence, overlooking one ofthe loveliest of the small lakes which form a pleasing feature in NewEngland scenery. From this place the atmosphere and associations of theprison are excluded. The discipline is strict, as a matter of course;but it is that of a well-regulated home or school-room, --order, neatness, and harmony within doors; and without, the beautiful 'sights and soundsand healthful influences of Nature. One would almost suppose that thepoetical dream of Coleridge, in his tragedy of Remorse, had found itsrealization in the Westboro' School, and that, weary of the hopelessnessand cruelty of the old penal system, our legislators had embodied intheir statutes the idea of the poet:--

"With other ministrations thou, O Nature, Healest thy wandering and distempered childThou pourest on him thy soft influences, Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, Till he relent, and can no more endureTo be a jarring and a dissonant thingAmidst this general dance and minstrelsy. "

Thus it is that the Christian idea of reformation, rather than revenge, is slowly but surely incorporating itself in our statute books. We haveonly to look back but a single century to be able to appreciate theimmense gain for humanity in the treatment of criminals which has beensecured in that space of time. Then the use of torture was commonthroughout Europe. Inability to comprehend and believe certain religiousdogmas was a crime to be expiated by death, or confiscation of estate, orlingering imprisonment. Petty offences against property furnishedsubjects for the hangman. The stocks and the whipping-post stood by theside of the meeting-house. Tongues were bored with redhot irons and earsshorn off. The jails were loathsome dungeons, swarming with vermin, unventilated, unwarmed. A century and a half ago the populace ofMassachusetts were convulsed with grim merriment at the writhings of amiserable woman scourged at the cart-tail or strangling in the ducking-stool; crowds hastened to enjoy the spectacle of an old man enduring theunutterable torment of the 'peine forte et dare, '--pressed slowly todeath under planks, --for refusing to plead to an indictment forwitchcraft. What a change from all this to the opening of the StateReform School, to the humane regulations of prisons and penitentiaries, to keen-eyed benevolence watching over the administration of justice, which, in securing society from lawless aggression, is not suffered tooverlook the true interest and reformation of the criminal, nor to forgetthat the magistrate, in the words of the Apostle, is to be indeed "theminister of God to man for good!"

 LORD ASHLEY AND THE THIEVES. 

"THEY that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick, " wasthe significant answer of our Lord to the self-righteous Pharisees whotook offence at his companions, --the poor, the degraded, the weak, andthe sinful. "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, andnot sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners torepentance. "

The great lesson of duty inculcated by this answer of the Divine Teacherhas been too long overlooked by individuals and communities professedlygoverned by His maxims. The phylacteries of our modern Pharisees are asbroad as those of the old Jewish saints. The respectable Christiandetests his vicious and ill-conditioned neighbors as heartily as theIsraelite did the publicans and sinners of his day. He folds his robe ofself-righteousness closely about him, and denounces as little better thansinful weakness all commiseration for the guilty; and all attempts torestore and reclaim the erring violators of human law otherwise than bypains and penalties as wicked collusion with crime, dangerous to thestability and safety of society, and offensive in the sight of God. Andyet nothing is more certain than that, just in proportion as the exampleof our Lord has been followed in respect to the outcast and criminal, theeffect has been to reform and elevate, --to snatch as brands from theburning souls not yet wholly given over to the service of evil. Thewonderful influence for good exerted over the most degraded and recklesscriminals of London by the excellent and self-denying Elizabeth Fry, thehappy results of the establishment of houses of refuge, and reformation, and Magdalen asylums, all illustrate the wisdom of Him who went aboutdoing good, in pointing out the morally diseased as the appropriatesubjects of the benevolent labors of His disciples. No one is to bedespaired of. We have no warrant to pass by any of our fellow-creaturesas beyond the reach of God's grace and mercy; for, beneath the mostrepulsive and hateful outward manifestation, there is always aconsciousness of the beauty of goodness and purity, and of theloathsomeness of sin, --one chamber of the heart as yet not whollyprofaned, whence at times arises the prayer of a burdened and miserablespirit for deliverance. Deep down under the squalid exterior, unparticipative in the hideous merriment and recklessness of thecriminal, there is another self, --a chained and suffering inner man, --crying out, in the intervals of intoxication and brutal excesses, likeJonah from the bosom of hell. To this lingering consciousness thesympathy and kindness of benevolent and humane spirits seldom appeal invain; for, whatever may be outward appearances, it remains true that theway of the transgressor is hard, and that sin and suffering areinseparable. Crime is seldom loved or persevered in for its own sake;but, when once the evil path is entered upon, a return is in realityextremely difficult to the unhappy wanderer, and often seems as well nighimpossible. The laws of social life rise up like insurmountable barriersbetween him and escape. As he turns towards the society whose rights hehas outraged, its frown settles upon him; the penalties of the laws hehas violated await him; and he falls back despairing, and suffers thefetters of the evil habit to whose power he has yielded himself to befastened closer and heavier upon him. O for some good angel, in the formof a brother-man and touched with a feeling of his sins and infirmities, to reassure his better nature and to point out a way of escape from itsbody of death!

We have been led into these remarks by an account, given in the LondonWeekly Chronicle, of a most remarkable interview between the professionalthieves of London and Lord Ashley, --a gentleman whose best patent ofnobility is to be found in his generous and untiring devotion to theinterests of his fellow-men. It appears that a philanthropic gentlemanin London had been applied to by two young thieves, who had relinquishedtheir evil practices and were obtaining a precarious but honestlivelihood by picking up bones and rags in the streets, their loss ofcharacter closing against them all other employments. He had just beenreading an address of Lord Ashley's in favor of colonial emigration, andhe was led to ask one of the young men how he would like to emigrate. 

"I should jump at the chance!" was the reply. Not long after thegentleman was sent for to visit one of those obscure and ruinous courtsof the great metropolis where crime and poverty lie down together, --localities which Dickens has pictured with such painful distinctness. Here, to his surprise, he met a number of thieves and outlaws, whodeclared themselves extremely anxious to know whether any hope could beheld out to them of obtaining an honest living, however humble, in thecolonies, as their only reason for continuing in their criminal coursewas the impossibility of extricating themselves. He gave them suchadvice and encouragement as he was able, and invited them to assembleagain, with such of their companions as they could persuade to do so, atthe room of the Irish Free School, for the purpose of meeting LordAshley. On the 27th of the seventh month last the meeting took place. At the hour appointed, Lord Ashley and five or six other benevolentgentlemen, interested in emigration as a means of relief and reformationto the criminal poor, entered the room, which was already well-nighfilled. Two hundred and seven professed thieves were present. "Severalof the most experienced thieves were stationed at the door to prevent theadmission of any but thieves. Some four or five individuals, who werenot at first known, were subjected to examination, and only allowed toremain on stating that they were, and being recognized as, members of thedishonest fraternity; and before the proceedings of the evening commencedthe question was very carefully put, and repeated several times, whetherany one was in the room of whom others entertained doubts as to who hewas. The object of this care was, as so many of them were in danger of'getting into trouble, ' or, in other words, of being taken up for theircrimes, to ascertain if any who might betray them were present; andanother intention of this scrutiny was, to give those assembled, whonaturally would feel considerable fear, a fuller confidence in openingtheir minds. "

What a novel conference between the extremes of modern society! All thatis beautiful in refinement and education, moral symmetry and Christiangrace, contrasting with the squalor, the ignorance, the lifelongdepravity of men living "without God in the world, "--the pariahs ofcivilization, --the moral lepers, at the sight of whom decency covers itsface, and cries out, "Unclean!" After a prayer had been offered, LordAshley spoke at considerable length, making a profound impression on hisstrange auditory as they listened to his plans of emigration, whichoffered them an opportunity to escape from their miserable condition andenter upon a respectable course of life. The hard heart melted and thecold and cruel eye moistened. With one accord the wretched felonsresponded to the language of Christian love and good-will, and declaredtheir readiness to follow the advice of their true friend. They lookedup to him as to an angel of mercy, and felt the malignant spirits whichhad so long tormented them disarmed of all power of evil in the presenceof simple goodness. He stood in that felon audience like Spenser's Unaamidst the satyrs; unassailable and secure in the "unresistible might ofmeekness, " and panoplied in that "noble grace which dashed brute violencewith sudden adoration and mute awe. "

Twenty years ago, when Elizabeth Fry ventured to visit those "spirits inprison, "--the female tenants of Newgate, --her temerity was regarded withastonishment, and her hope of effecting a reformation in the miserableobjects of her sympathy was held to be wholly visionary. Her personalsafety and the blessed fruits of her labors, nevertheless, confirmed thelanguage of her Divine Master to His disciples when He sent them forth aslambs among wolves: "Behold, I give unto you power over all the power ofthe enemy. " The still more unpromising experiment of Lord Ashley, thusfar, has been equally successful; and we hail it as the introduction of anew and more humane method of dealing with the victims of sin andignorance, and the temptations growing out of the inequalities and vicesof civilization. 

 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 

 Letter to the Newport Convention. 

 AMESBURY, MASS. , 12th, 8th Month, 1869. 

I HAVE received thy letter inviting me to attend the Convention in behalfof Woman's Suffrage, at Newport, R. I. , on the 25th inst. I do not seehow it is possible for me to accept the invitation; and, were I to do so, the state of my health would prevent me from taking such a part in themeeting as would relieve me from the responsibility of seeming tosanction anything in its action which might conflict with my own views ofduty or policy. Yet I should do myself great injustice if I did notembrace this occasion to express my general sympathy with the movement. I have seen no good reason why mothers, wives, and daughters should nothave the same right of person, property, and citizenship which fathers, husbands, and brothers have. 

The sacred memory of mother and sister; the wisdom and dignity of womenof my own religious communion who have been accustomed to something likeequality in rights as well as duties; my experience as a co-worker withnoble and self-sacrificing women, as graceful and helpful in theirhousehold duties as firm and courageous in their public advocacy ofunpopular truth; the steady friendships which have inspired andstrengthened me, and the reverence and respect which I feel for humannature, irrespective of sex, compel me to look with something more thanacquiescence on the efforts you are making. I frankly confess that I amnot able to forsee all the consequences of the great social and politicalchange proposed, but of this I am, at least, sure, it is always safe todo right, and the truest expediency is simple justice. I can understand, without sharing, the misgivings of those who fear that, when the votedrops from woman's hand into the ballot-box, the beauty and sentiment, the bloom and sweetness, of womankind will go with it. But in thismatter it seems to me that we can trust Nature. Stronger than statutesor conventions, she will be conservative of all that the true man lovesand honors in woman. Here and there may be found an equivocal, unsexedChevalier D'Eon, but the eternal order and fitness of things will remain. I have no fear that man will be less manly or woman less womanly whenthey meet on terms of equality before the law. 

On the other hand, I do not see that the exercise of the ballot by womanwill prove a remedy for all the evils of which she justly complains. Itis her right as truly as mine, and when she asks for it, it is somethingless than manhood to withhold it. But, unsupported by a more practicaleducation, higher aims, and a deeper sense of the responsibilities oflife and duty, it is not likely to prove a blessing in her hands any morethan in man's. 

With great respect and hearty sympathy, I am very truly thy friend. 

 ITALIAN UNITY

 AMESBURY, MASS. , 1st Mo. , 4th, 1871. 

 Read at the great meeting in New York, January, 1871, in celebration of the freedom of Rome and complete unity of Italy. 

IT would give me more than ordinary satisfaction to attend the meeting onthe 12th instant for the celebration of Italian Unity, the emancipationof Rome, and its occupation as the permanent capital of the nation. 

For many years I have watched with deep interest and sympathy the popularmovement on the Italian peninsula, and especially every effort for thedeliverance of Rome from a despotism counting its age by centuries. Ilooked at these struggles of the people with little reference to theirecclesiastical or sectarian bearings. Had I been a Catholic instead of aProtestant, I should have hailed every symptom of Roman deliverance fromPapal rule, occupying, as I have, the standpoint of a republican radical, desirous that all men, of all creeds, should enjoy the civil libertywhich I prized so highly for myself. 

I lost all confidence in the French republic of 1849, when it forfeitedits own right to exist by crushing out the newly formed Roman republicunder Mazzini and Garibaldi. From that hour it was doomed, and theexpiation of its monstrous crime is still going on. My sympathies arewith Jules Favre and Leon Gambetta in their efforts to establish andsustain a republic in France, but I confess that the investment of Parisby King William seems to me the logical sequence of the bombardment ofRome by Oudinot. And is it not a significant fact that the terriblechassepot, which made its first bloody experiment upon the halfarmedItalian patriots without the walls of Rome, has failed in the hands ofFrench republicans against the inferior needle-gun of Prussia? It wassaid of a fierce actor in the old French Revolution that he demoralizedthe guillotine. The massacre at Mentana demoralized the chassepot. 

It is a matter of congratulation that the redemption of Rome has beeneffected so easily and bloodlessly. The despotism of a thousand yearsfell at a touch in noiseless rottenness. The people of Rome, fifty toone, cast their ballots of condemnation like so many shovelfuls of earthupon its grave. Outside of Rome there seems to be a very generalacquiescence in its downfall. No Peter the Hermit preaches a crusade inits behalf. No one of the great Catholic powers of Europe lifts a fingerfor it. Whatever may be the feelings of Isabella of Spain and thefugitive son of King Bomba, they are in no condition to come to itsrescue. It is reserved for American ecclesiastics, loud-mouthed inprofessions of democracy, to make solemn protest against what they callan "outrage, " which gives the people of Rome the right of choosing theirown government, and denies the divine right of kings in the person of PioNono. 

The withdrawal of the temporal power of the Pope will prove a blessing tothe Catholic Church, as well as to the world. Many of its most learnedand devout priests and laymen have long seen the necessity of such achange, which takes from it a reproach and scandal that could no longerbe excused or tolerated. A century hence it will have as few apologistsas the Inquisition or the massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

In this hour of congratulation let us not forget those whose sufferingand self-sacrifice, in the inscrutable wisdom of Providence, prepared theway for the triumph which we celebrate. As we call the long, illustriousroll of Italian patriotism--the young, the brave, and beautiful; thegray-haired, saintly confessors; the scholars, poets, artists, who, shutout from human sympathy, gave their lives for God and country in theslow, dumb agony of prison martyrdom--let us hope that they also rejoicewith us, and, inaudible to earthly ears, unite in our thanksgiving:"Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! He hath avenged theblood of his servants!"

In the belief that the unity of Italy and the overthrow of Papal rulewill strengthen the cause of liberty throughout the civilized' world, Iam very truly thy friend. 

 INDIAN CIVILIZATION. 

THE present condition and future prospects of the remnants of theaboriginal inhabitants of this continent can scarcely be a matter ofindifference to any class of the people of the United States. Apart fromall considerations of justice and duty, a purely selfish regard to ourown well-being would compel attention to the subject. The irreversiblelaws of God's moral government, and the well-attested maxims of politicaland social economy, leave us in no doubt that the suffering, neglect, andwrong of one part of the community must affect all others. A commonresponsibility rests upon each and all to relieve suffering, enlightenignorance, and redress wrong, and the penalty of neglect in this respectno nation has ever escaped. 

It is only within a comparatively recent period that the term IndianCivilization could be appropriately used in this country. Very littlereal progress bad been made in this direction, up to the time whenCommissioner Lang in 1844 visited the tribes now most advanced. Solittle had been done, that public opinion had acquiesced in theassumption that the Indians were not susceptible of civilization andprogress. The few experiments had not been calculated to assure asuperficial observer. 

The unsupported efforts of Elliot in New England were counteracted by theimprisonment, and in some instances the massacre of his "prayingIndians, " by white men under the exasperation of war with hostile tribes. The salutary influence of the Moravians and Friends in Pennsylvania wasgreatly weakened by the dreadful massacre of the unarmed and blamelessconverts of Gnadenhutten. But since the first visit of CommissionerLang, thirty-three years ago, the progress of education, civilization, and conversion to Christianity, has been of a most encouraging nature, and if Indian civilization was ever a doubtful problem, it has beenpractically solved. 

The nomadic habits and warlike propensities of the native tribes areindeed formidable but not insuperable difficulties in the way of theirelevation. The wildest of them may compare not unfavorably with thoseNorthern barbarian hordes that swooped down upon Christian Europe, andwho were so soon the docile pupils and proselytes of the peoples they hadconquered. The Arapahoes and Camanches of our day are no further removedfrom the sweetness and light of Christian culture than were theScandinavian Sea Kings of the middle centuries, whose gods were patronsof rapine and cruelty, their heaven a vast, cloud-built ale-house, whereghostly warriors drank from the skulls of their victims, and whose hellwas a frozen horror of desolation and darkness, to be avoided only bydiligence in robbery and courage in murder. The descendants of thesehuman butchers are now among the best exponents of the humanizinginfluence of the gospel of Christ. The report of the Superintendent ofthe remnants of the once fierce and warlike Six Nations, now peaceableand prosperous in Canada, shows that the Indian is not inferior to theNorse ancestors of the Danes and Norwegians of our day in capability ofimprovement. 

It is scarcely necessary to say, what is universally conceded, that thewars waged by the Indians against the whites have, in nearly everyinstance, been provoked by violations of solemn treaties and systematicdisregard of their rights of person, property, and life. The letter ofBishop Whipple, of Minnesota, to the New York Tribune of second month, 1877, calls attention to the emphatic language of Generals Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Augur, written after a full and searchinginvestigation of the subject: "That the Indian goes to war is notastonishing: he is often compelled to do so: wrongs are borne by him insilence, which never fail to drive civilized men to deeds of violence. The best possible way to avoid war is to do no injustice. "

It is not difficult to understand the feelings of the unfortunate pioneersettlers on the extreme borders of civilization, upon whom the blindvengeance of the wronged and hunted Indians falls oftener than upon thereal wrong-doers. They point to terrible and revolting cruelties asproof that nothing short of the absolute extermination of the race canprevent their repetition. But a moment's consideration compels us toadmit that atrocious cruelty is not peculiar to the red man. "All warsare cruel, " said General Sherman, and for eighteen centuries Christendomhas been a great battle-field. What Indian raid has been more dreadfulthan the sack of Magdeburg, the massacre of Glencoe, the namelessatrocities of the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the murders of St. Bartholomew's day, the unspeakable agonies of the South of France underthe demoniac rule of revolution! All history, black with crime and redwith blood, is but an awful commentary upon "man's inhumanity to man, "and it teaches us that there is nothing exceptional in the Indian'sferocity and vindictiveness, and that the alleged reasons for hisextermination would, at one time or another, have applied with equalforce to the whole family of man. 

A late lecture of my friend, Stanley Pumphrey, comprises more of valuableinformation and pertinent suggestions on the Indian question than I havefound in any equal space; and I am glad of the opportunity to add to itmy hearty endorsement, and to express the conviction that its generalcirculation could not fail to awaken a deeper and more kindly interest inthe condition of the red man, and greatly aid in leading the public mindto a fuller appreciation of the responsibility which rests upon us as apeople to rectify, as far as possible, past abuses, and in our futurerelations to the native owners of the soil to "deal justly and lovemercy. "

READING FOR THE BLIND. 

[1880. ]

To Mary C. Moore, teacher in the Perkins Asylum. 

DEAR FRIEND, --It gives me great pleasure to know that the pupils in thyclass at the Institution for the Blind have the opportunity afforded themto read through the sense of touch some of my writings, and thus holdwhat I hope will prove a pleasant communion with me. Very glad I shallbe if the pen-pictures of nature, and homely country firesides, which Ihave tried to make, are understood and appreciated by those who cannotdiscern them by natural vision. I shall count it a great privilege tosee for them, or rather to let them see through my eyes. It is the mindafter all that really sees, shapes, and colors all things. What visionsof beauty and sublimity passed before the inward and spiritual sight ofblind Milton and Beethoven!

I have an esteemed friend, Morrison Hendy, of Kentucky, who is deaf andblind; yet under these circumstances he has cultivated his mind to a highdegree, and has written poems of great beauty, and vivid descriptions ofscenes which have been witnessed only by the "light within. "

I thank thee for thy letter, and beg of thee to assure the students thatI am deeply interested in their welfare and progress, and that my prayeris that their inward and spiritual eyes may become so clear that they canwell dispense with the outward and material ones. 

THE INDIAN QUESTION. 

Read at the meeting in Boston, May, 1883, for the consideration of thecondition of the Indians in the United States. 

AMESBURY, 4th mo. , 1883. 

I REGRET that I cannot be present at the meeting called in reference tothe pressing question of the day, the present condition and futureprospects of the Indian race in the United States. The old policy, however well intended, of the government is no longer available. Thewestward setting tide of immigration is everywhere sweeping over thelines of the reservations. There would seem to be no power in thegovernment to prevent the practical abrogation of its solemn treaties andthe crowding out of the Indians from their guaranteed hunting grounds. Outbreaks of Indian ferocity and revenge, incited by wrong and robbery onthe part of the whites, will increasingly be made the pretext ofindiscriminate massacres. The entire question will soon resolve itselfinto the single alternative of education and civilization orextermination. 

The school experiments at Hampton, Carlisle, and Forest Grove in Oregonhave proved, if such proof were ever needed, that the roving Indian canbe enlightened and civilized, taught to work and take interest anddelight in the product of his industry, and settle down on his farm or inhis workshop, as an American citizen, protected by and subject to thelaws of the republic. What is needed is that not only these schoolsshould be more liberally supported, but that new ones should be openedwithout delay. The matter does not admit of procrastination. The workof education and civilization must be done. The money needed must becontributed with no sparing hand. The laudable example set by theFriends and the American Missionary Association should be followed byother sects and philanthropic societies. Christianity, patriotism, andenlightened self interest have a common stake in the matter. Great anddifficult as the work may be the country is strong enough, rich enough, wise enough, and, I believe, humane and Christian enough to do it. 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Read at a meeting of the Essex Club, in Boston, November, 1885. 

AMESBURY, 11th Mo. , 10, 1885. 

I AM sorry that I cannot accept thy invitation to attend the meeting ofthe Essex Club on the 14th inst. I should be glad to meet my oldRepublican friends and congratulate them on the results of the electionin Massachusetts, and especially in our good old county of Essex. 

Some of our friends and neighbors, who have been with us heretofore, lastyear saw fit to vote with the opposite party. I would be the last todeny their perfect right to do so, or to impeach their motives, but Ithink they were mistaken in expecting that party to reform the abuses andevils which they complained of. President Cleveland has proved himselfbetter than his party, and has done and said some good things which Igive him full credit for, but the instincts of his party are against him, and must eventually prove too strong for him, and, instead of hiscarrying the party, it will be likely to carry him. It has alreadycompelled him to put his hands in his pockets for electioneeringpurposes, and travel all the way from Washington to Buffalo to give hisvote for a spoilsman and anti-civil service machine politician. I wouldnot like to call it a case of "offensive partisanship, " but it looks agood deal like it. 

As a Republican from the outset, I am proud of the noble record of theparty, but I should rejoice to see its beneficent work taken up by theDemocratic party and so faithfully carried on as to make our organizationno longer necessary. But, as far as we can see, the Republican party hasstill its mission and its future. When labor shall everywhere have itsjust reward, and the gains of it are made secure to the earners; wheneducation shall be universal, and, North and South, all men shall havethe free and full enjoyment of civil rights and privileges, irrespectiveof color or former condition; when every vice which debases the communityshall be discouraged and prohibited, and every virtue which elevates itfostered and strengthened; when merit and fitness shall be the conditionsof office; and when sectional distrust and prejudice shall give place towell-merited confidence in the loyalty and patriotism of all, then willthe work of the Republican party, as a party, be ended, and all politicalrivalries be merged in the one great party of the people, with no otheraim than the common welfare, and no other watchwords than peace, liberty, and union. Then may the language which Milton addressed to hiscountrymen two centuries ago be applied to the United States, "Go on, hand in hand, O peoples, never to be disunited; be the praise and heroicsong of all posterity. Join your invincible might to do worthy andgodlike deeds; and then he who seeks to break your Union, a cleavingcurse be his inheritance. "

OUR DUMB RELATIONS. 

[1886. ]

IT was said of St. Francis of Assisi, that he had attained, through thefervor of his love, the secret of that deep amity with God and Hiscreation which, in the language of inspiration, makes man to be in leaguewith the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peacewith him. The world has never been without tender souls, with whom thegolden rule has a broader application than its letter might seem towarrant. The ancient Eastern seers recognized the rights of the brutecreation, and regarded the unnecessary taking of the life of the humblestand meanest as a sin; and in almost all the old religions of the worldthere are legends of saints, in the depth of whose peace with God andnature all life was sacredly regarded as the priceless gift of heaven, and who were thus enabled to dwell safely amidst lions and serpents. 

It is creditable to human nature and its unperverted instincts thatstories and anecdotes of reciprocal kindness and affection between menand animals are always listened to with interest and approval. Howpleasant to think of the Arab and his horse, whose friendship has beencelebrated in song and romance. Of Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, and hisbequest to the birds. Of the English Quaker, visited, wherever he went, by flocks of birds, who with cries of joy alighted on his broad-brimmedhat and his drab coat-sleeves. Of old Samuel Johnson, when half-blindand infirm, groping abroad of an evening for oysters for his cat. OfWalter Scott and John Brown, of Edinburgh, and their dogs. Of our ownThoreau, instinctively recognized by bird and beast as a friend. Emersonsays of him: "His intimacy with animals suggested what Thomas Fullerrecords of Butler, the apologist, that either he had told the beesthings, or the bees had told him. Snakes coiled round his legs; thefishes swam into his hand; he pulled the woodchuck out of his hole by histail, and took foxes under his protection from the hunters. "

In the greatest of the ancient Hindu poems--the sacred book of theMahabharata--there is a passage of exceptional beauty and tenderness, which records the reception of King Yudishthira at the gate of Paradise. A pilgrim to the heavenly city, the king had travelled over vast spaces, and, one by one, the loved ones, the companions of his journey, had allfallen and left him alone, save his faithful dog, which still followed. He was met by Indra, and invited to enter the holy city. But the kingthinks of his friends who have fallen on the way, and declines to go inwithout them. The god tells him they are all within waiting for him. Joyful, he is about to seek them, when he looks upon the poor dog, who, weary and wasted, crouches at his feet, and asks that he, too, may enterthe gate. Indra refuses, and thereupon the king declares that to abandonhis faithful dumb friend would be as great a sin as to kill a Brahmin. 

 "Away with that felicity whose price is to abandon the faithful! Never, come weal or woe, will I leave my faithful dog. The poor creature, in fear and distress, has trusted in my power to save him; Not, therefore, for life itself, will I break my plighted word. "

In full sight of heaven he chooses to go to hell with his dog, andstraightway descends, as he supposes, thither. But his virtue andfaithfulness change his destination to heaven, and he finds himselfsurrounded by his old friends, and in the presence of the gods, who thushonor and reward his humanity and unselfish love. 

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION. 

Read at the reception in Boston of the English delegation representingmore than two hundred members of the British Parliament who favorinternational arbitration. 

AMESBURY, 11th Mo. , 9, 1887. 

IT is a very serious disappointment to me not to be able to be present atthe welcome of the American Peace Society to the delegation of more thantwo hundred members of the British Parliament who favor internationalarbitration. Few events have more profoundly impressed me than thepresentation of this peaceful overture to the President of the UnitedStates. It seems to me that every true patriot who seeks the bestinterests of his country and every believer in the gospel of Christ mustrespond to the admirable address of Sir Lyon Playfair and that of hiscolleagues who represented the workingmen of England. We do not need tobe told that war is always cruel, barbarous, and brutal; whether used byprofessed Christians with ball and bayonet, or by heathen with club andboomerang. We cannot be blind to its waste of life and treasure and thedemoralization which follows in its train; nor cease to wonder at thespectacle of Christian nations exhausting all their resources inpreparing to slaughter each other, with only here and there a voice, likeCount Tolstoi's in the Russian wilderness, crying in heedless ears thatthe gospel of Christ is peace, not war, and love, not hatred. 

The overture which comes to us from English advocates of arbitration is acheering assurance that the tide of sentiment is turning in favor ofpeace among English speaking peoples. I cannot doubt that whatever stumporators and newspapers may say for party purposes, the heart of Americawill respond to the generous proposal of our kinsfolk across the water. No two nations could be more favorably conditioned than England and theUnited States for making the "holy experiment of arbitration. "

In our associations and kinship, our aims and interests, our commonclaims in the great names and achievements of a common ancestry, we areessentially one people. Whatever other nations may do, we at leastshould be friends. God grant that the noble and generous attempt shallnot be in vain! May it hasten the time when the only rivalry between usshall be the peaceful rivalry of progress and the gracious interchange ofgood. 

 "When closer strand shall lean to strand, Till meet beneath saluting flags, The eagle of our mountain crags, The lion of our mother land!"

SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 

Read at the Woman's Convention at Washington. 

OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS. , Third Mo. , 8, 1888. 

I THANK thee for thy kind letter. It would be a great satisfaction to beable to be present at the fortieth anniversary of the Woman's SuffrageAssociation. But, as that is not possible, I can only reiterate myhearty sympathy with the object of the association, and bid it take heartand assurance in view of all that has been accomplished. There is noeasy royal road to a reform of this kind, but if the progress has beenslow there has been no step backward. The barriers which at first seemedimpregnable in the shape of custom and prejudice have been undermined andtheir fall is certain. A prophecy of your triumph at no distant day isin the air; your opponents feel it and believe it. They know that yoursis a gaining and theirs a losing cause. The work still before youdemands on your part great patience, steady perseverance, a firm, dignified, and self-respecting protest against the injustice of which youhave so much reason to complain, and of serene confidence which is notdiscouraged by temporary checks, nor embittered by hostile criticism, norprovoked to use any weapons of retort, which, like the boomerang, fallback on the heads of those who use them. You can affordin your consciousness of right to be as calm and courteous as thearchangel Michael, who, we are told in Scripture in his controversy withSatan himself, did not bring a railing accusation against him. A wiseadaptation of means to ends is no yielding of principle, but care shouldbe taken to avoid all such methods as have disgraced political andreligious parties of the masculine sex. Continue to make it manifestthat all which is pure and lovely and of good repute in womanhood isentirely compatible with the exercise of the rights of citizenship, andthe performance of the duties which we all owe to our homes and ourcountry. Confident that you will do this, and with no doubt or misgivingas to your success, I bid you Godspeed. I find I have written to theassociation rather than to thyself, but as one of the principaloriginators and most faithful supporters, it was very natural that Ishould identify thee with it.