IV.
It was requisite to the ensuing narrative to describe first the scene where its events took place. But it is of no less importance to point out in advance that profound moral truth, which is the starting-point from which this history begins, in the course of which, as we shall see, God manifested his power in a visible manner. These reflections will, moreover, delay only for an instant the commencement of our narrative.
Every one has noticed the striking contrasts presented by the various conditions of men who live on this earth, where wicked and good, rich and needy, are mingled together, and where a thin wall often separates the hovel from the palace. On one side are all the pleasures of life, softly arranged in the midst of rare delicacies, comfort, and the elegance of luxury; on the other, the horrors of want, cold, hunger, sickness, and all the sad train of human woes. For the former, adulation, joyous visits, charming friendships. For the latter, indifference, loneliness, and neglect. Whether it fears the importunity of his spoken or his mute appeals, or shrinks from the rebuke of his wretched nakedness, the world avoids the poor man, and makes its arrangements without regard to him. The rich form an exclusive circle, which they call "good society," and they regard as unworthy of serious attention the existence of those secondary but "indispensable" beings. When they hire the services of one of the latter—even when they are good people and accustomed to succor the needy—it is always in a patronizing way. They never use, in this case, the language and tone which they apply to one of their own kind. Except a few rare Christians, no one treats the poor man as an equal and a brother. Except the saint—alas! too rare in these days—who follows out the idea of looking upon the wretched as representing Christ! In the world, properly so called, the vast world, the poor are absolutely forsaken. Weighed down beneath the burden of toil and care, despised and abandoned, does it not seem as if they were cursed by their Maker? And, yet, it is just the contrary; they are the best beloved of the Father. While the world has been pronounced accursed by the infallible word of Christ, on the other hand, the poor, the suffering, the humble, are God's "good society." "Ye are my friends," he has said to them in his Gospel. He has done more; he has identified himself with them. "What you have done to the least of these, you have done also to me."
Moreover, when the Son of God came upon the earth, he chose to be born, and to live and die, among the poor, and to be a poor man. From the poor he selected his apostles and his principal disciples, the first-born of his church. And, in the long history of that same church, it is upon the poor that he lavishes his greatest spiritual favors. In every age, and with few exceptions, apparitions, visions, and particular revelations have been the privilege of those whom the world disdains. When, in his wisdom, God sees fit to manifest himself sensibly to men, by these mysterious phenomena, he descends into the dwellings of his servants and particular friends. And mark why he prefers the houses of the poor and humble. Two thousand years have only served to verify that saying of the apostle, "The weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong." (1 Cor. i. 27.)
The facts which we are about to state will perhaps furnish further proof of this truth.