The answer is obvious; to save a distressed herd of fellow-creatures from want.
And are they less worth saving now, their helplessness, unhappily, being the same? Was the novelty of their appearance and situation a plea more forcible than acquaintance with their merits? than the view of their harmless lives, their inoffensive manners, their patient resignation to the evils of their lot?
But—are we to give, ye cry, for ever?
Ah! rather, and for more generously, reverse the question, and, in their names exclaim, "Must we receive for ever? will the epoch never arrive when our injuries may be redressed, and our sufferings allowed the soft recompence of manifesting our gratitude?"
O happy donors! compare but thus your subjects for murmuring with the feelings of your receivers! and do not, because ye see them, bowed down by adversity, thus lowly grateful for the pittance that grants them bread and covering, imagine them so unlike the human race to which they belong, that sometimes, in bitterness of spirit, they can forbear the piercing recollection of better days; days, when beneficence flourished from their own deeds, when anguish and poverty were relieved by their own hands!
Still a little nearer let us bring reflexion home, and entreat those who having done much, would do no more, to suppose themselves, for a moment only, placed in l'Eglise des Carmes, in Paris, on the 2d of September, 1792, in full sight of the hapless assemblage of this pious fraternity, who there sought sanctuary—not for the crimes they had committed, but for the duty they had discharged to their consciences, not from just punishment of guilt, but from fury against innocence.
Here, then, behold these venerable men, collected in a body, enclosed within walls dedicated to holy offices, bewailing the flagitious actions of their country-men, yet devout, composed, earnest in prayer, and incorruptible in purity.
Now, then, in mental retrospection, witness the unheard-of massacre that ensued! Behold the ruffians that invade the sacred abode, each bearing in his hand some exterminating weapon; in his eye, a more than fiend-like ferocity. Can it be you they seek, ye men of peace? unarmed, defenceless, and sanctuarised within the precincts of your own religious functions!——Incredible!—