[JACK SIMPKINS.]
IT is a miserable thing to be born a philanthropist. Jack Simpkins can tell you that. He thinks that one ought not to be merry, while the world is so much out of joint. When his sister Betty tells him that cheerfulness conduces to longevity, and that it is useless to make one's self miserable about inevitables, Jack lifts his eyebrows and accuses her of triviality and want of feeling. Not long since this pair went into a place which shall be nameless, for some refreshment, after an evening's public entertainment. While they were waiting to be served, Jack's eye fell on the clerk at the desk, who, pen behind his ear, was taking money and making change. "Betty," said Jack, "look at that poor devil; week in and week out, there he stands, seeing other people eat and counting money. Now, I'll be sworn he has never a holiday, and not even Sunday. Do you suppose he has, Betty?"—"I am sure I don't know," Betty replied, looking over a tempting bill of fare, with the accompaniment of an extended forefinger; "he is a man, isn't he? and that implies every kind of liberty. Were he a woman, and restricted to the choice of one or two occupations, and not half paid at that, I might possibly make myself unhappy about it; as it is, let us have some oysters, and be jolly."—"But," persisted Jack, "just think of his confined position, and—"—"But I don't want to think about it," said Betty; "this is a free country; and if he don't like his place, can't he leave it? Come, Jack, eat your oysters." To do Jack justice, he did eat with a will; for such a wide-spread benevolence as his is never supported on an empty stomach.
The oysters eaten, Betty congratulated herself that Jack felt more cheerful. Not a bit of it. While she stood, like a hen on one leg, waiting for him to "settle" at the clerk's desk, he remarked to the latter, in a melancholy, commiserating tone, "Your situation here must be a very tiresome and confining one; don't you find it so?"—"Not at all," replied the clerk, blandly; "quite the contrary."—"Do you ever have a holiday; do you have Sundays?" asked Jack.—"Always when I wish," replied the clerk; "but I don't care to be away much. I see the best people in the city here, and I have a great deal of good conversation." Betty smiled inwardly. It was not in human nature—certainly not in female human nature—to refrain from crowing a little over what she considered Jack's Quixotic philanthropy; and when she laughed at his waste of pity, in this case, that infatuated man replied, "Is it possible you can make merry over it, Betty? Why, to my mind, his not 'caring for holidays' was the most melancholy feature of the whole thing; as showing how perfectly benumbed he must be, by such heartless exaction on the part of his employer."—"But you don't know anything about his employer," said Betty; "and it is evident that he could go out, any day he wished." Jack shrugged his shoulders, and replied, "Ah, yes—I know what that 'could' means, when a man's nature is yielding; ah—yes," and he gave another deep sigh. "Well," said Betty, getting a little irritated, "I don't know what you may think, but if my fellow-creatures are perfectly satisfied with their lot in life, I for one am not going to try to make them miserable about it." Whereupon Jack preached her a long lecture on the sin of selfishness, which quite stopped the process of oyster digestion, and sent her to bed to enjoy the horrors of a well-earned nightmare.
Once, when Betty and Jack were travelling, they stopped at a fine hotel. Everything was as perfect as skill and system could make it. Jack paid the bill, and Betty launched out in praise of the establishment. "Yes," said Jack, his face lengthening; "but I am afraid that landlord feeds his guests much better than he can afford. I don't think he charged as much as he ought in that bill of ours. I really feel as if he had cheated himself." Now, Betty's experience in this regard was entirely antagonistic to Jack's, so she replied, with an ironical and not very amiable expression, "that if the gift of a ten-dollar bill to the landlord would lighten her brother's conscience, she would be willing to engage that the former would by no means take offence at it."
Betty says that selfishness is not her besetting sin any more than it is Jack's; and, if you doubt it, you can ask him to transfer his glass of ale to you when he cannot get another, or you can read his daily paper before he does in the morning, and see what will come of it. She thinks it is not so much philanthropy in Jack, as that the off-side of a question has such an unconquerable attraction for him; in other words, that argument is his very breath; and, therefore, without vexing her spirit any more because he never will agree with her, she has instead made up her mind, that what side soever of a question a person takes when conversing with Jack, it is morally certain that no power in this world or the other will ever prevent him from going to the opposite.
["BIDING THE LORD'S TIME."]
IF there is one piece of advice more bandied about by irresolution, imbecility, and moral cowardice than this, I should be glad to know it. As I take it, the Lord's time is the first chance you get. At any rate, those who act on this principle have, as a general thing, done the Lord more service than they who have folded their hands and sat down upon the stool of conservatism to "bide His time," as they call it. All the great reformers who have blessed mankind have had pioneers, who looked upon "the Lord" as a helper, not a hindrance. The stumbling-blocks which for centuries had impeded progress they vigorously set about clearing away, without stopping to cross themselves for doing that which indolent or timid bystanders excused themselves from, as an irreverence.
This stealing of heaven's livery to serve the devil in, is of all thefts the most disgusting. This "fearing to offend a weaker brother" is a plea which self-interest should know by this time is getting to be transparent. If the weaker brother can't stand on his own vacillating legs, the rest of the world can't afford to spend their whole existence in propping him. Let him lie down till he can; or till the Juggernaut wheels of progress roll sufficiently near to force him to spring to his feet. I don't believe in weak brothers. They had better get out of the ranks and join the sisters. It may be the choice between the frying-pan and the fire; for, after all, the silliest woman who ever cried for a ribbon knows enough to dislike the male creature who is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. But the most trying time, when the platitude we are considering is thrust into the face by moral parrots, is when they would not lift a finger to ease the burden of a fellow-creature who is staggering and fainting before their very eyes; or when some heart-wrench is being agonized through, and your stoical consoler, who is himself impervious to every suffering save that which is purely physical, iterates in your sensitive ear, a string of such time-worn phrases, because he lacks heart to say, Poor soul—no wonder you writhe; how I wish I could comfort you! "The Lord"—and I say it not irreverently—is the first compassionate human arm which is thrown round the quivering sufferer when he needs it most. "The Lord" is the first outstretched human hand which grasps the moral suicide as the last strand of hope is parting. "The Lord" is the pitying human heart which draws to itself the poor outcast, and without unrolling his transgressions to the face of the broad day, stands firmly by his side, till he has won the self-respect to stand alone.