Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh,
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.”
This may, perhaps, said Baron Alderson, in winding up a charge to a grand jury, whom he exhorted at that winter season to show sympathy and kindness to the distressed,—this, perhaps, may be one of the objects for which God sends suffering, that it may tend to re-unite those whom prosperity has severed. So Burns—
“O ye who, sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,