Charles Lamb, who was indeed worthy to be called a human being because of those refined sympathies, said, "You call him a gentleman: does his washerwoman find him so?" We may say, if she did, she found him a man, neither treating her with vulgar abruptness, nor giving himself airs of condescending liveliness, but treating her with that genuine respect which a feeling of equality inspires.
To doubt the veracity of another is an insult which in most civilized communities must in the so-called higher classes be atoned for by blood, but, in those same communities, the same men will, with the utmost lightness, doubt the truth of one who wears a ragged coat, and thus do all they can to injure and degrade him by assailing his self-respect, and breaking the feeling of personal honor—a wound to which hurts a man as a wound to its bark does a tree.
Then how rudely are favors conferred, just as a bone is thrown to a dog! A gentleman, indeed, will not do that without accompanying signs of sympathy and regard. Just as this woman said, "If you have told the truth I will go and see your mother," are many acts performed on which the actors pride themselves as kind and charitable.
All men might learn from the French in these matters. That people, whatever be their faults, are really well bred, and many acts might be quoted from their romantic annals, where gifts were given from rich to poor with a graceful courtesy, equally honorable and delightful to the giver and the receiver.
In Catholic countries there is more courtesy, for charity is there a duty, and must be done for God's sake; there is less room for a man to give himself the pharisaical tone about it. A rich man is not so surprised to find himself in contact with a poor one; nor is the custom of kneeling on the open pavement, the silk robe close to the beggar's rags, without profit. The separation by pews, even on the day when all meet nearest, is as bad for the manners as the soul.
Blessed be he, or she, who has passed through this world, not only with an open purse and willingness to render the aid of mere outward benefits, but with an open eye and open heart, ready to cheer the downcast, and enlighten the dull by words of comfort and looks of love. The wayside charities are the most valuable both as to sustaining hope and diffusing knowledge, and none can render them who has not an expansive nature, a heart alive to affection, and some true notion, however imperfectly developed, of the meaning of human brotherhood.
Such a one can never sauce the given meat with taunts, freeze the viand by a cold glance of doubt, or plunge the man, who asked for his hand, deeper back into the mud by any kind of rudeness.
In the little instance with which we began, no help was asked, unless by the sight of the timid little boy's old jacket. But the license which this seemed to the well-clothed woman to give to rudeness, was so characteristic of a deep fault now existing, that a volume of comments might follow and a host of anecdotes be drawn from almost any one's experience in exposition of it. These few words, perhaps, may awaken thought in those who have drawn tears from other's eyes through an ignorance brutal, but not hopelessly so, if they are willing to rise above it.
CASSIUS M. CLAY.
THE meeting on Monday night at the Tabernacle was to us an occasion of deep and peculiar interest. It was deep, for the feelings there expressed and answered bore witness to the truth of our belief, that the sense of right is not dead, but only sleepeth in this nation. A man who is manly enough to appeal to it, will be answered, in feeling at least, if not in action, and while there is life there is hope. Those who so rapturously welcomed one who had sealed his faith by deeds of devotion, must yet acknowledge in their breasts the germs of like nobleness.