The object is to lend a helping hand to the many who show a desire of reformation, but have hitherto been inevitably repelled into infamy by the lack of friends to find them honest employment, and a temporary refuge till it can be procured. Efforts will be made to instruct them how to break up bad habits, and begin a healthy course for body and mind.
The house has in it scarcely any thing. It is a true Lazarus establishment, asking for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. Old furniture would be acceptable, clothes, books that are no longer needed by their owners.
This statement we make in appealing to the poor, though they are, usually, the most generous. Not that they are, originally, better than the rich, but circumstances have fitted them to appreciate the misfortunes, the trials, the wrongs that beset those a little lower than themselves. But we have seen too many instances where those who were educated in luxury would cast aside sloth and selfishness with eagerness when once awakened to better things, not to hope in appealing to the rich also.
And to all we appeal: to the poor, who will know how to sympathize with those who are not only poor but degraded, diseased, likely to be hurried onward to a shameful, hopeless death; to the rich, to equalize the advantages of which they have received more than their share; to men, to atone for wrongs inflicted by men on that "weaker sex," who should, they say, be soft, confiding, dependent on them for protection; to women, to feel for those who have not been guarded either by social influence or inward strength from that first mistake which the opinion of the world makes irrevocable for women alone. Since their danger is so great, their fall so remediless, let mercies be multiplied when there is a chance of that partial restoration which society at present permits.
In New York we have come little into contact with that class of society which has a surplus of leisure at command; but in other cities we have, found in their ranks many—some men, more women—who wanted only a decided object and clear light to fill the noble office of disinterested educators and guardians to their less fortunate fellows. It has been our happiness, in not a few instances, by merely apprising such persons of what was to be done, to rouse that generous spirit which relieved them from ennui and a gradual ossification of the whole system, and transferred them into a thoughtful, sympathetic, and beneficent existence. Such, no doubt, are near us here, if we could but know it. A poet writes thus of the cities:—
Cities of proud hotels,
Houses of rich and great,
A stack of smoking chimneys,
A roof of frozen slate!
It cannot conquer folly,
Time, and space, conquering steam,
And the light, outspeeding telegraph,
Bears nothing on its beam.
The politics are base,
The letters do not cheer,
And 'tis far in the deeps of history,
The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets insnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn,
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.
Yet there in the parlor sits
Some figure of noble guise,
Our angel in a stranger's form,
Or woman's pleading eyes.
Or only a flashing sunbeam
In at the window pane,
Or music pours on mortals
Its beautiful disdain.
These "pleading eyes," these "angels in strangers' forms," we meet, or seem to meet, as we pass through the thoroughfares of this great city. We do not know their names or homes. We cannot go to those still and sheltered abodes and tell them the tales that would be sure to awaken the heart to a deep and active interest in this matter. But should these words meet their eyes, we would say, "Have you entertained your leisure hours with the Mysteries of Paris, or the pathetic story of Violet Woodville?" Then you have some idea how innocence, worthy of the brightest planet, may be betrayed by want, or by the most generous tenderness; how the energies of a noble reformation may lie hidden beneath the ashes of a long burning, as in the case of "La Louve." You must have felt that yourselves are not better, only more protected children of God than these. Do you want to link these fictions, which have made you weep, with facts around you where your pity might be of use? Go to the Penitentiary at Blackwell's Island. You may be repelled by seeing those who are in health while at work together, keeping up one another's careless spirit and effrontery by bad association. But see them in the Hospital,—where the worn features of the sick show the sad ruins of past loveliness, past gentleness. See in the eyes of the nurses the woman's spirit still, so kindly, so inspiring. See those little girls huddled in a corner, their neglected dress and hair contrasting with some ribbon of cherished finery held fast in a childish hand. Think what "sweet seventeen" was to you, and what it is to them, and see if you do not wish to aid in any enterprise that gives them a chance of better days. We assume no higher claim for this enterprise. The dreadful social malady which creates the need of it, is one that imperatively demands deep-searching, preventive measures; it is beyond cure. But, here and there, some precious soul may be saved from unwilling sin, unutterable woe. Is not the hope to save here and there one worthy of great and persistent sacrifice?
THE RICH MAN.
An Ideal Sketch.
IN my walks through this city, the sight of spacious and expensive dwelling-houses now in process of building, has called up the following reverie.
All benevolent persons, whether deeply-thinking on, or deeply-feeling, the woes, difficulties, and dangers of our present social system, are agreed that either great improvements are needed, or a thorough reform.