CHAPTER XXVII.—THE UPLIFTING OF HUMANITY
THE following evening Roderick called at the Major’s home, and found a visitor there, a stranger yet very well known to him by reputation. This was no other than the Reverend Stephen Grannon, the travelling parson, of whose fame as a doer of good deeds at the cost of complete self-sacrifice and self-denial, Roderick had often heard.
“Delighted to see you, Roderick,” said the Major. “Come right in. You know, of course, the most noted man in the camp—the man with the saddle bags. What? Never met yet? Well, it is a great pleasure to me to make you two acquainted.”
After cordial greetings had been exchanged Major Hampton continued: “We have just been discussing some of the great problems of humanity. Pardon me, my dear friend, but I wish to say to Mr. Warfield that if I were called upon today to name the greatest humanitarian with whom I am acquainted I certainly should say—the Reverend Stephen Grannon.”
“You do me too much honor,” interposed the parson hastily. “You compliment me far too highly.” Major Hampton went on as if the Reverend Stephen Grannon had made no interruption: “The school of humanitarianism is small in number, but the combined results of their labors directed through the channels of service in the behalf of humanity bear the stamp of greatness. The sincere lover of his fellows recognizes that the poor of this world have borne and are still bearing the burdens of the race. The poor have built all the monuments along the world’s highway of civilization. They have produced all the wealth from the hills and from the soil The poor of the world have endured the hardships of conquering the wilds and erecting outposts on the border of civilization. Indeed they conquer everything except the fetters that bind them and hold them as an asset of great corporate power that is heartless and soulless and indifferent to the privations and sufferings of the individual.”
The Reverend Stephen Grannon gave it as his view that the mission of a humanitarian was not to hinder the world’s progress, nor even to prejudice anyone against the fortune gathering of the rich, but rather to dispell the darkness of injustice and assist the great army of the impoverished to a better understanding of their rights as well as their powers to conquer the evils that have throughout the ages crept into and clung to our civilization.
“Poverty,” he remarked, “is the cause of much misery and often the impelling motive to immorality and crime in many forms. Men often sell and barter their votes and birthrights in this free country to bribe givers—wily politicians—while our girls are not infrequently lured into selling their very souls for ribbons and the gaudiness and shams of the world.”
“What is the cure?” asked Roderick, greatly interested.
“The cure,” responded the preacher, “is the regeneration of mankind through the leavening and uplifting power of the principles taught by the humble humanitarian of Galilee, the great prince of righteousness.”
“Yes,” chimed in Major Hampton, “the Reverend Stephen Grannon has given you the solution for the problem. Add to this a higher education. The more highly educated the individual,” continued the Major, “the greater the crime if they break the law.”