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Untitled Article
success , to ail the rest There is an antagonist power to the miseries of poverty in the constitution of our nature , the sympathies of humanity . We are framed to feel the pain we see ; slightly , it may be ; but not so slightly as to be powerless . . Appealing to no higher principle , we might yet tell such well-authenticated and easily verified tales of the unnatural mortality of untended infancy , and the long dying of untended age , and of the aggravations by penury , cold , and hunger , of " the common ills which flesh is heir to , " as would touch every bosom , and " Wing the willing haud that comes With succour from the heart . "
And let these sympathies be cherished . They were implanted as guardians within us of our brethren ' s rights . They are as tribunes in our bosoms who uplift their voices against the despotism of a hard-hearted selfishness . Let their remonstrances be regarded , and their dictates obeyed , by those who possess the conveniences and comforts of life . But this principle needs enlightenment and direction to render it most efficient . Individual charity is often unavailing , and often mischievous , from the limitation of its views . By not going to , by not perceiving , the root of the evil , it often multiplies what it would mitigate . It is corrected by a higher antagonist power to the evils of poverty , that of improvement in civil institutions . Here is
machinery to do far greater good , with far greater certainty . The arrangements of society may surely be so modified , as that , though comparative poverty may remain , yet its pestiferous atmosphere shall , in a great degree , be purified . Such hopes are not now the mere day-dreams which they were when Sir Thomas More wrote his Utopia . They are rapidly advancing towards that solid and practical consistency which every intelligent and benevolent man should endeavour to assist them to attain . Wallace ' s
" Prospects of Mankind , " the Social Contract of Rousseau , the speculations of Godwin , the wild agrarianism of Spence , the paternal school of Pestalozzi , the prophecies of the Millenarians , the co-operative system of Owen , and , far above all in distinctness and rationality , the social anticipations of St . Simon , are so many manifestations of a spirit labouring with a mass of incumbent difficulties ; like the lion , in Milton's creation , struggling to get free from the soil in which it was generated , with the assurance of ultimately succeeding , and running its natural race . Let the sufferings and degradation over which we mourn make us more intent upon the truth s -fc ^ e polestar of social conduct , that " the great object of public institutions should be the amelioration of the condition , physical , intellectual , and moral , of the poorest and most numerous class / ' But we must ascend higher yet . Institutions are only forms ; a spirit must be infused to give them life and power ; and that spirit is the gospel of Christ . Our religion sanctifies , guides , elevates , and crowns with blessing , the sympathies of the man , and the labours of the citizen . It prompts them to their proper office . It acts by
Untitled Article
300 The Claims of the Poor on the Followers of Christ .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 800, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/4/
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