THE GARDEN. 231 



Who that contemplates the day of Pentecost 

 can deny this ? Could not the same Omnipotence 

 have rendered one dialect intelligible to all hearers, 

 at no greater expense of miraculous power, than 

 was required to pour at once the eloquence of 

 more than fifty various languages from the lips of 

 twelve unlettered men? It was the divine will, 

 that each should hear them speak in his own 

 tongue, the wonderful works of God : and shall 

 our poor sister sit desolate upon her green moun- 

 tains, excluded, through our iniquitous neglect, 

 from sharing the privilege that was extended to the 

 swarthy Egyptian, and the dweller of the distant 

 desert — that is now carried out alike to the in- 

 habitant of polar regions, and to the South-sea 

 islander, to the wild hunter in his western forest, 

 to the Brahmin, in his eastern fane, and which in 

 his own uncouth dialect, speaks words of peace in 

 the Hottentot's kraal ? It is a foul spot in our 

 feasts of excursive charity, to have those of our 

 own household sit famishing at the portal : it is a 

 denying of the faith — it is an aggravation of some- 

 thing worse than infidelity. But, blessed be God ! 

 the odious stain is in the hands of the scourer; 

 and fuller's soap will, ere long, whiten this defiled 

 garment of ours. It must be so : for the Lord 

 puts such persuasive words into the mouths of 

 those who plead for our poor sister, that many 

 were, on that day, constrained to lay down for a 



