BOWELS OF MERCY. 227 



the depth of the Scriptural phrase " bowels of mercy," and of the 

 saying that those who are devoid of pity " have no bowels." The 

 reason or ratio of these common words is clear. For the good 

 services of the intestinal tube are the materiality of mercy. It 

 stands at the bottom of the vitals, where lowly mercy also stands, 

 for mercy must be at the bottom, or it could not have the poor and 

 needy for its objects. It is at the top also, but beginning from the 

 bottom ; for it is the glory of the crown above the head, and the 

 beauty of the feet of those who preach glad tidings. This mercy- 

 tube satisfies hunger and thirst, clothes naked ribs with fatness, and 

 lifts the starveling into the company of full men. Furthermore, it 

 is microscopically true to its charities; it raises the food from below, 

 taking the infant chyle from the earth, and lifting it towards the 

 blood ; and searches the unclean masses to redeem any parts that 

 can be saved. It yearns over the new offspring of the blood as a 

 mother over her children. Its gifts are unexpected and undeserved, 

 for the life and spirit of man are bestowed upon fruit, flesh and 

 herb. Long suffering is among its offices, for it makes the best of 

 whatever is put into it, and promotes our worst meals, forgiving the 

 abuses of our appetites seventy times seven. Granting that mercy 

 were enclosed for a time in a prison of bowels, what could it do but 

 what these entrails do ? This is the reason why mercy, the full 

 name for sensibilities, associates with the intestinal functions. It 

 matters not whether the work takes place in a city, in a man, in an 

 organ, or in a molecule. Wherever the hungry is fed, the low 

 raised up, the prisoner let out, the erring forgiven, or desert ex- 

 ceeded in blessings, there Mercy lives.* But these works are every- 

 where, in every assimilative act (p. 166), and hence, wherever 

 ground extends, there are processions of chyle-white sisters of mercy, 

 carrying the world up their ladders, and passing from the dust to 

 God. Man feels the influences of the hierarchy as it passes through 



* We observed before (p. 182), that intellectual heat makes human heat; and 

 now we observe that mercy, or the assimilation of the low to the high, makes 

 human assimilation, or the conversion of food into man's blood. The latter can 

 go on apart for a time, even for generations, but not for the long run, and it is the 

 long run, or the end, that contradistinguishes man from the beasts, or separates 

 human from animal assimilation. 



