PIIIX.ANTHRQPY. 
83 
praised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, 
he was kind to the poor; meaning himself. The kind 
uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its 
true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a 
reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and 
intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, 
and political worthies, Shakspeare, Bacon, Cromwell, 
Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian 
heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him, he 
elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the great¬ 
est of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. 
Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of 
this. The last were not England’s best men and 
women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists. 
I would not subtract any thing from the praise that is 
due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all 
who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. 
I do not value chiefly a man’s uprightness and benev¬ 
olence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. 
Those plants of whose greenness withered we make 
herb tea for the sick, serve but a humble use, and are 
most employed by quacks. I want the flower and 
fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over 
from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our inter¬ 
course. His goodness must not be a partial and tran¬ 
sitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him 
nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a 
charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philan¬ 
thropist too often surrounds mankind with the remem¬ 
brance of his own cast-off griefs as an atmosphere, and 
calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and 
not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, 
and take care that this does not spread by contagion* 
