PHILANTHROPY. 
85 
which I could lecture against. If you should ever be 
betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let 
your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is 
not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your 
shoe-strings. Take your time, and set about some free 
labor. 
Our manners have been corrupted by communication 
with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melo¬ 
dious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One 
would say that even the prophets and redeemers had 
rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of 
man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irre¬ 
pressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memo¬ 
rable praise of God. All health and success does me 
good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; 
all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does 
me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me 
or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore man¬ 
kind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, 
let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, 
dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and 
take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be 
an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of 
the worthies of the world. 
I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik 
Sadi of Shiraz, that “ They asked a wise man, saying; 
Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God 
has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, 
or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; 
what mystery is there in this ? He replied; Each has 
its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during 
the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and 
during their absence dry and withered; to neither of 
