Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Brotherly Love.
I ask you , notwithstanding your misanthropic tendencies , if you have not frequently found some kindly feeling for your fellow creatures struggling ivith dark and selfish passions ? Have you not felt a desire to travel out of your own personal existence , and to render a service to your fellow creatures ? Have you not felt there a want in your being , a thing indispensable to your complete happiness , a craving , a sound that wanted an echo
from some other human heart ? EeligionItself fails in eradicating the evil propensities of our nature , but it holds forth bright exemplars , which we can scarcely contemplate without desiring to imitate , and that desire , and the practise which it suggests , bring us nearer to the standard of perfection which it has reared . We cannot carry out in their entirety what a duty descended from heaven ought to shew us . Ail may not be able to
take to their bosom the penitent thief : and human purity , while it pities , may shrink from a repentant Magdalen . But is there no benefit to be derived from the contemplation of those exalted images of the divine light , irradiating the darkness of our moral atmosphere , and defining clearly the objects of perception , and the proper motives of action ? We can imitate what has been shown , and , by doing so , we approach nearer to the
precepts and practise of the Divine Original . Then the order which you deride , though a mere human institution , is an embodiment of the principle of love , which it would disseminate through society . It has had to contend with those various impediments which have obstructed the noblest and most permament institutions . It has been vilified , but those who are initiated well know that its object is to gather all within a cestus of brotherhood . "
How far Alfred , whose enthusiasm and rhetorical powers were aroused , would have carried him , or what effect they would have produced on his auditor , we cannot say , for here the discussion was interrupted by the appearance of a man who rushed up the road towards them , and , pale and panting , flung himself at their feet , beseeching their protection . It was Andre Buffon , who , in a hurried narrative , stated that he had
been drawn in the conscription which had commenced in the neighbourhood . He suppressed , however , the fact , that his imbecility would have been the means of his escaping , had it not been that his version of his encounter with Simon had reached the ears of one of the functionaries to whom the conscription in the town was intrusted , and impressed him so favourably respecting Andre ' s valourthat neither Ms lications nor
, supp those of his mother were listened to , and lie was ordered to prepare himself for immediate service . _ Alfred promised to do what he could towards procuring a substitute . Simon regarded him with a look of ineffable distrust , and waving his hand haughtily to Alfred , departed .
( To he continued . )
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Brotherly Love.
I ask you , notwithstanding your misanthropic tendencies , if you have not frequently found some kindly feeling for your fellow creatures struggling ivith dark and selfish passions ? Have you not felt a desire to travel out of your own personal existence , and to render a service to your fellow creatures ? Have you not felt there a want in your being , a thing indispensable to your complete happiness , a craving , a sound that wanted an echo
from some other human heart ? EeligionItself fails in eradicating the evil propensities of our nature , but it holds forth bright exemplars , which we can scarcely contemplate without desiring to imitate , and that desire , and the practise which it suggests , bring us nearer to the standard of perfection which it has reared . We cannot carry out in their entirety what a duty descended from heaven ought to shew us . Ail may not be able to
take to their bosom the penitent thief : and human purity , while it pities , may shrink from a repentant Magdalen . But is there no benefit to be derived from the contemplation of those exalted images of the divine light , irradiating the darkness of our moral atmosphere , and defining clearly the objects of perception , and the proper motives of action ? We can imitate what has been shown , and , by doing so , we approach nearer to the
precepts and practise of the Divine Original . Then the order which you deride , though a mere human institution , is an embodiment of the principle of love , which it would disseminate through society . It has had to contend with those various impediments which have obstructed the noblest and most permament institutions . It has been vilified , but those who are initiated well know that its object is to gather all within a cestus of brotherhood . "
How far Alfred , whose enthusiasm and rhetorical powers were aroused , would have carried him , or what effect they would have produced on his auditor , we cannot say , for here the discussion was interrupted by the appearance of a man who rushed up the road towards them , and , pale and panting , flung himself at their feet , beseeching their protection . It was Andre Buffon , who , in a hurried narrative , stated that he had
been drawn in the conscription which had commenced in the neighbourhood . He suppressed , however , the fact , that his imbecility would have been the means of his escaping , had it not been that his version of his encounter with Simon had reached the ears of one of the functionaries to whom the conscription in the town was intrusted , and impressed him so favourably respecting Andre ' s valourthat neither Ms lications nor
, supp those of his mother were listened to , and lie was ordered to prepare himself for immediate service . _ Alfred promised to do what he could towards procuring a substitute . Simon regarded him with a look of ineffable distrust , and waving his hand haughtily to Alfred , departed .
( To he continued . )