II.

But it is to the beneficent and sublime influences of Christianity that are to be attributed the noble institutions of the present day, where the suffering and infirm receive the attentions of science and the consolations of humanity.

Never among civilized nations are they profaned for the purposes of cruelty, never defiled by murder under the mask of philanthropy.

Enlightened communities vie with each other in self-sacrifice in the great and heroic labor of devotion to suffering mortality. It is the distinguishing degree of difference in their excellence, their refinement, their religion.

It is the last thought and reflection of the dying man, who, in dividing his worldly material with charity and benevolence, hopes to be kindly remembered on earth. It is the first dawning idea of childhood, with its infant hands filled with roses and garlands of flowers to relieve the pains of human suffering, or adorn the pale features of the departed.

To delight in human misery is the last degree of earthly degradation and perversity. The mockery of the agony of death belongs only to the fiends of hell and their baser imitators.