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Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our
selfishness which overrates it. A robust poor man, one sunny day
here in Concord, 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, Shakespeare, 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 greatest 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 anything 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.


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