Vol. I. Philadelphia, Twelfth Month, 1820. No. 12.
FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.
In my last number I availed myselfof the occasion, to dwell with someemphasis, on the necessity and advantageof retrospection. The past isrife with lessons of experience, fittedto serve as waymarks and beacons,for the government of human conductin the subsequent course. Obviousas this may appear, it is neverthelesslamentably true, as the venerableJohn Adams has somewhereobserved, that our attention is too frequentlymonopolized in the pursuit ofpresent enjoyment, and that each succeedinggeneration is not satisfied,until it "has made experience for itself."It is, however, gratifying tobelieve, that many are not so unmindfulof their real interests, and so destituteof true wisdom; but are onproper occasions employed, in "lookingbefore and after." To these noapology will be necessary, for recommendinga preparation for those duties,which appertain to the severeand dreary season, upon which we arenow entering. A season, above allothers calculated, to illustrate the generousand benevolent principles ofour nature; and which calls mostloudly and authoritatively for their exercise.When indigence is giftedwith peculiar eloquence, which thepowers of a Burke or an Ames, couldscarcely heighten. We are fortunatelyso constituted, that the sight of distressis amply sufficient to awaken oursympathy, without requiring by aconclusive moral deduction, the establishmentof the fact, that it is ourduty to sympathize with the objectsof it. Ere long a wide field will presentitself for mitigating the sufferingsand relieving the wants of
THE POOR.
The most efficacious preventive,of the evils attendant on poverty, isthe general and extensive applicationof mental and moral discipline to therising generation. This is the onlyradical remedy for the disease; atruth, which should never be lostsight of, by forecasting statesmen andenlightened philanthropists. But theurgency and immediate pressure ofwant, requires prompt relief, not tobe derived from this source. Thearray of indigence will be unusuallygreat during the approaching winter,for even honest industry is frequentlydisappointed in its search afteremployment. Among the objects[442]of public beneficence there will generallybe found a considerable numberof this description, whose conditionis the result of misfortune alone;while the calamities of others, arethe consequences of vice and improvidence.But it should always be remembered,that wretchedness andmisery from whatever cause theymay proceed, are entitled to commiseration;and that genuine charity imitatesthough at infinite distance, theexample of our beneficent Creator,who "maketh his sun to rise onthe evil and on the good, and sendethrain on the just and on the unjust."
The most salutary mode of extendingrelief, is unquestionably that ofemployment. Idleness is uniformlyprejudicial to sound morals, and intrinsicallymischievous in its character.When alms are distributed itis moreover, far preferable to furnishthe necessaries of life, rathe