href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@4593@[email protected]#link2H_4_0031" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">ANTIDOTE FOR MELANCHOLY.

THE SORROWS OF A WEALTHY CITIZEN.

"WE'VE ALL OUR ANGEL SIDE."

BLIND JAMES.

DEPENDENCE.

TWO RIDES WITH THE DOCTOR.

KEEP IN STEP.

JOHNNY COLE.

THE THIEF AND HIS BENEFACTOR.

JOHN AND MARGARET GREYLSTON.

THE WORLD WOULD BE THE BETTER FOR IT.

TWO SIDES TO A STORY.

LITTLE KINDNESSES.

LEAVING OFF CONTENTION BEFORE IT BE MEDDLED WITH.

"ALL THE DAY IDLE."

THE BUSHEL OF CORN.

THE ACCOUNT.

CONTENTMENT BETTER THAN WEALTH.

RAINBOWS EVERYWHERE.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS.

GOOD IN ALL.

THERE IS GOOD IN ALL. Yes! we all believe it: not a man in the depth of his vanity but will yield assent. But do you not all, in practice, daily, hourly deny it? A beggar passes you in the street: dirty, ragged, importunate. "Ah! he has a bad look," and your pocket is safe. He starves—and he steals. "I thought he was bad." You educate him in the State Prison. He does not improve even in this excellent school. "He is," says the gaoler, "thoroughly bad." He continues his course of crime. All that is bad in him having by this time been made apparent to himself, his friends, and the world, he has only to confirm the decision, and at length we hear when he has reached his last step. "Ah! no wonder—there was never any Good in him. Hang him!"

Now much, if not all this, may be checked by a word.

If you believe in Good, always appeal to it. Be sure whatever there is of Good—is of God. There is never an utter want of resemblance to the common Father. "God made man in His own image." "What! yon reeling, blaspheming creature; yon heartless cynic; yon crafty trader; yon false statesman?" Yes! All. In every nature there is a germ of eternal happiness, of undying Good. In the drunkard's heart there is a memory of something better—slight, dim: but flickering still; why should you not by the warmth of your charity, give growth to the Good that is in him? The cynic, the miser, is not all self. There is a note in that sullen instrument to make all harmony yet; but it wants a patient and gentle master to touch the strings.

You point to the words "There is none good." The truths do not oppose each other. "There is none good—save one." And He breathes in all. In our earthliness, our fleshly will, our moral grasp, we are helpless, mean, vile. But there is a lamp ever burning in the heart: a guide to the source of Light, or an instrument of torture. We can make it either. If it burn in an atmosphere of purity, it will warm, guide, cheer us. If in the midst of selfishness, or under the pressure of pride, its flame will be unsteady, and we shall soon have good reason to trim our light, and find new oil for it.

There is Good in All—the impress of the Deity. He who believes not in the image of God in man, is an infidel to himself and his race. There is no difficulty about discovering it. You have only to appeal to it. Seek in every one the best features: mark, encourage, educate them. There is no man to whom some circumstance will not be an argument.

And how glorious in practice, this faith! How easy, henceforth, all the labours of our law-makers, and how delightful, how practical the theories of our philanthropists! To educate the Good—the good in All: to raise every man in his own opinion, and yet to stifle all arrogance, by showing that all possess this Good. In themselves, but not of themselves. Had we but faith in this truth, how soon should we all be digging through the darkness, for this Gold of Love—this universal Good. A Howard, and a Fry, cleansed and humanized our prisons, to find this Good; and in the chambers of all our hearts it is to be found, by labouring eyes and loving hands.

Why all our harsh enactments? Is it from experience of the strength of vice in ourselves that we cage, chain, torture, and hang men? Are none of us indebted to friendly hands, careful advisers; to the generous, trusting guidance, solace, of some gentler being, who has loved us, despite the evil that is in us—for our little Good, and has nurtured that Good with smiles and tears and prayers? O, we know not how like we are to those whom we despise! We know not how many memories of kith and kin the murderer carries to the gallows—how much honesty of heart the felon drags with him to the hulks.

There is Good in All. Dodd, the forger, was a better man than most of us: Eugene Aram, the homicide, would turn his foot from a worm. Do not mistake us. Society demands, requires that these madmen should be rendered harmless. There is no nature dead to all Good. Lady Macbeth would have slain the old king,