WRITTEN IN 1857

Evening Star, Issue 21013, 29 January 1932, Page 9

WRITTEN IN 1857

■ ' ' T JUST AS SUITABLE IN 1931 Dean Sargent, in a recent number of his weekly ‘ Message ’ from the Cathedral, Long Island, quotes the following from Harper's Weekly of October 10, 1857: — . “ It is a gloomy moment in history.) Not for many years—hot in the lifetime of most men who read this paper—has there been so much grave and deep apprehension: never has the future seemed so incalculable as at this time. In our own country there is universal commercial prostration and panic, and thousands of our foremost fellow-citizens are turned out against, the approaching winter without employment, and without the prospect of it. ... i 11 ■ “In France the political cauldron seethes and bubbles with uncertainty;! Russia hangs as usual, like a cloud, dark and silent upon the horizon of Europe; while all the energies, resources, and influences of the British Empire are sorely tried, and yet to be tried more sorely, in coping with! the vast and deadly Indian insurrection, and with its disturbed relations in China. “It is a solemn moment, and no man can feel an indifference (which happily no man pretends to- feel) m the issue of events. “Of our own troubles no man can see the end. They are, fortunately, as yet mainly commercial; and if we are only to lose money, and by painful poverty to bo taught wisdom—the wisdom of honour, of faith, of sympathy, and of charity—no man need seriously despair. And yet the very; haste to be rich, which is the occasion of this widespread calamity, has also tended to destroy the moral forces with which we are to resist and subdue the calamity. “Good friends! Let our conduct prove that the call comes to men who have large hearts, however narrowed their homes may be; who have open hands,/ however empty their pursesIn times of paril we have nothing but manhood,' strong in its faith in God, to rely upon; and whoever shows himself truly a God-fearing man now,by helping wherever and however he can, will be as biassed and beloved as a great light in the darkness.’^