Some of our admirable modern works of fiction, or rather truths disguised, in order to make them more palatable to the generality of readers, have done more to ameliorate the sorrows of mankind, by drawing the attention of the public to the wants and woes of the lower classes, than all the charity sermons that have been delivered from the pulpit. Yes, the despised and reprobated novelist, by daring to unveil the crimes and miseries of neglected and ignorant men, and to point out the abuses which have produced, and are still producing, the same dreadful results, are missionaries in the cause of humanity, the real friends and benefactors of mankind. The selfish worldling may denounce as infamous and immoral, the heart-rending pictures of human suffering and degradation that the writings of Dickens and Sue have presented to their gaze, and declare that they are unfit to meet the eyes of the virtuous and refined--that no good can arise from the publication of such revolting details--and that to be ignorant of the existence of such horrors is in itself a species of virtue. Daughter of wealth, daintily nurtured, and nicely educated, _Is blindness nature?_ Does your superiority over these fallen creatures spring from any innate principle in your own breast, which renders you more worthy of the admiration and esteem of your fellow-creatures? Are not you indebted to the circumstances in which you are placed, and to that moral education, for every virtue that you possess? You can feel no pity for the murderer, the thief, the prostitute. Such people may aptly be termed the wild beasts of society, and, like wild beasts, should be hunted down and killed, in order to secure the peace and comfort of the rest. Well, the law has been doing this for many ages, and yet the wild beasts still exist and prey upon their neighbours. And such will still continue to be the case until Christianity, following the example of her blessed Founder, goes forth into the wilderness of life on her errand of mercy, not to condemn, but to seek and to save that which is lost.