They advised those who were the fortunate of this world to
practise justice, goodness, charity; to apply themselves to
seeking out and relieving the unhappy. To the unfortunate they
recommended good conduct, moderate desires, submission to
authority, resignation, and hope. They explained the destiny of
man, showed all it possesses of sadness and sublimity, the
compensations which are found in the different states, the
pleasures which are common to all. They tried to cure, amongst
the ills of men, those which men can cure; and, with regard to
those which are incurable here below, they strove to raise men's
eyes to the remedies in God's hands. This was the language of
religion. These were the words and advice she addressed to high
and low, rich and poor, to children in her catechisms, to men in
her sermons, from the pulpit and from the sanctuary, by the sick
bed, to all, at all seasons, and by every means.
The means of publicity and popular movement at that time belonged
almost exclusively to religion. What the tribune, the press, the
post--these trumpets of modern civilization--now are, the
churches, the pulpit, religious instruction, pastoral
superintendence formerly were Religion then addressed the masses.
She never forgot the people. She was ever able to gain access
there.
{53}
And while she thus interested herself for them, and strove to
lighten or partly bear the burden of life, she also sympathised
with men of all classes and all conditions, and with the burdens
all bear, the blows which reach all, the wounds which all receive
as they tread their appointed path.
To-day, while occupying ourselves much and justly with the
material sufferings and fatigue which are shared by so many, we
forget too much the moral fatigues and sufferings of which all
partake; the trials, the agonies of the soul, the mistakes, the
ennui, the anguish, in short, the universal lot of man--which are
the more poignant as the mind has more freedom and life more
leisure.
High or low, rich or poor, the _elite_ or the multitude, let
us pity each other, let us pity every one. We are all, as we
advance in our career, "weary and heavy laden"; we all deserve
pity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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