The Inner Life: Part 3 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VIIWhittier, John Greenleaf
Religion
The Inner Life: Part 3 from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume VII
Whittier, John Greenleaf
American literature
How faithful, yet, withal, how full of kindness, were his rebukes of
those who refused labor its just reward, and ground the faces of the
poor? How deep and entire was his sympathy with overtasked and ill-paid
laborers; with wet and illprovided sailors; with poor wretches
blaspheming in the mines, because oppression had made them mad; with the
dyers plying their unhealthful trade to minister to luxury and pride;
with the tenant wearing out his life in the service of a hard landlord;
and with the slave sighing over his unrequited toil! What a significance
there was in his vision of the "dull, gloomy mass" which appeared before
him, darkening half the heavens, and which he was told was "human beings
in as great misery as they could be and live; and he was mixed with them,
and henceforth he might not consider himself a distinct and separate
being"! His saintliness was wholly unconscious; he seems never to have
thought himself any nearer to the tender heart of God than the most
miserable sinner to whom his compassion extended. As he did not
live, so neither did he die to himself. His prayer upon his death-bed
was for others rather than himself; its beautiful humility and simple
trust were marred by no sensual imagery of crowns and harps and golden
streets, and personal beatific exaltations; but tender and touching
concern for suffering humanity, relieved only by the thought of the
paternity of God, and of His love and omnipotence, alone found utterance
in ever-memorable words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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