Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/148

144 It has boon my aim to give suggestions, rather than propose distinct plans of action; I do not know that I am capable of that. But some of you are rich men, some able men; many of you, I think, are good men. I appeal to you to do something to raise the moral character of this town. All that has been done in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty, seems very little, while so much still remains to do; only a hint and an encouragement. You cannot do much, nor I much; that is true. But, after all, everything must begin with individual men and women. You can at least give the example of what a good man ought to be and to do to-day; to-morrow you will yourself be the better man for it. So far as that goes, you will have done something to mend the morals of Boston. You can toil of actual evils, and tell of your remedy for them; can keep clear from committing the evils yourself; that also is something.

Here are two things that are certain: We are all brothers, rich and. poor, American and foreign; put here by the same God, for the same end, and journeying towards the same heaven, owing mutual help. Then, too, the wise men and good men are the natural guardians of society, and God will not hold them guiltless, if they leave their brothers to perish. I know our moral condition is a reproach to us; will not deny that, nor try to abate the shame and grief we should feel. When I think of the poverty and misery in the midst of us, and all the consequences thereof, I hardly dare'feel grateful for the princely fortunes some men have gathered together. Certainly it is not a Christian society, where such extremes exist; we are only in the process of conversion; proselytes of the gate, and not much more. There are noble men in this city, who have been made philanthropic, by the sight of wrong, of intemperance, and poverty, and crime. Let mankind honour great conquerors, who only rout armies, and "plant fresh laurels where they kill;" I honour most the men who contend against misery, against crime and sin; men that are the soldiers of humanity, and in a low age, amidst the mean and sordid spirits of a great trading town, lift up their serene foreheads, and tell us of the right, the true, first good, first perfect, and first fair. From such men I hear the prophecy of the better time to come. In their