Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/57

Rh He thought the answer would be, "No! you are not." But he was his brother's keeper, and Abel's blood cried from tho ground for justice, and God heard it. Some nay we can do nothing. I will never believe that a city which in twelve years can build near a thousand miles of rail-road, hedge up tho Merrimack and the lakes of New Hampshire; I will never believe that a city, so full of tho hardiest enterprise and tho noblest charity, cannot keep those little ones from perishing. Why, tho nation can annex new States and raise armies at uncounted cost. Can it not extirpate pauperism, prevent intemperance, pluck up the causes of the present crime? All that is lacking is the prudent will! It seems as if something could easily be done to send the vagrant children to school; at least to give them employment, and so teach them some useful art. If some are Catholics, and will not attend tho Protestant schools, perhaps it would be as possible to have a special and separate school for tho Irish as for tho Africans. It was recently proposed in a Protestant assembly to found Sunday schools, with Catholic teachers for Catholic children. The plan is largo and noble, and indicates a liberality which astonishes one even here, where some men are ceasing to be sectarian and becoming human. Much may be done to bring many of the children to our Sunday and week-day schools, as they now are, and so brands be snatched from the burning. The State Farm School for Juvenile Offenders, which a good man last winter suggested to your Legislature, will doubtless do much for these idle boys, and may be the beginning of a greater and better work. Could the State also take care of the children when it locks the parents in a gaol, there would be a nearer approach to justice and greater likelihood of obtaining its end. Still the laws act cumbrously and slow. The great work must be done by good men, acting separately or in concert, in their private way. You are your brother's keeper; God made you so. If you are rich, intelligent, refined and religious, why you are all the more a keeper to the poor, the weak, the vulgar, and the wicked. la the pauses of your work there will be time to do something. In the unoccupied hours of the Sunday there is yet leisure to help a brother's need. If there are times when you are disposed to murmur at your