Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/66

62 orator's persuasive power, the profound thought of the thinker, the poet's vision and his faculty divine, the piety of the highest saint God sends. Thus, spite of all the Herods in Jerusalem, a crown is got ready for him that is born King of the world; wise men are always waiting for the star which goes before the new-born Son of God; and, though that star stand still over a stable, they are ready on the spot with their myrrh, their frankincense, and their gold. Society has its shepherds watching their flock, and its angels to proclaim the glad tidings of great joy to all mankind.

While society, in its positive function, thus helps the strong, it provides also for the weak, and gives them the benefit of the strong man's protection; thus the individuality of the ablest and the most feeble is defended at the same time. This is done in part by private charity, in part also by the organized public charity. The sick, the poor, the crazy, the lame, the blind, the deaf, are sacredly cared for. Even the fool is not left in his folly, but the wisdom of society watches over his impotent and wretched brain. Thus the two extremes of the human race are provided for: the man of vast genius and a tough body gets his culture and his place, and, from his station in the senate, the pulpit, or the closet, sends out his thunder, his lightning, or his sunshine, over all the land, to save the people and to bless; while the lame man, the lunatic woman, the blind boy, the poor and sickly little girl born with the scrofulous worm feeding on her cheek, all have the benefit of the manifold power of society. The talent of a Webster, the genius of an Emerson, the frailty of an unacknowledged child left on the door-stone at night, to die next month in the almshouse, all have their place in the large cradle of society, whose coverlet wraps them all—the senator, the poet, and the fool. Attend a meeting of the alumni of Harvard College, of the heads of the railroads or factories of New England, a convention of merchants, naturalists, metaphysicians, of the senate of the nation; you see how society gives place and protection to the best heads in the State. Then go to some house of industry, and see the defence afforded for the worst; you see what a wonderful contrivance society itself is. I say a contrivance, yet it is not the contrivance chiefly of