But have
you ever seen sweeter compassion, tenderer sympathy, warmer humanity,
heavenlier charity than that shown in the family where all are
economically equal and no one can want while any other has to give?
Altruria, I say again, is a family, and, as we are mortal, we are still
subject to those nobler sorrows which God has appointed to men, and which
are so different from the squalid accidents that they have made for
themselves. Sickness and death call out the most angelic ministries of
love; and those who wish to give themselves to others may do so without
hinderance from those cares, and even those duties, resting upon men where
each must look out first for himself and for his own. Oh, believe me,
believe me, you can know nothing of the divine rapture of self-sacrifice
while you must dread the sacrifice of another in it. You are not _free_,
as we are, to do everything for others, for it is your _duty_ to do rather
for those of your own household!
"There is something," he continued, "which I hardly know how to speak of,"
and here we all began to prick our ears. I prepared myself as well as I
could for another affront, though I shuddered when the banker hardily
called out: "Don't hesitate to say anything you wish, Mr.
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