Morning Star

Postscript to Brother Phillips' Letter Published last week.

For the Morning Star.

Human suffering, like every thing else, loses its effect on the mind as we become familiar with it. Were it otherwise, did we always continue to cherish the same feelings of sympathy and commiseration for every object of distress we meet with, in a country like this, as we do for persons in whose welfare we have a special interest, our hearts must break. Want of ability to impart suitable relief, would become an insupportable burden. The lame, blind, leprous, sick, naked and starving constantly, as it were, before our eyes, and in numbers far surpassing our ability to relieve, can but tend to burden our feelings; otherwise such an accumulation of human miseries would be past endurance. The too frequent contemplation of them, would disqualify us for doing the good we might otherwise do.

In a Christian land where every sufferer enjoys the kind attentions and solace of real friendship, there is little danger arising from too great sympathy in the woes of others. But, it is not so in a heathen land. Not to feel at all for the sufferings of those about us, were a serious defect; but to allow feelings to rule were a real evil. Our sympathy and commiseration under these circumstances have to be exercised with prudence and discrimination, and it is a mercy if in this calculating way our feelings do not become quite callous to the bodily ills of our fellow beings.

I have been led to make these reflections by having met in the bazar, a short time since, a number of poor Hindustani pilgrims by whom I was sorely beset for aid, one of whom in particular attracted my attention. He was an old man, with silver locks and a long white beard, full six feet erect, and in a very spare condition, with only a rag of cloth about his loins. He came and set himself down on his haunches just before me and importuned most forcibly. So accustomed to the position in which he sat and so flexible were his limbs that his shoulders and knees were not mere neighbors but in actual contact with each other. His elbows rested on his thighs and his hands joined in a supplicating posture, were presented in front of him. A more grotesque figure could not well be imagined. His long straight back and limbs in due proportion, all in a state of nudity, thus folded together and crowned by his importunate visage, and ripened locks, presented a strange admixture of the ludicrous, pitiable, and venerable! He stated that he was a native of Teehort, that he had made his pilgrimage to Juggernath, a distance of 700 miles and thus far back, having begged his food all the way. His plea was, "I am a poor brahmin."

J. PHILLIPS.