I was thinking how delightful it would be to go out into the byways of poverty, the abodes of sickness and want, and bid their inmates follow me, where comfort and ease and plenty awaited them.
I was thinking, if I were a man, how I would love to be called the friend and benefactor of mankind; but, being a woman, how proud and happy I should be to follow in the footsteps of such a good and glorious being, and hear the blessings bestowed upon his name." I spoke with earnestness, and my cheeks glowed with enthusiasm.

I felt the clasp of his hand tighten as he drew me closer to his side.
"You have been thinking," he said, in his peculiarly grave, melodious accents, "that I am leading a self-indulging, too luxurious life ?" "Not you--not you alone, dearest Ernest; but both of us," I cried, feeling a righteous boldness, I did not dream that I possessed.

"Do not the purple and the fine linen of luxury enervate the limbs which they clothe?
Is there no starving Lazarus, who may rebuke us hereafter for the sumptuous fare over which we have revelled?
I know how generous, how compassionate you are; how ready you are to relieve the sufferings brought before your eye; but how little we witness here! how few opportunities we have of doing good! Ought they not to be sought?
May they not be found everywhere in this great thoroughfare of humanity ?" "You shall find my purse as deep as your charities, my lovely monitress," he answered, while his countenance beamed with approbation.
"My bounty as boundless as your desires.

But, in a great city like this, it is difficult to distinguish between willing degradation and meritorious poverty.

You could not go into the squalid dens of want and sin, without soiling the whiteness of your spirit, by familiarity with scenes which I would not have you conscious of passing in the world.
There are those who go about as missionaries of good among the lowest dregs of the populace, whom you can employ as agents for your bounty.
There are benevolent associations, through which your charities can flow in full and refreshing streams.