to benevolent actions, we will rank others to whom Providence has
assigned a different tendency and different powers. Men who have
spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation for the
human race; those who, by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have
purified the atmosphere around them, and thus supplied a medium
in which good and high things may be projected and
performed--give to these a lofty place among the benefactors of
mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls deeds, may be
recorded of them. There are some individuals of whom we cannot
conceive it proper that they should apply their hands to any
earthly instrument, or work out any definite act; and others,
perhaps not less high, to whom it is an essential attribute to
labor in body as well as spirit for the welfare of their
brethren. Thus, if we find a spiritual sage whose unseen,
inestimable influence has exalted the moral standard of mankind,
we will choose for his companion some poor laborer who has
wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor poorer than
himself.

We have summoned this various multitude--and, to the credit of
our nature, it is a large one--on the principle of Love. It is
singular, nevertheless, to remark the shyness that exists among
many members of the present class, all of whom we might expect to
recognize one another by the freemasonry of mutual goodness, and
to embrace like brethren, giving God thanks for such various
specimens of human excellence. But it is far otherwise. Each sect
surrounds its own righteousness with a hedge of thorns. It is
difficult for the good Christian to acknowledge the good Pagan;
almost impossible for the good Orthodox to grasp the hand of the
good Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to settle the matters in