false philanthropy. It has a lofty sound, to be sure, to talk about
American citizens being too good to be brought under the lash, upon the
high seas; but he must have a very mistaken notion who does not see that
tens of thousands of these pretending persons on shore, even, would be
greatly benefited by a little judicious flogging. It is the judgment in
administering, and not the mode of punishment, that requires to be
looked into; and, in this respect, there has certainly been a great
improvement of late years. It is seldom, indeed, that any institution,
practice, or system, is improved by the blind interference of those who
know nothing about it. Better would it be to trust to the experience of
those who have long governed turbulent men, than to the impulsive
experiments of those who rarely regard more than one side of a question,
and that the most showy and glittering; having, quite half of the time,
some selfish personal end to answer.

There is an uneasy desire among a vast many well-disposed persons to get
the fruits of the Christian Faith, without troubling themselves about
the Faith itself. This is done under the sanction of Peace Societies,
Temperance and Moral Reform Societies, in which the end is too often
mistaken for the means. When the Almighty sent His Son on earth, it was
to point out the way in which all this was to be brought about, by means
of the Church; but men have so frittered away that body of divine
organization, through their divisions and subdivisions, all arising from
human conceit, that it is no longer regarded as the agency it was so
obviously intended to be, and various contrivances are to be employed as
substitutes for that which proceeded directly from the Son of God!

Among the efforts of the day, however, there is one connected with the
moral improvement of the sailor that commands our profound respect. Cut
off from most of the charities of life for so large a portion of his