University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
In which the Author makes the acquaintance of a philanthropist.

I should have cursed my simplicity in mistaking
a drunkard for a dead man; but I had other evils
to distress me besides chagrin. I was lost in a
snow-storm, fainting with fatigue, shivering with
cold, and afar from assistance, there not being a
single house in sight. It was in vain that I sought
to recover my way; I plunged from one snow-bank
into another; and I believe I should have actually
perished, had not succour arrived at a moment when
I had given over all hopes of receiving it.

I had just sunk down into a huge drift on the
roadside, where I lay groaning, unable to extricate
myself, when a man driving by in a chair, hearing
my lamentations, drew up, and demanded, in a most
benevolent voice, what was the matter.

“Who art thou, friend?” said he, “and what are
thy distresses? If thou art in affliction, peradventure
there is one nigh at hand who will succour
thee.”

“I am,” said I, “the most miserable wretch on
the earth.”

“Heaven be praised!” said the stranger, with
great devoutness of accent; “for in that case I will
give thee help, and the night shall not pass away
in vain. Yea, verily, I will do my best to assist

thee; for it is both good and pleasant, a comeliness
to the eye and a refreshment to the spirit, to do
good deeds among those who are truly wretched.”

“And besides,” said I, “I am sticking fast in
the snow, and am perishing with cold.”

“Be of good heart, and hold still for a moment,
and I will come to thy assistance.”

And with that honest Broadbrim (for such I
knew by his speech he must be) descended from
the chair, and helped me out of the drift; all which
he accomplished with zeal and alacrity, showing
not more humanity, as I thought, than satisfaction
at finding such a legitimate object for its display.
He brushed the snow from my clothes, and perceiving
I was shivering with cold, for I had lost my
cloak some minutes before, he transferred one of
his own outer garments, of which, I believe, he had
two or three, to my shoulders, plying me all the
time with questions as to how I came into such a
difficulty, and what other griefs I might have to afflict
me, and assuring me I should have his assistance.

“Hast thou no house to cover thy nakedness?”
he cried; “verily, I will find thee a place wherein
thou shalt shelter thyself from snow and from cold.
Art thou suffering from lack of food? Verily, there
is a crust of bread and the leg of a chicken yet left
in my basket of cold bits, and thou shalt have them,
with something further hereafter. Hast thou no
family or friends? Verily, there are many humane
persons of my acquaintance who will, like

myself, consider themselves as thy brothers and
sisters. Art thou oppressed with years as well as
poverty? Verily, then thou hast a stronger claim
to pity, and it shall be accorded thee.”

He heaped question upon question, and assurance
upon assurance, with such haste and fervour,
that it was some minutes before I could speak. I
took advantage of his first pause to detail the latest,
and, at that moment, the most oppressive of my
griefs.

“I have been robbed,” I cried, “of four hundred
dollars, and a dozen silver spoons, by a rascal I
found lying drunk under a shed. But I'll have the
villain, if it costs me the half of his plunder, and—”

“Be not awroth with the poor man,” said my
deliverer. “It was a wickedness in him to rob
thee; but thou shouldst reflect how wickedness
comes of misery, and how misery of the inclemency
of the season. Be merciful to the wicked
man, as well as to the miserable; for thereby thou
showest mercy to him who is doubly miserable.
But how didst thou come by four hundred dollars
and a dozen silver spoons? Thou canst not be
so poor as to prove an object of charity?”

“No,” said I, “I am no beggar. But I won't be
robbed for nothing.”

“Verily, I say unto thee again, be not awroth
with the poor man. Thou shouldst reflect, if thou
wert robbed, how far thou wast thyself the cause
of the evil; for, having four hundred dollars about
thee, thou mightst have relieved the poor creature's

wants; in which case thou wouldst have prevented
both a loss and a crime—the one on thy part, the
other on his. Talk not, therefore, of persecuting
the poor man; hunt him up, if thou canst, administer
secretly to his wants, and give him virtuous
counsel; and then, peradventure, he will sin no
more.”

I was struck by the tone and maxims of my
deliverer; they expressed an ardour of benevolence,
an enthusiasm of philanthropy, such as I
had never dreamed of before. I could not see his
face, the night being so thick and tempestuous;
but there was a complacency, a bustling self-satisfaction
in his voice, that convinced me he was not
only a good, but a happy man. I regarded him
with as much envy as respect; and a comparison,
which I could not avoid mentally making, betwixt
his condition and my own, drew from me a loud
groan.

“Art thou hurt?” said the good Samaritan. “I
will help thee into my wheeled convenience here,
and take thee to thy home.”

“No,” said I, “I will never go near that wretched
house again.”

“What is it that makes it wretched?” said the
Quaker.

“You will know, if you are of Philadelphia,” I
replied, “when I tell you my name. I am the
miserable Abram Skinner.”

“What! Abram Skinner, the money-lender?”
said my friend, with a severe voice. “Friend

Abram, I have heard of thy domestic calamities,
and verily I have heard of those of many others,
who laid them all at thy doors, as the author and
cause thereof. Thou art indeed the most wretched
of men; but if thou thinkest so thyself, then is
there a hope thou mayst be yet restored to happiness.
Thou hast made money, but what good hast
thou done with it? thou hast accumulated thy hundreds,
and thy thousands, and thy tens of thousands—
but how many of thy fellow-creatures hast
thou given cause to rejoice in thy prosperity?
Truly, I have heard much said of thy wealth, and
thy avarice, friend Abram; but, verily, not a word
of thy kind-heartedness and charity: and know,
that goodness and charity are the only securities
against the ills, both sore and manifold, that spring
from groaning coffers. I say to thee, friend Abram,
hast thou ever given a dollar in alms to the poor,
or acquitted a single penny of obligation to the
hard-run of thy customers?”

My conscience smote me—not, however, that I
felt any great remorse for not having thrown away
my money in the way the Quaker meant: but his
words brought a new idea into my mind. It was
misery on the one hand, and the hope of arriving
at happiness on the other, which had spurred
me from transformation to transformation. Each
change had, however, been productive of greater
discontent than the other; and the woes with which
I was oppressed in my three borrowed bodies, had
been even greater than those that afflicted me

in my own proper original casing. It was plain
that I had not exercised a just discretion in the
selection of bodies, since I had taken those of men
whose modes of existence did not dispose to happiness.
What mode of existence then was most
likely to secure the content I sought? Such, I
inferred from the Quaker's discourse, as would call
into operation the love of goodness and of man—
such as would cause to be cultivated the kindly
virtues unknown to the selfish—such as would
lead to the practice of charity and general philanthropy.
I was grieved, therefore, that I had entered
so many bodies for nothing; my conscience
accused me of a blunder; and I longed to enter
upon an existence of virtue; not that I had any
great regard for virtue itself, but because I valued
my own happiness. Had my deliverer chanced to
break his neck while discoursing to me, I should
have reanimated his corse, to try my hand at benevolence.
As for being good and charitable in
the body I then occupied, I felt that it was impossible:
the impulse pointed to another existence.

The Quaker's indignation soon abated; he looked
upon my silence as the effect of remorse, and
the idea of converting me into an alms-giver and a
friend of the poor, like himself, took possession of
his imagination, and warmed his spirit. By such
a conversion his philanthropic desires would be
doubly gratified; it would make me happy, and, as
I was a rich man, some hundreds of others also.
He helped me into the chair, and driving slowly

towards the city, attempted the good work by describing
the misery so prevalent in the suburbs,
and dilating with uncommon enthusiasm upon the
delight with which every act of benevolence would
be recorded in my own bosom.

It seems that he was returning from a mission
of charity in one of the remotest districts, where
he had relieved the necessities of divers unhappy
wretches; and, he gave me to understand, it was
his purpose to make one more charitable visitation
before returning home, notwithstanding the
lateness of the hour and the fury of the tempest.
And this visit he felt the more urged to make, since
it would afford a practical illustration of his remarks,
and show how doubly charity was blessed,
both to the giver and receiver.

“Thou shalt see,” said he, “even with thine
own eyes, what power he that hath money hath
over the afflictions of his race—what power to dry
the tear of the mourning, and to check the wicked
deeds of the vicious. He that I will now relieve is
what thou didst foolishly call thyself—to wit, the
most miserable of men; for he is both a beggar
and a convicted felon, having but a few days since
been discharged from the penitentiary, where he
had served out his three years, for, I believe, the
third time in his life.”

“Surely,” said I, “he is then a reprobate entirely
unworthy pity.”

“On the contrary,” said the philanthropist, “he
is for that reason the more to be pitied, since all

regard him with distrust and abhorrence, and refuse
him the relief without which he must again become
a criminal: the very boys say to him, `Get
up, thou old jail-bird;' and men and women hoot
at him in the streets. Poverty made him a criminal,
and scorn has hardened his heart; yet is he a
man with a soul; and verily thou shalt see how
that soul can be melted by the breath of compassion.
In this little hovel we shall find him,” said
the Quaker, drawing up before a miserable frame
building, which was of a most lonely aspect, and in
a terrible state of dilapidation, the windows being
without shutters and glasses, and even the door
itself half torn from its hinges.

“It is a little tenement that belongeth to me,”
said my friend; “and here I told him he might
shelter him, until I could come in person and relieve
him. A negro-man whom I permitted to live
here for a while did very ungratefully, that is to say,
very thoughtlessly—destroy the window-shutters,
and other loose work, for fire-wood, I having forgotten
to supply him with that needful article,
and he, poor man, being too bashful to acquaint
me with his wants. Verily I do design to render it
more comfortable; but in these hard times one
cannot find more money than sufficeth to fill the
mouths of the hungry. Descend, friend Abram,
and let us enter. I see the poor man hath a fire
shining through the door; this will warm thy frozen
limbs, while the sound of his grateful acknowledgments
will do the same good office for thy
spirit.”