good which I hope flourishes and finds active aid in the community.  I have collected many facts with regard to this suffering class of women, both in England and in France.  I have seen them under the thin veil of gayety, and in the horrible tatters of utter degradation.  I have seen the feelings of men with regard to their condition, and the general heartlessness in women of more favored and protected lives, which I can only ascribe to utter ignorance of the facts.  If a proclamation of some of these can remove it, I hope to make such a one in the hour of riper judgment, and after a more extensive survey.

Sad as are many features of the time, we have at least the satisfaction of feeling that if something true can be revealed, if something wise and kind shall be perseveringly tried, it stands a chance of nearer success than ever before; for much light has been let in at the windows of the world, and many dark nooks have been touched by a consoling ray.  The influence of such a ray I felt in visiting the School for Idiots, near Paris,—­idiots, so called long time by the impatience of the crowd; yet there are really none such, but only beings so below the average standard, so partially organized, that it is difficult for them to learn or to sustain themselves.  I wept the whole time I was in this place a shower of sweet and bitter tears; of joy at what had been done, of grief for all that I and others possess and cannot impart to these little ones.  But patience, and the Father of All will give them all yet.  A good angel these of Paris have in their master.  I have seen no man that seemed to me more worthy of envy, if one could envy happiness so pure and tender.  He is a man of seven or eight and twenty, who formerly came there only to give lessons in writing, but became so interested in his charge that he came at last to live among them and to serve them.  They sing the hymns he writes for them, and as I saw his fine countenance looking in love on those distorted and opaque vases of humanity, where he had succeeded in waking up a faint flame, I thought his heart could never fail to be well warmed and buoyant.  They sang well, both in parts and in chorus, went through gymnastic exercises with order and pleasure, then stood in a circle and kept time, while several danced extremely well.  One little fellow, with whom the difficulty seemed to be that an excess of nervous sensibility paralyzed instead of exciting the powers, recited poems with a touching, childish grace and perfect memory.  They write well, draw well, make shoes, and do carpenter’s work.  One of the cases most interesting to the metaphysician is that of a boy, brought there about two years and a half ago, at the age of thirteen, in a state of brutality, and of ferocious brutality.  I read the physician’s report of him at that period.  He discovered no ray of decency or reason; entirely beneath the animals in the exercise of the senses, he discovered a restless fury beyond that of beasts of prey, breaking and throwing