set of false
keys, not quite finished, by which he would certainly, within
twenty-four hours, have had his mistress out of jail. Parent-Duchatelet
found always the remains of modesty among the fallen women of Paris
hospitals; and Mayhew, amid the London outcasts, says that he thinks
better of human nature every day. Even among politicians, whom it is
our American fashion to revile as the chief of sinners, there is less
of evil than of good.

In Wilberforce's "Memoirs" there is an account of his having once asked
Mr. Pitt whether his long experience as Prime Minister had made him
think well or ill of his fellow-men. Mr. Pitt answered, "Well"; and his
successor, Lord Melbourne, being asked the same question, answered,
after a little reflection, "My opinion is the same as that of Mr. Pitt."

Let us have faith. It was a part of the vigor of the old Hebrew
tradition to rejoice when a man-child was born into the world; and the
maturer strength of nobler ages should rejoice over a woman-child as
well. Nothing human is wholly sad, until it is effete and dying out.
Where there is life there is promise. "Vitality is always hopeful," was
the verdict of the most refined and clear-sighted woman who has yet
explored the rough mining villages of the Rocky Mountains. There is apt
to be a certain coarse virtue in rude health; as the Germanic races
were purest when least civilized, and our American Indians did not
unlearn chastity till they began to decay. But even where vigor and
vice are found together, they still may hold a promise for the next
generation. Out of the strong cometh forth sweetness. Parisian
wickedness is not so discouraging merely because it is wicked, as from
a suspicion that it is draining the life-blood of the nation. A mob of
miners or of New York bullies may be uncomfortable neighbors, and may
make a man of refinement hesitate whether to stop his ears or to feel
for his revolver; but they hold more promise for the coming generations
than the line which ends in Madame Bovary or the Vicomte de Camors.

But behind that cottage curtain, at any rate, a new and prophetic life
had begun. I cannot foretell that child's future, but I know something
of its past. The boy may grow up into a criminal, the woman into an
outcast, yet the baby was beloved. It came "not in utter nakedness." It
found itself heir of the two prime essentials of existence,--life and
love. Its first possession was a woman's kiss; and in that heritage