"But think, Humphrey, a
fellow-creature in his last lonely hour."
The reflection that the fate of a
fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind.
Your
fellow-creature, who has sinned and has repented--you have the authority of the Divine Teacher for it--is your
fellow-creature, purified and ennobled.
He seemed to see his
fellow-creatures grotesquely, and he was angry with them because they were grotesque; life was a confusion of ridiculous, sordid happenings, a fit subject for laughter, and yet it made him sorrowful to laugh.
"But they're our
fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our
fellow-creatures."
"Have you heard--when those starving and sinning
fellow-creatures happened to be women--of Refuges established to protect and reclaim them?"
Let us suppose an inhabitant of some remote and superior region, yet unskilled in the ways of men, having read and considered the precepts of the gospel, and the example of our Saviour, to come down in search of the true church: if he would not inquire after it among the cruel, the insolent, and the oppressive; among those who are continually grasping at dominion over souls as well as bodies; among those who are employed in procuring to themselves impunity for the most enormous villainies, and studying methods of destroying their
fellow-creatures, not for their crimes but their errors; if he would not expect to meet benevolence, engage in massacres, or to find mercy in a court of inquisition, he would not look for the true church in the Church of Rome.
If you have no space in which to put two youthful
fellow-creatures, however eminently respectable, which I do not doubt, where are those youthful
fellow-creatures to be accommodated?
Particularly nauseous were the blank, expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses; they seemed no more my
fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be, so that I did not dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone.
The actions of my life, however trifling they may have been, I can find some interest in recalling: they associate me with my
fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, with the vigorous movement of the world.
For my own part, if it was an honest man's child, indeed--but for my own part, it goes against me to touch these misbegotten wretches, whom I don't look upon as my
fellow-creatures. Faugh!
'And it is another most extraordinary thing,' remarked the Minor Canon in the same tone as before, 'that these philanthropists are so given to seizing their
fellow-creatures by the scruff of the neck, and (as one may say) bumping them into the paths of peace.--I beg your pardon, Ma dear, for interrupting.'