Page:Prison-Life Thoughts.djvu/35

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PRISON-LIFE THOUGHTS.
27

chastise him severely, as good parents do in such cases, would be genuine charity. We hear of too many acts of charity, that are acts of direst cruelty; and many seeming acts of cruelty are bona fide acts of charity. There is, after all, nothing like wisdom.


I may be esteemed egotistical by saying, that I am confident I have forgotten more practical knowledge than the whole world, at this age, knows; which again confirms my oft repeated assertion, that I esteem all the world insane and they return the compliment, and persecute me for my presumption. Should I pray then for a return to fashionable ignorance and bigotry, and join the Lord-beseeching and dictating crowd, who are either too lazy, blockheaded or rascally to serve Him by "good works?"


It is a pity that thought and meditation cannot be worked into some large machine whereby the settled laws of God could be ground out in tangible bundles, then "seeing