THE PASSING CROWD.
“The Passing Crowd” is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls “universal sympathies,” and even to the plain ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than “the passing crowd?” Does not this tide of human beings, which we daily see passing along the ways of this world, consist of persons animated by the same spark of the divine essence, and partaking of the same high destinies with ourselves? Let us stand still but for a moment in the midstof this busy and seemingly careless scene, and consider what they are or may be whom we see around us. In the hurry of the passing show, and of our own sensations, we see but a series of unknown faces; but this is no reason why we should regard them with indifference. Many of these persons, if we knew their histories, would rivet our admiration by the ability, worth, benevolence, or piety, which they have displayed in their various paths through life. Many would excite our warmest interest by their sufferings—sufferings, perhaps, borne meekly and well, and more for the sake of others than themselves. How many tales of human weal and woe, of glory and of humiliation, could be told by those beings, whom, in passing, we regard not! Unvalued as they are by us, how many as good as ourselves repose upon them the affections of bounteous hearts, and would not want them for any earthly compensation! Every one of these persons, in all probability, retains in his bosom the cherished recollections of early happy days, spent in some scene which “they ne’er forget, though there they are forgot,” with friends and fellows who, though now far removed in distance and in fortune, are never to be given up by the heart. Every one of these individuals, in all probability, nurses still deeper in the recesses of feeling, the remembrance of that chapter of romance in the life of every man, an early earnest attachment, conceived in the fervour of youth, unstained by the slightest thought of self, and for a time purifying and elevating the character far above its ordinary standard. Beneath all this gloss of the world—this cold conventional aspect, which all more or less present, and which the business of life renders necessary—there resides for certain a fountain of goodness, pure in its inner depths as the lymph rock-distilled, and ready on every proper occasion to well out in the exercise of the noblest duties. Though all may seem but a hunt after worldly objects, the great majority of these individuals can, at the proper time, cast aside all earthly thoughts, and communicate directly with the Being whom their fathers havetaught them to worship, and whose will and attributes have been taught to man immediately by Himself. Perhaps many of these persons are of loftier aspect than ourselves, and belong to a sphere removed above our own. But, nevertheless, if the barrier of mere worldly form were taken out of the way, it is probable that we could interchange sympathies with these persons as freely and cordially as with any of our own class. Perhaps they are of an inferior order; but they are only inferior in certain circumstances, which should never interpose to prevent the flow of feeling for our kind. The great common features of human nature remain; and let us never forget how much respect is due to the very impress of humanity—the type of the divine nature itself! Even where our fellow creatures are degraded by vice and poverty, let us still be gentle in our judging. The various fortunes which we every day see befalling the members of a single family, after they part off in their several paths through life, teach us that it is not to every one that success in the career of existence is destined. Besides, do not the arrangements of society at once necessitate the subjection of an immense multitude to humble toil, and give rise to temptations, before which the weak and uninstructed can scarcely escape falling? But even beneath the soiled face of the poor artizan, there may be aspirations after some vague excellence, which hard fate has denied him the means of attaining, though the very wish to obtain it is itself ennobling. The very mendicant was not always so; he, too, has had his undegraded and happier days, upon the recollection of which, some remnant of better feeling may still repose.
These, I humbly think, are reasons why we should not look with coldness upon any masses of men with whom it may be our lot to mingle. It is the nature of a good man to conclude that others are like himself; and if we take the crowd promiscuously, we can never be far wrong in thinking that there are worthy and well-directed feelings in it as well as in our own bosoms.