Human nature would be exalted, could the countless noble actions which, in times of most imminent danger, were performed in secret, be recorded for the instruction of future generations.

They, however, have no influence on the course of worldly events.

They are known only to silent eyewitnesses, and soon fall into oblivion.

But hypocrisy, illusion, and bigotry stalk abroad undaunted; they desecrate what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to the unholy purposes of selfishness, which hurries along every good feeling in the false excitement of the age.

Thus it was in the years of this plague.