of infant happiness which girdles and gladdens
ten thousand hearths.

And here, too, through the brilliant street, and the broad light of day,
walks Purity, enshrined in the loveliest form of womanhood. And along
that same street by night, attended by fitting shadows, strolls
womanhood discrowned, clothed with painted shame, yet, even in the
springs of that guilty heart not utterly quenched. We render just homage
to the one, we pour scorn upon the other; but, could we trace back the
lines of circumstance, and inquire why the one stands guarded with such
sweet respect, and why the other has fallen, we might raise problems
with which we cannot tax Providence, which we may not lay altogether to
the charge of the condemned, but for which we might challenge an answer
from society.

And, if we would ascertain the practical purport of this lesson of human
diversity which is so conspicuous in the street--the meaning of these
sharp contrasts of refinement and grossness, intelligence and ignorance,
respectability and guilt--we only ask a question that thousands have
asked before us. And yet, it is possible to surmise the purpose of these
diversities. We know, for one thing, that out of them come some of the
noblest instances of character and of achievement. Ignorance and crime
and poverty and vice, stand in fearful contrast to knowledge and
integrity and wealth and purity; but they likewise constitute the dark
background against which the virtues of human life stand out in radiant
relief; virtues developed by the struggle which they create; virtues
which seem impossible without their co-existence. For, whence issues any
such thing as _virtue_, except out of the temptation and antagonism of
vice? How could _Charity_ ever have appeared in the world, were there no
dark ways to be trodden by its bright feet, and no suffering and sadness
to require its aid? I look at these asylums, these hospitals, these
ragged schools--a zodiac of beautiful charities, girdling all this
selfishness and sin--I look at these monuments which humanity will honor
when war shall be but a legend, and laurels have withered to dust; and
when I think what they have grown out of, and why they stand here, I
regard them as so many sublime way-marks by which Providence unfolds its
purposes among men, and by which men trace out the plan of God.

And then, again, perhaps this problem of human diversity presses
heaviest where civilization is the most advanced, in or