But it is to the beneficent and sublime influences of Christianity that are to be attributed the noble institutions of the present day, where the suffering and infirm receive the attentions of science and the consolations of humanity.
Never among civilized nations are they profaned for the purposes of cruelty, never defiled by murder under the mask of philanthropy.
Enlightened communities vie with each other in self-sacrifice in the great and heroic labor of devotion to suffering mortality. It is the distinguishing degree of difference in their excellence, their refinement, their religion.
It is the last thought and reflection of the dying man, who, in dividing his worldly material with charity and benevolence, hopes to be kindly remembered on earth. It is the first dawning idea of childhood, with its infant hands filled with roses and garlands of flowers to relieve the pains of human suffering, or adorn the pale features of the departed.
To delight in human misery is the last degree of earthly degradation and perversity. The mockery of the agony of death belongs only to the fiends of hell and their baser imitators.
Not until some time after the occupation of the prison did the care and condition of the sick attract the attention and excite the solicitude of the prison-keepers. Then a space was selected to the eastward, and almost adjoining the stockade, and here were pitched the decayed and dilapidated tents which were to form the hospital.
The exact size of the space is not known, the boundaries having disappeared since the evacuation; but the tents were arranged, it is said, with some degree of regularity, and the collection was surrounded by a fence, which served only to obstruct the circulation of free air, which was of vital importance; and besides, the fence was of no service whatever as protection against the escape of the inmates, as they were before admission generally far too feeble to make even an effort.
The actual amount of accommodation furnished is not known. By some it is stated that there were nothing whatever but a few rotten tent flies; by others, and among them one of the surgeons, it is narrated that there were tents to cover one thousand men, and three large kettles to provide for their cooking, and nothing more. Yet the records show that there were nearly four thousand men at one time in this hospital. This distribution of the means for the protection and sustenance of life is too terrible to be believed. Let us overlook it, for there is sufficient for execration elsewhere, without turning to the more revolting violation and desecration of one of the sanctuaries of civilization.