John  Howard  was  an  English  shop-boy,  and  in  after
life  an  English  farmer ;  with  so  little  education  that
he  could  neither  write  nor  speak  correctly  ;  with
intellect  so  narrow  and  moderate  that  it  scarcely
deserves  the  designation  of  mediocre ;  slow  and
stammering  of  speech,  with  a  constitution  shat-
tered by  life-long  disease,  the  victim  of  constant
pain  and  feebleness.  One  might  almost  say  he  had
nothing  but  a  heart  and  an  iron  will,  together  with  a
practical  shrewdness,  the  heir-loom  of  the  commer-
cial classes  of  England.  Kings  sought  the  friendship
of  this  man  and  had  their  overtures  declined.  Courtly
and  noble  throngs  tried  to  pay  him  honor,  but  he
shrank  from  their  saloons  and  their  homage ;  his  place
was  not  with  them.  His  realm  was  the  prison  world
of  Europe  ;  his  study  was  the  dungeon,  within  whose
dark  and  noisome  cells  he  stooped  over  crushed  and
dying  men,  to  see  if  he  could  not  read  in  their  glazing
eyes  some  intimation  of  God's  image,  which  he  might
interpret  to  their  fellows  without,  more  prosperous  and
more  innocent,  and  thereby  bring  these  forgotten  men
and  brethren  within  the  pale  of  human  sympathy.
He  shunned  the  abodes  of  the  great  and  the  praise
of    men;    but     made    the    lazar-house   his    dwell-


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ing-place,  and  companioned  with  the  victims  of  the
plague.  Wherever  men  groaned  in  a  captivity  worse
than  death,  or  suffered  from  injustice,  calamity,  and
pestilence,  wherever  were  shrieks  whose  piercing
agony  drives  the  cold  blood  back  to  the  heart,  or  sights
whose  revolting  cruelty  makes  the  heart  itself  stand
Btill,  thither  he  came  as  a  merciful  witness,  as  a  swift
angel.  His  office  was  the  instauration  of  modern
philanthropy.
