240
THE MAKERS OE FLORENCE.
—shoemakers among them, woolspinners, members of all
the different crafts—and told them the subject of his
thoughts. He described to them “ to the life,” as Padre
Marchese tells us, the condition of the fallen families, the
danger under which they lay of being turned to suicide or
to wickedness by despair, and the necessity of bringing
help to their hidden misery. The twelve, touched to the
heart by this picture, offered themselves willingly as his
assistants; and thus arose an institution which still exists
and flourishes, a charitable society which has outlived
many a benevolent scheme, and given the first impulse to
many more. Autonino called his charitable band Provi-
ditori de poveri vergognosi ; but the people, always ready to
perceive and. appreciate a great work of charity, conferred
a popular title more handy and natural, and called those
messengers of kindness the Buonuomini di San Martino-
the little homely church of St. Martin, the church in
which Dante was married, and within sight of which he
was born, being the headquarters of the new brotherhood,
on the outside wall of this humble little place may be seen
the box for subscriptions, with its legend, which the Good
Men of St. Martin put up at the beginning of their enter-
prise, a touching token of their long existence. The near-
est parallel we know to this work is to be found in the
plan which Dr. Chalmers so royally inaugurated in the
town of Glasgow, abolishing all the legal relief in his
parish, and providing for its wants entirely by voluntary
neighborly charity, and the work of Buonuomini, like
those of St. Martin—one of the most magnificent experi-
ments made in modern times, but unfortunately, like a
song or a poem, ending with the genius which inspired and
produced it. It is curious to think that the Scotch minister
of the nineteenth century was but repeating the idea of the
Dominican monk in the fifteenth. We are in the habit
of thinking a great deal of ourselves and our charities, and
THE MAKERS OE FLORENCE.
—shoemakers among them, woolspinners, members of all
the different crafts—and told them the subject of his
thoughts. He described to them “ to the life,” as Padre
Marchese tells us, the condition of the fallen families, the
danger under which they lay of being turned to suicide or
to wickedness by despair, and the necessity of bringing
help to their hidden misery. The twelve, touched to the
heart by this picture, offered themselves willingly as his
assistants; and thus arose an institution which still exists
and flourishes, a charitable society which has outlived
many a benevolent scheme, and given the first impulse to
many more. Autonino called his charitable band Provi-
ditori de poveri vergognosi ; but the people, always ready to
perceive and. appreciate a great work of charity, conferred
a popular title more handy and natural, and called those
messengers of kindness the Buonuomini di San Martino-
the little homely church of St. Martin, the church in
which Dante was married, and within sight of which he
was born, being the headquarters of the new brotherhood,
on the outside wall of this humble little place may be seen
the box for subscriptions, with its legend, which the Good
Men of St. Martin put up at the beginning of their enter-
prise, a touching token of their long existence. The near-
est parallel we know to this work is to be found in the
plan which Dr. Chalmers so royally inaugurated in the
town of Glasgow, abolishing all the legal relief in his
parish, and providing for its wants entirely by voluntary
neighborly charity, and the work of Buonuomini, like
those of St. Martin—one of the most magnificent experi-
ments made in modern times, but unfortunately, like a
song or a poem, ending with the genius which inspired and
produced it. It is curious to think that the Scotch minister
of the nineteenth century was but repeating the idea of the
Dominican monk in the fifteenth. We are in the habit
of thinking a great deal of ourselves and our charities, and