The Hospital is the recognized type of mercy, in its broadest range of
benevolence, tenderness, and compassion, all over the countries of the
earth, wherever the noble sentiments of nature have force. It is one of
the emblems of the great religion of civilization. It is coeval with
Christ, for it appeared among the institutions of men in definite shape
only after the establishment of Christianity; and to its true exalting
effects upon the dispositions of men, the Christian religion owes in great
measure its rapid progress among the barbarous and pagan nations of the
earth.
In earlier times public charity was rare or impulsive among the civil
communities. It was only the suffering and disabled defenders of the
general service who were cared for at the expense of the state, as at the
Prytaneum among the Athenians, or the numerous asylums which munificent
Rome erected to the brave men who carved out with their strong arms and
their blades of steel the colossal forms of her glory and grandeur. The
magnificent ruins of Italica, which sheltered the disabled veterans and
heroes of Africanus, look down at the present day over the vast and
fertile plains of the Guadalquivir, to reproach later and higher
civilizations with neglect and ingratitude.