succeeding years she would get the people watched over with that continuous care without which right decisions at any particular crisis of life lose half their efficacy; indeed, she might often avert such a crisis altogether. For instance, she might get the visitors to induce the man to join a provident dispensary or club; which would be more Satisfactory, though not perhaps more necessary, than refusing him aid when he has not done so. Sometimes, when I think of those Charity Organisation Committees so much misunderstood by many, because they have so resolutely determined to give no fresh unsatisfactory relief, some of them tenderly pitiful of the poor, some of them a little far off from them, but all trying to help them in thoughtfully considered ways, and of the great current of careless, inconsiderate relief going on unchecked and uncontrolled by them, I feel as if a union between you and them would do more than almost anything else to help the poor. There they are all ready for you in every district of London, asking you to co-operate, asking you to study with them what is best, and you leave them in too many cases to be mere repressors of the grossest forms of mendicity, and by no means organisers of charity. If the plan I suggest were adopted by only a few visiting societies, I delight to think what might be gained by furnishing the committees with a few gentle workers representing many more, and associated with the charities of the neighbourhood.
But I pass on to consider the relations of these secretaries to the metropolis. They ought to be supplied with information about the laws affecting the poor, Sanitary Laws, Poor Laws, Education Acts, &c.; they ought to get notice of important meetings about medical charities; of new suggestions and arrangements as to the best methods of collecting and storing the earnings of the poor. And how is this to be done? Much of it might even now be done through the Charity Organisation Society. All of it, I hope, will be done through the Society in the future; but the committees are too busy, too occupied with their daily labour, to deal with this new matter with the fulness of detail which at first it will require; and perhaps they do not everywhere nor always command the full sympathy and confidence of their district. Added to which, I have noticed that people, curiously enough, are more willing to invite information from private persons than from official bodies. Something must be done to meet the wants of a time of transition, and I trust I am not over-bold in offering, while the plan is new, to do what I can to fill the gap; but in the future we ought to endeavour to secure that the visitors should be so organised that they themselves can compare notes, and each communicate to each how practical difficulties have been met in particular localities—so organised that facts bearing on their work should reach them swiftly and certainly, and that their experience should be accessible for legislators and reformers.
I have set before you nothing great, nothing grand, no new society, no fresh light even on the problems respecting wiser systems of relief, or their applications to individuals, which you are desiring so much to solve, each in your own parish or court. I do believe those problems to be capable of solution. I do believe that our almsgiving has been cruel in its kindness. It is for the sake of the people themselves that I would see it decreased, yes, even put down altogether; I believe they would be richer, as well as happier, for it. For the sake of the energy of the poor, the loss of which is so fatal to them, for the sake of that intercourse with them, happy, friendly, human intercourse, which dependence renders impossible, seek to your utmost for better ways of helping them. We can give you no general rules which will obviate necessity of thought, singly must your difficulties be met, singly conquered; but see that you throw upon them all available light from the experience of others, the thoughts of the thoughtful. No new society, no great scheme, have I to urge, only if here or there any one or two of the groups of visitors care to select one among them to be their secretary, and send me her name and address, I will tell her what I can which I think may be helpful to her or them. We might meet, too, we secretaries, now and again, to talk over important questions and strengthen one another; and though I could not possibly find time to deal with difficulties in detail, I might show, or get shown, what plans have been found useful in places which I know. I might help, too, a little about finding employment. I hear of a good many situations of an exceptional kind, and difficult to fill up suitably, and notice of such vacancies I might send on to secretaries, who could find among their visitors someone who would care to spend thought and time in fitting into an exceptional place the person best adapted for it. The large demands for labour are, I believe, best dealt with by advertisement or registry; but there is not any more valuable way of helping individuals than by fitting them in where they are wanted, in ways that are not possible except to those who have personal knowledge of candidates. Mere routine notices might thus meet great human needs.
I have spoken throughout this paper of outward means and appliances; I have referred very little to improvement of the lives and spirits of men. This is not because I do not care for those lives and spirits. They are reached, we must remember, in many different ways. A great deal of life is necessarily spent in getting its surroundings into order, and in London here, this machinery of ours, all the tangible things round us, need a great deal done to them; it tests us better than any words can do. It is very difficult—impossible, I believe—to make the things of this world fair and orderly, to arrange them justly, to govern them rightly, without living very nobly. The right use of money, the laws affecting houses and lands, involve principles which test the sincerity of a man or a nation; they test it, I say, as words cannot test it. I think our poor see this very clearly, and that, strange as it may seem, the messages about God's nature, and about His relation to them, come in a subtle way through our acts. More perhaps than through our words. This is emphatically so just now. They have heard a great many words, and have been puzzled because our actions have often seemed to them at variance with those words. I know how hopelessly we must fail in any attempt to live up to the unspeakable majesty of God's tenderness, and the boundless wisdom of His righteousness; but even our failure, after sincere trial, brings a message of what He is to His children. Our actions are speaking to them. For this reason I have never felt the execution of the most minute duty with regard to tangible things beneath my notice, and I do not feel that in urging any of you to consider the right settlement of questions of temporal relief, I am asking you to devote yourselves to a task which is otherwise than holy. On the contrary, I have felt that it can be only rightly dealt with by those who are content to carry it on in silent allegiance to One who will judge with farther sight than feeble men, who will know what deeper mercy there may be in the act which looks to men harsh at the moment. Indeed, I dare not, trust the difficult things there may be to do in refusal of immediate help to any mere reasonable political economist. The generals who can direct the sad retracing of our foolish steps should be those who care for the people because their Father cares, and so desire to make them what He would have them to be; and the only ones who will have fortitude to bear the misunderstanding this may cause will be those who feel tenderest pity for the people.
Not a small thing, even in itself, is the dealing with the tangible and soulless things of earth. We may be very proud, justly proud, of the well-ordered spot of earth, the well-spent income, the self-restrained providence, whether they are our own, or whether we have helped another so to regulate the talents entrusted to him; but the glad pride breaks away, and a deep thankfulness overpowers us, if ever by word or deed we seem to have helped anyone to catch even a little glimpse of the mighty Love which enwraps his spirit, uniting it in solemn harmony with all that is contained, as well as all that cannot be contained, in this wonderful, visible world.
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