I have met some people, who from books alone have been impressed with the injustices of our social organization, and have left the seclusion of their studies to throw their lives into the active campaign for justice. Such mental processes are, I think, rare. Certainly it came about differently in my case. When Benson proposed that I should come to live in the settlement, I felt no "call" to social service. I was lonely, out of work, utterly adrift. The memory of the evening I had spent with him in the Children’s House and the interesting people I had met was very pleasant. I had no suspicions that I was going there to stay. It appealed to me as sort of convalescent home, where I could rest up until I was able to go out and cope with the ordinary life of the world. At first the little circle of workers seemed incoherent. Here were half a dozen highly educated men and women, most of whom had left pleasant homes, living in the most abject neighborhood of the city. Why? What good were they doing? Around us roared the great fire of poverty. Here and there they were plucking out a brand, to be sure. But the fire was beyond their control. They did not even think they could stop it. I remember one night at dinner we had for guest, a professor of economics from one of the big universities. He prided himself on his cold scientific view-point, he regarded the settlement movement as sentimental, almost hysterical, and he had the ill-breeding to forget that what he scoffed at was a desperately serious thing to his hosts. "This settlement movement reminds me of a story," he said. "Once upon a time a kind hearted old gentleman was walking down the street and found a man—drunk—in the gutter. He tried vainly to pull the unfortunate one up on the sidewalk and then losing courage, he said, ’My poor man, I can’t help you, but I’ll get down in the gutter beside you.’" He laughed heartily, but no one else did. The story fell decidedly flat. It was several minutes before anyone took up the challenge. At last, Rev. Mr. Dawn, the head worker, coughed slightly and replied. He had turned quite red and I saw that the joke had stung him. "That is a very old story," he said, "it was current in Jerusalem a good many centuries ago. It was told with great _eclat_ by a scribe and a pharisee who ’passed by on the other side.’" "Oh, come, now!" our guest protested. "That’s hardly a fair comparison. The Samaritan we are told really did some good to the poor devil. And besides the victim in that case was not a drunkard, but a person who had ’fallen among thieves.’"