‘I am so anxious that we should all work in the direction pointed out by our Rural Dean, get all Church people to work together as one, for works which cannot or ought not to be merely parochial, and in all charitable work, wherever it is possible, to get all, whether Church or not, to join in opposing all forms of evil.... I think we should take works in order of importance. I may be wrong, but I have regretted the erection of Church steeples when there was other work that seemed to me of more importance [left unsupported]. I think the increase of offertories in churches, good as it is in many ways, has tended to hinder united work in the town. I do not know whether there ever could be a sort of Council for the administration of at least part of the funds so collected; but it does seem as if the present plan gave too much to some districts and too little to others, and left some institutions which have a claim upon all, with scarcely any support, because what is everybody’s business is nobody’s.... The laity have very little influence in the distribution of money collected in churches, which tends always to become a larger proportion of what is given away, so that much of the power to organise united work must rest with the clergy. And _living_ forces, which are enormously more important than money, are wasted by “congregationalism.” Could there not be some larger association of Church workers from which some sort of administrative council might select persons suitable for any special work? Could not work sometimes be done collectively, instead of each clergyman doing it separately for his own congregation? I do hope that more and more, in one work after another, we may unite our forces, and if once people can be induced to look into the evils which exist at their very doors, they will be moved to work with one heart and mind to remove what is a disgrace to our town.’ Among the institutions of Cheltenham, for which Miss Beale specially claimed the need of united action, was the Working Men’s College. She herself on one occasion read a paper there, her subject being ‘Self-support and Self-government from the point of view, not of the individual, but of the College.’ The paper, simple and direct, shows how Miss Beale could throw herself into the minds of those she addressed, appealing to all that was best in them, while at the same time putting her own thoughts into them. It embodies her favourite theories of the danger of helping people through gifts:—