In Dr. Butler's sermons our thoughts were directed to such subjects as the Housing of the Working Classes, Popular Education, and the contrast between the lot of the rich and the lot of the poor. "May God never allow us to grow proud, or to grow indolent, or to be deaf to the cry of human suffering." "Pray that God may count you worthy to be foremost in the truly holy and heroic work of bringing purity to the homes of the labouring classes, and so hastening the coming of the day when the longing of our common Lord shall be accomplished." "Forget not the complaints, and the yet more fatal silence, of the poor, and pray that the ennobling of your own life, and the gratification of your own happiness, may be linked hereafter with some public Christian labour." Thus the influences of school co-operated with the influences of home to give one, at the most impressionable age, a lively interest in Social Service; and that interest found a practical outlet at Oxford. When young men first attempt good works, they always begin with teaching; and a Sunday School at Cowley and a Night School at St. Frideswide's were the scenes of my (very unsuccessful) attempts in that direction. Through my devotion to St. Barnabas', I became acquainted with the homes and lives of the poor in the then squalid district of "Jericho"; and the experience thus acquired was a valuable complement to the knowledge of the agricultural poor which I had gained at home. It was at this time that I first read _Yeast_ and _Alton Locke_. The living voice of Ruskin taught us the sanctity of work for others. A fascinating but awful book called _Modern Christianity a Civilized Heathenism_ laid compelling hands on some young hearts; and in 1875 Dr. Pusey made that book the subject of a sermon before the University, in which he pleaded the cause of the poor with an unforgettable solemnity.[56]