I feel not a little shy at speaking to so large and thoughtful a body of workers; and I should not have ventured to accede to Mr. Loch’s proposal had I not felt myself to be an old friend of the Charity Organisation Society. I cannot say that I have ever seen its founder, neither was I present at its birth, but I was at its christening, when some long names were given; and later, at its confirmation, I heard the duty undertaken, and indeed the declaration made, that the main object of its existence was ‘to improve the condition of the poor.’ I am very proud of our friend; but, being a Charity Organiser, I can see his faults, of which, to my mind, one of the chief is that he has forgotten his baptism! I do not mean his name, but some of the promises then made for him. Far from forgetting his name, he thinks rather too much of it, having fallen into the aristocratic fault of believing a name more important than a character; and inasmuch as ‘on what we dwell that we become,’ he has run the danger--and we will not say wholly escaped it--of sacrificing the one to the other. He has, in short, unkindly ignored the thoughts and wishes of some of his god-parents. Have not his friends a right to be aggrieved? We hear nowadays much about Social Reform, which, being interpreted, means, I suppose, the removal of certain conditions in and around society which stand in the way of man’s progress towards perfection. Every human being, surely, ought to be able to make a free choice for good or evil. It is, no doubt, possible for each of us to choose the higher or the lower life ‘in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call us’; but the condition of some states keeps the higher life very low. The moralists may tell about the educating influence of resistance to temptations; but are not temptations strong enough in themselves without being buttressed by conditions? Even the most ingenious of Eve’s apologists has never ventured to advance the view that she was hungry. It should be a matter of man’s free will alone that determines which life he lives. Social conditions, over which as an individual he has no power, now too often determine for him, for there are forces in and around society which crush down the individual will of man and which bind his limbs so tightly that not only his course, but too often his gait, has been determined for him. 1. Great Wealth.--Can a man live the highest life whose abundance puts out of daily practice the priceless privilege of personal sacrifice--from whom effort is undemanded--whose floors are padded should he chance to fall--whose walls, golden though they be, are dividing barriers, high and strong, between him and his fellow-men?