But that he is a fine being we shall all agree, with a full, rich nature; and if he could or would add to his many virtues that of adaptability; if he would become a little more elastic in his fingers as well as in his body; if he would take digitalis, in the shape of hearty hand-shaking, to improve his circulation; if he would determine every week to do some new thing, ‘just for a change’; if he would, having been awakened by all his baptismal names, remind himself--just while he was dressing--of the main object of his existence; if he would not be above using an ear-trumpet, particularly on those occasions when he leaves his papers and goes to ‘sup sorrow with the poor’--if he would do some or all of these things we might yet see his strong arm foremost among those who remove barriers to let in light; we might yet hear his strong voice giving out with no uncertain sound the charitable--the loving--answer to some of these soul-stirring questions. For instance (and you will perhaps pardon me for carrying you into Committee for a few minutes), here is the case of Williamson, a man of forty, with his wife, three living children, and the recollections of the funerals of two. He is a casual dock-labourer, working when he can get work, and then only if his bad leg allows him. His wife asks for a loan to enable her to stock more fully her street-hawking basket. The father is described as a ‘quiet, steady man.’ The mother is a ‘decent woman.’ The decision of the Committee is ‘ineligible,’ and Williamson goes away a sadder and no wiser man. And why is the case ineligible? Because the Committee think that money will do the family no good. The people are below the stage when money help can be useful. They have drifted till they are, in fact, ineligible for what the Society, materialistic as the age which counts money the greatest good, feels itself alone able to give, and by the decision of the Committee they are allowed to drift still. And yet not one of us could say that this family did not need help. On the case-paper, in the very middle of the first page, stand two _helpable_ facts. Williamson is only casually employed by a great permanent company. Williamson is in no club. Charitable _effort_ needs organising even more than charitable _relief_. Some people fear the devil more than they love God; or, in other words, they fear to do harm more than they love to do good. Seeing that money unwisely bestowed does great harm, they have hastened to organise it, neglecting meanwhile to organise effort, which for the creation of good is stronger than money for the creation of evil.