The poverty of the poor is understood by the poor, and their charity is according to the measure of Christ’s. The charity of the rich is according to another measure, because they do not know of poverty, and they do not know because they do not think. Only the self-satisfied Pharisee and the proud Roman could pass Calvary unmoved, and only the self-absorbed can be ignorant that every day the innocent and helpless are crucified. The selfishness of modern life is shown most clearly in this absence of thought. Absorbed in their own concerns, kindly people carelessly hear statements, see prices, and face sights which imply the ruin of their fellow-creatures. The rich would not be so cruel if they would think. Thought about the amount of food which ‘good wages’ can buy, about the hours spent in making matches or coats, about the sorrows behind the faces of those who serve them in shops or pass them in the streets; thought would make the rich ready to help; and the fact that there are among the 500,000 inhabitants of the Tower Hamlets 86,920 too poor to live is enough to make them think. The failure of the relief fund is the other fact of the winter to stir thought. Mansion House relief represents the mercies to which the wisdom and the love of the completest age have committed the needs of the poor. Never were needs so delicate left to mercies so clumsy; needs intertwined with the sorrows and sufferings with which no stranger could intermeddle have been met with the brutal generosity of gifts given often with little thought or cost. The result has been an increase of the causes which make poverty and a decrease of good-will among men. The fund failed even to relieve distress. In St. George’s-in-the-East there were nearly 4,000 applicants, representing 20,000 persons. All of these were in distress--were, that is, cold and hungry. Of these there were 2,400 applicants, representing some 12,000 persons--whom the committee considered to be working people unemployed and within the scope of the fund. For their relief 2,000_l._ was apportioned; and if it had been equally divided each person would have had 3_s._ 4_d._ on which to support life during three months. Such sums might have relieved the givers, pleased by the momentary satisfaction of the recipient, but they would not have relieved the poor, who would still have had to endure days and weeks of want.