Certainly a great deal of entertaining goes on in Toynbee Hall. From the half-hours spent in the little room, where its Entertainment Committee meets, there issue some prominent if not exactly big results, and, perhaps, its members are not without a hope that deep consequences as well may follow. This method of helping people has not been without its critics, one of whom uttered the opinion, “that the Toynbee Hall plan was to save the people’s souls alive by pictures, pianos, and parties,” and though the remark was made derisively, there may be some doubt if it was altogether without truth: only the speaker should have added that it was _one_ of the Toynbee Hall plans, instead of using only the definite article. If the Toynbee Hall aim is to help to make it possible that men should carry out the command given long ago of “Be ye perfect,” and if, as a modern lover of righteousness has put it, “the power of social life and manners is one of the great elements in our humanization, and unless we cultivate it we are incomplete”; then it is not an error that “pictures, pianos, and parties” should be pressed into service to fill up some of the incompleteness in the East London dweller’s life, and to help him to “save his soul alive”. It is one of the saddest facts of life in this crowded, busy, tiring, and hurried part of London that it is more difficult to keep one’s soul (like one’s plants) alive than it is in gentler places, where folk get the aid of some of nature’s beauties, and some moments of that outside quiet which help to make it possible to fancy “the peace which passeth all understanding”. But because Whitechapel is Whitechapel and Toynbee Hall is in its midst, more artificial methods for gaining and keeping life must be adopted. It is true that the Entertainment Committee prefer those gatherings which can take place out of doors in the country, where the guests gain all that comes from the charm of being graciously entertained under “the wider sky”; but still town parties are not to be despised, and, judging from the glad acceptance of those many who “cannot bid again,” they are generally enjoyed.