I see not what more can be done directly, and I see not why these things should not be done. Still some will suffer: the idle, the lazy, the proud who will not work, the careless who will voluntarily waste their time, their strength, or their goods--they must suffer, they ought to suffer. Want is the only schoolmaster to teach them industry and thrift. Such as are merely unable, who are poor not by their fault--we do wrong to let them suffer; we do wickedly to leave them to perish. The little children who survive--are they to be left to become barbarians in the midst of our civilization? Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift and its creative arts. There is nature--the whole material world--waiting to serve. "What would you have thereof?" says God. "Pay for it and take it, as you will; only pay as you go!" There are hands to work, heads to think; strong hands, hard heads. God is an economist: He economizes suffering; there is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us industry, thrift, justice. It will be here no more when we have learned its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable to suppression. Can we not end this poverty--the misery and crime it brings? No, not to-day. Can we not lessen it? Soon as we will. Think how much ability there is in this town, cool, far-sighted talent. If some of the ablest men directed their thoughts to the reform of this evil, how much might be done in a single generation; and in a century--what could not they do in a hundred years? What better work is there for able men? I would have it written on my tombstone: "This man had but little wit, and less fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off and better," rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no man better off." * * * * *