Another equally frequent and equally unfounded assertion of the pulpit has been that but for the bible there would have been no hospitals in the world, or any interest in the poor, by the rich. The defenders of the bible seem to feel that it is only by shutting their eyes and closing their ears that they can continue to believe that the Jews were the only "inspired" people in the world. In the first place, hospitals are more of a necessity in the modern world than they were in olden times. Science has taught us to apply method and system in the department of philanthropy as in that of business, while formerly the care of the needy was largely a private matter. Besides, our cities are bigger, and our populations more heterogeneous, and the struggle for existence more intense to-day, than ever before. We have hospitals to-day, in self-defense, if not for any other reason. Our own peace and comfort would be disturbed and our doorsteps and business offices, as well as homes, would be converted into hospitals, if the State, or public enterprise, did not undertake in some systematic way the housing and nursing of the sick and the unfortunate. It is not only from charity that we have hospitals to-day. We support them also from necessity. To say, however, that the ancients, being deprived of the bible, took no interest in the care of the sick, or the hungry, is a clear misrepresentation. If the bible is the hospital builder, how many hospitals did the Old Testament people build in Palestine under the reign of David or Solomon? Was there ever a single movement started in Palestine for the protection of the oppressed or the unfortunate of the world? In his Paganism and Christianity, J. H. Farrer, speaking of the practice of charity in the pre-Christian world, cites the examples of Cimon the Athenian giving of his abundance to feed the poor and clothe the naked; of the Lacedaemonians supplying the people of Smyrna with food in time of scarcity, and replying, when thanked for it, that they only deprived themselves and their cattle of a dinner; of Apollonius reminding Vespasian that the supply of the needs of the poor was one of the best uses of a sovereign's wealth; of Arcesilaus visiting Apelles, and, to relieve him of the indigence to which sickness had reduced him, placing twenty drachms under his pillow, while pretending to make him more comfortable; of the Roman nobles, after the accident to the amphitheater at Fidenæ whereby fifty thousand persons were killed or wounded, opening their houses and procuring doctors and relief for the victims; of all the cities of Asia relieving with money or shelter the victims of the great earthquake in Smyrna in 177 A.D. * Seneca's description of the wise man offering aid to the shipwrecked, hospitality to the exile, money to the needy, redeeming prisoners from their chains, releasing them from the arena, and giving sepulture to the criminal, ** is clearly a picture drawn from nature and daily life, not from his