"It's simple enough," Holroyd answered, smiling. "It was just the application of common sense to the laws of charity. Nearly every one's charitable by instinct--only sometimes it's so difficult for a busy man to know exactly when and how to give. I started in one of the big cities, looking up prosperous middle-class families. I'd try to induce them, instead of just writing cheques for institutions and making things for bazaars, to take a personal interest in a family of about the same size as their own who were in a bad way. When they promised, all I had to do was to find the poor family and bring them together, and it was astonishing how much the one could do for the other without undue effort. There were the clothes, of course, and old housekeeping things, odd bits of furniture, food from the kitchen, a job for one of the boys in the garden, a day's work for one of the girls in the house. I tell you I have lists of hundreds of poor families, who feel now that they have some one to fall back upon, and the richer half of the combination take a tremendous interest in their foster-family, as some of them call it. Sometimes there is trouble, but the world is governed by majorities, and in the majority of cases the thing has turned out excellently." "There's the essence of charity in the idea--the personal note," Macheson remarked. "How's the Canadian farm going, Finlayson?" "We're paying our way," Finlayson answered, "and you should see our boys. They come out thin and white--all skin and bones. You wouldn't recognize one of them in six months! They're good workers, too. We've nine hundred altogether in the North-West, and we want more. I'm hoping to take a hundred back with me." "It's a grand country," Macheson said. "I'm glad it's part of the Empire, Finlayson, or I should grudge you those boys. We can't spare too many. Hinton, your work speaks for itself." Hinton, the only one in clerical dress, smiled a little wearily. "Sometimes," he said, "I wish it would speak a little louder. East End work is all the same. One feels ashamed of preaching religion to a starving people." Macheson nodded his sympathy. "I know what you mean," he said. "It drove me from the East to the West. We should preach at the one and feed the other!... Of course, I personally have always been handicapped. I haven't been able to subscribe to any of the established churches. But I do believe in the laws of retribution, whether you call them human or Divine. One's moral delinquencies pay one out just as bodily excesses do. Always one's debts are to be paid, and it's a terrible burden the drones must carry. After all, I've come to the conclusion that there's heaps of sound moral teaching to be drummed into our fellow-creatures without the necessity of being orthodox!"