_Answer._ In the first place, I think he is entirely mistaken. I do not think the cloakmakers brought their trouble upon themselves. The wages they receive were and are insufficient to support reasonable human beings. They work for almost nothing, and it is hard for me to understand why they live at all, when life is so expensive and death so cheap. All they can possibly do is to earn enough one day to buy food to enable them to work the next. Life with them is a perpetual struggle. They live on the edge of death. Under their feet they must feel the side of the grave crumbling, and thus they go through, day by day, month by month, year by year. They are, I presume, sustained by a hope that is never realized. Mr. Van Norden says that he is not in favor of helping the poor and needy of the city, save in the way employed by the church, and that the experience of centuries teaches us that the giving of alms to the poor only encourages them in their idleness and their crimes. Is Mr. Van Norden ready to take the ground that when Christ said: "Sell that thou hast and give to the poor," he intended to encourage idleness and crime? Is it possible that when it was said, "It is better to give than to receive," the real meaning was, It is better to encourage idleness and crime than to receive assistance? For instance, a man falls into the water. Why should one standing on the shore attempt to rescue him? Could he not properly say: "If all who fall into the water are rescued, it will only encourage people to fall into the water; it will make sailors careless, and persons who stand on wharves, will care very little whether they fall in or not. Therefore, in order to make people careful who have not fallen into the water, let those in the water drown." In other words, why should anybody be assisted, if assistance encourages carelessness, or idleness, or negligence? According to Mr. Van Norden, charity is out of place in this world, kindness is a mistake, and hospitality springs from a lack of philosophy. In other words, all should take the consequences of their acts, not only, but the consequences of the acts of others. If I knew this doctrine to be true, I should still insist that men should be charitable on their own account. A man without pity, no matter how intelligent he may be, is at best only an intellectual beast, and if by withholding all assistance we could finally people the world with those who are actually self-supporting, we would have a population without sympathy, without charity--that is to say, without goodness. In my judgment, it would be far better that none should exist.