I say all this because in criticising the Churches I do not want to be taken as a critic of religion in its fullest and best sense; for it is an eternal truth, “Man does not live by bread alone.” Look where you will, investigate as you may, you will find how true a saying it is. Yet religion plays but a small part in our national or private life. There are many thousands of good men and women who toil and work for the “coming of the Kingdom” with a courage and zeal beyond all praise; there are priests who labour incessantly, striving to bring the message of the gospel of peace into the dark and squalid places of our great cities; yet the common people pass by unheeding. Big-hearted men and women, seeing into the great gulf which divides the social life and conditions of the rich and of the poor, create social and religious centres where rich and poor may meet together. Educated young men and women come East to learn all about the poor, to investigate and analyse conditions, and to look, as it were, at the curious life and customs of those who work. Clubs are formed, boys’ brigades, companies of boy scouts, girls’ clubs, mothers’ meetings, fathers’ meetings, and so on. At the last-mentioned tobacco is sometimes thrown in, and quite occasionally something called religion is talked about and discussed. Only a minute fraction of the population surrounding any of these settlements attends these meetings or clubs, and fewer people still ever dream of attending the churches or chapels attached to such places. I think the workers owe an enormous debt to Canon Barnett and his wife for their selfless work in the establishment and organisation of the first of these settlements at Toynbee Hall. They have had many followers in many parts of the country, but so far these settlements all fail to do more than touch the outside fringe of the social life of the people, and this because they all appear to accept the present social order as a God-ordained institution, and are quite content to allow the struggle for bread to remain as the recognised dominant factor in the life of the people.