The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-02 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 2.

Ir is a fortunate thing for the world that if
practice is rarely found associated with preaching,
it is often to be discovered apart from it ; and
though the magniloquent theories upon woman's
mission seem fated to remain as barren of results
as the kindred speculations upon woman's rights,
we can still congratulate the gentler sex upon having
shown by the most satisfactory process that this
much abused expression has nevertheless a real
meaning. In rural districts the simpler modes of
life and the more intimate connexion of class
with class have always kept alive the tradition of
feminine usefulness, and amidst much that is
fussy and ill-judged, the young ladies of the
Rectory or the Hall have been a real power for
good amongst the poor of their own neighbour-
hood. It is scarcely wonderful, however, that when
this unpretending machinery came to be trans-
planted to localities for which it was not adapted
it should absolutely and hopelessly break down.
Amidst the thronging crowds of our great cities
poverty is apt to wear its most forbidding aspect,
and the energy of individual effort grows faint
before the hopeless spectacle of the evil with which
it has to contend. In comparison of the great
mass of human misery which Bea at our very feet,
and surges upwards to our very doors, the
benefit of isolated action seems so infini-
tesimal that the most sanguine temper might
ahead be excused if it looked on with folded
arms, or passed by with averted glance.
Happily, however, the consciousness of weakness
has been productive of better consequences. If
the closed ranks of that vast army are unassail-
able by a mere guerilla warfare, there may be a
better prospect of success for a combined and
organized attack ; and of late years Englishwomen
have given ample proof that they no longer regard
their ministrations to the poor as something to be

laid aside daring the London season and taken up
again when they go out of town. We do not say
that it would be anything wonderful if they did
think so. Men are too much absorbed in the
business of life to rail at women it they are
equally absorbed in its pleasures. But we may
still rejoice that so many of the latter have
found it possible to satisfy the requirements
of society without ignoring those of distress. We
are not disposed, indeed, to magnify unduly the
claims of the British father, and if this slightly in-
consistent personage is content to breakfast by
himself five mornings in the week because his
daughters have been dancing till four o'clock, it is
difficult to see much ground for his irritation at being
condemned to the same fate on the sixth because
they have gone out early to the hospital. But we
own to feeling greater sympathy with the needs of
man in the abstract. There is always a latent
danger that philanthropy, when viewed through the
distorting medium of the feminine conscience, may
take the form which SYDNEY Swan attributed to
charity, and that A may do her duty to B by sacri-
ficing the happiness of C. It is true that C may
be nothing more than a husband, a lover, or
a friend, but for all that he has his
rights, and it will probably be found that the pos-
sibility of female usefulness upon any adequate or
extended scale will depend in the long run upon
the recognition of this fact.

The principle of association comes in very oppor-
tunely as a preservative against both the dangers
we have mentioned. The sense of power which
springs from a common effort will be the best anti-
dote to that restless individualism which wears its
heart out in trying to do everything, or sits down
in despairing acquiescence, and makes up its mind
to do nothing ; while the knowledge and fore-
thought which are the natural acoompaninunds of
combined and organized labour will be able to find
scope for the unequal powers and varying oppor-
tunities of many different workers. The hour
or two in the week, which may be all that
a young lady has to spare from her or-
dinary pursuits, will be turned to the best possible
account, when the employment of them is regu-
lated by the arrangements of a general scheme ;
whereas, if she had been left without guidance in
their distribution, her self-sacrifice would have
been absolutely thrown away. It is encouraging,
therefore, to read the list of agencies of this de-
scription which the Bishop of LONDON was able to
enumerate in his address to the "Ladies' Diocesan
" Association "on Monday. Homes, hospitals,
refuges, orphanages—are all so many oppor-
tunities of utilizing the desultory efforts
which by themselves would have been probably
destitute of any result, so many ways of '
combining into one great mosaic of good deeds the'
fragments of time or labour from which, in default
of such a process, it would have seemed hopeless to
look for any solid good. But there are two objects
among the many which the Bishop commended to
the Association which seem deserving of especial
notice. It has become almost a common-pines to
praise the enlightened charity which has filled
the wards of our great hospitals with the sick
poor, and turned to the benefit of the inmates