The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-03-07


human unthankfulness.
1t finds the causes of poverty within
the poor themselves, and without them
selves. Within them, it finds waste.
idleness, ignorance even co-existing with
the best mentions, love of drink, habits
tending to disease. To all these it ad-
dresses itself, with patient sympathy.
Initiating a great hearted apostle. it
takes the impotent man by the hand and
lifts him up. To uplift to set people on
their feet, to enable them to stand, is
the great effort of the New Charity.
The Drink Evil and Its Remedies
As to the drink evil, the New Charity
realizes that people must have some
thing. The New Charity not only says
Don't" it also says "Do." If we take
away from people one pleasure, we must
give them something in its place. The
devils cannot be kept out Of the heart SO
long as it is empty, no matter if it be
swept and garnished With the wisdom
which characterizes a heaven-inspired
woman, Elice Hopkins urges that we
"empty .by filing that we dethrone
the saloon by bringing in the cheap con-
cert the lecture, the club. room. Let
the working men have place to read.
to talk ward politics, to play chess, to
smoke, If you please. | say this the
more. freely since / am not entering a
plea for any indulgence of my own: /
do not smoke myself; almost every one
has some one small virtue of which he
would not willingly be bereaved, even
though he leaves it to languish in soil.
tude.
1t is hardly needful to remind any
intelligent reader that this kind of work
costs. 1t was not hard for the Old
Charity to give bread and COAL But the
New Charity gives hand, heart, brain;
gives nights of sleepless thought, gives,
in imitation Of the divine it's own self,
Tut not all the causes of poverty are
within the poor. Where the Old Charity
gave shilling and lost sight of them,
the New follows them, and sees where
they sleep and eat. are born and die. It
tries by every effort and resource at it's
command to reconstruct their surround
ings. 1t appeals at once to the selfre.
spect Of the tenant and to the humanity
OF the owner; it invokes the aid of the
law; it shows the capitalist that a safe
investment may consist with the be-
stowment of the greater blessings on the
poor.
The New Charity goes to great en-
ployers, to the Presidents of gigantic
railroad corporations, and it says, "While
we realize your personal kindness of
heart, while we value your private aims
giving, yet we feel that the greatest
work that you can do for your tens of
thousands of employed lies in giving
them an equity that is according to the
Law of Sinai and the Mountain Sermon.
by extending to them moral reinforce
ment, by encouraging and helping them
to save, to become in small way capi-
talists, partners in your enterprise, shar.
ers in your success"
The Outlook for the Future,
The New Charity differs from the Old
as to its future. AS to the future of the
Old Charity-but, in fact, it has no fu-
ture. 1t makes no progress, has no in
vention, no resources. It's only idea is
bread, more bread; soup, more soup. II
there is one beggar, one loaf. If two
beggars. two loaves. If ten thousand
beggars, ten thousand loaves. A thous.
and poor, one soup house; two thousand
two soup houses. And SO it increases
the demand until the revenue of an en-
pire would be inadequate. Is there not
a connection between these two facts as
to London, stated by the London Quar-
terly Review, that each year more than
100000 is distributed in public and
private doles; and that one ne-eighth of the
population, or more than half million.
are assisted by the other seven. .eighths?
DIR. Holmes has said, The patient may
uAuAoSb AWAY 10 5uNCuE IL tuo uOcUOT Is
called in time; but he should be called
two or three hundred years before the
patient is born" 1t is not quite conven-
lent for the New Charity Of today to root
out the seeds of the pauper disease
found in the Seventeenth and the Six
teenth Century; but it does the next
best thing; it seeks to cure the pauper-
ism of the Twentieth and the succeeding
centuries, by shutting up the pauper-
factories of today. Just in proportion as
the New Charity has chance, the Jukes
family will become an obsolete impossi.
bility.
The Old Charity got along passably
in this country, so long as the problems
were so very simple, when there were no
large cities. few foreign poor, few ignor-
ant, no professional pauper class.
But it is the New Charity alone which
can meet the demands of the day and
the situation. By eminence it is alone
the New Charity which can meet the
demands OF vast city, with it's un-
speakable disparity of station and means.
with its temptations. its perils, its exul
tations and aponias and enmitiae