actually shows how to clean a ward better and cheaper than the contractors have done it, the truth slowly dawns on persons in power.

Pallative measures of relief must be employed to alleviate immediate misery. Examples of these forms of ministry may here be given, specimens of a wide range of work.

COUNTRY OUTINGS.-Anticipating the time when cities shall be made as healthy as open land, the Settlements have sought to mitigate the evils of crowded homes by sending the feeble and convalescent to the country for recuperation. The means for this purpose are sometimes collected from generous friends or by a great newspaper; sometimes the money is provided by accumulations of small savings of the better paid artisans themselves. Residents among the poor are in good position to discover the need and know who will receive benefit from the vacation. One of the Mansfield House appeals paints a picture in few strokes and touches pity. "Think of what it means to be ill for a long period in a close, unhealthy room, in a narrow street. Perhaps the whole life of the family goes on in this same room, and the smell is far from pleasant. The sun beats down with pitiless force; the flies swarm over the sick patient; food is spoiled by the heat, and at times almost putrid, for the poor have no larders nor pantries. The transfer of the sick to a farmhouse in the country, or a cottage by the sea, is like lifting them from hell to heaven."

"One good result of the Holiday Fund comes

before the children are sent away. Every child has to be examined to see that it is clean, and many · have been turned back to wait a fortnight, till they could satisfy the doctor. The consequence is that there is an astonishing amount of washing done. Not before it is needed in many cases; as once, when the doctor, enquiring into a very dirty child's history, found that she had not had a bath since she was sent away by the Fund two years ago.” (Mansfield House Magazine.)

Trained Nurses are valuable allies. Working people are worn out with toil, and often lack skill. They are ashamed to go to a dispensary or charity hospital. They are then worse off than paupers.

"At these times, to be able to command the attention of a trained nurse several times a day often makes all the difference between life and death. And such attention should, above all things, be efficient. The greatest command of Scripture texts in such a crisis will not make up for lack of training and capacity, and it is to be feared that sometimes district nurses can supply more of the former than of the latter. Such a fraud is nearly as dangerous as that of sending unqualified practitioners. The first work of Christianity in providing nursing should be a concern for professional thoroughness." (Report of Bermondsey Settlement.)

B. The Ministration of the Settlement to the Industrial and Economic Amelioration of the Community.

Poverty is a striking characteristic of the communities around Settlements. All the Masses of

A

the poor described in the great work of Charles Booth are found by residents and visitors. few are wretchedly poor, vicious and incapable. Many hover on the border between absolute dependence and modest self-support. Others are higher up, and can support themselves if all goes well, but only by constant toil at low wages. Still others have fair incomes, many comforts, and an ambition to do better still. Day and night the facts of pinching distress, heroic endeavor and increasing struggle for existence pass in tragic drama before the eyes of residents. They would be monsters if this pathetic contest did not awaken sympathy and demand coöperation. This sympathy has been expressed by Ruskin:

"I have listened to many ingenious persons who say we are better off now than ever we were before. I do not know how well off we were before, but I know positively that many deserving persons of my acquaintance have great difficulty in living under these improved circumstances; also, that my desk is full of begging letters, eloquently written either by distressed or dishonest people; and that we cannot be called, as a nation, well off, while so many of us are living either in honest or in villainous beggary.

For my own part, I will put up with this state of things, passively, not an hour longer. I am not an unselfish person, nor an evangelical one; I have no particular pleasure in doing good; neither do I dislike doing it so much as to expect to be rewarded for it in another world. But I simply cannot paint

nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do anything else that I like, and the very light of the morning sky, when there is any,-which is seldom nowadays, near London,—has become hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see signs of, when I know it not, which no imagination can interpret too bitterly.

"Therefore, I will endure it no longer quietly; but henceforward, with any few or many who will help, do my poor best to abate their misery. But that I may do my best, I must not be miserable myself any longer; for no man who is wretched in his own heart, and feeble in his own work, can rightly help others."*

In these paragraphs we see the first passionate burst of resentment against a condition of social misery and degradation, and then the effort to collect one's powers and look about him with open eyes and steady nerves till he can discern the wisest method of help. Unfortunately, many have come into the sweep of Ruskin's passion without advancing to the stage of peaceful selfcontrol; and they have served to embitter life without contributing real wisdom to the work of betterment.

The Settlements have no panacea to offer. The residents represent all shades of economic theory, from rank socialism to extreme laissez faire. Many of them have no large remedy to propose, but have gone to study the situation, and seek to formulate their life programme close to the reality.

*Fors Clavigera, Letter I., June, 1871,

Perhaps the most valuable economic service which they have thus far rendered is the discovery of the actual mode of life of various classes of the poor, with whom the difficulties of existence are most acute.

Direct relief agencies can go a very little way to aid the poor. But charity has its place in a method of economic help. For the present the very existence of many thousands of persons depends on the gifts of those who are more fortunate. There will always be some who will be too weak to provide for their own necessities. The Settlement acts as any gentle and kind household must act in presence of extreme destitution; it must give material help. Much as the workers dislike to be regarded as alms-giving agencies, they are compelled to accept something of this burden, and their situation as neighbors enables them to administer relief with clear vision and adequate knowledge.

At a later point, under the head of educational service, we shall see that the Settlement renders valuable help to the poor by fitting them to become more efficient producers, and more intelligent in saving, use and public administration.

No

The Settlement does not and cannot take an attitude of indifference toward the trade unions. man living among the self-respecting wage-earners in cities can be neutral upon this point. One may regret acts of violence and injustice, and honestly rebuke deeds of tyranny and lawlessness. One may frankly discuss some of the economic errors advocated by wage-earners, and if he has tact and