Page:Our Common Land (and other short essays).djvu/177

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EFFECTUAL CHARITY.
165

in some way we ought to have left her responsibilities to have been met by her own energies. Then we should have been able to take and keep the position of friends; she would not have learned to watch our faces to see what expression on her part extorted pity or shillings best, but would have come to us when the memories of the past were too heavy to bear alone, and the words of hope in God's mercy and wisdom would have been spoken from the heart to the heart.

Let visitors be friends, and nothing else, leaving money help to others; or else study seriously all wise effectual ways of help, that they may not be driven to miserable doles of half-crowns and bread-tickets, which are surely destructive of vigorous life in the poor, and of natural healthy relation between friends. I could, you could yourselves, multiply instances of this a hundredfold. It will be more profitable to study how in the future they may be avoided.