BUSINESS, FRIENDSHIP, AND CHARITY. 83 



the unhindered working of the law of supply and demand that 

 exchange of effort can be made with ultimate justice to all, and 

 this ultimate justice can only be attained when all persons whose 

 efforts are interchanged clearly perceive the value of any particular 

 effort, and willingly exchange effort for effort, benefit for benefit, 

 in proportion to their true value. That increased morality which 

 comes from increased intelligence alone will lead to this end. 



And so also with charity. That there should be a distinction 

 between helping those who can not work and contributing to the 

 comfort of those who will not work, is being ever made more 

 clear by those who have given studious attention to the minis- 

 tration of charity. As to steal is to deprive others of benefit 

 without yielding benefit in return, those who are physically and 

 mentally able and have the opportunity to maintain themselves, 

 but who abstract from others the benefit that conduces to that 

 maintenance by the simulation of helplessness and appeal to sym- 

 pathy, are no less than thieves. And, likewise, those who by ap- 

 peal to sympathy obtain from others benefit in excess of that to 

 which they are entitled under the unhindered working of the law 

 of supply and demand, in common with those who because of 

 sympathy extend that benefit, inflict a wrong upon society as a 

 whole. Many persons of fine sensibilities, who live in comfort 

 and are kindly disposed toward all men, feeling it their duty to 

 alleviate pain, succor the distressed, and elevate the lowly, in the 

 attempt to lift to a higher standard the life of those whose lot 

 appeals to them in piteous contrast with their own, have scattered 

 gifts and expended energy often misdirected because they have 

 not recognized that the mold given by heredity and environment 

 can not suddenly be changed, that true and lasting improvement 

 to any one can only result from his own perception of and desire 

 to reach a higher standard, and his own effort directed toward 

 that end. 



But, says one of the well-to-do, " Am I to be debarred from the 

 exercise of kindness to my friends, to whom the giving of pleasure 

 yields me manifold pleasure in return ; am I not to have my good 

 friend who lives more humbly than I at my house for dinner, for 

 a drive in my carriage, or may I not take him with me for a jour- 

 ney that will give him needed rest and build up his health ? Am 

 I not to extend token of friendship by gifts to whom I choose ? " 

 The reply first and foremost is, that the highest end of friendship 

 is removed far and above the exchange of material benefit. From 

 the association of minds that are congenial and natures that 

 accord, there is derived a rare and refined delight to which in 

 proper bounds the exchange of kindness and gifts may minister ; 

 but it is polluted and broken the instant it becomes on either side 

 a means for obtaining unrequited material gain. 



