Christian Citizenship 267 



that we should not be soft-headed. I really do not 

 know which quality is most productive of evil to 

 mankind in the long run, hardness of heart or soft 

 ness of head. Naked charity is not what we perma 

 nently want. There are of course certain classes, 

 such as young children, widows with large families, 

 or crippled or very aged people, or even strong men 

 temporarily crushed by stunning misfortune, on 

 whose behalf we may have to make a frank and di 

 rect appeal to charity, and who can be the recipients 

 of it without any loss of self-respect. But taking 

 us as a whole, taking the mass of Americans, we do 

 not want charity, we do not want sentimentality ; we 

 merely want to learn how to act both individually 

 and together in such fashion as to enable us to hold 

 our own in the world, to do good to others according 

 to the measure of our opportunities, and to receive 

 good from others in ways which will not entail on 

 our part any loss of self-respect. 



It ought to be unnecessary to say that any man 

 who tries to solve the great problems that confront 

 us by an appeal to anger and passion, to ignorance 

 and folly, to malice and envy, is not, and never can 

 be, aught but an enemy of the very people he pro 

 fesses to befriend. In the words of Lowell, it is far 

 safer to adopt "All men up" than "Some men down" 

 for a motto. Speaking broadly, we can not in the 

 long run benefit one man by the downfall of another. 



