The Theological Method. 271 



that and indiscriminate charity brought forth a dreadful 

 brood. It was understood that poverty and mendicancy 

 were necessary raw material for charity, and as such they 

 were encouraged. Without poverty and mendicancy the 

 occupation of the saintly alms-giver would be gone. Lat- 

 terly it has been borne in upon us that, if charity is a neces- 

 sary evil, it is an evil that cannot be too seriously deplored. 

 Does the evil of intemperance pauperize so miich ? But in 

 the reform of charity, which began within the memory of 

 my younger hearers ; in the battle with indiscriminate alms- 

 giving; in the endeavor to help those who help them- 

 selves, to organize friendly visiting, to establish a sym- 

 pathetic and humane relationship between the rich and poor, 

 it cannot be denied or doubted that the church has furnished 

 a full quota of the tireless laborers. Nor can it be denied 

 that it is the spirit of Christianity, the spirit of the man 

 Jesus, which is fundamental to their work. It was Edward 

 Denison, a young preacher in London's miserable East-End, 

 who was one of the first to make the startling affirmation, 

 ''Charity is a frightful evil," and who made "no direct help" 

 and "compulsory labor for all beggary" the sine qua nans 

 of charitable reform. It was John Richard Green, the great 

 historian, but then a London vicar, who declared that six- 

 penny photographs had done more for the poor than all the 

 charity. How so ? By nourishing the home sentiment, by 

 strengthening the family bond. ]So Eussian ikon so conse- 

 crating as that row of poor cartes-de-visite upon the mantel- 

 shelf, the old mother's in the country, the father's dead 

 and gone, the baby's over whom the sods are green, the boys' 

 far off in strange new lands. And it was Arnold Toynbee, 

 another churchman eager, bold, and strong, in whose honored 

 name Toynbee Hall was established to embody the idea of 

 personal human sympathy and fellowship as the highest and 

 the best that can entice the social helpers of our time. Sci- 

 entific charity is not enough. I can imagine that charity 

 might be so scientific that a wise man would prefer the old 

 alms-giving way. It might pauperize more, but it Avould 

 humanize more. What we want is a charity that shall be 

 Scientific in its method. Religious in its spirit. Otherwise 

 your scientific charity is a locomotive without fire and water, 

 without steam. But most of all we need a vital human 

 sympathy, such as Jesus felt, with every child of God how- 

 ever miserable or depraved. I am persuaded that the more 

 we know him for what he was, the more will his sym])athy 

 and his compassion be an insi)iration to our good endeavor. 



