the business of the city to furnish work for the unemployed than it is my business. It is the business of a city to carry on the work that needs to be done. Perhaps it may be wise to forestall matters a little. If certain work needs to be done any time within a year, it may be well to do it now, in order to meet present distress; but it is not the business of the city to furnish work beyond this. Let us, then, try to comprehend the situation; and, when we have found out the way, let us meet it. It may be that we shall have to engage in large, wide-spread, public charities this winter. If so, let us treat them as matters that are only temporary. Let us not get into the habit that some of the cities of the world have fallen, which have, somehow, a sort of misunderstanding as to what the function of a city is. They have got into the habit of looking after people until the people feel that they are dependants upon public bounty, and have a right to be. Let us make it a matter of individual assistance, of individual help.

One further thing I wish to say, because I wish you to give serious consideration to the matter. We are apt to think that the present social and industrial condition is the natural, normal, and permanent one. I suppose, if a man had been born into the feudal system, and had never known anything else, but had grown up in that system, that feudalism would seem to him natural and permanent; and it would be very difficult to imaginatively comprehend any other. But I wish to call your attention to what I believe to be the fact, that we are to face in the immediate future some great social and industrial changes that will mark an epoch in the development of the world. I do not believe that the present order is the final or permanent order. There is wrong about it somewhere. Just consider. The ability of this planet of ours to develop wealth, and all that humanity can possibly need, is practically unlimited. The control by civilization of the resources of the planet, is practically unlimited. And yet here we are face to face with a condition of things where we see large numbers of rich people, on the one hand, who

have more than they can use or need, and, on the other hand, thousands of people who would like to work, but cannot find the way. Certainly, a condition of things like that cannot be regarded as a permanent one. The air is full of discussion and hints of change. I only wish to say that I hope you will give earnest, serious, careful consideration to these great problems. One difficulty about this is that the people who are comfortable are apt 'to drift, not to think, not to foresee. What was the condition of affairs preceding the French Revolution? The nobility were rich, careless, selfindulgent, thoughtless, until the earthquake came, which might have been forestalled, might have been foreseen. There is no need of these great upheavals of human affairs. But there is distress, there is complaint, there is discontent, there is murmuring, in the great mass of what we are accustomed to call the lower strata of society; and, unless the wise and the comfortable heed this condition, give at least sympathetic consideration, try to find the solution, and help the world up and on, let me remind you that we have no guarantee whatever in human nature and in human history against more earthquakes. I ask you, then, to give earnest thought to this condition of affairs.

Now, I am going to speak of some of the difficulties in the way of giving'; and, first, let me speak of the difficulty that attaches itself to the owner of wealth. One of the most generous men that ever lived in the city of Boston, not a great many years ago, made an address to a meeting of young men on the subject of giving. He had learned to give himself: he had trained himself until he was one of the most generous givers in the city. But he confessed with modesty and shamefacedness to these young men that he was not naturally generous, and he had not found it easy to give. He said: "When I first began to give, I would put my name to a paper, and, then, the very next impulse that took possession of me was to wish that I had it back again; but I trained myself until I overcame this disposition. I compelled myself, as a matter of principle, to give." And his advice to the young

men was that they should train themselves in the same way, and not wait until the disposition to hoard had taken too fast a grip upon them. For you will note how perfectly natural it is that the thing which we do over and over again, by the year, becomes a fast habit. A man in business puts money away year by year, until one day he wakes up to find that he is rich. But he has never trained himself to part with his money, if he can help it; and he then finds it one of the most difficult things to give, though he knows that he can afford to give, and that he ought to. It is not my business to single out any person, and tell him that he ought to give or how much he ought to give; but I remember the case of another man, who made a subscription to a benevolent object, when a friend said to him, "You ought to give twice as much." And he said, "I know I ought: I am abundantly able; but I have not got in the habit of giving, and it is hard work." You will remember that I quoted some time ago the saying of a millionaire, one of the closest men I ever knew, who frankly confessed to an intimate friend, "If you knew how it hurts me to part with a dollar, you would pity me." This is the condition of things that any number of rich men get into; and it is only natural they should. Therefore, train yourselves to give.

Then there is another difficulty; and this applies to the objects of our beneficence. I think that Boston could very easily take care of its deserving poor if it could only find out certainly who the deserving poor are. I find it difficult, one of the most difficult of things. As an illustration, a man came to my door the other evening just at dusk, perhaps calculating on that fact, knowing that nobody would look him up that evening, at any rate. He looked me straight in the eyes, and told me a pitiful story of how he had been engaged as a driver of a dray, but had lost his employment through hard times. He said, with the hint of a tear in his eye, that he could bear it himself, if it wasn't for the wife and the little ones at home, and begged me to give him money to help him over night. I did it. I do not do it

often. I also took his address. He said, "I will be glad to have you go or any one whom you choose to send: go to my neighbors, ask about me, find out what my life has been.” The next day I employed one of the wisest women in this congregation to go and look him up at that address. There was no such person, there never had been. Now here is the difficulty that comes in the way of trying to help people. Do not misunderstand me. I do not excuse myself on account of cases like that; and I do not wish you to excuse yourselves. Do not let the deserving poor suffer because there are impostors and scoundrels in the city, and do not say, Because I cannot be certain that I am not giving to an impostor, I will give nothing. Remember that one of the most difficult things, as well as one of the most necessary, is to give some personal attention, some study of individual cases. Do not refrain from giving because there are impostors, but give thought, give time, give investigation. I know it is difficult. I am not asking you to do anything easy. This same man of whom I have spoken, one of the wealthiest and most generous men that I ever knew, gave what was more than money, personal time and attention; and he had a business at least as large as that that any one in this congregation has to look after. But he did find time, he made time, to look after the charities that he was interested in, to see that the money went in the right direction.

Learn, then, to give your own personal consideration, because, after all, if you look for nothing except your own content, your own self-respect, your own happiness, if you can find that you have really helped one deserving case, if you have helped a man on to his feet, helped him stand and fight his battle for his wife and little ones, you will find infinitely more satisfaction and happiness in it than you will in earning a thousand extra dollars.

One other difficulty stands in the way of giving; and that is the misconception of the people whom you wish to help, their unwillingness to take the best things that you would like to give them. This may be illustrated by the passage

that I read as my lesson this morning (Luke xiv.). The poor, the outcast, the tramp, the beggar, those that seem to us hopelessly lost when we try to help them, to lift them up to the level of humanity, do not want to take that which will make them men. They do not want to take those things that are essential to the bringing out of the best possibilities of their nature.

As my closing word, let me link the end of the sermon to the beginning by merely suggesting to you that this principle and this habit of giving-giving of money, giving of time, giving of thought, effort, enthusiasm, of all that is best in you is that wherein life itself consists. It is the process through which manhood and womanhood are cultured and developed. It is the means, if you choose to look only at the selfish side, through which come to us the richest blessings of our lives. It is only thus by giving that we help the world, that we help ourselves, that we develop our own nature, and become linked with the divine.

Our God, down from whom comes every good and perfect gift to us, let us open our hearts to receive and to partake of Thy bounty. And, then, let us be like those luminaries in the heavens that receive light only to reflect and give it out again, and so become partakers of his life, who is the Eternal Life. Amen.