he
strain and indecision of believing one hypothesis and acting upon
another.

Probably there is no relation in life which our democracy is changing
more rapidly than the charitable relation--that relation which obtains
between benefactor and beneficiary; at the same time there is no point
of contact in our modern experience which reveals so clearly the lack of
that equality which democracy implies. We have reached the moment when
democracy has made such inroads upon this relationship, that the
complacency of the old-fashioned charitable man is gone forever; while,
at the same time, the very need and existence of charity, denies us the
consolation and freedom which democracy will at last give.

It is quite obvious that the ethics of none of us are clearly defined,
and we are continually obliged to act in circles of habit, based upon
convictions which we no longer hold. Thus our estimate of the effect of
environment and social conditions has doubtless shifted faster than our
methods of administrating charity have changed. Formerly when it was
believed that poverty was synonymous with vice and laziness, and that
the prosperous man was the righteous man, charity was administered
harshly with a good conscience; for the charitable agent really blamed
the individual for his poverty, and the very fact of his own superior
prosperity gave him a certain consciousness of superior morality. We
have learned since that time to measure by other standards, and have
ceased to accord to the money-earning capacity exclusive respect; while
it is still rewarded out of all proportion to any other, its possession
is by no means assumed to imply the possession of the highest moral
qualities. We have learned to judge men by their social virtues as well
as by their business capacity, by their devotion to intellectual and
disinterested aims, and by their public spirit, and we naturally resent
being obliged to judge poor people so solely upon the industrial side.
Our democratic instinct instantly takes alarm. It is largely in this
modern tendency to judge all men by one democratic standard, while the
old charitable attitude commonly allowed the use of two standards, that
much of the difficulty adheres. We know that unceasing bodily toil
becomes wearing and brutalizing, and our position is totally untenable
if we judge large numbers of our fellows solely upon their success in
maintaining it.

The daintily clad charitable visitor who steps into t