-from sending it, that is, where
others are meeting the same need already. There are many reasons,
therefore, for doing our charitable work in consultation with an
experienced almoner, and friendly visiting, where it has failed, has
usually failed through the visitor's unwarranted assumption that the
giving of material relief was a simple and easy matter, about which
charity workers made an unnecessary lot of trouble.

Collateral Readings: "The English Poor Law," Rev. T. Fowle. "The
Beggars of Paris," translated from the French of M. Paulian by Lady
Herschell. "Outdoor Relief," see Warner's "American Charities," pp.
162 _sq_. "Economic and Moral Effect of Outdoor Relief," Mrs.
Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of Seventeenth National Conference
of Charities, pp. 81 _sq_. "Outdoor Relief: Arguments for and
against," in Proceedings of Eighteenth National Conference of
Charities, pp. 28 _sq_. "Relief in Work," P. W. Ayres in Proceedings
of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 436 _sq_. "Is
Emergency Relief by Work Wise?" the same in Proceedings of
Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 96 _sq_.

[1] Miss Z. D. Smith in Report of Union Relief Association of
Springfield, Mass., 1887, p. 12.

[2] Fifth Report of Boston Associated Charities, pp. 31 _sq_.

[3] Eighth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 25.

[4] Vol. II, New Series, p. 224.

[5] Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of Twenty-third National
Conference of Charities, New Haven, 1895, p. 49.

[6] See Fifteenth Annual Report of the New York Charity Organization
Society, pp. 44 _sq_., and p. 55.

{166}

CHAPTER X

THE CHURCH

Relief agents working in our great cities usually find that, in answer
to direct questions, the poor are likely to claim connection with some
one of the large denominations, though further acquaintance will often
reveal the fact that this connection is merely nominal. There are, of
course, many poor people that are active church members, but in spite
of the wonderful activity of all branches of the Christian church
during the last fifty years, in spite of the multiplication of missions
and the devotion of many good men and women to their upbuilding, the
fact remains that many of the very poor are still outside the churches.
In trying to explain this, we have to take into account certain
external conditions, such as the natural shrinking of the less
fortunate from social c