ng a vague
philanthropy take the place of a personal solicitude for individual
souls. The elevation of the race! What had the land question to do with
the salvation of man? Suppose everybody on the East Side should become
as industrious, as self-denying, as unselfish as Ruth Leigh, and yet
without belief, without hope! He had accepted the humanitarian situation
with her, and never had spoken to her of the eternal life. What
unfaithfulness to his mission and to her! It should be so no longer.

It was after one of his weeks of retreat, at the close of vesper
service, that Dr. Leigh came to him. He had been saying in his little
talk that poverty is no excuse for irreligion, and that all aid in the
hardship of this world was vain and worthless unless the sinner laid
hold on eternal life. Dr. Leigh, who was laboring with a serious
practical problem, heard this coldly, and with a certain contempt for
what seemed to her a vague sort of consolation.

"Well," he said, when she came to him in the vestry, with a drop from
the rather austere manner in which he had spoken, "what can I do for
you?"

"For me, nothing, Father Damon. I thought perhaps you would go round
with me to see a pretty bad case. It is in your parish."

"Ah, did they send for me? Do they want spiritual help?"

"First the natural, then the spiritual," she replied, with a slight tone
of sarcasm in her voice. "That's just like a priest," she was thinking.
"I do not know what to do, and something must be done."

"Did you report to the Associated Charities?"

"Yes. But there's a hitch somewhere. The machine doesn't take hold. The
man says he doesn't want any charity, any association, treating him
like a pauper. He's off peddling; but trade is bad, and he's been away a
week. I'm afraid he drinks a little."

"Well?"

"The mother is sick in bed. I found her trying to do some fine
stitching, but she was too weak to hold up the muslin. There are five
young children. The family never has had help before."

Father Damon put on his hat, and they went out together, and for some
time picked their way along the muddy streets in silence.

At length he asked, in a softened voice, "Is the mother a Christian?"

"I didn't ask," she replied shortly. "I found her crying because the
children were hungry."

Father Damon, still under the impression of his neglect of duty, did not
heed her warning tone, but persisted, "You have so many opportunities,
Dr. Leigh, in your visi