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COMPROMISES

organizations in England and America. They cannot find work where there is no work to be done. They cannot lift the hopeless burden of want which is the inevitable portion of the Italian poor. They can at best give only the scanty loaf which keeps starvation from the door. They cannot educate the children, nor make the swarming populace of Rome "self-respecting," by which we mean self-supporting. But they can and do respect the poverty they alleviate. Their mental attitude is simpler than ours. They know well that it is never the wretchedly poor who "fear fate and cheat nature," and they see, with more equanimity than we can muster, the ever recurring tragedy of birth. The hope, so dear to our Western hearts, of ultimately raising the whole standard of humanity shines very dimly on their horizon; but if they plan less for the race, they draw closer to the individual. They would probably, if questioned, say frankly with Sir Thomas Browne: "I give no alms only to satisfy the hunger of my Brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the Will and Command of my God." And if the "Religio Medici" be some-