It is only personal intercourse with them--only the meeting of the rich
and poor together, in the belief that God is the maker of them all, that
will do that. But it will do it.
Only personal intercourse will reconcile these people to their condition,
in as far as they OUGHT to be reconciled to it. But personal intercourse
will reconcile them to it, as far as it ought, but no further. And I
think that the system of personal intercourse attempted by this Society
is, on the whole, the best yet devised. It is imperfect, as all attempts
to make that straight which is crooked, and to number that which is
wanting--to patch, in a word, a radically vicious system of society,--
must be imperfect; but it is the best plan which I have yet seen. I find
no fault with other plans, God forbid! Wisdom is justified of all her
children; and the amount of evil is so great, and (as I believe, so
dangerous), that I must bid God-speed to any persons who will do
anything, always saving and excepting indiscriminate almsgiving.
But it seems to me that the soothing and civilizing, and in due time
Christianising, effect of personal intercourse cannot begin better than
through a woman, herself of the working class, who has struggled as these
poor souls have struggled, and conquered, more or less, where they are
failing.
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