and weariness, if for nothing else. This is in my eyes the second
part of a woman's parish work. I entreat you to bear it in mind
when you hear, as I trust you will, lectures in this place upon
that SANITARY REFORM, without which all efforts for the bettering
of the masses are in my eyes not only useless, but hypocritical.

I will suppose, then, that you are fulfilling home duties in self-
restraint, and love, and in the fear of God. I will suppose that
you are using all your woman's influence on the mind of your
family, in behalf of tenants and workmen; and I tell you frankly,
that unless this be first done, you are paying a tithe of mint and
anise, and neglecting common righteousness and mercy. But you
wish to do more: you wish for personal contact with the poor
round you, for the pure enjoyment of doing good to them with your
own hands. How are you to set about it? First, there are clubs--
clothing-clubs, shoe-clubs, maternal-clubs; all very good in their
way. But do not fancy that they are the greater part of your
parish work. Rather watch and fear lest they become substitutes
for your real parish work; lest the bustle and amusement of
playing at shopkeeper, or penny-collector, once a week, should
blind you to your real power--your real treasure, by spending
which you become all the richer. What you have to do is to
ennoble and purify the WOMANHOOD of these poor women; to make them
better daughters, sisters, wives, mothers: and all the clubs in
the world will not do that; they are but palliatives of a great
evil, which they do not touch; cloaks for almsgiving, clumsy means
of eking out insufficient wages; at best, kindly contrivances for
tricking into temporary thriftiness a degraded and reckless
peasantry. Miserable, miserable state of things! out of which the
longer I live I see less hope of escape, saving by an emigration,