Page:Our Common Land (and other short essays).djvu/115

 wrong was done! As vestrymen, how you might be on the side of far-sighted expenditure or the suppression of corruption! When I see people all struggling to get up higher, they seem to me like people in a siege, who should all rush to defend the breach for the glory and renown of it, and trample one another to death, and leave little doors unwatched all round the town; and I can’t help wondering sometimes why more of them don’t pray Marion Erie’s prayer when she leaves the wedding-dress unfinished to go and nurse the fever-stricken patient, “Let others miss me, never miss me, God.”

I don’t the least mean that the works I have suggested are the only ones, or the best, or even that always that kind of work may be best. The form that charity takes in this age or in that must be decided by the requirements of the time, and these I describe may be as transient as others. Only never let us excuse ourselves from seeking the best form in the