Page:The poor sisters of Nazareth, Meynell, 1889.djvu/51

Rh interest cannot compromise the larger question. It is the immediate and fugitive succour of want so urgent that no reply is possible except that of the gift in an outstretched hand.

To have been as a casual visitor for an hour in this refuge is to take away an alms not explicitly intended by the Order. For to live in a great city is to live surrounded by horrible evils—frenzied self-indulgences, cruelties, pangs in the hearts of the helpless, the acquiescence of children to despair, religious egoism, and other things that "make a goblin of the sun." And there often arises the foolish wish to breathe air not so burdened and darkened. But we leave Nazareth House convinced that to live in a great city is also to live surrounded by unsleeping pity—nowhere more vigilant or more effectual than in the places where, gathering the unfortunate to their hearts,