The monastic
foundations, scattered in different countries, could never answer the
ends of local and limited succor. Their gates might, indeed, be open to
those who knocked at them for alms.... Nothing could have a stronger
tendency to promote that vagabond mendicity which severe statutes were
enacted to repress."
It seems almost ungracious to quote such an observation, because it may
be distorted into a criticism of charity itself, or made to serve the
purposes of certain anti-Romanists who cannot even spare those noble
women who minister to the sick in the home or hospital from their
bigoted criticisms. Small indeed must be the soul of that man who
permits his religious opinions to blind his eyes to the inestimable
services of those heroic and self-sacrificing women. But even Roman
Catholic students of social problems must recognize the folly of
indiscriminate alms-giving. "In proportion as justice between man and
man has declined, that form of charity which consists in giving money
has been more quickened." The promotion of industry, the repression of
injustice, the encouragement of self-reliance and thrift, are needed far
more than the temporary relief of those who suffer from oppression or
from their own wrong-doing.
Some of those who deplore the fall of the monasteries make much of the
fact that the modern world is menaced by materialism. "With very rare
exceptions," cries Maitre, a French Catholic, "the most undisguised
materialism has everywhere replaced the lessons and recollections of the
spiritual life.
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