y in the wretched places I visit. A few nights ago I
was called to see a woman who was very ill. The messenger conducted me
to a miserable cellar, where, on a bed of rags, I found a woman, about
sixty years old, gasping for breath. She greeted me with feverish
anxiety, and asked me if I thought it possible for her to get well; I
told her I did not know, and as she seemed very ill, I sent the man who
had been my conductor, to the nearest police station, to ask for medical
aid. I asked her if she wished to live, she answered, 'No, unless it be
God's will that I should.' Well, the reply startled me, for the tone was
one of unquestioned resignation, and I had not expected to discover that
virtue here. In reply to my questions she told me her story--a very
common one--of a long life of bitter poverty, following close on a few
years of happiness and comfort at the beginning of her womanhood. Her
trial had been very hard, but she managed by God's grace to keep her soul
pure and her conscience free from reproach.

"In a little while the physician I had sent for came in. He saw her
condition at a glance, and turning to me said, in a low tone, that she
would not live through the night, that she was literally worn out. As
low as he spoke, she overheard him. She clasped her bony hands
exultantly, her poor wan face gleamed with joy, and she burst out in her
thin, weak voice, into the words of the hymn:

"'Happy soul! thy days are ended,
Leave thy trials here below:
Go, by angel guards attended,
To the breast of Jesus, go!'

"Well, she died that night, and I am sure she is in heaven now."

Great efforts are made by the organized charities of the city to relieve
the sufferings of the deserving poor. Prominent among these charities is
the "Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor." The object of
the Society is to help them by enabling them to help themselves and
gradually to lift them up out of the depths of poverty. The city is
divided into small districts, each of which is in charge of a visitor,
whose duty it is to seek out the deserving poor. All the assistance is
given through these visitors, and nothing is done, except in extreme
cases, until the true condition of the applicant is ascertained. Money
is never given, and only such supplies as are not likely to be improperly
used. Every recipient of the bounty of the Society is required to
abstain from intoxicating liquors, to sen