objects of their
unselfishness, they do so with, as it were, the dividing-line well
marked--with them, but not _of them_, and with the air of regarding
themselves as being extremely kind-hearted to be there at all. It is
their "bit"--not to help on the peace, of course, but to help themselves
into Heaven. The poor are but the means to this end.

_Clergymen_

I always feel so sorry for clergymen--the clergymen who are inspired to
their calling, not, of course the "professional" variety who are
clergymen because they preferred the Church to the Stock Exchange. They
carry with them wherever they go the mark of the professional servant of
God, and it creates a prejudice, between them and those who really need
their succour, which is almost unsurmountable. Many clergymen, I know,
adore the trimmings of their profession--the pomps and vestments, the
admiration of spinster ladies, and opportunity to shake the friendly
finger at Mrs. Gubbins and regret that she hasn't been seen in church
lately--this same Mrs. Gubbins who works sixteen hours a day to bring up
a large family in the greatest goodness and comfort her mother's heart
can supply, and, so it seems to me, _lives_ her prayers--which is a far
finer thing than merely uttering them in public and respectability. But
the clergyman whose heart is in his work, who lives for the poor and
needy, and finds no greater joy than in bringing joy into the lives of
others, has to make those he wishes to _forget_ first of all that he is a
clergyman and not merely a man ready, as it were, to barter a bun for an
attendance at church. Until he does this he cannot surmount that
prejudice, that suspicion, and that atmosphere of unnaturalness without
which no lasting comfort and good is ever done. For how can he live
among the poor as one of the poor when at the same time he has to keep in
the "good books" of the wealthy, who pay the pew rents, and the
evil-minded "do-nothings," who are ever ready to declare that he is
demeaning himself and their Church when he breaks down the barrier of
caste and position in his efforts to live and suffer and work as do the
men and women he wishes to make happier and better? He can do it, if he
possesses the right personality, but it is a fight which, for the most
part, seems so hopeless as not to be worth while. You have only to watch
the restrained jollity of his flock the moment a clergyman enters the
room to realise the crust which he wi