self-sustained poverty that will have no relief and does without it,
is outside the range of its thought and understanding. On the other
hand, this almsgiving is equally incapable of influencing the weak and
the vicious; and those who are suffering from illness or trouble it
has not the width of vision to understand nor the moral energy to
support so that they shall not fall out of the ranks of the
self-supporting. It believes that "the poor" will not cease out of the
land. And indeed, however great might be the economic progress of the
people, it is not likely that the poor will cease, if the alms given
in this spirit be large enough in amount to affect social conditions
seriously one way or the other. When we measure the effects of
charity, this inheritance of divided thought and inconsistent counsels
must be given its full weight.

The organization of the parish and endowed charities.

The sub-apostolic church was a congregation, like a synagogue, the
centre of a system of voluntary and personal relief, connected with the
congregational meals (or [Greek: agapai]) and the Eucharist, and under
the supervision of no single officer or bishop. Out of this was
developed a system of relief controlled by a bishop, who was assisted
chiefly by deacons or presbyters, while the [Greek: agapai], consisting
of offerings laid before the altar, still remained. Subsequently the
meal was separated from the sacrament, and became a dole of food, or
poor people's meal--e.g. in St Augustine's time in western Africa--and
it was not allowed to be served in churches (A.D. 391). As religious
asceticism became dominant, the sacrament was taken fasting; it appeared
unseemly that men and women should meet together for such purposes, and
the [Greek: agapai] fell out of repute. Simultaneously it would seem
that the parish [Greek: paroikia] became from a congregational
settlement a geographical area.

The organization of relief at Rome illustrates both a type of
administration and a transition. St Gregory's reforms (A.D. 590) largely
developed it. The first factor in the transition was the church fund of
the second period of Christianity, about A.D. 150 to after 208
(Tertullian, _Apol_. 39). It served as a friendly fund, was supported by
voluntary gifts, and was used to succour and to bury the poor, to help
destitute and orphaned children, old household slaves and those who
suffered for the faith. This fund is quite di