ever we have to choose between justice and generosity we must be
just. Otherwise, our generosity is mere sentimentality. And it does no
good even to the person on whom we lavish it. Perhaps justice in its
highest sense includes generosity. It is just that the rich should help
the poor, and more truly generous to give with that thought than with
the feeling that one has done something meritorious in giving. It is
also mere justice that in dealing with our fellow-creatures we should
always think of them as they may be, as they ought to be, and not to
remember simply what they are. Our faith in them helps them to rise, but
not our pretense that they are right when they are wrong.

After all, however, who is perfectly balanced? There are worthy women
who have all their feelings well in hand, who are pleasant to live with,
and who do an immense amount of good in the world, and yet who never
rise above common-placeness, and never lift anybody else much above the
material plane. And there are other women so ardent and generous and
loving that they seem to lend wings to everybody they meet, who are yet
crushed and ruined themselves by the excess of their grief not only for
their own sorrows, but for those of the whole world, until by and by
they drag their dearest and most sympathetic friends down into the same
abyss of woe.

How shall we keep the true balance? I believe that it always is kept by
religious faith, though that too is frequently distorted. The one thing
necessary to believe is that a good God rules the universe. There is no
limit to the love we may give to such a being or to the creatures He
has made, and there is no sorrow which cannot be comforted by the
thought that love underlies it, and that it has a meaning though we
cannot see it, and there is nothing else which is so sure a spur to
duty.

Even this simple creed, however, is not possible to all of us. The
upheavals in religious beliefs which this century has seen reach even
emotional women and unthinking girls. We cannot believe a thing simply
because we should like to believe it. Without this one article of faith,
I believe happiness to be impossible, but we need not fail in our duty.
A noble woman whose beautiful life is a benediction to all about her,
but whose suffering has been intense, says that as her life has been an
exceptionally favored one, it is impossible for her to believe in God.
But she adds, "Though things are not for the best, we must ma