For a long time the girl sat reflecting, while he studied her, speculating eagerly on her next remark. Then it came abruptly:
“Mr. Ames, I have thought a great deal about it, and I think you people by your charity, such as this, only make more charity necessary. Why don’t you do away with poverty altogether?”
“Do away with it? Well, that’s quite impossible, you know. ‘The poor ye have always with you’, eh? You see, I know my Bible.”
She threw him a glance of astonishment. He was mocking her! She was deeply serious, for charity to her meant love, and love was all in all.
“No,” she finally replied, shaking her head, “you do not know your Bible. It is the poor thought that you have always with you, the thought of separation from good. And that thought becomes manifested outwardly in what is called poverty.”
He regarded her quizzically, while a smile played about his mouth.
“Why don’t you get at the very root of the trouble, and destroy 137 the poverty-thought, the thought that there can be any separation from God, who is infinite good?” she continued earnestly.
“Well, my dear girl, as for me, I don’t know anything about God. As for you, well, you are very innocent in worldly matters. Poverty, like death, is inevitable, you know.”
“You are mistaken,” she said simply. “Neither is inevitable.”
“Well, well,” he returned brightly, “that’s good news! Then there is no such thing as ‘the survival of the fittest,’ and the weak needn’t necessarily sink, eh?”