“A dozen if you wish.”
“Then tell me what would you put in place of charity which you so discard? You cannot but acknowledge that there is great need of a helping hand.”
“Thank you, Mr. Westcot. Had you tried for a week you could not have asked a question that would afford me greater pleasure to answer. ‘What would I substitute for charity?’ Why, Justice! Justice every time. Where Justice reigns there can be no place for charity. She will not be needed. She will have lost her vocation. Let justice be done to the great masses, to the struggling individual, and where would there be occasion to call for the assistance, the services, of the haughty dame with her mock humility? None whatever! Where plenty and peace have found a home there will be no occasion to air her gaudy plumage. And in a short time her very name will have assumed a strange sound. Aye, it would be forgotten from little usage; would become extinct, obsolete. Once pushed into the background she would quietly step down and out and be heard of no more.”
“And,” added Edith, “with the advent of justice and the exit of charity another thing would become extinct, and that is power—the power of money. When justice is done, the toiler, the producer, receiving the full value or equivalent of his labor, it would be impossible that a few favored idlers should grow fat—in wealth and ease, while the masses starve. No more strikes, no more robbery, no more bloodshed. Peace, happiness, prosperity—would not that be an ideal world?”
Here the refrain was taken up by Imelda.
“No strikes, no robbery, no bloodshed! Do we properly consider the full import of these words? We hurl the curse of baseness, of low and brutal instincts, we charge the birth of vice, crime, hatred and what not, all upon those who toil and produce. If in a measure it is true that the very air surrounding this class of humanity is often pregnant with all the elements that breed a state of things so depraved, is it to be wondered at? Let us take into consideration what the women of the despised classes are called upon to pass through. Let us ask the why and wherefore. When hunger and starvation stares her in the face; when the demon drink has entered her home; when the husband and father is thrown out of work through no fault of his; when the monster monopoly has shed precious blood, and made her home desolate—what then, think you, breeds in the heart of woman? Her every thought, her every breath, must of necessity be freighted with—murder! Then the little helpless unborn, the human embryon, that is being gestated and fed with such nourishment—must not a race of murderers, of criminals of every description, be the product of such creative conditions?
“When mothers are free to choose the fathers of their babes; when they can have just the conditions their hearts long for; when they can be free from care and anxiety; when every woman has learned the science of becoming a perfect mother; when every mother understands the fearful responsibility of becoming such; when every father is filled with a sense of the high honor that has been conferred upon him in being chosen to be such; when, in consequence, he recognizes the duties he owes to woman and her offspring, and when, in every act of his life he seeks to aid her in perfecting the coming being; then, and not till then, may we expect peace and joy and happiness. And to bring about such a state of things justice must be done.”
Strange words these, that fell for the first time, upon the ear of young Osmond Leland. He heard thoughts expressed that struck him as grand, lofty, sublime, but—but—did they not savor of—well, the insane? Was there any sense in dreaming of such impossibilities? As each of these young ladies in turn had spoken they had appeared to him as though surrounded with a halo, such a sublime light had shone in their eyes. But again, it seemed, to him, as if their reasoning was devoid of reason, and his mind reverted to the discarded figure of charity. He could conceive of no other way to reach the suffering masses. Until now he had scarcely thought of it. But now? What sort of women were these that could express themselves thus? What was it Imelda had said?
“Wait, and come often. Here you can become acquainted with the sentiments that fill your mother’s heart and soul, and that find reflection in every word uttered by your sister.”
He could not comprehend the reasoning of these young women, but the air surrounding them seemed so truly holy and pure; such as had never been his fate to come in contact with. And his mother and sister?—Were they as these? Had he much to forgive his father for? He felt dazed. Was this also a case where gross injustice had been done?