"
"There were a great many things that she wanted to do, and I believe
she thought they could be done; but I don't think she knew the world
very well," said this aged cynic. "She judged everybody from the
standpoint of her own unselfishness. I remember she was not in sympathy
with soup-houses, and dinner-tickets, and great public charities of
that sort. Or, I don't know that I should say she was not in sympathy
with them. I mean, rather, that those would not have been her ways of
working. She was thinking of young people, and to give them a dinner
now and then, she would not have considered a very great step toward
elevating them morally and spiritually. Mrs. Roberts, it was just that
which she wanted to do,--lift them up. She thought there could be
invented ways of reaching them, so that they would want helping, want
teaching,--_crave_ it, I mean; and she thought that Christian homes of
wealth and culture could be opened to them, and they gradually toled
in,--made to feel on a level with others, in the social scale; in
short, she believed that instead of people going down to them in a
condescending spirit, they could be drawn up to the level of others, so
that they would realize their manhood, and be led to make earnest
efforts to take their rightful places in the world.
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