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254 LETTERS.
first instance admit orphans, destitute in every respect, and
then children of honest, industrious people, when these
have fallen into misery and are prevented by illness from
providing for all their children. In general, these parents
can only with the greatest difficulty be prevailed upon to
give up their children. In most instances they prefer to
starve and to suffer any thing, rather than to part with their
children.
Meanwhile, there is no doubt that the greatest number
of the children in the House of Refuge come from the
abodes of vice and recklessness. An important question
remains therefore always to be put to the House of Refuge
(in whatever way it may arrange with regard to the chil-
dren and their future), namely: does it not encourage reck-
lessness and indolence ?
In reply it may be asked: would there be less reckless-
ness and indolence if the House of Refuge did not exist?
I do not believe this. Ifthe former had not been so prev-
alent throughout society, the latter would not have been
wanted or been established. But this question has roots
lying far deeper. What else is the House of Refuge than
a branch of the universal tree of charity, which has grown
out of Christianity? At every new contrivance for the
assistance or the saving of mankind, we have heard the
warning repeated to us: “The more you assist, the more
you call forth distress; the more zeal you manifest to
save, the more you encourage recklessness, and weaken
the power and the desire of people to help themselves.
Why should the sinner be more cared for than the just?
By this lax love you make sin abound.” AlJl this seems
to be true; the dangers pointed at, seem to be a natural
consequence. ‘The warners, who thus complain, we find
represented in the gospel in the brother of the prodigal
son, at whose return the father prepares a feast; and also
in the first hour’s laborers in the vineyard, who complain
that the workers of the eleventh hour receive equal wages
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