and nervous how best to express it.

"I am not fit, dear brethren, to tell you anything about morality. I
have lived in shame and hypocrisies too long to be able to help others;
but my action with those women, sisters of mine, shows me that the
better way is easy to find. To those who believe in Jesus and his gospel
there can be no other relation between man and man than the relation
of affection. Love alone is stronger than sin--stronger than death. I
therefore say to the rich among you that it is their duty to do what I
have done and am doing. Let each one of you who is prosperous take into
his house some thief and treat him as his brother, some unfortunate and
treat her as his sister, and San Francisco will need no police force
and no magistrates; the prisons will be turned into hospitals, and the
criminal will disappear with his crime.

"We must give ourselves and not our money alone. We must do as Christ
did; that is the message of the Church today. We have wandered far from
the Master's teaching. We are consumed in our own flesh-pots. We have
put mammon in the place of Christ. I have here a poem that tells the
whole story. I should like to read it to you. It was written by an
erring soul who yet saw clearly.* It must not be mistaken for an attack
upon the Catholic Church. It is an attack upon all churches, upon the
pomp and splendor of all churches that have wandered from the Master's
path and hedged themselves in from his lambs. Here it is:

"The silver trumpets rang across the Dome;
The people knelt upon the ground with awe;
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.