Jane Adams and the religious factor

The general sense that I got out of the Hull house reading was that Jane Adams established this settlement to provide aid and opportunities to people who were in poverty not because any of mental disability or tendency towards crime but because of their social situation, life crisis, and circumstances that placed them there unfairly. Basically she wanted to help those who were unfairly treated.

Although I don't think that Jane Adam's work was framed around a religious context, I do think that religion had a supportive role in her mission. In several passages there are references to religious activities or beliefs that I don't think Adams would have included if they didn't have any significance. For example, we know that most of the people at the Hull house were Christian because she mentions that they celebrated christmas at one point, and that candy canes were passed out at another. This occurrence should serve as some indication of Jane Adam's moral leanings towards a christian way of living. Later in the reading, she references a labor movement in which she joined people singing the hymn:

 When wilt Thou save the people,

O God of Mercy, when!

We have seen this theme before in the Psalms, that God will help the just, and I think that this is the main connection that can be made to the religiosity of Jane Adam's undertakings because of how she is acting like a Godly figure, in helping those who are just but in an unjust situation.

Even though these connections can be made, I also think that this kind of social work can be done without any specific guidance from a religion because empathy and the desire to help others is not exclusive to religious teachings.