The character of Miss Vavasor in Weighed and Wanting notes disparagingly:

“That kind of thing is spreading very much in our circle, too. I know many ladies who visit the poor. The custom came in with these women’s-rights people. I fear they will upset everything before long. No one can tell where such things will end.”

Such was not MacDonald’s primary fight. Though in sympathy with the so-called “Christian Socialism” of F.D. Maurice and others, MacDonald was no activist. He would, however, bring his spiritual perspectives to bear upon Victorian social conditions by telling the stories of Mary St. John’s, Gibbie’s, and Falconer’s “inner-city ministries” to use a contemporary term. MacDonald’s compassion for the poor of London was the same compassion Jesus felt—knowing, once they were fed and clothed, that their deepest need of all was to know God as their Father.

Elizabeth Saintsbury writes:

“In Weighed and Wanting…which shows the influence of Ruskin’s socialistic ideas and work, he condemns the landlords who exploit their tenants and refuse to maintain their properties. In Robert Falconer…MacDonald paints a picture of poverty, degradation and squalor in the slums of London equalled only by Dickens in its lurid detail…But George did not agree that environment was the deciding factor in people’s moral development.” ³

In the tradition of these characters who frequented the streets of London and Aberdeen’s slums and tenements, Octavia Hill (and it was MacDonald’s friend Ruskin who gave the building for one of Hill’s slum-renovation projects) provided the inspiration for a new messenger of compassion, Hester Raymount of Weighed and Wanting.

Rolland Hein writes:

“MacDonald’s thinking concerning the poor was influenced by Maurice as well as Ruskin and Hill. One of the reasons MacDonald was attracted to F.D. Maurice was his advocacy of what was known as Christian Socialism. The program these Christian (not Marxist) Socialists advocated emphasized individual responsibility as well as social reform by the application of Christian principles to all social relationships. With typical Scottish sternness MacDonald insisted on the need of the poor to better themselves. They must be given adequate opportunities, something many sadly lacked. When anyone whose life was at a low ebb needed to be taken in and helped to make a new start, The Retreat was open to them, while the MacDonalds did what they could to help them turn their lives around. It was not unusual for a penniless person or a drunkard trying to reform to live with the MacDonalds temporarily. Not all such attempts issued in successful rehabilitation, but many did.” ⁴

Weighed and Wanting also contains very personal elements, as do all his novels, for more reasons than Octavia Hill’s fictionalization as Hester. The book’s emphasis on entertainment—fixing up the great room for a concert—is surely an outgrowth of Louisa’s expanded theatrical efforts during this period of their lives. There were apparently some among family and friends who were aghast at the family going on stage publically with their production of Pilgrim’s Progress. Perhaps this book gave MacDonald a forum to respond to their criticisms.