conditions and ask ourselves the way out from this wilderness of despair.

It was Huxley who said: "It is certain that there is an immense amount of remediable misery among us. Unless this is effectually dealt with, the hordes of vice and pauperism will destroy modern civilization as effectually as uncivilized tribes of another kind destroyed the great social organization which preceded ours.'

In this the one word to be emphasized is "remediable," and if this is so then we need not lose heart, but learn how to apply the remedy, believing that in time the misery of the world will decrease.

As we have been learning our lesson, what have been the steps by which we have gone forward? It is a far cry from the time when the aged and the weak were exposed to die, to this day with its hospitals and homes for the infirm, and the progress has been slow throughout the weary years.

The first movement toward the better way came to the world when a few rare souls moved by the spirit of loving service gave themselves in gentle ministry to the poor and needy. They could not check the plague, but they could cheer the dying and bury the dead; they

could not furnish employment, but they could divide the loaf of bread with the hungry; they could not stay the ravages of war, but they could be nurses on the battlefield.

This spirit of loving service has not grown less but has rather increased as the years have passed by and the deaconess, the sister of mercy, the Salvation Army lassie, and the mission worker have given all that they had to "the least of these."

While these loving souls have labored, others have given their money, asking only that the sight of wretchedness and misery be kept far from them. Helpful as were these ministrations they afforded no final solution of the problem of poverty, for the great crowd of needy ones never grew less and the clamorous cry for help rose and fell in ever increasing power.

That something more had to be done was very evident, and the leaders in the great humanitarian movements said: "System is what we need." And so the next great step was in organizing charity.

This was certainly a gain, for duplication was avoided. There was less of pauperizing and more of the personal touch of the friendly visitor. Men who had fallen behind were

taught thrift and self-reliance and aided in their movement to a larger manhood.

But organizing charity did not seem to lessen greatly the amount of poverty and wretchedness. We were handling results, and failing to reach the cause which lay farther back.

A new type of worker came forth as a searcher for this cause. Usually he was found in some settlement, not as an old-fashioned sociologist, studying outward conditions, but rather as a brother of the helpless who was seeking to answer for them the almost inarticulate cry of their hearts.

Those who have spent years in the very centers of unrest, with one accord are saying that much of the disease and death, crime and poverty, is preventable-yes, that is the word, "preventable."

The mission worker tenderly comforts the mother in the tenement, who has lost her babe. That is good, but better still is the work of the city nurse who through the long, hot summer cares for the children in other tenements, instructing the mothers in the proper use of clothes and food, and perhaps sending both mother and babe into the country for a week, thus saving their lives.

Perhaps the tenement inspector discovers the deadly sewer gas and warns the owner to make repairs, and thus keeps one more of "the least of these" from being buried in the potter's field. Better still, because Jacob Riis has spoken, the city itself has moved to the destruction of the death-dealing tenement and a play-ground takes its place, and new sanitary dwellings house the dispossessed.

We call this a part of a great social movement, yet we must also call it a spiritual movement, as it stirs the hearts of men in every land. Tolstoy says: "Mankind is about to be seized with a frenzy, a madness of love." "This will not, of course, happen smoothly or all at once; it will involve misunderstandings even sanguinary ones, perchance so trained and so accustomed have we been to hatred, even by those, sometimes, whose mission it was to teach us to love one another. But it is evident that this great law of brotherhood must be accomplished some day, and I am convinced that the time is commencing when our desire for its accomplishment will become irresistible."

Inspired by this message, let us read again the familiar words of the Christ descriptive of

the judgment day: "When I was hungry ye gave me food; when I was thirsty you gave me drink; when I was a stranger you took me to your home; when I was naked you clothed me; when I fell ill you visited me; when I was in prison you came to me. Lord, when did we all these things to you? As often as you did it to one of these, my brothers, however lowly, you did it to me."

A new spirit is taking possession of many students of the social problem. The old way of tenderly caring for the sick in hospital and dispensary is being reinforced by the new view that disease is something to be studied, overcome and prevented.

We once said that crime was normal, that heredity was a constant factor and that the best we could do was to build a prison, employ a chaplain, and endeavor to reform the prisoner. The new view is that crime is not necessary, that environment means more than heredity, and that most crime can be prevented if you only give the boy and the man a chance to live right.

In the old days we pitied the poor, but the new view that poverty itself may be blotted out, crystallizes our pity into remedial action.