Changed economic, political and social conditions may help to lift the burdens which have grown almost too heavy to bear.

The truest friend of "the least of these" gives more than a passing sympathy, or a coin tossed into the outstretched hand, or even a gentle word of cheer. He is a constructive and preventive worker, who, first of all, seeks to find out the cause of existing evils and then wisely applies the remedy.

He who would fulfill the social service needed today must not be like the one who taught the ragged school a half century back, for the demand of the modern world is deeper than clothes; deeper than daily bread; it is a demand for opportunity-a cry for a chance to be a

man.

True social service means each for all, and all for each. It means working together for the good of all. It is altruistic in spirit; yea, deeper than that; it is vicarious; it has in it the element of sacrifice, the sacrifice of the lower for the higher, the sacrifice of ease and comfort and position, the sacrifice of the world's most coveted prizes, that mankind may be brought nearer the divine ideal.

Not alone to Jesus came the vision of perfected society. Many men throughout the centuries have dreamed of a day when righteousness and justice would take the place of oppression and fraud, and love would bind men into a real brotherhood. In increasing numbers men and women throughout the world are saying: "Count me as one who loves his fellow-men,' and let me serve or suffer if by that means I can ease the pain of those who have so long suffered without friend and helper," and they are saying this because of the vision of a new social order which their eyes behold.

Perhaps we may more clearly understand the meaning of social service if we trace the growth of the communal idea. In the early days of the world's life the individual was lost in the family or the tribe. Each fought for the other against their common foes. Uniting into larger groups, the tribes became the nation, which was surrounded by a larger and stronger wall of defense against the hostile hordes pressing upon it from every side.

Later on the organization of society changed, and a few feudal over-lords ruled their serfs with a rod of iron. This was the beginning of

a rude and cruel individualism. The world moved on, men began to think, and the great value of the individual human soul laid hold of them. Then dawned the day of a new individualism. Each man as an individual stood upon a footing of equality before his God and his fellows. It was the day of opportunity for church and school. Each man could now make of his life what he chose. The way was at length opened to him for attaining the highest efficiency.

Church and school might have succeeded in saving the world had there not entered into the world's life certain great unsocializing forces. An intense individualism reacted upon democracy, upon industrial life, and even upon religious life. The great nineteenth century movement toward a pure democracy was checked because men were too busy with their own affairs to give attention to government, or they chose to make popular government serve their own advancement. Thus by criminal greed and misuse of public funds many officials became enemies of the republic. Treason was to be found in senate and state legislature and city hall.

Individualism in industrial life produces swollen fortunes without regard to the rights of others. A new industrial feudalism, with new serfs and new retainers, took the place of the simpler industrial life of an earlier century. The results of the new industrialism were seen in the growth of the slum, the importation of ignorant, unskilled workmen, the intensecompetition which largely destroyed individual initiative and brought men into masses to be controlled as "hands" by a common head. These unsocializing forces brought about a condition in city, state and nation which has continued to grow ever since; and which now calls for change. Social service, then, the service which the present situation demands, means individual and collective effort to bring about a change in government, in industry and in social relations, which will make for righteousness and justice.

Because we are not all agreed as to the proper method of procedure in order to bring about the change desired, we are divided into schools and parties, ofttimes warring one against another; and yet if we only knew it, we are all workers together after a common

object, although approaching, it may be from a somewhat different angle.

One man writes the literature of exposure, thinking that it is enough to reveal the sin and grief and misery and greed of the modern world. Another belongs to a group that thinks that law enforcement and prohibition of evil will certainly make men good. Another works for constructive legislation and the establishment of institutions that will make the good attractive. Another becomes interested in some minor part of service for the community, often blind to the fact that others working in different ways are brothers of the common good.

To one man the reform of party politics is the one great end to be sought; to another the better day cannot be brought in except by a new party based on wiser social principles; to the settlement worker, city congestion is looked upon as a source of many of the cities' ills; to another the overthrow of the saloon, of gambling hells, and of the social evil, are the things for which he is giving his life.

These groups of social workers, like the different branches of the church, are divided