coterie of college men and mechanics, of society women and
servant-girls, of poets and of mine-diggers, of convicts and of
reformers. To-day calls for the utmost intellectual resources of the
teacher of the truth, for a great imagination, great style, great
sympathy with men, large learning, and unceasing prayer!

3. His rule is over social ideals. He must be a man of social insight.
The social spirit is abroad in the world, but it is woefully erratic
and misguided. Any one thinks he can be an altruist. Why not? Take a
class in a college settlement, make some bibs for a day nursery, give
tramps a C.O.S. card, with one's compliments, and attend about six
lectures a year on Philanthropy--the lectures very good indeed. One is
then a full-fledged altruist, _n'est-ce pas_?

The philanthropy of to-day has a bewildering iridescence of aspect. Each
present impulse is reformatory. Correction, like a centipede, shows a
hundred legs and wants to run upon them all. Much of the so-called
philanthropy is not well balanced and is run by cranks. Cranks attach
themselves to any social movement, as a shaggy gown will gather burrs.
It is not all of philanthropy to classify degenerates, titter at
ignorance, and to go a-peeping through the slums! We have not yet
realized the fulness of redemption. Of what avail is it to save one
street-Arab, or one Chinaman, if a million Arabs and Chinamen remain
unsaved? Redemption is a race-savior: it seizes not only the individual,
but his environment, his friends, and his future state.

The true minister is a reformer. A reformer is one who re-crystallizes
the social ideals of man, who breaks up idols and bad customs, and
sweeps away abuses. But we must first ask: What is an idol? What is a
bad custom? What is an abuse? They are social standards which are out of