religion and so wise in adaptation to the interests and abilities of the
foreign group could but lay hold of our most difficult communities with
like devotion and with scientific care there would be developed in due
time advanced and adequate methods, which in turn would take their
rightful place as a part of civic or educational administration.

As is illustrated in both education and philanthropy, the function of
the church in social development has been of this order, and the mistake
of short-sighted religious leaders has been to desert these children
when once they have found an abode within the civil structure. The
pastoral spirit of the new era claims again the entire parish, however
organized, and guards its children still. The pioneer is needed at home
just as he is needed abroad, and the pioneering agency must have the
same zeal and freedom in order to mark out the way of salvation for
hordes of wild city boys who are the menacing product of blind economic
haste.

[Illustration: WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ME?]

The church should see this big problem and accept the challenge. Society
should awaken to the fact that in our large cities there is growing up a
generation of boys who morally "cannot discern between their right hand
and their left hand"--this through no fault of theirs, for they are but
a product. If they are unlovely, "smart," sophisticated, ungrateful, and
predatory, what has made them so? Who has inverted the prophetic promise
and given them ashes for beauty and the spirit of heaviness for the
garment of praise? As matters now stand it is not the ninety and nine
who are safe and the one in peril. That ratio tends to be reversed, and
will be unless right-minded people accept individually and in their
organized relations a just responsibility for the new life that is