All social reforms begin with some great heart. Much now is being said
of the destitution in the poorer districts of great cities. Dante saw
a second hell deeper than hell itself. Each great modern city hath its
inferno. Here dwell costermongers, rag-pickers and street-cleaners;
here the sweater hath his haunts. Huge rookeries and tenements, whose
every brick exudes filth, teem with miserable folk. Each room has one
or more families, from the second cellar at the bottom to the garret at
the top. No greensward, no park, no blade of grass. Whole districts
are as bare of beauty as an enlarged ash-heap. Here children are
"spawned, not born, and die like flies." Here men and women grow
bitter. Here anarchy grows rank. And to such a district in one great
city has gone a man of the finest scholarship and the highest position,
to become the friend of the poor. With him is his bosom friend, having
wealth and culture, with pictures, marbles and curios. Every afternoon
they invite several hundred poor women to spend an hour in the
conservatory among the flowers. Every evening with stereopticon they
take a thousand boys or men upon a journey to Italy or Egypt or Japan.
The kindergartens, public schools and art exhibits cause these women
and children to forget for a time their misery. One hour daily is
redeemed from sorrow to joy by beautiful things and kindly
surroundings. Love and sympathy have sheltered them from life's fierce
heat. Bitter lives are slowly being sweetened. Springs are being
opened in the desert. These great hearts have become "the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land."

The Russian reformer, novelist and philanthropist, had an experience
that profoundly influenced his career. Famine had wrought great
suffering in Russia. One day the good poet passed a beggar on the
street corner. Stretching out gaunt hands, with blue lips and watery