remembered bound ones and journeyed through India, penetrating all the Eastern lands, being physician for the sick, nurse for the dying, minister for the ignorant; his face benignant; his eloquence, love; his atmosphere, sympathy; carrying his message of peace to the farther-most shores of the Chinese Sea, through his zeal for “those who were in bonds.”  And thus John Howard visited the prisons of Europe for cleansing these foul dens and wiped from the sword of justice its most polluting stain.  Fulfilling the debt of strength, Wilberforce and Garrison, Sumner and Brown, fronted furious slave-holders, enduring every form of abuse and vituperation and personal violence, and destroyed the infamous traffic in human flesh.

This new spirit of sympathy and service it is that offers us help in solving the problems of social unrest and disquietude.  Events will not let us forget that ours is an age of industrial discontent.  Society is full of warfare.  Prophets of evil tidings foretell social revolution.  The professional agitators are abroad, sowing discord and nourishing hatred and strife, and even the optimists sorrowfully confess the antagonism between classes.  There is an industrial class strong and happy, both rich and poor; and there is an idle class weak and wicked and miserable, among both rich and poor.  Unfortunately, as has been said, the wise of one class contemplate only the foolish of the other.  The industrious man of means is offended by the idle beggar, and identifies all the poor with him, and the hard-working but poor workman despises the licentious luxury of one rich man, and identifies all the rich with him.  But there are idle poor and idle rich and busy poor and busy rich.  “If the busy rich people watched and rebuked the idle rich people, all would be well; and if the busy poor people watched and rebuked the idle poor people all would be right.  Many a beggar is as lazy as if he had $10,000 a year, and many a man of large fortune is busier than his errand boy.”

Forgetting this, some poor look upon the rich as enemies and desire to pillage their property, and some rich have only epithets for the poor.  Now, wise men know that there is no separation of rich industrious classes and the poor industrious classes, for they differ only as do two branches of one tree.  This year one bough is full of bloom, and the other bears only scantily, but next year the conditions will be reversed.  Wealth and poverty are like waves; what is now crest will soon be trough.  Such conditions demand forbearance and mutual sympathy.  Some men are born with little and some with large skill for acquiring wealth, the two differing as the scythe that gathers a handful of wheat differs from the reaper built for vast harvests and carrying the sickle of success.  For generations the ancestors back of one man’s father were thrifty and the ancestors back of his mother were far-sighted, and the two columns met in him, and like two armies joined forces for a vast campaign for wealth.  Beside him is a brother, whose thoughts and dreams go everywhither with the freedom of an eagle, but who walks midst practical things with the eagle’s halting gait.  The strong one was born, not for spoiling his weaker brother, but to guard and guide and plan for him.