Theudas and Jesus were alike moved by the suffering of the Jews. Theudas, ‘boasting himself to be somebody, drew away much people’; Jesus, who did not ‘strive nor cry,’ had only a few disciples, and died deserted by these. The present method of reform is by striving and crying. The voice of those who see the evils of society is heard in the streets, and much people is drawn to meetings and demonstrations. Many, moved by what they hear, profess themselves to be ‘frantic,’ and the country seems ready for a moral revolt. What shall the end be? Will the evil cease because the bitter cry of those who suffer is heard in the land? Will the ‘frantic’ striving of many people relieve society from the slavery of selfishness and lead to a moral reform, or will it be that after a few months some one like Browning’s Cardinal will be found saying, ‘I have known four-and-twenty leaders of revolt’? This is a question to be considered, if possible, with calmness of mind, without prejudice for or against sensationalism. It may be that what seems sensational is but the bigger cry suited to a bigger world, and therefore the only means of making known the facts which must afterwards be weighed and considered. It may be that some must be made frantic before any will act. It may be, on the other hand, that this trumpeting of sorrow and sin is the vengeance of the crime of sense, itself a sense to be worn with time; that men trumpet sorrows for mere love of noise and size, and become frantic over tales of sin to wring from each tale a new pleasure. Sensationalism in social reform is either the outcome of self-indulgence or it is the divine voice making itself heard in language which he that runs may read. Not lightly at any rate are Midlothian speeches, ‘bitter cries,’ and religious revivals to be passed over. They, by striving and crying, by forcible statements and strong language, have caused public opinion to stop its course of easy satisfaction, and to express itself in new legislation. For the sake of the Bulgarians a Ministry was overturned; because of the cry of the poor an Act of Parliament has been passed; and the success of the Salvation Army has modified the services in our churches. In face, though, of these results on legislation, and of other results represented by various societies and leagues, the question still is, Will the same causes result in raising character? Professor Clifford, in one of his essays, speaks with religious fervour on the importance of character in society:-- Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought are common property fashioned and perfected from age to age.... Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live!