The world is out of joint. Reformers have in every age tried to put it right. But still Society jerks and jolts as it journeys over the road of life. The rich fear the poor, the poor suspect the rich, there is strife and misunderstanding; children flicker out a few days’ life in sunless courts, and honoured old age is hidden in workhouses; people starve while food is wasted in luxurious living, and the cry always goes up, “Who will show us any good?” The response to that cry is the appearance of the Social Reformer. Philanthropists have brought forward scheme after scheme to relieve poverty, and politicians have passed laws to remove abuses. Their efforts have been magnificent and the immediate results not to be gainsaid, but in counting the gains the debit side must not be forgotten. Philanthropists weaken as well as strengthen society; law hinders as well as helps. When a body of people assume good doing as a special profession, there will always be a tendency among some of their neighbours to go on more unconcerned about evil, and among others to offer themselves as subjects for this good doing. The world may be better for its philanthropists, but when after such devotion it remains so terribly out of joint the question arises whether good is best done by a class set apart as Social Reformers. There is an often-quoted saying of a monk in the twelfth century: “The age of the Son is passing, the age of the Spirit is coming”. He saw that the need of the world would not always be for a leader or for a class of leaders, but rather for a widely diffused spirit. The present moment is remarkable for the number of societies, leagues, and institutions which are being started. There never were so many leaders offering themselves to do good, so many schemes demanding support. The Charities Register reveals agencies which are ready to deal with almost any conceivable ill, and it would seem that anyone desiring to help a neighbour might do so by pressing the button of one of these agencies. The agencies for each service are, indeed, so many, that other societies are formed now for their organization, and the would-be good-doer is thus relieved even from inquiring as to that which is the best fitted for his purpose.