Thus slowly has men’s attention been drawn to consider the social condition of our great towns. The revelations of recent pamphlets have fallen on ears prepared to hear. The fact that the wealth _of_ England means only wealth _in_ England, and that the mass of the people live without knowledge, without hope, and often without health has come home to open minds and consciences. If inquiry has shown that statements have been exaggerated, and the blame badly directed, it is nevertheless evident that the best is the privilege of the few, and that the Gospel--God’s message to this age--does not reach the poor. A workman’s wages cannot procure for him the knowledge which means fullness of life, or the leisure in which he might “possess his soul”. Hardly by saving can he lay up for old age, and only by charity can he get the care of a skilled physician. If it be thus with the first-class workman, the case of the casual labourer, whose strength of mind and body is consumed by anxiety, must be almost intolerable. Statistics, which show the number in receipt of poor relief, the families which occupy single rooms, the death rate in poor quarters, make a “cry” which it needs no words to express. The thought of the condition of the people has made a strange stirring in the calm life of the Universities, and many men feel themselves driven by a new spirit, possessed by a master idea. They are eager in their talk and in their inquiries, and they ask “What can we do to help the poor?” A College Mission naturally suggests itself as a form in which the idea should take shape. It seems as if all the members of a college might unite in helping the poor, by adopting a district in a great town, finding for it a clergyman and associating themselves in his work. A Mission, however, has necessarily its limitations. The clergyman begins with a hall into which he gathers a congregation, and which he uses as a centre for “Mission” work. He himself is the only link between the college and the poor. He gives frequent reports of his progress, and enlists such personal help as he can, always keeping it in mind that the “district” is destined to become a “parish”. Many districts thus created in East London now take their places among the regular parishes, and the income of the clergyman is paid by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the patronage of the living is probably with the Bishop, and the old connexion has become simply a matter of history. Apart from the doubt whether this multiplication of parochial organizations, with its consequent division of interests, represents a wise policy, it is obvious that a college mission does not wholly cover the idea which possessed the college. The social spirit fulfils itself in many ways, and no one form is adequate to its total expression.