Progress has been slow; but when we recall how true it was in St. Paul’s day that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now”; and how gradually through the ages the mass of human suffering has been abated, we can, while regretting the slow rate of progress, gain encouragement for more rapid future advance. The abolition of slavery, the higher position of women, the steadily increasing force leading towards one standard of sexual morality for both sexes, the improved conditions of housing and sanitation notwithstanding the impediments of urban life, and the increasingly humanitarian conditions of modern industrialism, all give us reason to lift up our hearts. There have been three stages in the attitude of mankind to altruistic work. The first of these is illustrated by the attitude of the father who said to his son: “Learn, my son, to bear tranquilly the calamities of others.” Is not the second stage, illustrated by the sleeping disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, ignorant or regardless of the impending tragedy; while the third stage is manifest in the thousands of earnest social workers,—and the supremely important conscientious members of our governing bodies come in this group,—who are endeavouring to secure the realisation in communal practice of every measure for uplifting mankind. It is well for mankind that the Mother and the Child have become the foundation on which, more and more, we expect health progress to be built. A child more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man Brings hope with it and forward looking thoughts. (Wordsworth.) The history of the Mother and Child summarises the history of the uplifting of mankind: and although there are not lacking sinister elements in the present position, it is a great gain that both in regard to the Mother and Child and to the saving of life and improvement of national health generally, we are beginning to realise that this is not merely a question of self-interest, personal or national; but that we are concerned also with duty, and honour, and chivalry. FOOTNOTES: [15] A lecture given to the Alumni Association of the University of Yale, January 22, 1920. CHAPTER VIII SOME ASPECTS OF POVERTY[16] I use the word Poverty, for the purpose of this discussion, as meaning Destitution, in the sense of lack of means to provide some specific requirement, indispensable for the health of the family, or the individual. Such poverty is evidently undesirable and mischievous, from the point of view of both rich and poor; and I think we shall agree that, given the adoption of the requisite measures, its continuance in most instances is unnecessary. Hence the real subject for discussion is, how poverty may be diminished and prevented.