160 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



mission. But in these days she is coming more fully 

 into her own. 



This is the trend of our age. More than ever before 

 men are seeking knowledge and control of the causes 

 of conditions and events. Such mastery is the whole 

 spirit and trend of modern science. Such is the 

 " dominant note of modern philanthropy. Organized 

 charity is now endeavoring to seek out and to strike 

 effectively at the causes of dependence, the organized 

 forces of evil, the intolerable living conditions, which 

 are beyond the control of the individuals whom they 

 injure and whom they too often destroy. Other tasks 

 for other ages ; this be the glory of ours, that the social 

 causes of dependence shall be destroyed."* Such, too, 

 is the modern, note in the labors of the Christian 

 church. She is vitally concerned with the fundamental 

 questions of social righteousness and industrial equity. 

 It was her spirit that brought into being the Red 

 Cross Societies, but she is addressing herself to the 

 abolition of war. Never shall she cease to pour wine 

 and oil into wounds while one half-dead traveller is 

 found, but her truer office is not this, nor to police 

 the road, but to reform the system which produces 

 robbers. 



A simple and concrete yet pertinent example which 

 exemplifies at once both principles, of social rather 

 than individual service, and of removing causes rather 

 than remedying results, is found in the two successive 

 stages of the work for temperance, as we still style it. 

 First came the attempt to reform the drunkard and to 

 conserve the boy by means of the pledge, and next the 



* Edward T. Devine, " The Dominant Note of Modern Philan- 

 thropy." 



