If the clergymen of our great cities would carry out the example set
by their Master, would refuse to take the words of those who are
blinded and callous by conventional thought and the indifference which
comes to sordid natures long accustomed to mingle with wretchedness,
and themselves frequently visit the exiles of society in the cities
where they dwell; if its members would for one day in each week visit
the miserables of society, I doubt not that _the pulpit would soon
become a most powerful battery of moral power and light_, which would,
in a surprisingly short time, revolutionize our conditions, so that in
the place of thousands of people, sandwiched in dens of indescribable
squalor, we would see healthful apartment houses; instead of horrible
drinking dens and rendezvous of degradation and debauchery,
flourishing and rank as tropical forests, we would find temperance
eating-houses; social club houses where every evening the poor man and
his family could spend an hour, looking through the paper of the day,
enjoying the illustrations and the intellectual worth of our
periodical literature, or, if they chose, hear in other rooms lectures
or charcoal talks dealing with practical pictures of life, of history,
travels, social problems, and other themes of value, and where at a
very moderate price healthful and nutritious food could be enjoyed.
Well-supported industrial schools would also blossom where now only
here and there we find a school struggling for existence and
handicapped for want of means for its proper carrying on.