Social problems bristle on all sides, and every active lady appears to belong, not to one, but to many of the societies for the reform or abolition of this, and for the bringing about of that, which abound. Mr. Jellyby’s little project for civilising the natives of Borrioboola-Gha on the left bank of the Niger, and providing them with blankets, would be but a drop in the philanthropic ocean of to-day!
Temperance, morality, smoking, marriage laws, vaccination, funeral customs and cremation, early closing, domestic service, cooking, dress, hygiene, our boys and girls and what to do with them, in fact, everything in life, seems to have been converted into a “Question,” and provides a text upon which more or less eloquent sermons are preached.
Everyone seems to work hard, and has no time for anything. Everyone, too, is restless and expectant, eager for excitement and change, while miracles of discovery and invention are wrought so frequently as to be almost unnoticed.
All nations are being chained together by iron roads or lines of swift steamers, and everybody travels. Locomotion is the order of the day, a sign of the times, and electricity is the great factor that has brought it about.
Just as in the building of some vast cathedral unsightly scaffolding conceals the graceful proportions of the uprising building, so in what is going on around us may appear much confusion and absence of purpose. But out of it is being evolved a state of readiness for the coming era, when wars shall cease and vexed problems be finally solved.
Meantime the world’s feverish workers might well despair, were it not that they
“...see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,
Is toil co-operant to an end.”
INDEX
[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [Q], [R], [S], [T], [U], [V], [W].