What shall the end be? Will the evil cease because the bitter cry of those who suffer is heard in the land? Will the ‘frantic’ striving of many people relieve society from the slavery of selfishness and lead to a moral reform, or will it be that after a few months some one like Browning’s Cardinal will be found saying, ‘I have known four-and-twenty leaders of revolt’?
This is a question to be considered, if possible, with calmness of mind, without prejudice for or against sensationalism. It may be that what seems sensational is but the bigger cry suited to a bigger world, and therefore the only means of making known the facts which must afterwards be weighed and considered. It may be that some must be made frantic before any will act. It may be, on the other hand, that this trumpeting of sorrow and sin is the vengeance of the crime of sense, itself a sense to be worn with time; that men trumpet sorrows for mere love of noise and size, and become frantic over tales of sin to wring from each tale a new pleasure. Sensationalism in social reform is either the outcome of self-indulgence or it is the divine voice making itself heard in language which he that runs may read.
Not lightly at any rate are Midlothian speeches, ‘bitter cries,’ and religious revivals to be passed over. They, by striving and crying, by forcible statements and strong language, have caused public opinion to stop its course of easy satisfaction, and to express itself in new legislation. For the sake of the Bulgarians a Ministry was overturned; because of the cry of the poor an Act of Parliament has been passed; and the success of the Salvation Army has modified the services in our churches. In face, though, of these results on legislation, and of other results represented by various societies and leagues, the question still is, Will the same causes result in raising character? Professor Clifford, in one of his essays, speaks with religious fervour on the importance of character in society:—
Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought are common property fashioned and perfected from age to age.... Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live!
Further, he goes on to point out that a bad method is bad, whatever good results may follow, because it weakens the character of the doer and so weakens society.
If (he says) I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done by the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves; for then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do evil that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby.
In judging, therefore, of methods of reform it is not enough to show that laws have been passed and leagues formed; it must also be shown that the character of all concerned is raised. Jesus drew few people after Him and died alone, but He so raised the character of man that His death inaugurated a permanent reformation of society. It is as the character of men is raised that all reforms become permanent.
Oppressed nationalities depend for effectual help on the widely spread growth of sympathy with freedom; the poor will have starvation wages till the rich learn what justice requires; and religion will fail to be a power till men are honest enough to ask themselves in what they do really believe. Methods of reform are valuable just in so far as they tend to increase sympathy, justice, honesty, reverence, and all the virtues of high character. The answer, therefore, as to the end of this striving and crying of modern philanthropy is to be found in the effects which such methods have on character.