We begin to appreciate the full significance of the older words, “it is not the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish”; and this ideal happily is now certain to replace the materialistic doctrine of the German type which drives the weaker to the wall.
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.