to have a part in service. Nothing but the actual achievements disarmed such criticisms, and won all parties, liberal and conservative, to the task.
Comparison with the United States.—There are some respects in which the condition of the Inner Mission in our country at this time, resembles that of the German institutions in 1848. Thousands of Christian associations are active to relieve distress and promote social welfare. They are moved by a common spirit, and travel on converging lines. But they are pitifully inadequate, and they are weakened by isolation, separation and want of organic unity.
The National Conference of Charities and Corrections and the Evangelical Alliance are presages of a day when the beneficent agencies of this country will come into more conscious unity and and work upon a wiser plan.
We may well adopt the metaphor of the organizing soul of the Inner Mission: "We must stretch a holy net of love, whose separate threads are already spun, but which waits upon this union for a well-ordered, closely connected whole."
The University of Chicago.
