General exercises of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 : together with list of officers and members, programme and rules.

  • International Congress of Charities, Correction, and Philanthropy (1893 : Chicago, Ill.)
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General exercises of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 : together with list of officers and members, programme and rules. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I heard another eloquent voice call for district nurses to visit the poor to be attached to every church organization. Far better than that is the public dispensary, under charge of the physician, and dis- trict nurses going forth with no taint of proselytism, even in the sus- picion of those to whom they minister, upon their white garments; going forth as representative of that outside church of humanity that does not even try to spell its creed. And so of all the agencies which make up the great procession of philanthropic effort. What is the especial effort of the charity organization movement in our time? Is it not to lift the partial and petty charities of indi- vidual churches and of little societies, where each person has his pet theory, into the atmosphere of scientific investigation and of universal human brotherhood ? That is the distinctive feature in all modern work in charity and reform. As we find our need in the matter and learn our way, we take ourselves out of the narrow path, however dear that path may be, and strike out into the open highway, to the betterment of our own work and to the enlargement of the whole scheme under which we labor. When our speakers, during this past week, wished to place the highest crown upon their own effort in any line, they all uttered the same sentiment: “ We do our work without regard to sectarian interests, without regard to churchly affiliations; we do it on the broadest human ground.” The church that would seek to stem that tide, even by its own activity in a special line—the church that should cling, for instance, to its own little kindergarten, instead of putting in its work with the city kindergarten, or to its own little district nursing and its own friendly visiting, instead of going with the crowd, in a large way and on the best lines, is defeating the end for which it stands, the end of uniting the life of man to the life which is its source. If there can be no such relation between the church and these special philanthropies and reforms, can there be no other? The church is not to be a moral workshop, but it should be a moral expo- sition. It is not to show the drudgery and the toil of the special worker, still less of special reformers; but the pulpit should exhibit, one after another, the great works of ethical progress and of social reform. For this purpose I believe that lay-workers should receive a fine sympathetic setting of their work in the pulpit. The minister is the only professional person who is bound to be general rather than special in his study. He is the only one who, by virtue of his professional demands, must keep himself open on all sides to truth