[From the Pioneer, Canada]

With regard to the working of the prohibitory law, generally speaking there are several points which seem to be pretty well established. (1) It has greatly improved the position of the poorer classes. Personal interviews with social workers in such widely distributed centers as Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Winnipeg, Chicago, Halifax, and St. Johns all point to the same conclusion. The slum districts in Cincinnati surrounding the great breweries, since the coming of prohibition, have been transformed into decent residential districts; and there is a greater air of prosperity, in spite of unemployment to-day over the whole place. It has been estimated that almost fifty per cent of the former drink bill goes into the savings banks, and the balance is distributed amongst the moving pictures, ice cream, candy parlors, and so on. The chief difference seems to be that the head of the household, instead of spending the money on himself, distributes it amongst the members of the family. Even if they do not have any more at the end of the year in individual cases, at least they all enjoy the spending of it. (2) In spite of the crime wave sweeping the continent the offenses which may be attributed to strong drink have decreased wonderfully. The felony court of Cincinnati has been abandoned under prohibition, also two thirds of the city workhouse. When the city went under prohibition there were two hundred and ten prisoners in the workhouse. Within three months that number had been reduced to eighty. Within the first three months under prohibition the deposits in the city national and state banks increased from one hundred and ninety-four millions of dollars to over two hundred and four millions.

These are only a few of the facts which may be gleaned from the Year Book. Needless to say, there are many others of the same order which would all go to emphasize the statement made by Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip on February 25, 1920, before the Economic Club of New York City, when he said: "We have provided the greatest single economic factor looking toward material prosperity ever created by legislative enactment in prohibitory legislation."

[Notes from the Christian Century]

What we want is to realize that Christianity is a way of life and that life is fundamentally social and interrelated, that no man can be a Christian and live unto himself. ...

So long as salvation is conceived and preached mainly in reference to a world beyond, the rank and file of those who compose our villages and cities will go their way and give little heed. They will say in substance, "If you do not love your brother whom you have seen, we have no interest in what you say about a God whom you have not seen. Show us a religion that really does things, that alters men's lives and that sets new spiritual forces and energies operating in the society where we live and we shall be impressed."

But the best way back to Christ for a church is for that church to take up the burden of human suffering and follow Christ now and henceforth in the work of searching out and finding lost sheep and of making love prevail among men as a real way of life.

Here we are in a world that needs a fresh and transforming message of life. It is within our reach. Christianity can still be the power of God. ... If it loses its leadership, it is because we who profess it do not care enough about it to take pains to be living organs of it. If we who now call ourselves Christians had the first-hand experience of God, if we were followers of Christ in his love of men and in his faith in a new social order, and if we were making the world to-day feel the freshness and power of that mighty revelation of the Spirit through the Bible, there would come a new stage in the history of the church.

["The Last Ten Years in China," by A. L. Warnshuis in the International Review of Missions]

Nothing could be more significant than the changing status of women. Now not only has the anti-footbinding reform made real progress, greater in some provinces than others, but also in an increasing number of places the girls are offered opportunities for modern education equal to those given to boys. Barely a score of years ago Christians were ridiculed quite generally because of their attempts to educate girls at all. Now public and government schools for girls are maintained in all large centers and in many smaller towns. The Peking Government University has opened its doors to women students, ... the Nanking Government Normal School has established coeducation. ...

There seems to be a growing conviction among the Chinese people that the real problem of the nation is not political, or military, or financial, but that it is a moral and spiritual problem. What will save China? is the question that is being asked literally on every side. Prominent leaders express the belief that only religion will be able to save China, and inquire whether Christianity is not that religion which is needed. ... The greatest need of China, with all her difficult problems and unquiet strivings, is to see Christ clearly with her own eyes. His dominating influence is needed, not only in government but in the regular routine of everyday activities and relations.

[From the Philippine Press Bulletin]

Tribute was rendered recently to Filipino progress by a well-known Chinese educationalist, Dr. Lim Boon Keng, head of the Amoy University. Speaking to a gathering of Filipinos during the inauguration of President Benton, head of the University of the Philippines, Dr. Keng said, "You may not be able to realize the progress you have made, because you are in your own country, and very few men can see their noses; but I tell you that your progress in recent years, to men like me who come from outside, is staggering, astonishing, tremendous. And this proves the fact that civilization is universal and may be developed by all the peoples of the earth."

["The Sublime Inspiration in the Ideal Service," by Felix Adler in the Standard]

The idea that there is a task for mankind as a whole has hardly begun to dawn on the horizon of men's thought. Mr. H. G. Wells, in his book, "The Outline of History," has the merit of having called the attention of his readers to this idea of one great task for the human race. ... As I see it, it is this: to carry on consciously the evolution of life, which has been going on unconsciously before—to change our species, to so transform human nature that the animal part shall become less and less, and the spiritual part, the intellectual and moral, shall shine out more and more; in order that there shall come to walk upon this earth a race of beings more spiritual, more lofty, more intellectual, more ethical, than any the world has yet seen. ...

Service is sublime for the reason that it is the method by which the evolution of the individual and of society is to be achieved. And looked at in this manner, every right kind of service becomes great. ... To feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to clothe the naked, are forms of service enjoined in the gospels. ... It is the inspiration of doing a sublime thing, and rising thereby in the scale of being; it is especially the need of our human fellows for this our service, that must provide the sharp stimulus to enable us to undertake the process of inner transformation; and the consciousness that we are being transformed, the lower nature mastered, the higher ascendant, the darkness in us penetrated with light,—this consciousness of the process of being changed is the supreme satisfaction of life.

[From the Times Weekly, London, England]

Whatever may be done, whatever it may be possible to do in Europe or at Washington, in an international conference at Genoa or elsewhere, can only be done successfully on the basis of a real and honest understanding backed by constructive and intelligent good-will between France and England. Whether it concern Europe mainly or embrace extra-European questions in such a degree as to make it world-wide, is for the moment an issue of secondary importance. The important thing is the will to agree. I believe, as the result of observation and investigation during the past fortnight, that such a will exists in France in sufficient measure as it undoubtedly exists in England.

["What the Church in America is Doing," by Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Calvert in the Annandale Observer, Scotland]

Thousands upon thousands can get no help from the doctors. For the most part the doctors have no training in abnormal psychology. And spiritual disorders demand spiritual treatment. Who, then, is to heal the souls of men if the ministers do not? Jesus spent most of his time among the sick and depressed. Why should not ministers follow his high example? It is, I think, largely because Christian Science has really attempted to carry out Christ's command to "heal the sick" that Christian Science has succeeded where the Church has failed.

[From Current Opinion]

The ultimate problem, however, is one that economics alone can never solve. We must learn "how to purge the human heart, to make it softer and finer, to turn it toward righteousness and beneficence." Mr. Yarros looks to education, rather than to religion, to accomplish this miracle. He says, "The education chiefly needed is social, moral, political. We must seek to understand one another, to grasp each other's point of view, to sympathize with one another's differences and troubles, to recognize each other's honesty, sincerity, and right to his own opinion."

[From the Landmark, London]

Travel east, or travel west, journey north or south, and you will find an abiding faith in the honesty and power of the English-speaking peoples. Out of the tribulation and turmoil the nations of the world believe that a way will be found through the steadfast characteristics of these free nations. For seven years, when other States were in a process of disintegration, the Britannic Dominions and the great Republic of America were being knit together by bands more firm.

[From the New York, N. Y., American]

Less than half as many physicians are being graduated from medical schools as twenty years ago. There are only about fifty per cent as many schools in operation as then. The decrease naturally affects first the rural community and next the centers of smaller population.