Social Evils Author:Alex Thomson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. OF OUR PRINCIPAL REMEDIAL INSTITUTIONS, AND WHY THEY FAIL IN ACCOMPLISHING THEIR WORK. It is the distinguishing honour of the present age, tha... more »t there are numerous institutions devised and carried into active operation to counteract one and another of our social evils, and but for them we must ere now have fallen from our pre-eminence as a nation, and become the prey of godless anarchy. Some of them have existed for centuries, others are of recent date; some are merely philanthropic, others have higher and holier aims. All of them are doing good to a greater or less extent, and yet all combined are not successfully waging war with our social evils, which are increasing and advancing step by step, in spite of every endeavour to arrest their progress. It will be interesting and useful to enumerate the more important of them, and very briefly topoint out the causes which prevent their operating as expected upon our neglected and dangerous classes. 1. Our mightiest moral engines are the Christian Churches, including, of course, the Dissenters as well as the Establishments. Theoretically, the Churches ought to convey the knowledge of the gospel to every man and woman and child in the kingdom. Practically, their benefits are confined in our cities and towns almost wholly to the weal thy and middling classes; the lowest—those who may be said, in one sense, to be most in need of Christian instruction— are shut out or overlooked. The habits, and even the dress, of the dangerous classes exclude them from the Established Churches; while their poverty is nearly as effectual a barrier against their entrance into places of worship supported solely by the voluntary contributions of individuals. Notwithstanding the great activity and zeal of the Dissenting Churches, ...« less