LITTLE THINGS BY Charles Robert Morrison

If a system of human slavery is to be attacked and overthrown, the
beginnings of that revolution must pass through the dark days, through
humiliating scenes of ridicule and violence. But from the disgraceful
acts of mobs, the burning of houses, the destruction of property, the
movement gained substantially until it called to its support--argument,
fact, publicity, members, and enlisted sympathy and moral support. It
then moved on to success, for God was in it.
Are there today moral or social movements, in or out of the Church--
movements aimed at the destruction and complete overthrow of great
evils, or designed to secure a better state of affairs in society? They may
have originated unhappily, may be advocated by those poorly qualified
in many particulars to help the cause along; but, in spite of unfortunate
origin, in spite of prejudice, notwithstanding the feebleness of the
support--these reforms of a philanthropic nature will in time exhibit to
the world a proportion and a dignity that will entitle them to universal
respect.
It may be the reform in international arbitration that will dissolve to
peaceful pursuits, vast standing armies. It may refer to a confederation
of Churches of like faith and doctrine that shall confer together in the
interest of economy and efficiency respecting colleges, publications,
missions, local Churches, refusing to enter fields already occupied by
Churches of like faith, or to overlap each other in fields at home or
abroad.
Or it may be there has begun an agitation that looks to fitness and
capability in the civil service, rather than to partisan zeal or
complexion in color; or, better still, an uprising of a long-suffering class
against a gigantic evil--a movement that has been slow and perhaps at
times devious, yet always against a common enemy, at times
engineered by noble men and women, and then directed by those whose
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