s appealed to and in less than two
years the business districts and Custom House Place, infamous across the
world, were cleared of open houses of shame. Where the artful scarlet
woman plied her deadly trade the streets are now full of children, and
the houses once red with sin are now shops of new citizens, who have yet
their mother tongue and the strange garb of lands across the seas.

So I was led to do what every true minister of Christ must do. I
investigated the moral conditions of my home city. Knowledge of its
culture, acquaintance with its commerce, friendship with its schools and
homes and zeal for the respectable sinner were not enough. The man who
is set to guard the moral interests of a community must go into the
deeps and darks of his city. He must know first hand what the dangers to
youth are, where the traps for girls and boys are set, what the bait
used is, how the ruin is wrought and what the remedies are. Save as he
does this his voice will not reach far, nor his protests have in them
the moral ring of the man who knows. The daring youth and the toughened
rascals soon detect whether a man talks from aroused conviction and a
pointed purpose, or whether he is just preaching in the air and saying
things that he thinks should be said.

My investigations convinced me that all thus far said was true, and far
more than any respectable man can know was terribly rampant every night
in Chicago. It was very apparent that more men and women of influence
and power must give earnest thought and much time to the solution of
this menacing problem. A Pastor's part was very clear to my mind. It is
said that the Chinese employ a physician to keep the family in good
health, he draws his fees while health obtains. That is something like
the position of a Christian minister in his community. It is his
business to promote good health, high morals, finest ideals; to rebuke
evil in all of its forms, and especially that kind of evil nearest his
own doors and in his own city. What would be thought of the physician
that spent his time playing with the children, reading fine poems to the
family, indulging in pretty speeches, but running away when dread
diseases began to show themselves, refusing to treat cancer, smallpox,
or other fearful plagues. So is the preacher who is content to do the
ordinary work of his pastorate and takes no pains to investigate the
moral and social conditions of his town. It is the sacred duty of every