ient for the crisis. If all our
obligations must be met at once, there will be a panic in which most of
our securities will be sacrificed.

We are accustomed to grumble over the increase in the cost of living.
But the enhancement of price in the necessities of physical life is
nothing compared to the increase in the cost of the higher life.

There are those now living who can remember when almost any one could
have the satisfaction of being considered a good citizen and neighbor.
All one had to do was to attend to one's own affairs and keep within the
law. He would then be respected by all, and would deserve the most
eulogistic epitaph when he came to die. By working for private profit he
could have the satisfaction of knowing that all sorts of public benefits
came as by-products of his activity.

But now all such satisfactions are denied. To be a good citizen you must
put your mind on the job, and it is no easy one. You must be up and
doing. And when you are doing one good thing there will be keen-eyed
critics who will ask why you have not been doing other things which are
much more important; and they will sternly demand of you, "What do you
mean by such criminal negligence?"

What we call the awakening of the social conscience marks an important
step in progress, But, like all progress, it involves hardship to
individuals. For the higher moral classes, the saints and the reformers,
it is the occasion of wholehearted rejoicing. It is just what they have,
all the while, been trying to bring about. But I confess to a sympathy
for the middle class, morally considered, the plain people, who feel the
pinch. They have invested their little all in the old-fashioned
securities, and when these are depreciated they feel that there is
nothing to keep the wolf from the door. After reading a few searching
articles in the magazines they feel that, so far from being excellent
citizens, they are little better than enemies of society. I am not
pleading for the predatory rich, but only for the well-meaning persons
in moderately comfortable circumstances, whose predatoriness has been
suddenly revealed to them.

Many of the most conscientious persons go about with an habitually
apologetic manner. They are rapidly acquiring the evasive air of the
conscious criminal. It is only a very hardened philanthropist, or an
unsophisticated beginner in good works, who can look a sociologist in
the eye. Most persons, when they do one thing, begi