"The manufacturer of matches who keeps young boys working 15 hours a day. seven days a week, with seven workers a day going to the hospital with "phossy jaw" to increase his profits, cannot give thanks for such benefits unless he is a hypocrite. With ordinary care for the health of his workers he could still enjoy reasonable profits. Let us to-day give thanks that we can share our blessings with this great people in the midst of whom we are living and let us pledge ourselves. anew not merely to personal and_ private profit but to the profit of the people to whom we have come. Can we be satisfied with the conditions under which those around less fortunate than we are living?"
Dr. Eddy then gave some forceful examples of the wretched conditions under which millions of Chinese mill hands are toiling, some of them working 16 and 17 hours a day for a wage of between. 13 and 40 cents, but he also instanced: the great advances—which had been made by humanitarian Chinese and foreign employers and the demonstration which had been made of the greater efficiency as well as the greater humaneness of reasonable hours and one day's rest in seven. As a result of the awakening of public opinion he referred with appreciation to a recent "fine editorial" in the "North-China Daily News" and to other indications of aroused public feeling. "When we achieve righteousness and justice for all, then we can say 'Bless the Lord O my Soul,' concluded the speaker.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.