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| W.T. Stead (1849-1912) |
"The lesson to be learned from Mr. Stead's book is that the great evils from which humanity is suffering today, are evils that can be handled only by religious sentiments; that the handling of those evils has been in the great part surrendered to the State; that the State has itself been delivered over to corrupt political machines; that such machines are not only unwilling, but unable, to deal with those evils; and that nothing but a religious awakening of the citizens to their public duties can save countless millions from misery and the State itself from degradation."
This excerpt from an American review of the book was quoted by Iqbal in his article 'Islam and Ahmadism' (1936). The complete title the book by William T. Stead was If Christ Came to Chicago! - a plea for the union of all who love in the service of all who suffer. It was first published in Chicago in 1894 and was an instant hit: 70000 copies were ordered before the first copy even came out of the press. The author died 28 years later while travelling on Titanic: after helping several women and children get into lifeboats he was last seen sitting in the 1st Class Smoking Room reading a book. Further: see the W.T. Resource Site
I really like the whole title of this book. The beauty of such depth of compassion, awareness and understanding is that it translates so well from culture to culture and age to age in time. Thank You for sharing this information.
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