An appreciable impression on this gulf of misery would be immediately made,not only for those who are rescued from its dark waters,but for those who are left behind,seeing that for every hundred individuals removed,there is just the additional work which they performed for those who remain.It might not be much,but still it would soon count up.Supposing three carpenters are starving on employment which covered one-third of their time,if you take two away,the one left will have full employment.But it will be for the public to fix,by their contributions,the extent of our operations.
The benefits bestowed by this Scheme will be permanent in duration.
It will be seen that this is no temporary expedient,such as,alas!
nearly every effort hitherto made on behalf of these classes has been.
Relief Works,Soup Kitchens,Enquiries into Character,Emigration Schemes,of which none will avail themselves,Charity in its hundred forms,Casual Wards,the Union,and a hundred other Nostrums may serve for the hour,but they are only at the best palliations.But this Scheme,I am bold to say,offers a substantial and permanent remedy.
In relieving one section of the community,our plan involves no interference with the well-being of any other.
(See Chapter VII.Section 4,"Objections.")
This Scheme removes the all but insuperable barrier to an industrious and godly life.It means not only the leading of these lost multitudes out of the "City of Destruction"into the Canaan of plenty,but the lifting of them up to the same level of advantage with the more favoured of mankind for securing the salvation of their souls.
Look at the circumstances of hundreds and thousands of the classes of whom we are speaking.From the cradle to the grave,might not their influence in the direction of Religious Belief be summarised in one sentence,"Atheism made easy."Let my readers imagine theirs to have been a similar lot.Is it not possible that,under such circumstances,they might have entertained some serious doubts as to the existence of a benevolent God who would thus allow His creatures to starve,or that they would have been so preoccupied with their temporal miseries as to have no heart for any concern about the next life?
Take a man,hungry and cold,who does not know where his next meal is coming from;nay,who thinks it problematical whether it will come at all.We know his thoughts will be taken up entirely with the bread he needs for his body.What he wants is a dinner.The interests of his soul must wait.
Take a woman with a starving family,who knows that as soon as Monday comes round the rent must be paid,or else she and her children must go into the street,and her little belongings be impounded.
At the present moment she is without it.Are not her thoughts likely to wander in that direction if she slips into a Church or Mission Hall,or Salvation Army Barracks?
I have had some experience on this subject,and have been making observations with respect to it ever since the day I made my first attempt to reach these starving,hungry,crowds--just over forty-five years ago--and I am quite satisfied that these multitudes will not be saved in their present circumstances.All the Clergymen.
Home Missionaries,Tract Distributors,Sick Visitors,and everyone else who care about the Salvation of the poor,may make up their minds as to that.If these people are to believe in Jesus Christ,become the Servants of God,and escape the miseries of the wrath to come,they must be helped out of their present social miseries.They must be put into a position in which they can work and eat,and have a decent room to live and sleep in,and see something before them besides a long,weary,monotonous,grinding round of toil,and anxious care to keep themselves and those they love barely alive,with nothing at the further end but the Hospital,the Union,or the Madhouse.If Christian Workers and Philanthropists will join hands to effect this change it will be accomplished,and the people will rise up and bless them,and be saved;if they will not,the people will curse them and perish.
SECTION 4.--SOME OBJECTIONS MET.
Objections must be expected.They are a necessity with regard to any Scheme that has not yet been reduced to practice,and simply signify foreseen difficulties in the working of it.We freely admit that there are abundance of difficulties in the way of working out the plan smoothly and successfully that has been laid down.But many of these we imagine will vanish when we come to close quarters,and the remainder will be surmounted by courage and patience.Should,however,this plan prove the success we predict,it must eventually revolutionise the condition of the starving sections of Society,not only in this great metropolis,but throughout the whole range of civilisation.It must therefore be worthy not only of a careful consideration but of persevering trial.
Some of these difficulties at first sight appear rather serious.
Let us look at them.
Objection I.--It is suggested that the class of people for whose benefit the Scheme is designed would not avail themselves of it.
When the feast was prepared and the invitation had gone forth,it is said that the starving multitudes would not come;that though labour was offered them in the City,or prepared for them on the Farm,they would prefer to rot in their present miseries rather than avail themselves of the benefit provided.
In order to gather the opinions of those most concerned,we consulted one evening,by a Census in our London Shelters,two hundred and fifty men out of work,and all suffering severely in consequence.
We furnished a set of questions,and obtained answers from the whole.
Now,it must be borne in mind that these men were under no obligation whatever to make any reply to our enquiries,much less to answer them favourably to our plan,of which they knew next to nothing.
