Many of this crowd have never had a chance of doing better;they have been born in a poisoned atmosphere,educated in circumstances which have rendered modesty an impossibility,and have been thrown into life in conditions which make vice a second nature.Hence,to provide an effective remedy for the evils which we are deploring these circumstances must be altered,and unless my Scheme effects such a change,it will be of no use.There are multitudes,myriads,of men and women,who are floundering in the horrible quagmire beneath the burden of a load too heavy for them to bear;every plunge they take forward lands them deeper;some have ceased even to struggle,and lie prone in the filthy bog,slowly suffocating,with their manhood and womanhood all but perished.It is no use standing on the firm bank of the quaking morass and anathematising these poor wretches;if you are to do them any good,you must give them another chance to get on their feet,you must give them firm foothold upon which they can once more stand upright,and you must build stepping-stones across the bog to enable them safely to reach the other side.Favourable circumstances will not change a man's heart or transform his nature,but unpropitious circumstances may render it absolutely impossible for him to escape,no matter how he may desire to extricate himself.The first step with these helpless,sunken creatures is to create the desire to escape,and then provide the means for doing so.In other words,give the man another chance.
Thirdly:Any remedy worthy of consideration must be on a scale commensurate with the evil with which it proposes to deal.It is no use trying to bail out the ocean with a pint pot.This evil is one whose victims are counted by the million.The army of the Lost in our midst exceeds the numbers of that multitudinous host which Xerxes led from Asia to attempt the conquest of Greece.Pass in parade those who make up the submerged tenth,count the paupers indoor and outdoor,the homeless,the starving,the criminals,the lunatics,the drunkards,and the harlots--and yet do not give way to despair!Even to attempt to save a tithe of this host requires that we should put much more force and fire into our work than has hitherto been exhibited by anyone.There must be no more philanthropic tinkering,as if this vast sea of human misery were contained in the limits of a garden pond.
Fourthly:Not only must the Scheme be large enough,but it must be permanent.That is to say,it must not be merely a spasmodic effort coping with the misery of to-day;it must be established on a durable footing,so as to go on dealing with the misery of tomorrow and the day after,so long as there is misery left in the world with which to grapple.
Fifthly:But while it must be permanent,it must also be immediately practicable.Any Scheme,to be of use,must be capable of being brought into instant operation with beneficial results.
Sixthly:The indirect features of the Scheme must not be such as to produce injury to the persons whom we seek to benefit.Mere charity,for instance,while relieving the pinch of hunger,demoralises the recipient;and whatever the remedy is that we employ,it must be of such a nature as to do good without doing evil at the same time.
It is no use conferring sixpennyworth of benefit on a man if,at the same time,we do him a shilling'sworth of harm.
Seventhly:While assisting one class of the community,it must not seriously interfere with the interests of another.In raising one section of the fallen,we must not thereby endanger the safety of those who with difficulty are keeping on their feet.
These are the conditions by which I ask you to test the Scheme I am about to unfold.They are formidable enough,possibly,to deter many from even attempting to do anything.They are not of my making.They are obvious to anyone who looks into the matter.They are the laws which govern the work of the philanthropic reformer,just as the laws of gravitation,of wind and of weather,govern the operations of the engineer.It is no use saying we could build a bridge across the Tay if the wind did not blow,or that we could build a railway across a bog if the quagmire would afford us a solid foundation.The engineer has to take into account the difficulties,and make them his starting point.The wind will blow,therefore the bridge must be made strong enough to resist it.Chat Moss will shake;therefore we must construct a foundation in the very bowels of the bog on which to build our railway.So it is with the social difficulties which confront us.
If we act in harmony with these laws we shall triumph;but if we ignore them they will overwhelm us with destruction and cover us with disgrace.
But,difficult as the task may be,it is not one which we can neglect.
When Napoleon was compelled to retreat under circumstances which rendered it impossible for him to carry off his sick and wounded,he ordered his doctors to poison every man in the hospital.A general has before now massacred his prisoners rather than allow them to escape.These Lost ones are the Prisoners of Society;they are the Sick and Wounded in our Hospitals.What a shriek would arise from the civilised world if it were proposed to administer to-night to every one of these millions such a dose of morphine that they would sleep to wake no more.But so far as they are concerned,would it not be much less cruel thus to end their life than to allow them to drag on day after day,year after year,in misery,anguish,and despair,driven into vice and hunted into crime,until at last disease harries them into the grave?
