A moment's reflection is enough to show that there can be no claim on the higher ranks in any country to place the poor--_i. e._, those who are unable to work from age, sex, or infirmity, or who are unable to find work--on a better footing than the lowest of those who can maintain themselves by labour, and that any such attempt would speedily tend to disorder and do injury to the whole frame of society, and especially to the working classes; but it is confidently maintained, that a country in which these classes are regularly and uniformly preserved, by the contributions of the higher ranks, from falling into lower habits than those which prevail among the poorest of the people who maintain themselves by regular labour,--is also that in which the population will adapt itself most strictly to the demand for labour--remaining, if necessary for this purpose, quite stationary for ages together. There are different modes in which the contributions of the rich for these purposes have been received and applied; but it may be stated with perfect confidence, as the result of experience, that the only truly and uniformly effectual means is, to give them the security and uniformity of a legal enactment. For several ages, the general mode throughout Europe was through the intervention of the Christian church, for "the distribution of alms and food by the clergy was not merely a voluntary charity, but was a legal obligation. It was a rule of ecclesiastical discipline throughout Europe, and was a condition expressed in all the grants by which they held their possessions, and in every appropriation of benefices to the regular orders." The maintenance of the religious houses was thus the poor-law of the Middle Ages; and when their property was alienated, the necessity of another law, to secure the same object, soon became manifest throughout the greater part of Europe.