Every phase of human need was looked to. We are just beginning to realize our obligations to care for the old, and the last twenty years has seen various efforts on the part of governments to provide old-age pensions. In the Middle Ages according to the laws of the gilds the man who had paid his dues for seven years would then draw a weekly pension equal to something more than five dollars now, for all the rest of his life if he were disabled by injury, or had become incapacitated from old age or illness. Then there were gilds to provide insurance against loss by fire, loss by robbery on land and also on sea, loss by shipwreck, loss even by imprisonment and all other phases of human needs. If the workman were injured his family nursed him during the day but a brother member of the gild, as we have said, was sent to care for him at night, and a good portion of his wages went on, paid to him out of the gild chest. If he died his widow and orphans were cared for by a special pension. The widow did not have to break up the family and send the children to orphan asylums. There were practically no orphan asylums. The gilds cared for the children of dead members. As the boys grew up special attention was given them so as to provide a trade for them, and they were given earlier opportunities than others to get on in life. {188} The orphans were the favorite children of the gilds, and instead of a child being handicapped by the loss of his parents when he was young, it sometimes happened that he got better opportunities than if his parents lived. These gilds provided opportunities for social entertainment and friendly intercourse and for such acquaintanceship as would afford mutual pleasure and give opportunities for the meeting of the young folks,--sons and daughters of the members of the gild. They had their yearly benefit at which the wives of the members and their sweethearts were supposed by rule to come, and then they had other meetings and social gatherings--picnics in the country in the summer, dances in the winter time and all in a circle where every one knew every one else, and all went well. These are some social features of these gilds educational in the highest sense that we can well envy in the modern time, when we find it so difficult to secure innocent, happy pleasures for young people that will not leave a bad taste in the mouth afterwards. When a member of the gild died his brother members attended the Mass which was said for him and gave a certain amount in charity that was meant to be applied for his benefit. The whole outlook on life was eminently brotherly. There has never been such a teaching of true fraternity, of the brotherhood of man, of the necessity for mutual aid and then of such practice of it as makes it easy, as among these old gilds. {189}