Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
There are many who are not lost, who need help. A little assistance
given to-day will perhaps prevent the need of having to save them
to-morrow. There are some, who, after they have been rescued,
will still need a friendly hand. The very service which we have
rendered them at starting makes it obligatory upon us to finish the
good work. Hitherto it may be objected that the Scheme has dealt
almost exclusively with those who are more or less disreputable and
desperate. This was inevitable. We obey our Divine Master and seek to
save those who are lost. But because, as I said at the beginning,
urgency is claimed rightly for those who have no helper, we do not,
therefore, forget the needs and the aspirations of the decent working
people who are poor indeed, but who keep their feet, who have not
fallen, and who help themselves and help each other. They constitute
the bulk of the nation. There is an uppercrust and a submerged tenth.
But the hardworking poor people, who earn a pound a week or less,
constitute in every land the majority of the population. We cannot
forget them, for we are at home with them. We belong to them and many
thousands of them belong to us. We are always studying how to help
them, and we think this can be done in many ways, some of which I
proceed to describe.
SECTION 1.--IMPROVED LODGINGS.
The necessity for a superior class of lodgings for the poor men rescued
at our Shelters has been forcing itself already upon our notice,
and demanding attention. One of the first things that happens when a
man, lifted out of the gutter, has obtained a situation, and is earning
a decent livelihood, is for him to want some better accommodation than
that afforded at the Shelters. We have some hundreds on our hands now
who can afford to pay for greater comfort and seclusion.
These are continually saying to us something like the following: --
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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