Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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