Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
We might multiply these records, but those given show the kind of
results attained.
There's no reason to think that influences which have been blessed of
God to the salvation of these poor fellows will not be equally
efficacious if applied on a wider scale and over a vaster area.
The thing to be noted in all these cases is that it was not the mere
feeding which effected the result; it was the combination of the
feeding with the personal labour for the individual soul. Still, if we
had not fed them, we should never have come near enough to gain any
hold upon their hearts. If we had merely fed them, they would have
gone away next day to resume, with increased energy, the predatory and
vagrant life which they had been leading. But when our feeding and
Shelter Depots brought them to close quarters, our officers were
literally able to put their arms round their necks and plead with them
as brethren who had gone astray. We told them that their sins and
sorrows had not shut them out from the love of the Everlasting Father,
who had sent us to them to help them with all the power of our strong
Organisation, of the Divine authority of which we never feel so sure as
when it is going forth to seek and to save the lost.
SECTION 2.--WORK FOR THE OUT-OF-WORKS.--THE FACTORY.
The foregoing, it will be said, is all very well for your outcast when
he has got fourpence in his pocket, but what if he has not got his
fourpence? What if you are confronted with a crowd of hungry desperate
wretches, without even a penny in their pouch, demanding food and
shelter? This objection is natural enough, and has been duly
considered from the first.
I propose to establish in connection with every Food and Shelter Depot
a Workshop or Labour Yard, in which any person who comes destitute and
starving will be supplied with sufficient work to enable him to earn
the fourpence needed for his bed and board. This is a fundamental
feature of the Scheme, and one which I think will commend it to all
those who are anxious to benefit the poor by enabling them to help
themselves without the demoralising intervention of charitable relief.
Let us take our stand for a moment at the door of one of our Shelters.
There comes along a grimy, ragged, footsore tramp, his feet bursting
out from the sides of his shoes, his clothes all rags, with filthy
shirt and towselled hair. He has been, he tells you, on the tramp for
the last three weeks, seeking work and finding none, slept last night
on the Embankment, and wants to know if you can give him a bite and a
sup, and shelter for the night. Has he any money? Not he; he probably
spent the last penny he begged or earned in a pipe of tobacco, with
which to dull the cravings of his hungry stomach. What are you to do
with this man?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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