Those who sink are not therefore to be condemned on that account as worse citizens than those who survive; the time at which they have been struck by calamity may account for all the difference between them. We are all liable to sickness and death, but if either comes at one time rather than another it may make a very considerable difference to our families. When a man who is in a steady situation with a fair wage dies leaving no provision for his wife and family he is condemned. It is in vain to point out that he used his pay towards their comfort and in such a way as to ensure their fitness; he ought to have been more careful; and the very people who preach faith are the first to blame him because he took no thought of tomorrow, but did the best he could in the day that was his. The fact is that every man who thinks, among those that are dependent on the wages they earn--usually under a precarious tenure of their situations--sees that his choice lies between securing the best conditions in his power for his family in order that they may be the more fit to do their work in the world, and doing something less in order to lay by some money for them; between starving them in essentials during his lifetime to secure them from starvation should he die, and giving what he has while he is there to give, in the hope that he may live to see them develop healthily. From poverty to destitution is in many cases but a short step, and it may be taken by those who have done nothing to deserve it. Sickness, loss of employment, absence of friends who can assist, may drive a man to extremity; and then it is a hard task indeed for him to keep within the law and live. His sickness may enable him to qualify for parochial relief, but as soon as he is recovered so far as to be able to go about he may be cast adrift without means of support.