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 Iproceed 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:--The Shelters are all very well when a man is down in his luck.
They have been a good thing for us;in fact,had it not been for them,we would still have been without a friend,sleeping on the Embankment,getting our living dishonestly,or not getting a living at all.