The moment you set about dealing with the wants of the people,you discover that many of their difficulties are not material,but moral.There never was a greater mistake than to imagine that you have only to fill a man's stomach,and clothe his back in order to secure his happiness.Man is,much more than a digestive apparatus,liable to get out of order.Hence,while it is important to remember that man has a stomach,it is also necessary to bear in mind that he has a heart,and a mind that is frequently sorely troubled by difficulties which,if he lived in a friendly world,would often disappear.A man,and still more a woman,stands often quite as much in need of a trusted adviser as he or she does of a dinner or a dress.
Many a poor soul is miserable all the day long,and gets dragged down deeper and deeper into the depths of sin and sorrow and despair for want of a sympathising friend,who can give her advice,and make her feel that somebody in the world cares for her,and will help her if they can.
If we are to bring back the sense of brotherhood to the world,we must confront this difficulty.God,it was said in old time,setteth the desolate in families;but somehow,in our time,the desolate wander alone in the midst of a careless and unsympathising world."There is no-one who cares for my soul.There is no creature loves me,and if I die no one will pity me,"is surely one of the bitterest cries that can burst from a breaking heart.One of the secrets of the success of the Salvation Army is,that the friendless of the world find friends in it.There is not one sinner in the world--no matter how degraded and dirty he may be--whom my people will not rejoice to take by the hand and pray with,and labour for,if thereby they can but snatch him as a brand from the burning.Now,we want to make more use of this,to make the Salvation Army the nucleus of a great agency for bringing comfort and counsel to those who are at their wits'end,feeling as if in the whole world there was no one to whom they could go.