An appreciable impression on this gulf of misery would be immediately made,not only for those who are rescued from its dark waters,but for those who are left behind,seeing that for every hundred individuals removed,there is just the additional work which they performed for those who remain.It might not be much,but still it would soon count up.Supposing three carpenters are starving on employment which covered one-third of their time,if you take two away,the one left will have full employment.But it will be for the public to fix,by their contributions,the extent of our operations.
The benefits bestowed by this Scheme will be permanent in duration.
It will be seen that this is no temporary expedient,such as,alas!
nearly every effort hitherto made on behalf of these classes has been.
Relief Works,Soup Kitchens,Enquiries into Character,Emigration Schemes,of which none will avail themselves,Charity in its hundred forms,Casual Wards,the Union,and a hundred other Nostrums may serve for the hour,but they are only at the best palliations.But this Scheme,I am bold to say,offers a substantial and permanent remedy.
In relieving one section of the community,our plan involves no interference with the well-being of any other.
(See Chapter VII.Section 4,"Objections.")
This Scheme removes the all but insuperable barrier to an industrious and godly life.It means not only the leading of these lost multitudes out of the "City of Destruction"into the Canaan of plenty,but the lifting of them up to the same level of advantage with the more favoured of mankind for securing the salvation of their souls.
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?