CHAPTER 6. ASSISTANCE IN GENERAL.
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 I proceed to describe.