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had in winter on condition that a man foregoes his manhood. For the funds wherewith to build the hall and provide the soup and blankets and coal will be largely subscribed by the employer who grows rich out of his misery. Under such circumstances it is not difficult to forecast the end. The man feels himself
ENVELOPED IN THE MESHES OF A NET
from which there is no escape. A sense of injustice never leaves him. The present has no joy, the future no hope. And so, bit by bit, his self-respect departs; the dismal surroundings of his home, the poverty of the home itself, the careworn face of his wife and the poor clothing of his children irritate him; he loses heart, faith in man, faith in God. With growing years he finds it ever more difficult to get work. By-and-by some period of unemployment, more prolonged than those through which he has gone overtakes him, and he ceases to struggle, and becomes, in the language of the fashionable slummer, a lapsed mass or a lost soul.
And yet, sodden it may be with drink, foul of speech, and life too unclean for even the dogs to lick his sores, I would sooner risk my chance of getting to heaven with him than with those who, having robbed him and made him what he is, are respectable church-goers and members of good society. He has been sinned against, and not upon him will fall the punishment. Christ had no hard words for the poor erring sons and daughters of men. All his invective was kept for the Scribes and Pharisees, the hypocrites who professed a faith in God which they neither knew nor understood. The outcast, in his lonely broodings and his fits of remorse, will get nearer
