150 THE CONDITION OF LABOR.
they have been fooled by empty promises and deceived by false appearances. They cannot but perceive that their grasping employers too often treat them with the greatest inhumanity and hardly care for them beyond the profit their labor brings; and if they belong to an Association, it is probably one in which there exists, in place of charity and love, that intestine strife which always accompanies unresigned and irreligious poverty. Broken in spirit and worn down in body, how many of them would gladly free themselves from this galling slavery ! But human respect, or the dread of starvation, makes them afraid to take the step. To such as these Catholic Associations are of incalculable service, helping them out of their difficulties, inviting them to companion- ship, and receiving the repentant to a shelter in which they may securely trust.
66. We have now laid before you, Venerable Brethren, who are the persons, and what are the means, by which this most difficult question must be solved. Every one must put his hand to the work which falls to his share, and that at once and immediately, lest the evil which is already so great may by delay become absolutely beyond remedy. Those who rule the State must use the law and the institutions of the country; masters and rich men must remember their duty ; the poor whose interests are at stake, must make every lawful and proper effort ; and since Religion alone, as We said at the beginning, can destroy the evil at its root, all men must be persuaded that the primary thing needful is to return to real Chris- tianity, in the absence of which all the plans and devices of the wisest will be of little avail.
67. As far as regards the Church, its assistance will never be wanting, be the time or the occasion what it may; and it will intervene with the greater effect in proportion as its liberty of action is the more unfettered :
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