regular work is not so very difficult. That can be done, and is
being done, by themselves. The problem that we have to face is the
regimentation, the organisation, of those who have not got work, or who
have only irregular work, and who from sheer pressure of absolute
starvation are driven irresistibly into cut-throat competition with
their better employed brothers and sisters. Skin for skin, all that a
man hath, will he give for his life; much more, then, will those who
experimentally know not God give all that they might hope hereafter to
have--in this world or in the world to come.

There is no gainsaying the immensity of the problem. It is appalling
enough to make us despair. But those who do not put their trust in man
alone, but in One who is Almighty, have no right to despair.
To despair is to lose faith; to despair is to forget God Without God we
can do nothing in this frightful chaos of human misery. But with God
we can do all things, and in the faith that He has made in His image
all the children of men we face even this hideous wreckage of humanity
with a cheerful confidence that if we are but faithful to our own high
calling He will not fail to open up a way of deliverance.

I have nothing to say against those who are endeavouring to open up a
way of escape without any consciousness of God's help. For them I feel
only sympathy and compassion. In so far as they are endeavouring to
give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and above all, work to
the workless, they are to that extent endeavouring to do the will of
our Father which is in Heaven, and woe be unto all those who say them
nay! But to be orphaned of all sense of the Fatherhood of God is surely
not a secret source of strength. It is in most cases--it would be in
my own--the secret of paralysis. If I did not feel my Father's hand
in the darkness, and hear His voice in the silence of the night watches