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Help for the Unemployed and the Homeless
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or misfortune, often through the dishonest scheming of those who
live by preying upon their fellows. Many who are upright and well-
meaning become poor through lack of industrial training. Through
ignorance they are unfitted to wrestle with the difficulties of life.
Drifting into the cities, they are often unable to find employment.
Surrounded by the sights and sounds of vice, they are subjected to
terrible temptation. Herded and often classed with the vicious and
degraded, it is only by a superhuman struggle, a more than finite
power, that they can be preserved from sinking to the same depths.
Many hold fast their integrity, choosing to suffer rather than to sin.
This class especially demand help, sympathy, and encouragement.
If the poor now crowded into the cities could find homes upon
the land, they might not only earn a livelihood, but find health and
happiness now unknown to them. Hard work, simple fare, close
economy, often hardship and privation, would be their lot. But what
a blessing would be theirs in leaving the city, with its enticements
to evil, its turmoil and crime, misery and foulness, for the country’s
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quiet and peace and purity.
To many of those living in the cities who have not a spot of green
grass to set their feet upon, who year after year have looked out
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upon filthy courts and narrow alleys, brick walls and pavements, and
skies clouded with dust and smoke—if these could be taken to some
farming district, surrounded with the green fields, the woods and
hills and brooks, the clear skies and the fresh, pure air of the country,
it would seem almost like heaven.
Cut off to a great degree from contact with and dependence
upon men, and separated from the world’s corrupting maxims and
customs and excitements, they would come nearer to the heart of
nature. God’s presence would be more real to them. Many would
learn the lesson of dependence upon Him. Through nature they
would hear His voice speaking to their hearts of His peace and love,
and mind and soul and body would respond to the healing, life-giving
power.
If they ever become industrious and self-supporting, very many
must have assistance, encouragement, and instruction. There are
multitudes of poor families for whom no better missionary work
could be done than to assist them in settling on the land and in
learning how to make it yield them a livelihood.