Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/193

 without excellent effect, as the visible commotion in the begging ranks showed, towards the approach of the appointed time. A huge section of those ranks, which abhorred regulated charity almost as much as regular work, had entirely disappeared. But although enough yet remained for a great and difficult task, yet the work was manfully encountered, and successfully dealt with. Distress and destitution were not only everywhere systematically relieved, but everywhere even systematically and successfully sought out. A very chief object of the new system was the care of all the more destitute of the young. The State, as the common parent, and with reference to the maturer life ahead, and the succession which it would certainly leave behind, was wisely concerned for this exposed section of its great family.

The stream of national voluntary charity, thus systematically directed, proved, in the event, always ample for its work; nor were ministering heads and hands ever in any short supply. In this new and discriminative field of charity, all those who, by age or infirmity, were past work were duly cared for; the able and willing were helped into work; the able but unwilling were coercively and reformatively dealt with. If the scene had opened with a crowd of helplessness that might well have overwhelmed the liveliest charity, yet, with each successive year's experience and amelioration, the case became more and more manageable, until, at least, in the succeeding generation, every serious difficulty, in the great original problem, had entirely disappeared.