But the most resolute determination to preserve a position of independence cannot always contend against the adverse vicissitudes of life. Sickness visits all in turn; and though a man may struggle through the illnesses of wife and children, what is his resource when he is himself struck down? Must he, with a family heretofore respectably and honestly supported—after his tools, furniture, and clothes are pawned,—be at last consigned to what is, in fact, to him, the degradation of the workhouse, or so pledge his future labour, under an accumulation of debt incurred perforce, that all hope of future freedom from its load must, on reasonable calculation, be shut out? Judged even by the maxims of the most rigid political economist, no less than by the diviner impulse of a just compassion, indifference in such a case were not only _a crime_, _but a blunder_. For if by a judicious advance of money, it be possible to procure that attendance, medicine, nourishment, and change of air, required for the restoration of the sinking patient to his normal health, it is clear that the productive energy, which is the immediate source of national wealth, must be increased, by the same means that carry into effect a paramount part of Christian obligation. It is, therefore, very satisfactory to find that while the number of cases relieved by the Visitors during December, 1852, are less by one third than those of the corresponding month in 1851; even of these considerably more than half come under the category of sickness. The analysis of the Visitors’ books gives the following result of cases assisted in December last:—
By In age. In poverty. Out of Sickness. employment. work. 13 32 31 36 156
This return is an abstract of the work in thirty-two Districts only, yet in these, in one month, two hundred and sixty-eight families participated, more or less, in the bounty of the Society.