Want and Misery

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 27, 1898

Want and Misery stalk abroad everywhere. Almost every day one meets on the street or at his door some one in destitution asking for help—for work, food, or lodging. When asked where he came from, he will generally tell you from the East. The idea seems to be prevalent in the East that California is about such a land as “Dick” Whittington thought London to be, a city the streets of which were “paved with gold.” But, like Whittington, they find it a land like other lands, full of plenty and—want, luxury and—hardship. Both extremes are found here as in the colder climates; and while we have not the extreme cold of the interior, the atmosphere is humid and heavy, and the nights always cool and chilly. Scores and hundreds of men walk our streets hungry, homeless, shelterless. Many of these are not prepossessing. Their last lodging-place furnished neither soap, water, nor food; and if a bed, that bed possessed other occupants, many of whom the poor lodger unwillingly carried away with him, and perhaps left others. And yet for this poor tramp, who numbers thousands, longing for work, but finding none, Christ died. He died that through our co-operation these men might be redeemed, regenerated, and made to reflect His image. It is for this purpose that the Helping Hand Mission is started in San Francisco. Others have done good, for which we praise God. But there is a large field, and it is hoped that the Helping Hand Mission will reach not only the bodies but the souls of men. In this work of saving men it asks, Christian friend, your co-operation. “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.”