"Historically the principle was adopted that every one must be saved from death by starvation or exposure, but that on the other hand no one ought to be supported by the State in idleness. This was the policy of Elizabeth's famous Act establishing the Poor Law. Nor is it unfair to claim the Poor Law as at any rate of Tory extraction. It was imposed by religious sentiment, and it was the solution of a difficulty caused by an attack on the Church. It arose out of the suffering which had been occasioned by the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, and by the consequent cessation of the relief of the poor which the monasteries had been wont to give. Under the Poor Law the State took over the work that had formerly been performed by the alms of the Church; and in so doing the State acted under the moral ascendency of Church teaching."