sion of the heathen, so far, at least, as depending on human
effort, would, by the world's charity, be let out on contract. So much
by bid for converting India, so much for Borneo, so much for Africa.
Competition allowed, stimulus would be given. There would be no
lethargy of monopoly. We should have no mission-house or tract-house of
which slanderers could, with any plausibility, say that it had
degenerated in its clerkships into a sort of custom-house. But the main
point is the Archimedean money-power that would be brought to bear."

"You mean the eight hundred million power?"

"Yes. You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to just
nothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doing
good to the world once for all and having done with it. Do but think, my
dear sir, of the eddies and maelstroms of pagans in China. People here
have no conception of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper
pagans are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas in a bin
of peas. To be an immortal being in China is no more distinction than to
be a snow-flake in a snow-squall. What are a score or two of
missionaries to such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am for
sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese
_en masse_ within six months of the debarkation. The thing is then done,
and turn to something else."

"I fear you are too enthusiastic."

"A philanthropist is necessarily an enthusiast; for without enthusiasm
what was ever achieved but commonplace? But again: consider the poor in
London. To that mob of misery, what is a joint here and a loaf there? I
am for voting to them twenty thousand bullocks and one hundred thousand
barrels of flour to begin with. They are then comforted, and no more
hunger for one while among the poor of London. And so all round."

"Sharing the character of your general project, these things, I take it,
are rather examples of wonders that were to be wished, than wonders that
will happen."

"And is the age of wonders passed? Is the world too old? Is it barren?
Think of Sarah."

"Then I am Abraham reviling the angel (with a smile). But still, as to
your design at large, there seems a certain audacity."

"But if to the audacity of the design there be brought a commensurate
circumspectness of execution, how then?"

"Why, do you really believe that your world's charity will ever go into
operation?"

"I have confidence that it