2,400 men and women to help him, not in a religious but a
purely secular scheme. Yet it may not appear to many people purely
secular when they remember that he asks for this large army of
unselfish men and women--so unselfish as to give some of their time,
thought, and activity for nothing, not even praise, but only out of
love for the children--from a population of four millions, all of whom
have been taught, and most believe, that self-sacrifice is the most
divine thing that man can offer. To suppose that one in every two
thousand is willing to the extent of an hour or two every week to
follow at a distance the example of his acknowledged Master does not,
after all, seem so very extravagant, For my own part, I believe that
for every post there will be a dozen volunteers. Is that extravagant?
It means no more than a poor 1 per cent, of such distant followers.

Those who go at all among the poor, and try to find out for themselves
something of what goes on beneath the surface, presently become aware
of a most remarkable movement, whispers of which from time to time
reach the upper strata. All over London--no doubt over other great
towns as well, but I know no other great town--there are at this day
living, for the most part in obscurity, unpaid, and in some cases
alone, men and women of the gentle class, among the poor, working for
them, thinking for them, and even in some cases thinking with them.
One such case I know where a gentlewoman has spent the greater part of
her life among the industrial poor of the East End, so that she has
come to think as they think, to look on things from their point of
view, though not to talk as they talk. Some of these men are vicars,
curates, Nonconformist ministers, Roman Catholic clergymen; some of
the women are Roman Catholic sisters and nuns; others are sham nuns,
Anglicans, who seem to find that an ugly dress keeps them more
steadily to their work; others are deaconesses or Bible-women. Some,
again, and it is to these that one turns with the greatest hope--they
may or may not be actuated by religious motives--are bound by no vows,
nor tied to any church. When twenty years ago Edward Denison went to
live in Philpot Lane, he was quite alone in his voluntary work. He had
no companion to try that experiment with him. Now he would be one of
many. At Toynbee Hall are gathered together a company of young and
generous hearts, who give their best without grudge or stint to their
poorer br