self-sacrificing men and women for
a merely nominal cost. True we have Europeans willing to live on the
cheap native diet, and to assimilate themselves in dress, houses and
other manners to the people amongst whom they live. True that we have
raised up around us an equally devoted band of Natives, in whose
integrity we have the fullest confidence and whose ability and knowledge
of the country will prove of valuable service to us in the carrying out
of our scheme. True that around our 450 European and Native officers, we
have enlisted and drilled a force of several thousands of earnest
soldiers of the Cross, who are pledged abstainers from all intoxicating
liquors and drugs, who have renounced all forms of impurity and
sin,--who have promised to devote their lives to the social, moral and
spiritual regeneration of their fellow countrymen,--who are accustomed
to pray and preach in their leisure hours, without being paid a cowrie
for doing so, and who not only support themselves and their families by
their labor, but contribute for the support of their officers.

Nevertheless, while it is a fact that this cheap and efficient agency
exists for the carrying out of the reforms that have been sketched in
the foregoing pages,--it cannot be denied that a considerable sum of
money will be needed for the successful launching of the scheme.

Once fairly started, we have every reason to believe that the plans
here laid down will not only prove strictly self-supporting, but will
yield such a margin of profit as will ultimately enable us to set on
foot wholesale extensions of the scheme. No doubt there will be local
disappointments and individual failures. We are dealing with human
nature, and must anticipate that this will be the case. But the
proportion of success will far outweigh the fraction of failure, and
when the profits and losses of the scheme came to be balanced year by
year we have no doubt that socially, physically, morally and financially
we shall be able to show so enormous a gain that the most unreasonable
of our critics will be silenced.

And yet when we come face to face with the details of the scheme, we
find that the scale of our operations must necessarily depend on the
amount of capital with which we are able to start. The City Colony, with
its Labor Bureau, Labor Yards, Food Depots, Prison and Rescue Homes, and
Salvage Brigade, will involve a considerable initial expense. Although
we are able to supply an effi