weeten the hard and
bitter lot of those who, often through no fault of their own, have
fallen in the battle of life, and who have been all but crushed and
cursed out of existence by misfortunes which are to some extent at least
within our power to remedy.

True lovers of India (and nothing is more encouraging than the splendid
manner in which the intelligence of this country is arousing itself to
thoughtful active effort for the weal of the nation, putting aside all
differences of race and religion, that it may unite to seek the common
good,) true lovers of India, we say, will never allow differences in
race and religion to hinder them in a question affecting the well-being
of some 26,000,000 of people who are already a drag and a hindrance to
the rising prosperity of the nation, and who are sure if neglected to
become a danger. No one asks about the religion of Stanley. His heroic
march through the terrible forest, his rescue of Emin Pasha, his
successful achievement of that which to most men would have been
impossible, have made him to be admired and praised in every land.

Here we are proposing to rescue, not one Pasha and a handful of his
followers, but almost as many people as the entire population of Great
Britain. We stand at the edge of this forest. We know something of it
before we enter. We are not dismayed. We only ask you to meet the cost
of the expedition. Great armies of beggars and workless, and drunkards
and opium-eaters and harlots and criminals are going to be dragged out
of these morasses, to bless the land which gave them birth with the
wealth of their labor and to build new Indian Empires across the sea.

A bold and daring expedition has been planned into this dark social
forest, with its dismal swamps, its pestilential vapours, its seemingly
endless night, to rescue and bring to the light of hope, to green
industrial pastures and healthy heavenly breezes, its imprisoned
victims. May we not then, since men can be found to do and dare in such
a godlike enterprise, confidently claim the enthusiastic interest and
the practical help of all good men, no matter when or how they worship
the great Eternal Father of the human race!

If any one should object that is an impossible enterprise, we answer,
who can tell? Why indeed impossible, seeing that millions of acres wait
to be tilled and to yield their treasures to the unfed mouths of
workless labourers? Why impossible, since hundreds of thousands are
s