{"id":"01KG8AK9AC0MF45EBMRSS8XM07","cid":"bafkreihap7foawanju5nvp3niydivkesfophjc6k75swdo5qgvcq6nprae","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2050,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 6","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":1969,"text":"Competition allowed, stimulus would be given. There would be no\r\nlethargy of monopoly. We should have no mission-house or tract-house of\r\nwhich slanderers could, with any plausibility, say that it had\r\ndegenerated in its clerkships into a sort of custom-house. But the main\r\npoint is the Archimedean money-power that would be brought to bear.\"\r\n\r\n\"You mean the eight hundred million power?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes. You see, this doing good to the world by driblets amounts to just\r\nnothing. I am for doing good to the world with a will. I am for doing\r\ngood to the world once for all and having done with it. Do but think, my\r\ndear sir, of the eddies and maëlstroms of pagans in China. People here\r\nhave no conception of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper\r\npagans are found dead in the streets like so many nipped peas in a bin\r\nof peas. To be an immortal being in China is no more distinction than to\r\nbe a snow-flake in a snow-squall. What are a score or two of\r\nmissionaries to such a people? A pinch of snuff to the kraken. I am for\r\nsending ten thousand missionaries in a body and converting the Chinese\r\n_en masse_ within six months of the debarkation. The thing is then done,\r\nand turn to something else.\"\r\n\r\n\"I fear you are too enthusiastic.\"\r\n\r\n\"A philanthropist is necessarily an enthusiast; for without enthusiasm\r\nwhat was ever achieved but commonplace? But again: consider the poor in\r\nLondon. To that mob of misery, what is a joint here and a loaf there? I\r\nam for voting to them twenty thousand bullocks and one hundred thousand\r\nbarrels of flour to begin with. They are then comforted, and no more\r\nhunger for one while among the poor of London. And so all round.\"\r\n\r\n\"Sharing the character of your general project, these things, I take it,\r\nare rather examples of wonders that were to be wished, than wonders that\r\nwill happen.\"\r\n\r\n\"And is the age of wonders passed? Is the world too old? Is it barren?\r\nThink of Sarah.\"\r\n\r\n\"Then I am Abraham reviling the angel (with a smile). But still, as to\r\nyour design at large, there seems a certain audacity.\"\r\n\r\n\"But if to the audacity of the design there be brought a commensurate\r\ncircumspectness of execution, how then?\"\r\n\r\n\"Why, do you really believe that your world's charity will ever go into\r\noperation?\"\r\n\r\n\"I have confidence that it will.\"\r\n\r\n\"But may you not be over-confident?\"\r\n\r\n\"For a Christian to talk so!\"\r\n\r\n\"But think of the obstacles!\"\r\n\r\n\"Obstacles? I have confidence to remove obstacles, though mountains.\r\nYes, confidence in the world's charity to that degree, that, as no\r\nbetter person offers to supply the place, I have nominated myself\r\nprovisional treasurer, and will be happy to receive subscriptions, for\r\nthe present to be devoted to striking off a million more of my\r\nprospectuses.\"\r\n\r\nThe talk went on; the man in gray revealed a spirit of benevolence\r\nwhich, mindful of the millennial promise, had gone abroad over all the\r\ncountries of the globe, much as the diligent spirit of the husbandman,\r\nstirred by forethought of the coming seed-time, leads him, in March\r\nreveries at his fireside, over every field of his farm. The master chord\r\nof the man in gray had been touched, and it seemed as if it would never\r\ncease vibrating. A not unsilvery tongue, too, was his, with gestures\r\nthat were a Pentecost of added ones, and persuasiveness before which\r\ngranite hearts might crumble into gravel.\r\n\r\nStrange, therefore, how his auditor, so singularly good-hearted as he\r\nseemed, remained proof to such eloquence; though not, as it turned out,\r\nto such pleadings. For, after listening a while longer with pleasant\r\nincredulity, presently, as the boat touched his place of destination,\r\nthe gentleman, with a look half humor, half pity, put another bank-note\r\ninto his hands; charitable to the last, if only to the dreams of\r\nenthusiasm.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 6"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRSD8D6KH52EB3K3B42","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9AC3VDDWAEQ70XD0ZRM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.308Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:07.315Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}