CHAPTER 5. MORE CRUSADES.
I have now sketched out briefly the leading features of the threefold Scheme by which I think a way can be opened out of "Darkest England," by which its forlorn denizens can escape into the light and freedom of a new life. But it is not enough to make a clear broad road out of the heart of this dense and matted jungle forest; its inhabitants are in many cases so degraded, so hopeless, so utterly desperate that we shall have to do something more than make roads. As we read in the parable, it is often not enough that the feast be prepared, and the guests be bidden; we must needs go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in. So it is not enough to provide our City Colony and our Farm Colony, and then rest on our oars as if we had done our work. That kind of thing will not save the Lost.
It is necessary to organise rescue expeditions to free the miserable wanderers from their captivity, and bring them out into the larger liberty and the fuller life. Talk about Stanley and Emin! There is not one of us but has an Emin somewhere or other in the heart of Darkest England, whom he ought to sally forth to rescue. Our Emins have the Devil for their Mahdi, and when we get to them we find that it is their friends and neighbours who hold them back, and they are, oh, so irresolute! It needs each of us to be as indomitable as Stanley, to burst through all obstacles, to force our way right to the centre of things, and then to labour with the poor prisoner of vice and crime with all our might. But had not the Expeditionary Committee furnished the financial means whereby a road was opened to the sea, both Stanley and Emin would probably have been in the heart of Darkest Africa to this day. This Scheme is our Stanley Expedition. The analogy is very close. I propose to make a road clear down to the sea. But alas our poor Emin! Even when the road is open, he halts and lingers and doubts. First he will, and then he won't, and nothing less than the irresistible pressure of a friendly and stronger purpose will constrain him to take the road which has been opened for him at such a cost of blood and treasure. I now, therefore, proceed to sketch some of the methods by which we shall attempt to save the lost and to rescue those who are perishing in the midst of "Darkest England."