" In ordinary times "the
wolf" is always "at the door" but at these calamitous periods there is
no door to keep him out, and he is master of the situation. Now General
Booth's scheme proposes to deal with him promptly and remove him to such
a safe distance, as shall make his inroads almost impossible.

By leaving these destitute classes in their present miserable condition,
we prepare for ourselves a gigantic and impossible task when the evil
day of famine at last overtakes us. By facing the difficulty at the
outset, and meeting it midway, we make our task much easier. Time is in
our favour. True, the people are hungry, but they are not dying. We can
afford to let them drift a few weeks, months, or even years longer,
while we are putting our heads and hearts together to devise for them
some way of deliverance commensurate with the immensity of their needs.
But to resign oneself to the present condition of things as inevitable
seems to me almost as heartless as to fold our hands helplessly at a
time of absolute famine. To deafen our ears to the immediate distresses
of the submerged tenth may be less criminal in degree but not in kind.

To those who feel paralysed by the vastness of the problem I would say
"Study General Booth's Way Out and the adaptation of it to India which I
have endeavoured to sketch in the following pages."

Here at least is a plan, perhaps not a perfect one, but still definite,
tangible and immediately possible. Improve upon it as much as you like.
Help us to remedy its defects by all means. But whatever you do, don't
stand by as an indifferent spectator. Put your own individual shoulder
to the wheel. Help us with your sympathy, prayers and substance to make
the effort, and should failure ensue, you will at least have the
satisfaction of realising that you have helped others to make an honest
determined effort for dealing with a gigantic evil that involves the
welfare, if not the existence of millions.

CHAPTER X.

THE LAND OF PESTILENCES.

Happily a description of English destitution does not call for any
reference to plagues, such as those which annually or at least
periodically, devastate India, and that with such certainty that their
presence has come to be regarded, almost with indifference, as a matter
of course, or at least of necessity. Indeed we suppose that some would
even look upon it as a Divinely ordained method for reducing the
population. True, that in Europe the matter