But when in the Dutch budget discussion this was made an objection to our receiving any grant, the Colonial Minister simply read out the whole of our Articles of War, and asked how any one could refuse to recognise as Christians those who had signed such declarations.
The Governments of the various Australian Colonies must, however, have the credit of first giving to our Officers public patronage.

As has already been mentioned, the Governors, Premiers, and Ministers have, for some twenty-seven years past, been seen presiding over the anniversaries of our Colonial work, speaking in no measured terms of all our activities, and so helping us to get the means to support them.
The Queen Mother and the present Queen of Holland were the first royal personages personally to visit our Institutions, although the present King of Denmark, when Crown Prince, had for years used our Refuges in that country for cases he thought deserving, and his brother, King Haakon, of Norway, attended, as a warm friend, one of The General's Meetings in Christiania.
Canadian and South African Governors and Ministers have acted like the Australian ones in their public expressions of confidence in us, and they have given us very considerable liberty in their prisons, so that most of the criminal population comes more or less under our influence.
The greatest of our governmental victories have, however, been won in Switzerland and Germany, where we were for so many years looked upon as a dangerous, if not harmful, influence, owing chiefly to the gross calumnies of "Christian" teachers and writers.

The results of our work upon those whose lives had been a disgrace and burden to the community could not be hidden, however, and there is now scarcely a cantonal government in Switzerland which does not subsidise some one or other of our Institutions.

The cities of Hamburg and Elberfeld, in Germany, have led the way in granting to us similar assistance, and it can only be a question of time before we gravitate into an equally honoured position elsewhere.

For although we continue to keep as far as possible aloof from all parties, and party feeling, and have not, therefore, the means of influencing and obtaining grants from politicians in the ordinary way, we compel attention by what we do, and have, undoubtedly, done more than any other religious community to create that inclination towards intelligent care for the criminal and outcast which is almost becoming a fashion, in governmental circles, nowadays.
It begins to look as if, had The General lived, some of the South American republics would have been the first, after all, to gladden his heart by a hearty and handsome co-operation.