"All young minds are impressed with this romantic view of religion.

It appears much nobler to go abroad as a missionary to the burning deserts of Africa, and to run the risk of being eaten up by cannibals, to working in this benighted land of ours, which needs conversion just as much as the negroes and Hindoos! But, there's no romance about visiting dirty alleys in London!" "There are the Scripture readers and district visitors, are there not ?" said Mr Mawley.
"True," replied the vicar, "and I would be the last to disparage their earnest efforts.

What I meant was, that, while we give hundreds of pounds to foreign missions, pence are grudged for home work! There's the Society for the Conversion of the Jews, for instance, to which I have sometimes to give up my pulpit.

Now, I dare say, it is a very meritorious society, but how many Jews does it gain over really to Christianity in return for the large sums that its travelling secretaries collect every year ?" "These travelling secretaries," said I, "are what the _Saturday Review_ would call `spiritual bagmen,' or `commercial travellers in the missionary line.'" "And not very far out, either," said the vicar, smiling.

"They are paid a salary, at all events, if they do not get a commission, to beg as much money as they can for the society to which they belong; and they do their work well, too! They succeed in carrying off an amount of money from poor parishes, which if laid out in the places where it is garnered, instead of being devoted to alien expenditure, would do far more good, and better advance the work of the Gospel than the conversion of a few renegade Jews, whose reclamation is, in the majority of cases, but a farce!" "But, my dear sir!"-- exclaimed Mr Mawley, completely shocked at this overturning of all his prejudices.
"Hear me out," continued the vicar; "you must not misunderstand me.