In Darkest England and the Way Out Part 32

Number of Languages in which Literature is issued 15

Number of Languages in which Salvation is preached by the Officers 29

Number of Local (Non-Commissioned Officers) and Bandsman 23,069

Number of Scribes and Office Employes 471

Average weekly reception of telegrams, 600 and letters, 5,400 at the London Headquarters

Sum raised annually from all sources by the Army #750,000

Balance Sheets, duly audited by chartered accountants, are issued annually in connection with the International Headquarters.

See the Annual Report of 1889--"Apostolic Warfare."

Balance Sheets are also produced quarterly at every Corps in the world, audited and signed by the Local Officers. Divisional Balance Sheets issued monthly and audited by a Special Department at Headquarters.

Duly and independently audited Balance Sheets are also issued annually from every Territorial Headquarters.

THE AUXILIARY LEAGUE.

1.--Of persons who, without necessarily endorsing or approving of every single method used by thee Salvation Army, are sufficiently in sympathy with its great work of reclaiming drunkards, rescuing the fallen--in a word, saving the lost--as to give it their PRAYERS, INFLUENCE, AND MONEY.

2.--Of persons who, although seeing eye to eye with the Army, yet are unable to join it, owing to being actively engaged in the work of their own denominations, or by reason of bad health or other infirmities, which forbid their taking any active part in Christian work.

Persons are enrolled either as Subscribing or Collecting Auxiliaries.

The League comprises persons of influence and position, members of nearly all denominations, and many ministers.

PAMPHLETS.--Auxiliaries will always be supplied gratis with copies of our Annual Report and Balance Sheet and other pamphlets for distribution on application to Headquarters. Some of our Auxiliaries have materially helped us in this way by distributing our literature at the seaside and elsewhere, and by making arrangements for the regular supply of waiting rooms, hydropathics, and hotels, thus helping to dispel the prejudice under which many persons unacquainted with the Army are found to labour.

"All The World" posted free regularly each month to Auxiliaries.

For further information, and for full particulars of the work of The Salvation Army, apply personally or by letter to GENERAL BOOTH,.

or to the Financial Secretary at International Headquarters, 101, Queen Victoria St., London, E.C., to whom also contributions should be sent.

Cheques and Postal Orders crossed "City Bank."

THE SALVATION ARMY: A SKETCH.

BY AN OFFICER OF SEVENTEEN YEARS' STANDING. What is the Salvation Army?

It is an Organisation existing to effect a radical revolution in the spiritual condition of the enormous majority of the people of all lands. Its aim is to produce a change not only in the opinions, feelings, and principles of these vast populations, but to alter the whole course of their lives, so that instead of spending their time in frivolity and pleasure-seeking, if not in the grossest forms of vice, they shall spend it in the service of their generation and in the worship of G.o.d. So far it has mainly operated in professedly Christian countries, where the overwhelming majority of the people have ceased, publicly, at any rate, to worship Jesus Christ, or to submit themselves in any way to His authority. To what extent has the Army succeeded?

Its flag is now flying in 34 countries or colonies, where under the leadership of nearly 10,000 men and women, whose lives are entirely given up to the work, it is holding some 49,800 religious meetings every week, attended by millions of persons, who ten years ago would have laughed at the idea of praying.

And these operations are but the means for further extension, as will be seen, especially when it is remembered that the Army has its 27 weekly newspapers, of which no less than 31,000,000 copies are sold in the streets, public houses, and popular resorts of the G.o.dless majority. From its, ranks it is therefore certain that an ever-increasing mult.i.tude of men and women must eventually be won.

That all this has not amounted to the creation of a mere pa.s.sing gust of feeling, may best be demonstrated perhaps from the fact that the Army has acc.u.mulated no less than #775,000 worth of property, pays rentals amounting to #220,000 per annum for its meeting places, and has a total income from all sources of three-quarters of a million per annum. Now consider from whence all this has sprung.

It is only twenty-five years since the author of this volume stood absolutely alone in the East of London, to endeavour to Christianise its irreligious mult.i.tudes, without the remotest conception in his own mind of the possibility of any such Organisation being created.

Consider, moreover, through what opposition the Salvation Army has ever had to make its way.

In each country it has to face universal prejudice, distrust, and contempt, and often stronger antipathy still. This opposition has generally found expression in systematic, Governmental, and Police restriction, followed in too many cases by imprisonment, and by the condemnatory outpourings of Bishops, Clergy, Pressmen and others, naturally followed in too many instances by the oaths and curses, the blows and insults of the populace. Through all this, in country after country, the Army makes its way to the position of universal respect, that respect, at any rate, which is shown to those who have conquered. And of what material has this conquering host been made?

Wherever the Army goes it gathers into its meetings, in the first instance, a crowd of the most debased, brutal, blasphemous elements that can be found who, if permitted, interrupt the services, and if they see the slightest sign of police tolerance for their misconduct, frequently fall upon the Army officers or their property with violence. Yet a couple of Officers face such an audience with the absolute certainty of recruiting out of it an Army Corps.

Many thousands of those who are now most prominent in the ranks of the Army never knew what it was to pray before they attended its services; and large numbers of them had settled into a profound conviction that everything connected with religion was utterly false. It is out of such material that G.o.d has constructed what is admitted to be one of the most fervid bodies of believers ever seen on the face of the earth.

Many persons in looking at the progress of the Army have shown a strange want of discernment in talking and writing as though all this had been done in a most haphazard fashion, or as though an individual could by the mere effort of his will produce such changes in the lives of others as he chose. The slightest reflection will be sufficient we are sure to convince any impartial individual that the gigantic results attained by the Salvation Army could only be reached by steady unaltering processes adapted to this end. And what are the processes by which this great Army has been made?

1. The foundation of all the Army's success, looked at apart from its divine source of strength, is its continued direct attack upon those whom it seeks to bring under the influence of the Gospel.

The Salvation Army Officer, instead of standing upon some dignified pedestal, to describe the fallen condition of his fellow men, in the hope that though far from him, they may thus, by some mysterious process, come to a better life, goes down into the street, and from door to door, and from room to room, lays his hands on those who are spiritually sick, and leads them to the Almighty Healer. In its forms of speech and writing the Army constantly exhibits this same characteristic.

Instead of propounding religious theories or pretending to teach a system of theology, it speaks much after the fashion of the old Prophet or Apostle, to each individual, about his or her sin and duty, thus bringing to bear upon each heart and conscience the light and power from heaven, by which alone the world can be transformed.

2. And step by step, along with this human contact goes unmistakably something that is not human.

The puzzlement and self-contradiction of most critics of the Army springs undoubtedly from the fact that they are bound to account for its success without admitting that any superhuman power attends its ministry, yet day after day, and night after night, the wonderful facts go on multiplying. The man who last night was drunk in a London slum, is to-night standing up for Christ on an Army platform. The clever sceptic, who a few weeks ago was interrupting the speakers in Berlin, and pouring contempt upon their claims to a personal knowledge of the unseen Saviour, is to-day as thorough a believer as any of them.

The poor girl, lost to shame and hope, who a month ago was an outcast of Paris, is to-day a modest devoted follower of Christ, working in a humble situation. To those who admit we are right in saying "this is the Lord's doing," all is simple enough, and our certainty that the dregs of Society can become its ornaments requires no further explanation.

3. All these modern miracles would, however, have been comparatively useless but for the Army's system of utilising the gifts and energy of our converts to the uttermost. Suppose that without any claim to Divine power the Army had succeeded in raising up tens of thousands of persons, formerly unknown and unseen in the community, and made them into Singers, Speakers, Musicians, and Orderlies, that would surely in itself have been a remarkable fact. But not only have these engaged in various labours for the benefit of the community. They have been filled with a burning ambition to attain the highest possible degree of usefulness. No one can wonder that we expect to see the same process carried on successfully amongst our new friends of the Casual Ward and the Slum. And if the Army has been able to accomplish all this utilisation of human talents for the highest purposes, in spite of an almost universally prevailing contrary practice amongst the Churches, what may not its Social Wing be expected to do, with the example of the Army before it?

4. The maintenance of all this system has, of course, been largely due to the unqualified acceptance of military government and discipline.

But for this we cannot be blind to the fact that even in our own ranks difficulties would every day arise as to the exaltation to front seats of those who were formerly persecutors and injurious. The old feeling which would have kept Paul suspected, in the background, after his conversion is, unfortunately, a part of the conservative groundwork of human nature that continues to exist everywhere, and which has to be overcome by rigid discipline in order to secure that everywhere and always, the new convert should be made the most of for Christ.

But our Army system is a great indisputable fact, so much so that our enemies sometimes reproach us with it. That it should be possible to create an Army Organisation, and to secure faithful execution of duty daily is indeed a wonder, but a wonder accomplished, just as completely amongst the Republicans of America and France, as amongst the militarily trained Germans, or the subjects of the British monarchy.

It is notorious that we can send an officer from London, possessed of no extraordinary ability, to take command of any corps in the world, with a certainty that he will find soldiers eager to do his bidding, and without a thought of disputing his commands, so long as he continues faithful to the orders and regulations under which his men are enlisted.

5. But those show a curious ignorance who set down our successes to this discipline, as though it were something of the prison order, although enforced without any of the power lying either behind the prison warder or the Catholic priest. On the contrary, wherever the discipline of the Army has been endangered, and its regular success for a time interrupted, it has been through an attempt to enforce it without enough of that joyous, cheerful spirit of love which is its main spring. n.o.body can become acquainted with our soldiers in any land, without being almost immediately struck with their extraordinary gladness, and this joy is in itself one of the most infectious and influential elements of the Army's success. But if this be so, amid the comparatively well to do, judge of what its results are likely to be amongst the poorest and most wretched! To those who have never known bright days, the mere sight of a happy face is as it were a revelation and inspiration in one.

6. But the Army's success does not come with magical rapidity; it depends, like that of all real work, upon infinite perseverance.

To say nothing of the perseverance of the Officer who has made the saving of men his life work, and who, occupied and absorbed with this great pursuit, may naturally enough be expected to remain faithful, there are mult.i.tudes of our Soldiers who, after a hard day's toil for their daily bread, have but a few hours of leisure, but devote it ungrudgingly to the service of the War. Again and again, when the remains of some Soldier are laid to rest, amid the almost universal respect of a town, which once knew him only as an evil-doer, we hear it said that this man, since the date of his conversion, from five to ten years ago, has seldom been absent from his post, and never without good reason for it. His duty may have been comparatively insignificant, "only a door-keeper," "only a War Cry seller," yet Sunday after Sunday, evening after evening, he would be present, no matter who the commanding officer might be, to do his part, bearing with the unruly, breathing hope into the distressed, and showing unwavering faithfulness to all. The continuance of these processes of mercy depends largely upon leadership, and the creation and maintenance of this leadership has been one of the marvels of the Movement. We have men to-day looked up to and reverenced over wide areas of country, arousing mult.i.tudes to the most devoted service, who a few years ago were champions of iniquity, notorious in nearly every form of vice, and some of them ringleaders in violent opposition to the Army. We have a right to believe that on the same lines G.o.d is going to raise up just such leaders without measure and without end.

Beneath, behind, and pervading all the successes of the Salvation Army is a force against which the world may sneer, but without which the world's miseries cannot be removed, the force of that Divine love which breathed on Calvary, and which G.o.d is able to communicate by His spirit to human hearts to-day.

It is pitiful to see intelligent men attempting to account, without the admission of this great fact, for the self-sacrifice and success of Salvation Officers and Soldiers. If those who wish to understand the Army would only take the trouble to spend as much as twenty-four hours with its people, how different in almost every instance would be the conclusions arrived at. Half-an-hour spent in the rooms inhabited by many of our officers would be sufficient to convince, even a well-to-do working man, that life could not be lived happily in such circ.u.mstances without some superhuman power, which alike sustains and gladdens the soul, altogether independently of earthly surroundings.

The Scheme that has been propounded in this volume would, we are quite satisfied, have no chance of success were it not for the fact that we have such a vast supply of men and women who, through the love of Christ ruling in their hearts, are prepared to look upon a life of self-sacrificing effort for the benefit of the vilest and roughest as the highest of privileges. With such a force at command, we dare to say that the accomplishment of this stupendous undertaking is a foregone conclusion, if the material a.s.sistance which the Army does not possess is forthcoming.

THE SALVATION ARMY SOCIAL REFORM WING.

Temporary Headquarters 36, UPPER THAMES STREET, LONDON, E.C.

OBJECTS.--The bringing together of employers and workers for their mutual advantage. Making known the wants of each to each by providing a ready method of communication.

PLAN OF OPERATION.--The Opening of a Central Registry Office, which for the present will be located at the above address, and where registers will be kept free of charge wherein the wants of both employers and workers will be recorded, the registers being open for consultation by all interested.

Public Waiting Rooms (for male and female), to which the unemployed may come for the purpose of scanning the newspapers, the insertion of advertis.e.m.e.nts for employment in all newspapers at lowest rates.

Writing tables, &c., provided for their use to enable them to write applications for situations on work. The receiving of letters (replies to applications for employment) for unemployed workers.