Regeneration Part 16

For Development of the Work and Agricultural Departments of the Hadleigh Colony.................... 3,000

For a.s.sistance and Partial Maintenance of the Unemployed and Inefficient............................ 5,000

For a.s.sisting suitable Men and Women to Emigrate........ 3,000

Towards the provision of New Inst.i.tutions for Men and Boys in London and various provincial Cities...... 10,000

For the General Management and Supervision of all the above Operations.................................. 2,000 ------- 53,000

Cheques and Postal Orders should be made payable to WILLIAM BOOTH, crossed 'Bank of England, Law Courts Branch,' and sent to MRS. BOOTH, 101 Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C. Clothes for the poor and articles for sale are always needed.

LEGACIES

Ladies and Gentlemen are earnestly asked to remember the needs of the Salvation Army's Social Work (the 'Darkest England' Social Scheme), in connexion with the preparation of their wills.

All kinds of property can now be legally bequeathed for charitable purposes, and the following form of legacy is recommended. Where a legacy does not consist of a certain amount of money, care should be taken to identify clearly the property, shares, stock, or whatever it may be intended to be bequeathed.

_'I GIVE AND BEQUEATH TO WILLIAM BOOTH, or other the General for the time being of the Salvation Army, and Director of the "Darkest England" Social Scheme, the sum of ............_ (or) _MY TWO freehold houses known as Nos.......... in the county of................_ (or) _my ............ ordinary stock of the London and North-Western Railway Company_ (or) _my shares in............Limited_ (or as the case may be) _to be used or applied by him, at his discretion, for the general purposes of the "Darkest England" Social Scheme. And I direct the said last-mentioned Legacy to be paid within twelve months after my decease.'_

DIRECTIONS FOR EXECUTION OF WILL

The Will must be executed by the Testator in the presence of two witnesses, who must sign their names, addresses, and occupations at the end of the Will in the presence of the Testator. The best method to adopt for a Testator to be quite sure that his Will is executed properly, is for him to take the Will and his two witnesses into a room, lock the door, and tell the witnesses that he wishes them to attest his Will. All three must sign in the room and n.o.body must go out until all have signed.

GENERAL BOOTH will always be pleased to procure further advice for any friends desiring to benefit the Salvation Army's work in any of its departments, by Will or otherwise, and will treat any communications made to him on the subject as strictly private and confidential.

Letters dealing with the matter should be marked Private, and addressed to GENERAL BOOTH, 101 QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON, E.C.

APPENDIX A

NOTES ON THE ARMY'S FUTURE

(Following My Conversation with Mr. Rider Haggard)

BY BRAMWELL BOOTH

When asked to give my own view of the present and probable future influence of the Salvation Army upon the world, I feel in no danger of exaggeration. If any one could imagine what it has been for me to sit at its centre almost without intermission for more than thirty-five years, receiving continual reports of its development and progress in one nation after another, studying from within not only its strength and vitality, but its weaknesses and failures, and labouring to devise remedies and preventatives, until what was a little unknown Mission in the East End of London has become the widely, I might almost say, the universally recognized Army of to-day, he could perhaps understand something of my great confidence.

Curious indeed seem to be the thoughts of many people about us!--people, I mean, who have only had a glance at one of our open-air meetings, or have only heard some wild challenge of General Booth's good faith, and have then more or less carefully avoided any closer acquaintance with us. They often appear to be under the impression that you have only to persuade a few people to march through any crowded thoroughfare with a band, to gather a congregation, and, if you please, to form out of it an Army, and from that again to secure a vast revenue! I often wish that such people could know the struggles of almost every individual, even amongst the very poorest, between the moment of first contact with us and that of resolving to enlist in our ranks. How few, even now, seem aware of the fact that so far from paying or rewarding any one for joining in our efforts, all who do so are from the first called upon daily not only to give to our funds, but by sacrifice of time, labour, money, and often of health as well, to const.i.tute themselves efficient soldiers of their Corps, and a.s.sist in providing it with every necessity.

Every one of the 3,000,000 meetings held annually, even in this country, depends upon the voluntary giving up of the time and effort of working-men and women who have in most cases to hurry from work to home, and from home to meeting-place, after a hard day's labour. Much the same may be said of the 450,000 meetings held annually on the Continent of Europe; with this difference, that our people there have mostly to begin work earlier in the day, and to conclude much later than is the case here. Their evening meetings, in conformity with the habits of the country concerned, must needs be begun, therefore, later, and conclude much later than similar gatherings in the United Kingdom.

A cursory glance through the seventy-four newspapers and periodicals published by the Army--generally weekly--in twenty-one languages, would show any one how variously our people everywhere are seeking to meet the different habits of life in each country, and how constantly new plans are being tried to attain the supreme object of all our mult.i.tudinous agencies--the arousing of men's attention to the claims of G.o.d and their ingathering to His Kingdom.

The original plan adopted in this country of going to the people by means of meetings and marches in the streets, is in many lands not legally permissible, while in others it is almost useless. Our leaders, therefore, have always to be finding out other means of attaining the same end. This has resulted in very great gains of liberty in several ways. On the Continent, for example, though it is not possible to get a general permission to hold open-air meetings in the streets, it is becoming more and more usual to let our people hold such gatherings in the large pleasure-grounds, provided within or on the outskirts both of the great cities and the lesser towns. In some cases the announcements of further meetings, made somewhat after the style of the public crier, develops into a series of short open-air addresses. In other cases, conspicuously in Italy, where our work is only as yet in its infancy--the sale of our paper, both by individual hawkers and by groups of comrades singing the songs it contains in marketplaces, largely makes up for the want of the more regularized open-air work.

And in the courts of the great blocks of buildings which abound in cities like Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and elsewhere, meetings are held which are really often more effective in impressing whole families of various cla.s.ses than any of our open-air proceedings in countries like England and the United States.

But everywhere the Army seeks especially, though not by any means exclusively, for those who are to be found frequenting the public-houses, cafes, beer gardens, dives, saloons, and other drinking-places of the world. In all countries our people sell our papers amidst these crowds, as well as at the doors of the theatres and other places of amus.e.m.e.nt, and the mere offer of these papers, now that their unflinching character as to G.o.d and goodness is well known, const.i.tutes an act of war, a submission to which in so many million cases is no slight evidence of confidence among the ma.s.ses of the people in our sincerity, and, so far, a sign of our success.

But 'The War Cry' seller is in the countries of more scattered population, such as Switzerland, some of the colonies, and large parts of India, much more than is the case in the big cities, the representative of every form of helpfulness. He, or she, not merely offers the paper for sale to those who have neither opportunity nor inclination to attend religious services of any kind, but enters himself where no paper ever comes, holds little meetings with groups of those who have never prayed, heartens those who are sinking down under pressure of calamity, visits the sick-room of the friendless, and often becomes the intermediary of the suffering and dest.i.tute and those who can help them in their dismal necessities.

Of the persistent hopefulness with which our people everywhere go to the apparently abandoned, I will only say that it const.i.tutes a store of moral and material help, not only for those people themselves, but for all who become acquainted with it, the value of which in the present it is difficult to exaggerate, and the influence of which on the future it is equally difficult to over-estimate.

While leaving the utmost possible freedom for initiative to our leaders, we are seeking everywhere to solidify and regularize every effort that has once been shown to be of any practical use. Any one amongst us, down to the youngest and poorest in any part of the world, may do a new thing next week which will prove a blessing to his fellows, and some one will be on the watch to see that that good thing, once done, be repeated, and, so far as may be, kept up in perpetuity.

Where special cla.s.ses of needs exist, we must of course employ special agencies. The vitality and adaptability of the Army in the presence of new opportunities is one of the happy auguries for the future. While all that is virile and forceful in it increases, there is less and less of the rigid and formal.

Fourteen or fifteen years ago some Officers were set apart to visit the Lapps who range over all the Territories to the north of Scandinavia. This meant at first only months of solitary travelling during the summer, and no little suffering in the winter, with little apparent result. But gradually a system of meetings was established, the people's confidence was gained, and at length it has been found possible to group together various centres of regular activity amongst these interesting but little-known people, and now experienced leaders will see both to the permanence of all that has already been begun, and to the further extension of the work.

In Holland, where our work has a.s.sumed the proportions of a national movement, the beneficent effects of which are recognized by all cla.s.ses, the ca.n.a.l population is helped by means of a small sailing ship, on which are held regular meetings for them. Our Norwegian people also have a life-boat called the _Catherine Booth_ stationed upon a stormy and difficult part of the coast, which not only goes out to help into safety boats and boats' crews, but whose crew also holds meetings on islands in remote fisher hamlets where no other religious visitors come.

The same principle of adaptation to local conditions and requirements will, I doubt not, quickly ensure success for the small detachment of Officers we have just sent to commence operations in Russia.

In Dutch India we have not only a growing Missionary work amongst both Javanese and Chinese, but Government Inst.i.tutions have been placed under our care, where lepers, the blind, and other infirm natives, as well as neglected children, are medically cared for and helped in other ways.

In South Africa, both English and Dutch-speaking peoples are united under one Flag, and give themselves up to work amongst the native races round them--races which const.i.tute so grave a problem in the eyes of all thoughtful men who know anything of the true position in South Africa. One of the latest items of news is that an Angoni has accepted salvation at one of our settlements in Mashonaland, and on return to his own home and work--lying away between Lake Nya.s.sa and the Zambezi--has begun to hold meetings and to exercise an influence upon his people which cannot but end in the establishment of our work amongst them.

But, to my mind, one of the most important features of our work in all Eastern and African lands is our development of the native power under experienced guidance to purely Salvationist and therefore non-political purposes. Surely the most potent possible corrective for the sort of half rebel influence that has grown or is growing up in Africa under the name of Ethiopianism, as well as for much of the strange uneasiness among the dumb ma.s.ses of India, is the complete organization of native races under leaders who, whilst of their own people, are devoted to the highest ethical aims, and stand in happy subjection to men of other lands who have given them a training in discipline and unity which does not contemplate bloodshed.

We are now beginning both in India and Africa, as well as in the West Indies, to find experienced native Officers capable of taking Staff positions; that is, of becoming reliable leaders in large districts where we are at work. These men have not merely all the advantages of language and of fitness for the varieties of climate which are so trying to Westerners, but they show a courage and tenacity and tact--in short, a capacity for leadership and administration such as no one--at any rate, no one that I know of--expected to find in them.

Here is opened a prospect of the highest significance.

More than can be easily estimated has been done in spreading information about us for some years past by Salvationists belonging to various national armies and navies. We encourage all such men to group themselves into brigades, so far as may be allowed, in their various barracks and ships. Thus united, they work for their mutual encouragement, and for the spreading of good influences among others.

It was such a little handful that really began our work in the West Indies, and we have now a Corps in Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa, formed by men of a West Indian regiment temporarily quartered there. The same thing has happened in Sumatra by means of Dutch and Javanese soldiers.

For British India we naturally felt ourselves first of all, as to the heathen world, under obligation to do something. And no inconsiderable results have followed the efforts which were first commenced there twenty-eight years ago. Our pioneers, though they greatly disturbed the official white world, won the hearts of the people at a stroke, by wearing Indian dress, living amongst and in the style of the poorer villages. Soon Indian converts offered themselves for service, and after training; were commissioned as Officers, and it was at once seen that they would be far more influential than any foreigners. From the point at which that discovery was really made, the work a.s.sumed important proportions, pa.s.sing at once in large measure from the position of a foreign mission to being a movement of the people themselves.

The vastness of the country and the difference of language have led to our treating it as five separate commands, now under the general lead of one headquarters. Incidentally, this has helped us in dealing with some of the difficulties connected with caste, as it has been possible to remove Indian Officers from one part of India to another, and we have made some efforts which have, I admit, proved less successful in some districts than in others, to deal with castes which, within their own lines, are often little more than Trade Unions with a mixture of superst.i.tion.

Meanwhile, the practical character of our work has shown itself in efforts to help in various ways the lowest of the people to improve their circ.u.mstances. The need for this is instantly apparent when one reflects that some 40,000,000 of the inhabitants of India are always hungry. A system of loan banks, which has now been adopted in part by the Government, has been of great service to the small agriculturalists. The invention of an extremely simple and yet greatly improved hand loom has proved, and will prove, very valuable to the weavers. New plans of relief in times of scarcity and famine have also greatly helped in some districts to win the confidence of the people.

Industrial schools, chiefly for orphan children, have also been a feature of the work in some districts.

Recently the Government, having seen with what success our people have laboured for the salvation of the lower castes, have decided to hand over to us the special care of several of the criminal tribes, who are really the remnants of the Aborigines. Although this work is at present only in its experimental stage, all who have examined the results so far have been delighted at the rapidity with which we have brought many into habits of self-supporting industry, who, with their fathers before them, had been accustomed to live entirely by plunder.

About 2,000 persons of this cla.s.s are already under our care.