No account of the Salvation Army would be complete without some words about Mr. Bramwell Booth, General Booth's eldest son and right-hand man, who in the Army is known as the Chief of the Staff. Being convinced of this, I sought an interview with him—the last of the many that I have had in connexion with the present work.
In the Army Mr. Bramwell Booth is generally recognized as 'the power behind the throne.' He it is who, seated in his office in London, directs the affairs and administers the policy of this vast Organization in all lands; the care of the countless Salvation Army churches is on his shoulders, and has been for these many years. He does not travel outside Europe; his work lies chiefly at home. I understand, however, that he takes his share in the evangelical labours of the Army, and is a powerful and convincing speaker, although I have never chanced to hear any of his addresses.
In appearance at his present age of something over fifty, he is tall and not robust, with an extremely sympathetic face that has about it little of his father's rugged cast and sternness. Perhaps it is this evident sympathy that commands the affection of so many, for I have been told more than once that he is the best beloved man in the Army, and one who never uses a stern word.
I found him busy and pressed for time, even more so, if possible, than I was myself; he had but just arrived by an early train from some provincial city. In fact, he was then engaged upon his annual visitation to all the Field Officers in the country, which, as he explained, takes him away from London for three days a week for a period of six weeks, and throws upon him a considerable extra strain of mind and body. The diocese of the Salvation Army is very extensive!
I said to Mr. Bramwell Booth that I desired from him his views of the Army as a religious and a social force throughout the wide world, in every land where it sets its foot. I wished to hear of the work considered as a whole, likewise of that work in its various aspects, and of the different races of mankind among which it is carried on. Also, amongst others, I put to him the following specific questions:—
In what way and by what means does the Army adapt itself tothe needs and customs of the various peoples among whom itis established?What is its comparative measure of success with each ofthese peoples, and what future is anticipated for it amongthem respectively?Where is the work advancing, where does it hang in thebalance, and where is it being driven backwards?What are your views upon the future of the Army as areligious and social power throughout the world, bearing inmind the undoubted difficulties with which it is confronted?Do you consider that now, after forty-five years ofexistence, it is, speaking generally, on the downward or onthe upward grade?What information can you give me as to the position of theArmy in its relations with other religious bodies?
At this point Mr. Bramwell Booth inquired mildly how much time I had to spare. The result of my answer was that we agreed together that it was clearly impossible to deal with all these great matters in an interview. So it was decided that he should take time to think them over, and should furnish his replies in the form of a written memorandum. This he has done, and I may say without flattery that the paper which he has drawn up is one of the most clear and broad-minded that I have had the pleasure of reading for a long while. Since it is too long to be used as a quotation, I print it in an appendix,7trusting sincerely that all who are interested in the Salvation Army in its various aspects will not neglect its perusal. Indeed, it is a valuable and an authoritative document, composed by perhaps the only person in the world who, from his place and information, is equal to the task.
Personally I venture upon neither criticism nor comment, whose rôle throughout all these pages is but that of a showman, although I trust one not altogether devoid of insight into the matter in hand.
To only one point will I call attention—that of the general note of confidence which runs through Mr. Bramwell Booth's remarks. Clearly he at least does not believe that the Salvation Army is in danger of dissolution. Like his father, he believes that it will go on from good to good and from strength to strength.
There remain, however, one or two other points that we discussed together to which I will allude. Thus I asked him if he had anything to say as to the attacks which from time to time were made upon the Army. He replied as his father had done: 'Nothing, except that they were best left to answer themselves.'
Then our conversation turned to the matter of the resignation of certain Officers of the Army which had caused some passing public remark.
'We have an old saying here,' he said, with some humour, 'that we do not often lose any one whom we very much desire to keep.'
I pointed out that I had heard allegations made to the effect that the Army Officers were badly paid, hardly treated, and, when they proved of no more use, let go to find a living as best they could.
He replied that, as to the matter of money, the Army had established a Pension fund in all the Western countries, which now amounts to a large total. In this country the sum was about £44,000, and during 1909 about £1,800 had been paid here in pensions. This, however, was only a beginning, but he thought that the effort was being made on the right lines, and that, notwithstanding their poverty, a really adequate Pension fund would be built up in due course.
Then of a sudden he became eloquent. He said he admitted that the Army had little to offer. Those who came into its service knew that this was so; that they had no hope of temporal reward; that thenceforth the great feature of their life and work was that it must be filled with labour and self-denial. The whole business of helping and saving our fellow-creatures was one of struggle and suffering. Sacrifice was the key-note of Christianity as laid down by its Founder. Those who sought money and temporal honour must look elsewhere than to the Salvation Army. Its pride and glory was that thousands were willing to suffer and deny themselves from year to year, and to find their joy and their recompense in the consciousness that they were doing something, however little, to lighten the darkness and relieve the misery of the world.
Here are some of his actual words upon this matter that I will quote, as I cannot better them:—
'The two facts of real consequence about our Officers are these: First, that their numbers go on increasing year by year, and second, that they remain devoted to their work, very poor, and absolutely bent on obtaining a reward in Heaven. But let me quote here from General Booth on this matter:—
'"I resolved that no disadvantage as to birth, or education, or social condition should debar any one from entering the list of combatants so long as he was one with me in love for God, in faith for the salvation of men, and in willingness to obey the orders he should receive from me and from those I authorized to direct him. I have, of course, had many disappointments—not a few of them very hard to bear at the time—but from the early days of 1868, when I engaged my first recognized helper, to 1878, when the number had increased by slow degrees to about 100, and on to the present day, when their number is rapidly approaching 20,000, there has not been a single year without its increase, not only in quantity, but in quality.
'"I am sometimes asked, What about those who have left me? Well, I am thankful to say that we remain in sympathetic and friendly relations with the great bulk of them. It was to be expected that in work such as ours, demanding, as it does, not only arduous toil and constant self-denial and often real hardships of one kind or another, some should prove unworthy, some should grow weary, and others should faint by the way, whilst others again, though very excellent souls, should prove unsuitable. It could not be otherwise, for we are engaged in real warfare, and whoever heard of war without wounds and losses? But even of those who do thus step aside from the position of Officers, a large proportion—in this country nine out of ten—remain with us, engaged in some voluntary effort in our ranks."'
'But,' continued Mr. Bramwell Booth, 'I would be the last person to minimize our losses. They may be accounted for in the most natural way, and yet we cannot but feel them and suffer from them. And yet it is all just a repetition of the Bible stories of all ages; nay, of all stories of genuine fighting in any great cause. The great feature of our present experience in this matter is that the number who go out from us grows every year smaller in proportion to the whole, and that, as the General says in the above extract, a very large proportion of those continue in friendly relations with us.
'The triumph of these splendid men and women, in the face of every kind of difficulty in every part of the world is, however, really a triumph of their faith. It is not the Army, it is not their leaders, it is not even the wonderful devotion which many of them manifest, which is the secret of their continued life and continued success, nor is it any confidence in their own abilities. No! The true representative of the Army is relying at every turn upon the presence, guidance, and help of God in trying to carry out the Father's purpose with respect to every lost and suffering child of man. By that test, alike in the present and future, we must ever stand or fall. The Army is either a work of faith or it is nothing at all.
'Everything throughout all our ranks can really be brought to that test, and I regard with composure every loss and attack, every puzzle and danger, chiefly because I rely upon my comrades' trust in God being responded to by Him according to their need.'
Perhaps I may be allowed to add a few remarks upon this subject. A great deal is made of the resignation of a few Salvation Army Officers in order that they may accept excellent posts in other walks of life; indeed, it is not uncommon to see it stated that such resignations herald the dissolution of the Society. Inasmuch as the number of the Army's Officers is nearing 20,000 it would seem that it can very well spare a few of them. What fills me with wonder is not that some go, but that so many remain.Thisis one of the facts which, amongst much that is discouraging, convinces me of the innate nobility of man. An old friend of mine of pious disposition once remarked to me thathecould never have been a Christian martyr. At the first twist of the cord, or the first nip of the red-hot pincers, he was sure thathewould have thrown incense by the handful upon the altar of any heathen god or goddess that was fashionable at the moment. His spirit might have been willing, but his flesh would certainly have proved weak.
I sympathized with the honesty of this confession, and in the same way I sympathize with those Officers of the Salvation Army who, in racing slang, cannot 'stay the course.'
Let us consider the lot of these men. Any who have entered on even a secular crusade, something that takes them off the beaten, official paths, that leads them through the thorns and wildernesses of a new, untravelled country, towards some distant goal seen dimly, or not seen at all except in dreams, will know what such an undertaking means. It means snakes in the grass; it means savages, or in other words veiled and poisonous hatreds and bitter foes, or, still worse, treacherous friends. The crusader may get through, in which case no one will thank him except, perhaps, after he is dead. Or he may fail and perish, in which case every one will mock at him. Or he may retreat discouraged and return to the official road, in which case his friends will remark that they are glad to see that his insanity was only of the intermittent order, and that at length he has learned his place in the world and to whom he ought to touch his cap.
Well, these are official roads to Heaven as well as to the House of Lords and other mundane goals, a fact which the Salvation Army Officer and others of his kind have probably found out. On the official road, if he has interest and ability—the first is to be preferred—he might have become anything, and with ordinary fortune would certainly have become something.
But on the path that he has chosen what is there for him to gain? An inheritance of dim glory beyond the stars, obscured doubtless from time to time, if he is like other men, by sudden and sickening eclipses of his faith. And meanwhile the daily round, the insolent gibe, and the bitter ingratitude of men that leaves him grieving. Also not enough money to pay for a cab when it is wet, and considerable uncertainty as to the future of his children, and even as to his own old age. Few comforts for him, not even those of a glass of wine to stimulate him, or of tobacco to soothe his nerves, for these are forbidden to him by the rules of his Order. Unless he can reach the very top of his particular tree also, which it is most unlikely that he will, no public recognition even of his faithful, strenuous work, and who is there that at heart does not long for public recognition? In short, nothing that is desirable to man save the consciousness of a virtue which, after all, he must feel to be indifferent (being well aware of his own secret faults), and the satisfaction of having helped a certain number of lame human dogs over moral or physical stiles.
In such a case and in a world which we must admit to be selfish and imperfect, the wonder is not that certain Salvation Army Officers, being trained men of high ability, yield to tempting offers and go, but that so many of them remain.
'Look at my case,' said one of them to me. 'With my experience and organizing ability I am worth £2,000 a year as the manager of any big business, and I could have it if I liked. Here I get about £200!'
This was one of those who remain. I say all honour to such noble souls, for surely they are of the salt of the earth.
The religious faith of the Salvation Army, as I have observed and understand it (for little has been said to me on this matter), is extremely simple. It believes in an eternal Heaven for the righteous and—a sad doctrine this, some of us may think—in a Hell, equally eternal, for the wicked.8Its bedrock is the Bible, especially the New Testament, which it accepts as true without qualification, from the first word to the last, troubling itself with no doubts or criticisms. Especially does it believe in the dual nature of the Saviour, in Christ as God, and in Christ as man, and in the possibility of forgiveness and redemption for even the most degraded and defiled of human beings. Love is its watchword, the spirit of love is its spirit, love arrayed in the garments of charity.
In essentials, with one exception, its doctrines much resemble those of the Church of England, and of various dissenting Protestant bodies. The exception is, that it does not make use of the Sacraments, even of that of Communion, although, on the other hand, it does not deny the efficacy of those Sacraments, or object to others, even if they be members of the Army, availing themselves of them. Thus, I have known an Army Officer to join in the Communion Service. The reason for this exception is, I believe, that in the view of General Booth, the Sacraments complicate matters, are open to argument and attack, and are not understood by the majority of the classes with which the Army deals. How their omission is reconciled with certain prominent passages and directions laid down in the New Testament I do not know. To me, I confess, this disregard of them seems illogical.
The motto of the Army is 'Salvation for all,' and, as I have hinted in these pages, it has a sure conviction of the essential persistence of miracle in these modern days. It holds that when a man kneels at the Penitent-Form and 'gets converted,' a miracle takes place within him, if his repentance is true, and that thenceforward some Grace from on High will give him the power to overcome the evil in his heart and blood.
It believes, too, in the instant efficacy of earnest prayer, and in the possibility of direct communication by this means between man and his Maker.
Here is an instance of this statement. While inspecting the Shelters in one of the provincial cities, I was shown a certain building which had recently passed into the possession of the Army. The Officer who was conducting me said that the negotiations preliminary to the acquisition of the lease of this building had been long and difficult. I remarked that these must have caused him anxiety. 'Oh, no,' he answered, simply. 'You see I had talked with the Lord about it, and I knew that we should get the place in the end.'
This reply may cause some to smile, but I confess I find such childlike faith touching and even beautiful.
There is small doubt that consciously or unconsciously, the Salvation Army has followed St. Paul's example of being all things to all men, if 'by all means' it may save some. This is the reason of its methods which to many seem so vulgar and offensive. Once I spoke to an Officer high up in the Army of this matter, instancing, amongst other things, its brass bands and loud-voiced preaching at street corners.
'My dear sir,' he replied, 'if we came to convertyou, we should not bring a brass band or send a missionary who shouted out sacred names every minute. Possibly, if we thought that you were open to the influences of music, we might send a first-rate violinist to play pieces from the classical masters, and we should certainly send a man whom we knew to be your intellectual equal, and who could therefore appeal to your reason. But our mission at present is not so much to you and your class, as to the dregs of humanity. The folk we deal with live in a state of noise of which you have no conception, and if we want to force them to listen to us, we must begin by making a greater noise in order to attract their attention at all. In the same way it is of no use wasting subtleties on them; we have to go straight to the main points, which are clear and sharp enough to pierce their drink-besotted intelligences, or to reach any fragment of conscience they may have remaining in them.'
I thought the argument sound and well put, and results have proved its force, since the Salvation Army undoubtedly gets a hold of people that few other forms of religious effort seem able to grasp, at least to any considerable extent.
I wish to make it clear, however, that I hold no particular brief for the Army, its theology, and its methods. I recognize fully, as I know it does, the splendid work that is being done in the religious and social fields by other Organizations of the same class, especially by Dr. Barnardo's Homes, by the Waifs and Strays Society, by the Church Army, and, above all, perhaps, by another Society, with which I have had the honour to be connected in a humble capacity for many years, that for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Still it remains true that the Salvation Army is unique, if only on account of the colossal scale of its operations. Its fertilizing stream flows on steadily from land to land, till it bids fair to irrigate the whole earth. What I have written about is but one little segment of a work which flourishes everywhere, and even lifts its head in Roman Catholic countries, although in these, as yet, it makes no very great progress.
How potent then, and how generally suited to the needs of stained and suffering mankind, must be that religion which appeals both to the West and to the East, which is as much at home in Java and Korea as it is in Copenhagen or Glasgow. For it should be borne in mind that the basis of the Salvation Army is religious, that it aims, above everything, at the conversion of men to an active and lively faith in the plain, uncomplicated tenets of Christianity to the benefit of their souls in some future state of existence and, incidentally, to the Reformation of their characters while on earth.
The social work of which I have been treating is a mere by-product or consequence of its main idea. Experience has shown, that it is of little use to talk about his soul to a man with an empty stomach. First, he must be fed and cleansed and given some other habitation than the street. Also the Army has learned that Christ still walks the earth in the shape of Charity; and that religion, after all, is best preached by putting its maxims into practice; that the poor are always with us; and that the first duty of the Christian is to bind their wounds and soothe their sorrows. Afterwards, he may hope to cure them of their sins, for he knows that unless such a cure is effected, temporal assistance avails but little. Except in cases of pure misfortune which stand upon another, and, so far as the Army work is concerned, upon an outside footing, the causes of the fall must be removed, or that fall will be repeated. The man or woman must be born again, must be regenerated. Such, as I understand it, is at once the belief of the Salvation Army and the object of all its efforts. Therefore, I give to this book its title of 'Regeneration.'
The principal items of the Salvation Army's expenditure for Social Work during the financial year ending September 30, 1911, are as follows, and help is earnestly asked to meet these, the work being entirely dependent upon Voluntary Gifts.
For Maintenance of Work amongst the Destituteand Outcast Men and Women, including Sheltersfor Homeless Men and Women, Homes for Children,Rescue Homes, etc..................................... £15,000
For Maintenance of the Slum Sisterhood and Nursesfor the Sick Poor..................................... £3,000
For Prison Visitation Staff and Prison-Gate Work........ £5,000
For Work among Youths and Boys.......................... £2,000
For Special Relief and Distress Agencies................ £5,000
For Development of the Work and AgriculturalDepartments of the Hadleigh Colony.................... £3,000
For Assistance and Partial Maintenance of theUnemployed and Inefficient............................ £5,000
For Assisting suitable Men and Women to Emigrate........ £3,000
Towards the provision of New Institutions for Menand Boys in London and various provincial Cities...... £10,000
For the General Management and Supervision of allthe 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.
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.'
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 nobody 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.
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 constitute themselves efficient soldiers of their Corps, and assist 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 multitudinous agencies—the arousing of men's attention to the claims of God 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 classes 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 amusement, and the mere offer of these papers, now that their unflinching character as to God and goodness is well known, constitutes an act of war, a submission to which in so many million cases is no slight evidence of confidence among the masses 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 destitute 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 constitutes 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 classes 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 assumed the proportions of a national movement, the beneficent effects of which are recognized by all classes, the canal 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 theCatherine Boothstationed 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 Institutions 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 constitute 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 Nyassa 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 masses 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 assumed important proportions, passing 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 superstition.
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 circumstances. 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 class are already under our care.
There are some 3,000,000 of these robbers in different parts of India. They are only kept under anything like control at great cost for police and military supervision; but we are satisfied that, if reasonable support be given, a great proportion of them can be reclaimed from their present courses of idleness and crime, and in any case their children can be saved.
We have been able in India, perhaps more than in any other part of the world, to realize the international character of our work by linking together Officers from England, Germany, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries, as well as from America, in the one great object of helping the heathen peoples. But most of all we have rejoiced in being able to blend East and West, European Officers having often been placed under more experienced Indian comrades, as well as vice versa. The great common purpose dominating all sections of the Army, and the influences of the Spirit of God, have united men of different levels of intelligence, and knit them together in the same fellowship, without any unwise mingling of races. We have now 2,000 Officers in India, and that alone is a testimony of the highest significance to the success of our efforts, and to the possibilities which lie before us. But even more important in its bearing upon the future, in my estimation, is the wonderful ambition dominating our people there to reach every class, but most of all to deal with the low caste, or outcast, as they are sometimes called. Many of our Indian Officers have followed in the steps of our pioneers in the country, and, consumed by an enthusiasm amounting to a passion for their fellows, have literally sacrificed their lives in the ceaseless pressing forward of their work.
In America we have had to deal, perhaps, with the other extreme of human needs. Throughout Canada there is very little to be seen of poverty and wretchedness. In the United States the great cities begin indeed to have areas of vice and misery not to be surpassed in any of the older cities of the world. But everywhere we have found people who have become forgetful of God, neglectful of every higher duty, and abandoned to one or other form of selfishness. Our work in the United States especially has been confronted with difficulties peculiar to the country, its widespread populations and their cosmopolitan character being not the least of these. Nevertheless, we have now in the States and Canada nearly 4,000 Officers leading the work in 1,380 Corps and Societies, and 350 Social Institutions. I ought to say that it has not been found easy to raise large numbers in many places, but of the generosity and devotion of those who have united themselves with us, and the immense amount of work which they accomplish for their fellows, it is impossible to speak too highly.
I look with confidence to the future in both these great countries. Governments and local Authorities are beginning to grant us the facilities and help we need to deal effectually with their abandoned classes, as well as to attack some other problems of a difficult nature. Within the last few years, we have placed in Canada more than 50,000 emigrants, chiefly from this country. Their characteristics, and their success in their new surroundings, have won for us the highest commendation of the Authorities concerned.
In the vast fields of South America, we have as yet only small forces, but we have established a good footing with the various populations, and have already received no inconsiderable help for our purely philanthropic work from several of the Governments. Our latest new extensions, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru, and Panama, seem to offer prospects of success, even greater than we have been able to record in the Argentine or Uruguay. Before your book is published, we shall probably have made a beginning also in both Bolivia and Brazil.
The South American Republics—chiefly populated by the descendants of the poorest classes of Southern Europe—are professedly Roman Catholic. The influence of the priesthood, however, owing to various causes, seems to be on the wane, and a habit of abandoning all religious thought is much on the increase. But the realization that our people never attack any Church, or quibble about details of creed and ceremonial, has won their way to the hearts of many, and there can be no doubt that we have a great future amongst these peoples. In Peru the law does not allow any persons not of the Romish Church to offer prayer in public places, but when it was found that our Officers made no trouble of this, but managed all the same to hold open-air and theatre services very much in our usual style, great numbers of the people were astonished at the 'new religion,' and so many had soon begun to pray 'in private' that we have little doubt about the future of our work there.
In thinking of the future, I cannot overlook our plans of organization which have, I am persuaded, much to do with the proper maintenance and continuance of the work we have taken in hand.
While striving as much as possible to avoid red tape, or indeed any methods likely to hinder initiative and enterprise, we are careful to apply a systemization comprehensible to the most untrained minds, so that we may make every one feel a proper degree of responsibility, as well as guard them from mere emotionalism and spasmodic activity, accompanied as that kind of thing often is, by general neglect.
Thus no one can join the Army until after satisfying the local Officer and some resident of the place during a period of trial of the sincerity of his profession. He must then sign our Articles of War. These Articles describe precisely our doctrines, our promise to abstain from intoxicants, worldly pleasures, and fashions, bad or unworthy language, or conduct, and unfairness to either employer or employé, as well as our purpose to help and benefit those around us. (See Appendix B.)
Some local voluntary worker becomes responsible for setting each recruit a definite task in connexion with our efforts, and all are placed under the general oversight of their Captain. A Corps, which is the unit of our Organization, is organized under a Captain and Lieutenant who have been trained in the work they have to do as leaders. Corps are linked together into divisions under Officers, who, in addition to seeing that they regularly carry out their work, have the oversight of a considerable tract of country, with the duty of extending our operations within that area. In some countries a number of divisions are sometimes grouped into provinces with an Officer in charge of the whole province, and each country has its national headquarters under a Territorial Commissioner, all being under the lead of the International Headquarters in London.
No time is wasted in committee-ing or debating amongst us, and yet in all matters of finance and property there is such arrangement that several individuals are cognizant of every detail, and that no one person's fault or neglect shall necessarily involve permanent injury or loss. The central accounts in each country, including those in London, are under the care of public auditors; but we have also our own International Audit Department, whose representatives visit every headquarters from time to time, so as to make sure, not only that the accounts are kept on our approved system, but that all expenditure is rigidly criticized. All who really look into our financial methods are impressed by their economy and precision. The fact is that almost all our people have been well schooled in poverty. They have learned the value of pence.
All this seems to me to have great importance in connexion with estimates of our future. On the one hand we are ever seeking to impress on all our people the supreme need of God's spirit of love and life and freedom, without whose presence the most carefully managed system could not but speedily grow cold and useless. But at the same time, we insist that the service of God, however full of love and gladness, ought to be more precise, more regular, nay, more exacting than that of any inferior master.
As to your question whether we are generally making progress, I think I can say that, viewing the whole field of activity, and taking into account every aspect of the work, the Army is undoubtedly on the up-grade. Naturally progress is not so rapid in one country as another, nor is it always so marked in one period as in another in particular countries, nor is it always so evident in some departments of effort as in others; but speaking of the whole, there is, as indeed there has been from the very beginnings, steady advance.
In some countries, of course, there is more rapid development of our purely evangelistic propaganda, while in others our philanthropic agencies are more active. Progress in human affairs is generally tidal. It has been so with us. A period of great outward activity is sometimes followed by one of comparative rest, and in the same way the spirit of advance in one department sometimes passes from that for a time to others. A period of great progress in all kinds of pioneer work, for example in Germany, is just now being followed there by one of consolidation and organization. A time of enormous advance in all our departments of charitable effort in the United States is now being succeeded by a wonderful manifestation of purely spiritual fervour and awakening.
In this, the old country, our very success has in some ways militated against our continued advance at the old rate of progress. Not only has much ground already been occupied, but innumerable agencies, modelled outwardly, at least, after those we first established, have sprung into existence, and are working on a field of effort which was at one time largely left to us. And yet during the last five years the Army has enormously strengthened its hold on the confidence of all classes of the people here, increased its numbers, developed in a remarkable degree its internal organization, greatly added to its material resources, as well as maintained and extended its offering of men and money for the support of the work in heathen countries.
But even in places where we have appeared to be stagnant, in the sense of not undertaking any new aggressive activities, we are constantly making as a part of our regular warfare new captures from the enemy of souls, maintaining the care of congregations and people linked with us, working at full pressure our social machinery, training the children for future labour, raising up men and women to go out into the world as missionaries of one kind or another, and doing it all while carrying on vigorous efforts to bring to those who are most needy in every locality both material and spiritual support.
Like all aggressive movements, the Army is, of course, peculiarly subject to loss of one kind or another. That arising from the removals of its people alone constitutes a serious item. Any one who knows anything of religious work amongst the working-classes will understand how great a loss may be caused—even where the population is, generally speaking, increasing—by the removal of one or two zealous local leaders. But such losses are trifling compared with those which follow from some stoppage of employment when large numbers of workmen must either migrate or starve.
Similar results often occur from the change of leadership. The removal of our Officers from point to point, and even from country to country, is one of our most indispensable needs; but, of course, we have to pay for it, chiefly in the dislocation and discouragements and losses which it often necessarily entails.
So far from such variations being in any way discreditable to us, we think them one of the most valuable tests of the vitality and courage of our people, both Officers and Soldiers, that they fight on unflinchingly under such circumstances—fight on happily, to prove that while fluctuations of this character are very trying, they often also open the way both to the wider diffusion of our work elsewhere and to the breaking up of entirely new ground in the old centres.
In brief, it is with us at all times a real warfare wherein triumphs can only be secured at the cost of struggles that are very often painful and unpleasant. You cannot have the aggression, the advance, the captures of war without the change, the alarms, the cost, the wounds, the losses, which are inseparable from it.
A very striking and thoughtful description of some of the work done at one of our London Corps has recently been issued by a well-known writer. I refer to 'Broken Earthenware,' by Mr. Harold Begbie. No one can read the book without being impressed by the sense of personal insight which it reveals. But how few take in its main lesson, that the Army is in every place going on, not only with the recovery but with the development of broken men and women into more and more capable and efficient servants and rescuers of their fellows.
That this should be so is remarkable enough as applied to Westerners, broken by evil habits and more or less surrounded by wreckage, but how much more valuable when applied to the teeming populations of the East! There in so many cases there is no past of criminality or even of vice as we understand it to forget, but only an infancy of darkness and ignorance as to Christ and the liberty He brings.
Many of our best Indian Officers have been snatched from one form or other of outrageous selfishness, but thousands of our people there are gradually emerging from what is really the prolonged childhood of a race to see and know how influential the light of God can make even them amongst their fellows. Ten years ago in Japan a Salvationist Officer was a strange if not an unknown phenomenon, but with every increase of the Christian and Western influences in that country, every capable witness to Christ becomes, quite apart from any effort of his own, a much more noticed, consulted, and imitated example than he was before. In Korea, after a couple of years' effort, we have seen most striking results of our work, and have just sent, to work among their own people, our first twenty married Koreans, after a preliminary period of training for Officership. It is most difficult to realize the revolution involved in the whole outlook on life to men who have been looked upon as little more than serfs, without any prospect of influence in their country.
The same processes of inner and outer development which have made of the unknown English workman or workwoman of twenty years ago, the recognized servants of the community, welcomed everywhere by mayors and magistrates to help in the service of the poor, will, out of the clever Oriental, I believe, far more rapidly develop leaders in the new line of Christian improvement in every sphere of life. It is considerations such as these which make me say sometimes that the danger in the Army is not in the direction of magnifying, but rather of minimizing the influences that are carrying us upward and outward in every part of the world.
But in our own estimation there is another reason which perhaps equals all these for calculating upon a wider development of the Army's future influence. During the last twenty years we have been pressing forward amongst a very large number of Church and missionary efforts. Our speakers have notoriously been amongst the most unlearned and ungrammatical, and therefore often despised, while so many thousands of university men were preaching and writing of Christ. But no one now disputes the fact that the old-fashioned proclamation of the doctrine of Jesus Christ as a Divine Saviour of the lost has largely gone out of fashion. The influence of the priest, of the clerk in holy orders, of the minister, has been so largely undermined that candidates for the ministry are becoming scarce in many Churches, just while we are seeing them arise in steadily increasing numbers from among the very people who know the Army and its work best, and who have most carefully observed the demands of sacrifice and labour it makes upon its leaders.
One cannot but rejoice when one hears ever and anon of some conference or congress at which various efforts are made to recover, at any rate, the appearance of a forward movement in the Churches. But the most serious fact of all, perhaps, is the mixture amongst these Christianizing plans, whether in one country or another, of the unbelieving leaven, so that it is possible for men to go forth as the emissaries of Christianity who have ceased to believe in the Divine nature of its Founder, and who look for success rather to schemes of education and of social and temporal improvement than to that new creation of man by God's power, wherein lies all our hope, as indeed it must be the hope of every true servant of Christ.
But I call attention to these facts not to reproach any Church. Far from it. I simply desire to point out one reason for thinking ourselves justified in anticipating for the Army a future influence far beyond anything we have yet experienced.
Recent 'defences' of Christian revelation have, in our view, been far more seriously damaging than any attacks that have ever been made from the hostile camp. In the hope—a vain hope—of conciliating opposition, there has too often been a timid surrender of much that can alone give authority to Christian testimony. If Jesus Christ was not competent to decide the truth or untruth of the Divine revelation, which He fully and constantly endorsed as such, how absurd it is to suppose that any eulogies of His character can save Him from the just contempt of all fearless thinkers, no matter to what nationality they belong.
The Army finds itself already, and every year seems more and more likely to find itself, the only firm and unalterable witness to the truth of Christ and of His redeeming work in many neighbourhoods and districts, among them even some wide stretches of Christian territory. And the times can only bring upon us, it seems to me, more and more the scrutiny of all who wish to know whether the declarations of the Scriptures as to God's work in men are or are not reliable. This, then, however melancholy the reflection may be—and to me it is in some aspects melancholy indeed—assures to us a future of far wider importance and influence than any we have dreamed of in the past.
Our strength, as your book eloquently shows, in dealing with the deepest sunken, the forgotten, the outcasts of society, the pariahs and lepers of modern life; has ever been our absolute certainty with regard to Christ's love and power to help them. How much greater must of necessity be the value and influence of our testimony where the very existence of Christ and His salvation becomes a matter of doubt and dispute! Here, at any rate, is one reason which leads me to believe that the Salvation Army has before it a future of the highest moment to the world.
In relation to other religious bodies, our position is marvellously altered from the time when they nearly all, if not quite all, denounced us.
I do not think that any of the Churches in any part of the world do this now, although no doubt individuals here and there are still bitterly hostile to us. In the United States and in many of the British Colonies the Churches welcome our help, and generally speak well of our work; and even many Roman Catholic leaders, as well as authorities of the Jewish faith, may be included in this statement. On the Continent there are signs that they are slowly turning the same way.
Now, I confidently expect a steady extension of this feeling towards us as the Churches come more and more to recognize that we not only do not attack them, but that we are actually auxiliaries to their forces, not only gaining our audiences and recruits from those who are outside their ministrations, but even serving them by doing work for their adherents which for a variety of reasons they find it very difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish themselves.
At the same time it would be a mistake to think that we have any desire to adopt any of their methods or ceremonials. We keep everywhere to our simple and non-ecclesiastical habits, and while we certainly have some very significant and impressive ceremonials of our own, the way our buildings are fitted, the style of our songs and music, and the character of our prayers and public talking are everywhere entirely distinctive, and are nowhere in any danger of coming into serious competition with the worship adopted by the Churches.
Some of our leading Officers think that in one respect our relations to the Churches, their pastors, and people are unsatisfactory. In the United States it is customary for the clergy and leaders of every Church to treat our leaders with the most manifest sympathy and respect. But there is far too marked a contrast between that treatment and that which we receive in many other countries. There are, of course, splendid exceptions. Still few members of any Church are willing to be seen in active association with us.
I daresay this is very largely a question of class or caste, and I am very far from making it a matter of complaint. We would, in fact, far rather that our people should be regarded as outcasts, than that they should be tempted to tone down the directness of their witness, or that they should come under the influence of those uncertainties and misgivings to which I have already made reference. Nevertheless, it is certainly no wish of ours that there should remain any distance between us and any true followers of Christ by whatever name they may be called. And so we keep firmly, even where it may seem difficult or impolitic to do so, to our original attitude of entire friendliness with all those who name the Name of Christ.
I give a few figures bearing upon the present extent of our operations:—