H. Rider Haggard

“ 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! ”

“ On the one hand jewels and champagne, furs and motors, and on the other prayers that talk of death and judgment, plain garments made by the wearer's labour, and at the end the drudgery of earning an honest livelihood, perhaps as a servant. Human nature being what it is, it seems scarcely wonderful that these children of pleasure cling to the path of 'roses' and turn from that of 'thorns.'
With those that are growing old and find themselves broken in body and in spirit, who are thrust aside in the fierce competition of their trade in favour of younger rivals ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I answer by knowledge of human nature, by the power of sympathy, by gentle kindness. A poor wretch staggers into a humble little room at the Salvation Army Headquarters in Queen Victoria Street. He unfolds an incoherent tale. He is an unpleasant and disturbing person whom any lawyer or business man would get rid of as soon as possible. He vapours about self-destruction, he hints at dark troubles with his wife. He produces drugs or weapons—a point at which most people would certainly show him out. But the Officers in charge do nothing of the sort. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ General Booth and his Officers are, as I know from various conversations with them, firmly convinced that many of the great and patent evils of our civilization result from the desertion of the land by its inhabitants, and that crowding into cities which is one of the most marked phenomena of our time. Indeed, it was an identity of view upon this point, which is one that I have advanced for years, that first brought me into contact with the Salvation Army. But to preach the advantages of bringing people back to the land is one thing, and to get them there quite another. ”

“ I do here declare that I will spend all the time, strength, money, and influence I can in supporting and carrying on this war, and that I will endeavour to lead my family, friends, neighbours, and all others whom I can influence, to do the same, believing that the sure and only way to remedy all the evils in the world is by bringing men to submit themselves to the Government of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do here declare that I will always obey the lawful orders of my Officers, and that I will carry out to the utmost of my powers all the orders and regulations of the Army ”

“ In many cases thus: 'The Salvation Army is a body of people dressed up in a semi-military uniform, or those of them who are women, in unbecoming poke bonnets, who go about the streets making a noise in the name of God and frightening horses with brass bands. It is under the rule of an arbitrary old gentleman named Booth, who calls himself a General, and whose principal trade assets consist in a handsome and unusual face, and an inexhaustible flow of language, which he generally delivers from a white motor-car wherever he finds that he can attract the most attention. ”

“ Everywhere were women, all finely dressed, most of them painted, as could be seen in the glare of the electric lights, some of them more or less excited with drink, but none turbulent or noisy. Mixed up with these were the bargainers, men of every degree, the most of them with faces unpleasant to consider. ”

“ As regarded a change of headship, a fresh individuality always has charms, and a new force would always strike out in some new direction. The man needed was one who would do something. General Booth did not fear but that he would be always forthcoming, and said that for his part he was quite happy as to the future, in which he anticipated an enlargement of their work. The Organization existed, and with it the arrangements for filling every niche. The discipline of to-day would continue to-morrow, and that spirit would always be ready to burst into flame when it was needed. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ If, however, the Salvation Army is prepared to face this gigantic task, it may be hoped that it will be given an opportunity of showing what it can do on a large scale, as it has already shown upon one more restricted. Prison reform is in the air. The present system is admitted more or less to have broken down. It has been shown to be incompetent to attain the real end for which it is established; that is, not punishment, as many still believe, for this hereditary idea is hard to eradicate, but prevention and, still more, reformation. ”

“ Dressed in their uniform they mingled with the women who marched the pavements, and now and again, with curiously swift and decisive steps glided up to one of them, whispered a few earnest words into her ear, and proffered a printed ticket. Most of those spoken to walked on stonily as people do when they meet an undesirable acquaintance whom they do not wish to recognize. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I am thoroughly convinced of the truth of the Army's teaching. I believe that repentance towards God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and conversion by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation, and that all men may be saved. I believe that we are saved by grace, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and he that believeth hath the witness of it in himself. ”

“ Its Officers pray with the man; they awake his conscience, which is never dead in any of us; they pour the blessed light of hope into the dark places of his soul; they cause him to hate the past, and to desire to lead a new life. Once this desire is established, the rest is comparatively simple, for where the heart leads the feet will follow; but without it little or nothing can be done. Such is the explanation I have to offer. At any rate, I believe it remains a fact that among the worst criminals the Salvation Army often succeeds where others have failed. ”

“ Also how long will it be before the Labour Parties in the various Colonies, including Canada, gain so much power that they will refuse to accept emigrants at all, except young women, or agriculturalists who bring capital with them?
But all these problems are for the future. Meanwhile it is evident that the Salvation Army manages its emigration work with extraordinary success and business skill. Those whom it sends from these shores for their own benefit are invariably accepted, at any rate in Canada, and provided with work on their arrival in the chosen Colony. ”

“ Others were gazing about them vacantly, and others, sufferers from the effects of drink, debauchery, or fatigue, seemed to be half comatose or asleep.
This congregation, the strangest that I have ever seen, comprised men of all classes. Some might once have belonged to the learned professions, while others had fallen so low that they looked scarcely human. Every grade of rag-clad misery was represented here, and every stage of life from the lad of sixteen up to the aged man whose allotted span was almost at an end. ”

“ With regard to the Social Work of the Army, which in its beginning was a purely religious body, General Booth said that they had been driven into it because of their sympathy with suffering. They found it impossible to look upon people undergoing starvation or weighed down by sorrows and miseries that came upon them through poverty, without stretching out a hand to help them on to their feet again. ”

“ Schemes for great universities or training colleges, in which men and women might be educated to deal with the social problems of our age on a scientific basis. Schemes for obtaining Government assistance to enable the Army to raise up the countless mass of criminals in many lands, taking charge of them as they leave the jail, and by regenerating their fallen natures, saving them soul and body. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To come to something more mundane, which also deserves consideration, I was informed that in Glasgow, with a population of about 900,000, there exists a floating class of 80,000 people, who live in lodging-houses of the same sort as, and mostly inferior to the Salvation Army Shelter of which I am now writing. In other words, out of every twelve inhabitants of this great city, one is driven to that method of obtaining a place to sleep in at night. ”