In Darkest England and The Way Out [162]
countries or colonies, where under the leadership of nearly 10,000 men and women, whose lives are entirely given up to the work, it is holding some 49,800 religious meetings every week, attended by millions of persons, who ten years ago would have laughed at the idea of praying.
And these operations are but the means for further extension, as will be seen, especially when it is remembered that the Army has its 27 weekly newspapers, of which no less than 31,000,000 copies are sold in the streets, public houses, and popular resorts of the godless majority. From its, ranks it is therefore certain that an ever-increasing multitude of men and women must eventually be won.
That all this has not amounted to the creation of a mere passing gust of feeling, may best be demonstrated perhaps from the fact that the Army has accumulated no less than #775,000 worth of property, pays rentals amounting to #220,000 per annum for its meeting places, and has a total income from all sources of three-quarters of a million per annum. Now consider from whence all this has sprung. It is only twenty-five years since the author of this volume stood absolutely alone in the East of London, to endeavour to Christianise its irreligious multitudes, without the remotest conception in his own mind of the possibility of any such Organisation being created.
Consider, moreover, through what opposition the Salvation Army has ever had to make its way.
In each country it has to face universal prejudice, distrust, and contempt, and often stronger antipathy still. This opposition has generally found expression in systematic, Governmental, and Police restriction, followed in too many cases by imprisonment, and by the condemnatory outpourings of Bishops, Clergy, Pressmen and others, naturally followed in too many instances by the oaths and curses, the blows and insults of the populace. Through all this, in country after country, the Army makes its way to the position of universal respect, that respect, at any rate, which is shown to those who have conquered. And of what material has this conquering host been made? Wherever the Army goes it gathers into its meetings, in the first instance, a crowd of the most debased, brutal, blasphemous elements that can be found who, if permitted, interrupt the services, and if they see the slightest sign of police tolerance for their misconduct, frequently fall upon the Army officers or their property with violence. Yet a couple of Officers face such an audience with the absolute certainty of recruiting out of it an Army Corps. Many thousands of those who are now most prominent in the ranks of the Army never knew what it was to pray before they attended its services; and large numbers of them had settled into a profound conviction that everything connected with religion was utterly false. It is out of such material that God has constructed what is admitted to be one of the most fervid bodies of believers ever seen on the face of the earth.
Many persons in looking at the progress of the Army have shown a strange want of discernment in talking and writing as though all this had been done in a most haphazard fashion, or as though an individual could by the mere effort of his will produce such changes in the lives of others as he chose. The slightest reflection will be sufficient we are sure to convince any impartial individual that the gigantic results attained by the Salvation Army could only be reached by steady unaltering processes adapted to this end. And what are the processes by which this great Army has been made?
1. The foundation of all the Army's success, looked at apart from its divine source of strength, is its continued direct attack upon those whom it seeks to bring under the influence of the Gospel. The Salvation Army Officer, instead of standing upon some dignified pedestal, to describe the fallen condition of his fellow men, in the hope that though far from him, they may thus, by some mysterious process, come to a better life, goes down into the street, and from door to door, and from room
And these operations are but the means for further extension, as will be seen, especially when it is remembered that the Army has its 27 weekly newspapers, of which no less than 31,000,000 copies are sold in the streets, public houses, and popular resorts of the godless majority. From its, ranks it is therefore certain that an ever-increasing multitude of men and women must eventually be won.
That all this has not amounted to the creation of a mere passing gust of feeling, may best be demonstrated perhaps from the fact that the Army has accumulated no less than #775,000 worth of property, pays rentals amounting to #220,000 per annum for its meeting places, and has a total income from all sources of three-quarters of a million per annum. Now consider from whence all this has sprung. It is only twenty-five years since the author of this volume stood absolutely alone in the East of London, to endeavour to Christianise its irreligious multitudes, without the remotest conception in his own mind of the possibility of any such Organisation being created.
Consider, moreover, through what opposition the Salvation Army has ever had to make its way.
In each country it has to face universal prejudice, distrust, and contempt, and often stronger antipathy still. This opposition has generally found expression in systematic, Governmental, and Police restriction, followed in too many cases by imprisonment, and by the condemnatory outpourings of Bishops, Clergy, Pressmen and others, naturally followed in too many instances by the oaths and curses, the blows and insults of the populace. Through all this, in country after country, the Army makes its way to the position of universal respect, that respect, at any rate, which is shown to those who have conquered. And of what material has this conquering host been made? Wherever the Army goes it gathers into its meetings, in the first instance, a crowd of the most debased, brutal, blasphemous elements that can be found who, if permitted, interrupt the services, and if they see the slightest sign of police tolerance for their misconduct, frequently fall upon the Army officers or their property with violence. Yet a couple of Officers face such an audience with the absolute certainty of recruiting out of it an Army Corps. Many thousands of those who are now most prominent in the ranks of the Army never knew what it was to pray before they attended its services; and large numbers of them had settled into a profound conviction that everything connected with religion was utterly false. It is out of such material that God has constructed what is admitted to be one of the most fervid bodies of believers ever seen on the face of the earth.
Many persons in looking at the progress of the Army have shown a strange want of discernment in talking and writing as though all this had been done in a most haphazard fashion, or as though an individual could by the mere effort of his will produce such changes in the lives of others as he chose. The slightest reflection will be sufficient we are sure to convince any impartial individual that the gigantic results attained by the Salvation Army could only be reached by steady unaltering processes adapted to this end. And what are the processes by which this great Army has been made?
1. The foundation of all the Army's success, looked at apart from its divine source of strength, is its continued direct attack upon those whom it seeks to bring under the influence of the Gospel. The Salvation Army Officer, instead of standing upon some dignified pedestal, to describe the fallen condition of his fellow men, in the hope that though far from him, they may thus, by some mysterious process, come to a better life, goes down into the street, and from door to door, and from room