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 convert _you_, 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 NEED IS GREAT!
* * * * *
_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 Destitute
and Outcast Men and Women, including Shelters
for Homeless Men and Women, Homes for Children,
Rescue Homes, etc..................................... £15,000
For Maintenance of the Slum Sisterhood and Nurses
for 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 Agricultural
Departments of the Hadleigh Colony.................... £3,000
For Assistance and Partial Maintenance of the
Unemployed and Inefficient............................ £5,000
For Assisting suitable Men and Women to Emigrate........ £3,000
Towards the provision of New Institutions 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 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.
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 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 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 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.