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.
II
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.
III
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:--
Number of Countries and Colonies occupied by
the Salvation Army 56
Languages in which the Work is carried on 33
Corps, Circles, and Societies of Salvationists 8,768
Number of persons wholly supported by and employed
in Salvation Army Work 21,390
Of those, with Rank 16,220
Without Rank 5,170
Number of Training Colleges for Officers and
workers 35
Providing accommodation for 1,866
SOCIAL OPERATIONS.--
Number of Institutions 954
Number of Officers and Cadets employed 2,573
Number of Local Officers, voluntary and unpaid 60,260
NUMBER OF PERIODICALS 74
These Periodicals are published in twenty-one languages,
and have a total circulation per issue of about one million
copies.
APPENDIX B
THE SALVATION ARMY'S ARTICLES OF WAR
HAVING received with all my heart the salvation offered to me by the
tender mercy of Jehovah, I do here and now publicly acknowledge God to
be my Father and King, Jesus Christ to be my Saviour, and the Holy
Spirit to be my Guide, Comforter, and Strength; and that I will, by
His help, love, serve, worship, and obey this glorious God through
time and through eternity,
BELIEVING solemnly that the Salvation Army has been raised up by God,
and is sustained and directed by Him, I do here declare my full
determination, by God's help, to be a true Soldier of the Army till I
die.
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. I have got it. Thank God!
I believe that the Scriptures were given by inspiration of
God, and that they teach that not only does continuance in
the favour of God depend upon continued faith in and
obedience to Christ, but that it is possible for those who
have been truly converted to fall away and be eternally
lost.
I believe that it is the privilege of all God's people to be
wholly sanctified, and that 'their whole spirit and soul and
body' may 'be preserved blameless unto the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ,' That is to say, I believe that after
conversion there remain in the heart of the believer
inclinations to evil, or roots of bitterness, which, unless
overpowered by divine grace, produce actual sin; but these
evil tendencies can be entirely taken away by the Spirit of
God, and the whole heart, thus cleansed from anything
contrary to the will of God, or entirely sanctified, will
then produce the fruit of the Spirit only. And I believe
that persons thus entirely sanctified may, by the power of
God, be kept unblameable and unreprovable before Him.
I believe in the immortality of the soul; in the
resurrection of the body; in the general judgment at the end
of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and
in the everlasting punishment of the wicked.
THEREFORE,
I do here and now, and for ever, renounce the world with all
its sinful pleasures, companionships, treasures, and
objects, and declare my full determination boldly to show
myself a soldier of Jesus Christ in all places and
companies, no matter what I may have to suffer, do, or lose,
by so doing.
I do here and now declare that I will abstain from the use
of all intoxicating liquors, and from the habitual use of
opium, laudanum, morphia, and all other baneful drugs,
except when in illness such drugs shall be ordered for me by
a doctor.
I do here and now declare that I will abstain from the use
of all low or profane language; from the taking of the name
of God in vain; and from all impurity, or from taking part
in any unclean conversation, or the reading of any obscene
book or paper at any time, in any company, or in any place.