THE
SALVATION ARMY
IN
SWITZERLAND.
BY
JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.
=London:=
DYER BROTHERS,
AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER ROW;
PEWTRESS AND CO.,
28, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, W.C.
1883.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY PEWTRESS & CO.,
_Steam Printing Works_,
28, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, W.C.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Author’s Reasons for taking up the Question of
Legal Justice in connection with the Salvation
Army.—Opinions of M. Sautter de Blonay and
others.—Evangelizing of the Masses.—Salvation by the
Police.—Salvation through the Preaching of the
Gospel.—Attitude of the Evangelical Alliance in
Switzerland.
CHAPTER II.
Narrative of the Work in Geneva.—Ringleaders of
Disturbances.—Protection of Vice.—M. Héridier and the
Genevan Government.—Madame de Gasparin.—Decree Closing
the Meetings.—Petition of Genevan
Citizens.—Falsification of a Cantonal
Regulation.—Expulsion of Miss Booth and Miss
Charlesworth.
CHAPTER III.
More detailed Account of the Spiritual Work in
Geneva.—The Public Ministry of Women.—Meetings in the
Hall of the Reformation, &c.—Encounter between the
Powers of Light and Darkness.—Testimony of Converts and
Others.—Prolonged Conflict.
CHAPTER IV.
Miss Booth’s Appeal to the Geneva Council of State.—Its
Rejection of her Appeal.—The Appeal to the Federal High
Council.—Reply of the Federal Council to her
Appeal.—Remarks thereon.—Work in the Canton de
Vaud.—Continuance of Persecution.
CHAPTER V.
Noble Proclamation of the Grand Council of
Neuchâtel.—Speedy Departure of that Government from
Just Principles.—Meetings in the Hotel Mont
Blanc.—Persecution.—Rowdyism.—Houses of Private
Citizens Attacked.—Report of the Neuchâtel Council of
State on the Salvation Army.—Petitions and
Counter-Petitions.—Debate in the Grand Council.—The
Unjust Decree.
CHAPTER VI.
The Work Extended to other Cantons.—“It is John the
Baptist whom I Beheaded.”—A Vital Warfare.—The Baptism
of Fire.—Great Meeting in the Jura Forest.—Arrest of
Miss Booth and Capt. Becquet.—Re-entrance of the Canton
of Geneva.—Funeral of Wyssa.—The Arrest in the
Cemetery.—Sent Across the Frontier.
CHAPTER VII.
Imprisonment of Miss Booth and Capt. Becquet at
Neuchâtel.—The Trial.—M. Cornaz, Minister of Justice
and Police, endeavours to intimidate the Jury.—Popular
Excitement.—Crowded Court.—Telegraphic Message from
Lord Granville.—Speeches of the Public Prosecutor and
the Lawyers for the Defence.—Miss Booth’s
Defence.—Verdict of Acquittal.—Public Meeting to demand
expulsion of Salvationists.
CHAPTER VIII.
M. Audeoud defies the Genevan Authorities.—He reads
aloud from the Penal Code, and they retire,
defeated.—Petitions and Protests.—Switzerland inundated
by Foreigners.—Difficulties of true Swiss Patriots in
the present times.—Justice.—The Hope of the Future.
THE
SALVATION ARMY IN SWITZERLAND.
CHAPTER I.
It was the hand of a woman which struck the first blow in Switzerland
against the work of the Salvation Army, resulting in a course of action
on the part of the authorities of that country which has produced
astonishment and a righteous indignation in every breast in which there
is any sense of justice and of respect for liberty. If, as a woman, I
can in any degree vindicate the cause of justice outraged in the person
of a fellow woman, a compatriot, I shall be relieved of a solemn sense
of responsibility.
I can, in fact, no longer hold my peace. I have withheld any expression
of opinion hitherto, because of the love and respect I have for
Switzerland, the country in which I have been so frequently resident. In
common with all my countrymen and women we love that land, not only
because of its unparalleled beauty and the health and repose we have so
often sought and found here, but because we believed it was a free and a
God-fearing and a law-abiding people, into whose midst strangers were
constantly welcomed. We believed that it was a land in which liberty and
human dignity were respected, a land where the extremes of wealth and
poverty being unknown, there was an absence of many ills and sorrows
which afflict our own country; a land in which, since it was penetrated
by the light of the Reformation, absolute religious liberty had secured
the free evangelising of the people, as well as open discussion of all
important questions.
This was the general impression among my countrymen concerning
Switzerland. The events which have recently transpired have opened our
eyes to the fact that the elements above mentioned, forming some of the
essential conditions of a nation’s welfare, have been undergoing a
gradual process of undermining and decay; and we are forced to look back
over fifty years or more of the past history of that country in order to
read rightly the meaning of these startling events. Such a retrospect
reveals above all things a decay of religious faith. This in itself is
sufficient to account for the undermining of liberty, of respect for
individual right, and of reverence for womanhood. These are followed by
violations, repeated and persisted in, not alone of the written
Constitution of the country, but of the first principles accepted by
republican peoples—the principles of justice, and of equality of all
citizens before the law, as well as the principles of international
honour in the maintaining inviolate of treaties made with foreign
nations in the interests of freedom and of peace.
A few words of personal explanation seem to be expedient, in respect to
my own participation in the present conflict. For fourteen years I have
been engaged in a work, now sufficiently widely known, a conflict in
which the opposing parties respectively attack and defend the identical
principles which are now at stake in the legal conflict into which the
Salvationists have been forced to enter. The Federation for which I
work, primarily the opponent of officially legalised vice, has found
itself inevitably drawn into the sacred duty of publicly defending
throughout the world the highest principles which govern human
society,—constitutional liberty, the rights of the individual, respect
for law, equality of all citizens before the law, and just and impartial
administration of the laws. The Federation, so far as its
representatives are Christian, holds up everywhere and on all occasions
the principle of individual right and personal dignity on the basis of
Christ’s teaching concerning the value of the individual soul, a value
to be measured only by the price paid for its redemption. The difficulty
which the Federation has met with in the propagation of the above-named
great principles lies chiefly in the fact that we have been ordained, so
to speak, to contend for them in the case of individuals who are the
least interesting of all human beings to society, in the person of the
most despised, the weakest, and, as men of the world express it, the
most worthless of human creatures, namely, the outcast woman.
Nevertheless, (or perhaps by the very reason of the low and despised
estate of her whose defence the Federation has undertaken), the conflict
on behalf of great principles fought out in her case has been
extraordinarily fruitful, and has carried its vitalizing influence more
or less into every civilized country. We expected such a result, because
we took our stand on eternal and undying principles of truth and of
justice.
On re-visiting Switzerland this year, I saw the very principles for
which we have so long contended, violated in the person, not of one of
these poor outcasts, but in that of a young English woman of pure and
holy character and life, a friend, a sister in Christ, one whose only
motive of action is a deep compassion for our poor sinful and suffering
humanity, and a desire to give her whole being for the fulfilment of her
portion of responsibility in the gathering in of the harvest of souls
for which the Lord of the harvest is waiting. I asked myself, “can I
stand still, silent, in the presence of such a collision as this between
the great principles I have been accustomed to defend, and the egotism
and injustice of those who have openly violated them, of those
Christians even who being ‘at ease in Zion,’ are,—unconsciously it may
be,—abetting the betrayers of liberty of conscience in this land?” I
have said that I hesitated to speak, because the facts to be recorded
are not honourable to Switzerland. But is it the true heart of
Switzerland, is it the worthy portion of Swiss citizenship which are
represented by those at present in possession of political power? No.
There are leading men, and many men and women of every class there who
have not forgotten the honourable traditions of their noble past. There
has been a terrible decay of religious faith, but there are yet
believers; there is a great increase of the class of “jouisseurs,” of
those who live for material ends alone, of drunkards, of careless
livers, of cynics, of vicious and sensual men; yet there is a people
within this people who are as a salt to prevent universal corruption. My
respect and love for this true people of Switzerland embolden me to
expose without mercy the violations of justice, the infidelity, and the
unworthy spirit of those who at this day are misrepresenting that
country before the world. Again, I have hesitated somewhat to speak,
because of the counsels of some of my fellow-workers in the Federation
who, strongly objecting to the methods of evangelizing adopted by the
Salvation Army, or not fully believing the message delivered by them,
judge that it might be disadvantageous to the work of the Federation for
one of its prominent members to be identified with them even to the
extent of protesting against an injustice from which they are suffering.
With all respect for the advices of certain members of our league, I
have yet to learn that any good cause has ever suffered on account of
the truthfulness of its advocates, and I am convinced that it is now my
duty to record my deep personal convictions both on the legal and the
religious side of the matter before us. I desire, however, while doing
so, emphatically to declare, that I here speak as an individual only,
and that I do not in the smallest degree implicate in what I say, the
international Federation for which I labour, nor any single individual
belonging to it. Above all, I wish it to be understood that what I now
do is done without the concurrence, and, I may even say, without the
knowledge, of those members of the Federation who reside in Switzerland,
the country which is the seat of its Continental Administration.
One word further, expressive of my personal appreciation of the subject
before us. I am not a member of the Salvation Army; I speak as an
outside observer—an impartial observer so far as all questions of the
methods and administration of the Army are concerned. The adoption of
military titles seems to me open to objection; but I do not feel any
duty imposed on me at this moment to criticize the methods employed. I
believe—with a well-known and distinguished Swiss gentleman, M. Sautter
de Blonay—that these things are external to the real and essential work
of the Army. Madame de Gasparin endeavoured to prove that the military
character of the Army identifies it with Jesuitism. M. Sautter replies:
“The success of Jesuitism is not due alone to its military character,
nor to the passive obedience required of its adherents in every act of
life; but much more is it due to the absolute subjection imposed in
matters of _thought_ and of _faith_. Herein lies the strength of
Jesuitism, but herein also lies its criminality. The Salvation Army is
entirely Protestant—so entirely Protestant, that it imposes no special
form of belief on its converts, (beyond the broad, essential doctrines
of our Christian faith), but leaves them free to attach themselves to
any among all the different religious denominations around them.” The
outward organization may be modified, or even abandoned in its present
form. It is the spirit and the essential work of the Army of which alone
I desire to speak.
In respect to these I may be said to be a partizan. I am content, nay
proud, to be one, in this sense. I thank God for the honour granted to
me of being permitted, in however feeble a manner, to plead the cause of
these evangelists. If we regard truly, and without prejudice, their
motives of action, their spiritual power, and the astounding success
which has been granted to them in their efforts for the lost, lapsed
classes of society, we Christians may well fear to lift our hand or our
voice against them; for God is with them. That they sometimes make
mistakes, all must confess. Where do we find a church, a missionary
agency, a Christian organization on the earth which is perfect, or which
stands clear of blame in all respects, either as regards the occasional
scandals caused by some of its individual members, or the doubtful
tendency of some portion of its own practical direction? To me it has
ever seemed to redound to the honour of God that He can and does make
use of imperfect instruments in working out His perfect designs for the
good of man. It is true, He requires His instruments in spiritual
matters to be perfect in one sense—in one sense only—that is in the
_will_ to be His instruments, and to bear and to do His will in all
things. He requires absolute sincerity and whole-hearted self-surrender
in this respect; but beyond this, where shall we find among earth’s
records of holy and vital work done for God, anything like perfection?
Errors of judgment, and imperfections of many kinds have entered more or
less into the work of all God’s chosen instruments since the days of the
Patriarchs and Apostles. In the perfection and simplicity of a
whole-hearted devotion to the world’s salvation, it seems to me, few, if
any, Christians have ever excelled those of the despised and much
criticized Salvation Army. What is their aim? To quote again M. Sautter
de Blonay[1]—“As I understand it, their great thought is this:—the world
is being lost, in a great revolt, ever more and more violent, against
God. The Gospel of our Salvation, that restorer of the individual man,
and, through the individual man, of Society, is unknown to the great
mass of human beings, in spite of the efforts made, up to the present
time, by Christians. The masses know only, on the one hand, what a
materialistic science may have imparted to them; and, on the other, what
they may have learned from a corrupt Roman Catholicism. At all costs,
the Gospel—the glad tidings of Salvation—must be proclaimed to _all_ the
poor, and if the churches are not sufficient for the task, we must do
it; and, if it is necessary, in order to speak to the Chinese, to dress
as the Chinese dress, we will adopt that dress, &c.... It cannot be too
much insisted upon, that what they offer is not offered to
us—Christians—but to those who remain to this day outside the reach of
all religious influences.”
As one who has seen something of the miseries and sorrows and
degradation of humanity in the persons of the most disinherited of God’s
creatures, it is impossible that I should not from the first moment have
hailed with joy the advent of this advanced guard of God’s great
“company of preachers” of the latter days by whom the gospel shall be
announced to “every creature!” It is impossible but that my sympathies
should go with them, and that I should praise God, daily, as I do,
because the dark lot of the world’s outcasts is now beginning to be
illuminated by a fuller ray of light and hope, because more of the
hungry multitudes are beginning to be fed, and because the rebels begin
to lay down their arms and to be reconciled to their God. I marvel how
anyone whose heart has bled for the woes of humanity, and whose desire,
(far above and beyond his loyalty to any particular sect or form of
worship), is that this poor humanity may find God and be at rest, can
fail to rejoice in what our eyes are at this day permitted to see. I
fail to understand how such can find the heart or the leisure for
endless criticism and reiterated attack on points which seem secondary
and minor. I speak with all respect for those who differ from me, or who
proclaim themselves at variance in matters of grave and primary import
with the Salvation Army. I bear in mind also while I write, and thank
God for, every Christian effort made and for all the noble work done by
those whom He is calling to harvest work in every church and sect, even
in those which most disapprove the methods of the Army.
For myself, however, I am prostrated in humiliation before God, because,
(albeit this new evangelizing force was a dream of my childhood, and has
been at all times the desire of my heart), I have, through the weakness
of my faith, so late in life, recognised the possibility of its
fulfilment, and only recognised that possibility when it is presented to
me in part as a realized fact. But now I rejoice and thank God.
No doubt many of the ways of the Army are very repugnant to the more
refined classes of Society; yet, in general their manner of dealing with
the people appears to be excellently and beautifully adapted to win,
comfort, instruct and control the classes whom they seek to save. I have
been especially struck with their _humanness_; a quality much wanting in
some Christian workers. It has been lately said, “Preachers and
Christian workers are so busy about saving _souls_, that they forget
that those whom they have to save are _men_ and _women_.” Our Saviour,
Jesus Christ, presented Himself to those who sought Him as a most
complete Saviour, the Saviour of the soul and the body, of the whole
being. He freed and blessed the whole man, woman, or child, who sought
His aid.
We may imagine, a poor, uncared-for, perhaps guilty and police-hunted
creature of our streets entering a church, and hearing a discourse
concerning pardon and peace. He is touched; he feels that the preacher
is full of concern and love for souls, for the souls of all those before
him; and he has spoken of One who gave His life for the lost. The poor
outcast of society leaves the church and mingles again in the crowd; he
feels again that he, personally, is of no account to anyone, and is
never sure after all that the message was for _him_, or that it is
possible for anyone to care for _him_. He needs a human encounter, a
living hand to grasp his, a personal recognition, in order to force into
his dark and hopeless soul the knowledge that God loves _him_; he needs
in fact that the assurance should come to him from the Eternal Father,
as to the prophet of old, “_thou_ hast found grace in My sight, and I
_know thee by name_.” This, the human side of the work of ministering to
souls, the Salvation Army understand well. They open the door of hope to
the poor, to sinners, criminals, rebels, outcasts, by proclaiming the
worth, the dignity, the preciousness of each individual man and woman
among them. Their kindly smiles are ever ready, their friendly hands are
always held out to grasp the hands of the dirtiest toilers in the holes
and corners of our cities, hands stained with crime, even with blood!
“Come! You are welcome! God loves you, God needs you,” is the word
addressed to each and to all. Rude rebuffs and insulting conduct do not
discourage them. They are ready with good-natured banter and repartee,
with a humorous sally, or homely persuasion, as the case may be.
That exquisite gift of God to human nature—a sense of humour,—prevails
largely among them, and is recognised by them as one of the attributes
of human beings which is to be purified and made use of in His service.
The solemn fears of some persons concerning the “eccentricities” of the
Salvation Army may be attributed to some extent to their absolute
incapacity for comprehending this almost universal attribute of at least
the lower classes of human beings—this humorousness, this playfulness,
which, delicately handled, aids and softens all our dealings with our
fellow men. It is a quality which has undoubtedly a tendency to run to
levity and coarseness, but on the other hand it is intimately allied
with all that is most tender and sweet in human nature. Solemnity is not
necessarily reverence. It required in my own case an effort of many
years to emancipate myself from the dismal and repelling impression made
upon me in childhood by attending some services in a Scottish
Presbyterian Church. The very walk of the churchgoers as they approached
the church, the artificially solemn manner and peculiarly lugubrious
tones of the preacher, the slowness of utterance, the heavy hymn
tunes!—these may be acceptable to persons of one character or age,
peculiarly constituted; but the gloom, and estrangement, for a time,
from all religious teaching that they worked in myself as a child lead
me to think it probable they have had the same effect on many
others—children not perhaps in age, but in knowledge and in judgment. On
this subject, M. Sautter de Blonay writes:—“Now, in every nation the
proportion of children is great. It is not only those who are yet
immature in age who are in reality children, but all those may be called
so in all classes of life, who in the domain of religion are novices in
the higher gymnastics of the intellect and the conscience. It is these
that the Salvation Army seeks to reach.... They have even expressed
regret that believers, spiritual adults, have come, through curiosity,
or some kind of sympathy to their meetings, for they felt that they had
nothing to give to these.... It is undoubtedly a fact that in our
churches, and even in our evangelizing fields of labour, we frequently
understand very little how to speak to children in spiritual matters a
language which they can understand. How often, I myself, who however am
not altogether a child in this respect, after having listened in one of
our places of worship, to a good and beautiful Christian dissertation,
have left the place wearied, exhausted. I wanted a little fortifying, a
little consolation, a little pure milk; and they gave me for nourishment
a dish of arguments which my weak intelligence or my lassitude made me
incapable of digesting. A child in music, I am unable to comprehend the
high harmonies of the German masters; but the simple song of an Italian,
with few notes, moves and charms me. Have we not often heard at the foot
of our Jura some honest peasant woman declare that she liked much better
to go to the little meetings of Madame —— than to the church or the
chapel, because _there_ she could understand at least what was said? In
thus speaking, I do not attack the preaching which is in vogue in our
churches: it is the fruit of our wholesome traditions; it must be
respected, and may not be attacked without danger. I only maintain that
though that teaching may nourish and edify the churches, it does not
tend to enlarge them, and but very feebly attracts towards them the mass
of our population. Those stragglers, wanderers, rebels against the
religion of the churches are precisely the people whom the Salvation
Army hope to attract by their innovations, (in form and method). It is
possible that this reaction may go beyond what is just or useful. But
when I look at the activity, the love of souls, the gentleness, the
spirit of self-consecration of these our brothers—not only, as has been
said, to the Army, but to God—when, on the other hand, I look at my own
inactivity, and the comfort in which I live, I blush for myself, not for
them.”
The Army no doubt owes some portion of its success in arresting the
attention and awakening the interest of the lower classes to the fact
that they never allow dullness to reign in their assemblies. Joy is
permitted to have free expression among them. Gladness of heart on
account of a newly found salvation, or of full soul-freedom gained, is
more unconventionally expressed among the inhabitants of our city slums
than it would be in a drawing-room conference or a cathedral or church
filled with refined and educated people. The cry against the Army for
its “irreverence” is often uttered in entire ignorance of the facts of
that human society into the midst of which their influence has come as a
light in a dark place. They are simple, ignorant people, those who
scandalize us; they are a literal people; they interpret the Scriptures
perhaps too literally. They read our Saviour’s words to His disciples,
“rejoice ye, and _leap for joy_.” They read in the Hebrew prophets the
reiterated call to sing and “make a noise,” to “shout for joy,” because
“great is the Holy One in the midst of thee!” Moreover, they are
actually filled with joy, with the irrepressible mirthfulness of
prisoners loosed, of bondmen set free; they have no high poetic speech
at command, they are not practised as we, in a more refined class, are,
in the polite repression of every natural or spiritual emotion; and I,
for one, neither blame nor wonder, therefore, when I see the pleasant
quickening of the pulses induced by joy of heart, develop into some
energetic physical movement, or a shout of praise set to an old
familiar, rapid song-tune hitherto devoted to the service of folly or
evil only. Can we justly blame the leaders of this great movement
because they do not succeed in forming, or do not even think it wise to
attempt to form out of these children of nature, (a very rough and
unpolished nature), polished gentlefolks, or even such men and women as
we meet in the decent lower middle class in England? It is the
spontaneity, however, alone of all such outward expressions of the
spiritual life which is their apology and _raison d’être_, and which
alone gives them the genuine grace, which, in my eyes at least, they
possess. If once they are studied for a certain rude effect, or are
announced as something to be performed, they become puerile, unmeaning,
and misleading. So far, however, as the leaders of the Army meetings
give full permission for the spontaneous expression of feeling, I take
it they are wise,—wise in respect of that portion of the people whom
they chiefly desire to save.
Our fellow Christians in Switzerland may possibly be scandalized by the
latitude granted in England to the eccentricities of revivalists.
Although my main object here is to present a true picture to English
readers of what has recently occurred in Switzerland, on the other hand,
I wish that what the Salvation Army has done for England, should also be
known in Switzerland. If an adequate conception could be formed by the
religious teachers in Switzerland of the actual condition of our great
cities, they would cease, I think, to condemn any methods by which the
awful problems presented by it may be brought nearer to their solution.
The population of London exceeds that of the whole of Switzerland. We
have, besides, our immense industrial cities of the provinces with their
teeming populations. Every evil, every difficulty of modern life is
proportionately magnified, and the sources of true life are choked, so
to speak, by the very exuberance of life itself, the seething, straining
human life, which has become a mere desperate or sullen struggle for its
own existence, and for defence against insupportable pressure on every
side. Christian effort has been put forth constantly and vigorously.
Much good work is done among the poor. The churches have taxed their
ingenuity in many directions. But below the stratum of the decent,
struggling poor, is a lower stratum still of beings who are scarcely
reached at all by Christians of the better classes: these are below
poverty, and beyond the pale of all civilizing influences. Again,
beneath this, deeper down still, is another stratum of humanity—a class
of beings of whose very existence statesmen and philanthropists only
become aware at long intervals, when some shock and upheaving of the
political or social ground brings up to the light of day these thousands
of miserable beings—unwashed, uncombed, scarcely clothed, hungry,
violent, revengeful, sullen, and only subdued for long periods, not by
any principle of self-restraint, but by the weight of a dull despair. We
have wondered, perhaps, in passing through the streets when some great
public event had called up to the light this underground population,
whence they come, how they live, where it is that these multitudes are
stowed away, above all, what is their future, and the future of the
nation which harbours them. There are among them men scarcely human in
appearance, birds of prey, bull-dogs, low-browed, and cunning; wrinkled
and old and careworn even in youth; full of deadly hatred against their
fellow men and against society. Can we wonder at it? If such were our
own condition, and our hearts had never been visited by a ray of
heaven’s light, should not we also hate? These men are the terror of the
police at all times; of our statesmen and political men occasionally. We
walk and live above a volcano which may burst forth, nay _will_ burst
forth, one of these days, unless these incipient elements of impending
revolution can be cleared away; and how is this to be done? The
Salvation Army has given us an answer; it has brought to us at least the
_hope of a solution_. It is these dangerous, degraded and forgotten
beings, these haters, these violent spirits, to whom, first, the
Salvationists addressed themselves. They have sought them out in the
lowest and most dangerous of their haunts; they have tried the power of
the name of Jesus, and invoked the transforming influence of the Holy
Ghost where they had never been so fully tried before; and they have
seen the wild beast changed to the lamb, the hater filled with kindness
and pity, the coarse and low and vicious become pure and gentle and holy
in life. There is no testimony in favour of the Salvation Army half so
powerful or so eloquent as the testimony of these transfigured lives and
faces. Those who have not seen them can scarcely imagine them. I have
seen them.
It happened that I passed one day by the door of a hall in a crowded
part of London where Salvationists of the humblest class were praying. I
entered. At the moment my mind was burdened by thoughts connected with
the difficulty and sadness of my own special mission. I kneeled in a
corner, endeavouring to free myself of the burden, in prayer. I suppose
that some tears or look of sadness attracted the attention of some of
those near; for I became aware that around me there was a little group,
who, although I was a perfect stranger to them, had taken my burden on
their own hearts, and were pleading for me. “Hear her, Lord,” they said,
“O give her all her heart’s desire! Lord, we don’t know what she is
wanting; but O give her all she asks, and that soon.” Wonderful
kindness! blessed ministering! And who were these ministers? The poorest
of the people, men and women who had been unearthed from those dark
dwellings of that lowest stratum of society I have spoken of. One of the
group was a young “jail-bird,” a discharged prisoner, of perhaps
eighteen or twenty years of age, lean, lantern-jawed, gaunt, clothed
almost in rags, with that look of prematurely developed acuteness and
sorrowfulness which stamps the countenances of the young in that class.
Years of misery and crime had set their mark on his poor features, but
through and above all shone the new-found happiness. The expression of
his lean, sunken face as he raised his eyes in prayer for me, a stranger
to him, reminded me of pictures I have seen, in Italian galleries, of
St. Francis, the apostle of poverty, in rapt communion with God. It was
a brightness such as one may see among the Alps when the glory of the
setting sun shines upon some worn and storm-blasted peak, and it stands
out radiant, as one of “God’s sentinels” bathed in a light not of earth.
Parenthetically I may remark that if I—who am not friendless or
lonely—was so deeply touched by the loving intercession on my behalf of
these poor saved outcasts, these strangers, how much must such
ministering attract and win converts to God and adherents to the Army
from among those who have not my advantages, and who perhaps have never
met with a word of true sympathy before?
“But,” I hear many say, “is not this a temporary emotion? Does it last?”
“Yes, it lasts;” I reply. None can say that there is never any falling
away; but there are solid and lasting results which can be given to
those who doubt;—facts and figures in abundance. There are magistrates
and judges finding little or nothing to do at assizes, in towns where
crime had before been rife; whole streets reformed; salvation,
spiritual, moral and social—granted to families, and to entire
neighbourhoods.
The modern fetishism, faith in the police, and in government by police,
is a danger and delusion towards which all civilized nations are rushing
more or less rapidly. It is a tyranny which establishes itself no less
under the shelter of a liberal or democratic Government, than under an
autocracy or empire. It has become in some nations a standing menace to
liberty, and an embarrassment even to the governments which, having once
given way to its encroachments, in vain attempt later to restrict its
functions. This is the power by which it is imagined that society may be
controlled and governed, and by which virtue and morality may be
secured. Fatal delusion! England herself is blinded as much as any other
nation to the dangers of this police rule. She is forging, link by link,
a chain for her own enslavement, which she will find it difficult to
break when she awakes to the fact that in forging it she has cast down
constitutional safeguards, and abandoned true self-government. There is
a cry arising from the nations, “What must we do to be saved,”
politically and socially saved? For the most part they have recourse in
their extremity to their fancied saviour, the police. New laws are
created and placed entirely for their execution in the hands of the
police. The power of the police is re-enforced continually. The most
august functions are exercised by it; the most delicate problems of our
social and domestic life are abandoned to it for solution. It can make
“regulations which have the force of law,” may interpret law without
recourse to legal authority, and exercises over a vast portion of the
citizens a power (a tyranny, rather) which is practically irresponsible.
Against this encroaching fetishism, this darkening tyranny of the
future, this hopeless attempt to regenerate and rule society by outward
compulsion, what have we to set? Nothing, nothing, except a return to
first principles, to the inflexible rule of justice, to the respect of
man by man; nothing except a renewal of faith in divine and eternal
truth, a moral regeneration, a practical return to the simplicity of
Christ; nothing except the preaching of the everlasting gospel to every
creature, and a full realization of the gift of the Spirit bestowed at
first on the day of Pentecost, and to be bestowed again in like manner
when there shall be found faith in the earth to claim the full
accomplishment of the promise.
If God who uses the weak, the foolish things of this world, the things
that are not, to do what the strong, the wise, the firmly established
cannot do, shall we murmur against Him, or refuse to rejoice in His
work? If He pleases to rebuke His Church and people, and to “provoke
them to jealousy by a people that are no people,” shall we suffer our
jealousy to express itself by criticism, blame, bitterness, persecution,
violation of law, illegal judgments and interdictions?
The appearance in our days of this wonderful Salvation Army is a crucial
test above all things of the existence among Christians of true love for
humanity and zeal for the salvation of men. How is it that in certain
parts of Switzerland, where there are the most perfect schools of
Theology, ministerial training and doctrinal teaching the most careful
and complete, so few are gathered in daily from the multitudes who are
living merely for this world’s interests or for gross pleasures? I think
it is because the hearts of the pastors and other Christians are _not_
filled with that holiest passion, that unquenchable fire of love for
souls which “beareth all things, endureth all things,” which literally
gives up all for Christ, and is able to do and to dare all things, even
unto death.
It would scarcely have been possible for injustice to have been pushed
so far as it has been against the Salvationists in Switzerland, had not
the Churches largely given their sanction to that injustice by their
attitude of silence, or of displeasure against what they may have deemed
an impertinent or needless encroachment on their own spiritual
territory. It is difficult to express the sorrow of heart, the
consternation which the contemplation of this part of the question has
awakened in some souls. The spirit manifested by many professing
Christians is very far from the spirit of Christ. “We saw one casting
out devils in Thy name,” said the disciples, “and we forbade him,
because he followeth not with us.” “Forbid him not,” was the Master’s
reply, “for he that is not against us is for us,” and, “there is no man
that casteth out devils in My name that can lightly speak evil of Me.”
This selfsame sign does follow the Salvationists; in His name they do
cast out evil spirits. It cannot be denied. In the spiritual power that
has been granted to them consists the rebuke given to professing
Christians out of whom the life has died. In this matter judgment has
begun at the household of God, and no sentence of expulsion against the
evangelists will cause that judgment to cease.
The antagonism of the Christian portion of the community to the
Salvation Army has been much more marked in Switzerland than in our own
country. Nevertheless there is much to take to heart in this matter
among us, English. It has been said that the concurrence of three social
Powers is necessary for the suppression of the messengers of an
unwelcome truth, viz., the Government, the rough, and the religious
professor. Solemn and painful thoughts are suggested by the fact that
there are Christians in Switzerland, (happily with many marked
exceptions,) who have, more or less unconsciously, aided their godless
Government and the mob of persecutors in this matter. The greater their
success in driving out from their midst the foreign evangelists, the
greater will be the loss to souls and the ultimate dishonour to the
authorities who, encouraged by the tacit sanction of Christians, have
committed an injustice, the sound of which will ring throughout
Christendom. It seems that so great has been the “ease in Zion” in that
country, that no attack could have been made upon the kingdom of
darkness, without a general uneasiness, excitement and resentment being
felt, not only among the irreligious, but among Zion’s watchmen who have
slept. Nevertheless, the very baptism of suffering through which the
persecuted Salvationists have passed, may be the precursor of renewed
spiritual life for that nation. Such is our hope and confidence. The
Salvationists (I do not speak of the English, but of the Swiss promoters
of the movement,) are becoming stronger every day; while a movement is
already in course of inauguration in those very cantons whose
governments have united in an act of injustice, with the view of
establishing a league in defence of civil and religious liberty.
Before quitting this portion of my subject, it is just that I should
record the fact that a number of respected citizens of Geneva, who were
members of the “Evangelical Alliance,” have resigned their membership of
the Genevan Committee of that league on account of the refusal of that
Committee to act, in this instance, in favour of religious liberty.
The Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1846, one of its first objects
being the defence of religious liberty.[2] It does not impose on its
members any sacrifice of their private religious views, but it holds
them to an engagement not to depart, in any discussion of their views,
from the true spirit of Christian brotherhood. It has interposed in
favour of persecuted Christians in Europe and elsewhere, sending
deputations to various Governments to demand the repeal of oppressive
laws or the liberation of prisoners confined for conscience sake. Rarely
have these interventions been unsuccessful. The Alliance interposed on
behalf of the Madiaï in Florence, of Matamoros and his companions in
Spain, of Missionaries and of converted Musselmans in Turkey and in
Syria, of persecuted Lutherans in the Baltic provinces of Russia, of
Lutheran Pastors at Hesse-Darmstadt, of Baptists in Germany, Russia,
Sweden and Switzerland, of French Missionaries among the Basutos, of
English in New Caledonia, of Nestorians in Prussia, of the Mortara
family in Rome, of Jews in Russia, of Communities founded by American
Missionaries in Upper Egypt, of a Pastor imprisoned in Spain, of
Reformers in Bohemia, &c., &c. There are Committees of this Association
at Geneva, and several other Swiss towns, these different Committees
forming a special branch of the Evangelical Alliance with its centre at
Berne. The refusal of this Swiss branch of the Alliance to act on the
occasion with which we are dealing was so great a shock to certain
members of those Committees that they saw there was no mode of action
open to them except to resign their membership of that branch. Their
resignation was couched in the following terms:—
“Geneva, March 22nd, 1883.
“TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE AT
GENEVA.
“DEAR SIR,—The decision which was taken in the meeting of March 15th
by the Geneva Committee of the Evangelical Alliance, lays upon us the
painful duty of withdrawing from this society in accordance with a
formal vote.
“At a meeting on March 12th, the Committee, after two long
deliberations, at a three weeks’ interval, _resolved first_, to
address an appeal to the Council of State of our canton in favour of
religious liberty, which had been violated in connection with the
Salvation Army. _Secondly_, to send an address to the Rev. W. Booth in
order to express to him in a friendly way the objections and fears
which several of the regulations and proceedings of his association
are raising in the minds of most of the members of the Committee, and
also to let him know that an appeal in favour of liberty for his work
had been made to the cantonal authorities.
“In the meeting of the 15th, same month, the Committee, in consequence
of several facts which had occurred in their midst, no important
outward circumstance having changed the question itself, repealed the
resolution of the 12th, and decided that nothing should be done. We
are convinced that in acting thus, the Committee has failed to see the
duties which are laid on the corps representing in Geneva the great
and noble idea of the Evangelical Alliance. All the traditions of this
association, its former achievements, the spirit even which called it
to life, constitute it the faithful watchman of religious liberty.
“The general conference held at Geneva in 1861, had even passed a
resolution which has been referred to, both in the motion presented to
the Committee by one of us on February 19th last, and in the draft of
the letter to the Council of State proposed the 12th of March by
another member of the Committee.
“This resolution runs as follows:—
“‘The Committee of the Evangelical Alliance established in the various
countries of the world are invited to watch over the interests of
religious liberty, to look carefully to any breach it might suffer, to
examine thoroughly all communications made on this subject, and to
correspond at once with the other Committees of the Alliance, to
deliberate on the best means of re-establishing or maintaining this
precious liberty.’
“Now we have seen with our own eyes, in this our town, so proud of its
light and its liberties, in this our country open to the free
expounding and discussion of all ideas, even of the newest, the
strangest, the most anti-Christian, the most anti-social—we have seen
religious meetings exposed to violent and rude attacks, and finally
prohibited by the Government. Harmless persons have been persecuted,
insulted and ill-treated for the sake of religion; strangers have been
brutally expelled by the police without having been guilty of any
other fault than that of holding their own opinions and their own
religious practices. And the Geneva Committee of the Evangelical
Alliance considers it right to maintain silence before such facts!
“What then will be the attitude of the Alliance, if called upon in
future as it has already been in the past, to make common cause with
some of its members in a delegation in order to remonstrate with some
Sovereign who may have tolerated such enormities on the part of some
of his governors of provinces, prefects or pachas? As for us, we
believe that we must cast out the beam in our own eye before trying to
pull out the mote or even the beam which may be in our brother’s eye.
“Is it possible to say that religious liberty is not at stake? Perhaps
not our own religious liberty. And yet, are there any among us Geneva
people who do not feel that a blow has been struck at their own right
of seeking edification where they choose to find it?
“True, our religious liberty remains untouched for the present; but is
our own liberty the only liberty to be respected? None can deny that
the prohibited meetings were religious meetings. Whatever efforts may
be made to attribute another character to these meetings, this point
is indisputable.
“Opinions on the doctrines and proceedings of the Salvation Army may
vary, and they do vary; but religious liberty is not defined only as
liberty for doctrines and religious forms which are approved of and
sufferable; it also means liberty for doctrines and forms which are
disapproved. So long as there is no crime, no contravention of the
laws, full liberty is granted. Crimes and contraventions of law come
within the province only of the tribunals. Religious liberty then, has
been violated; it is still violated, and it will continue to be
violated so long as either the decrees which prohibit the meetings of
the Salvation Army or those which have ordered the expulsion of some
of its members continue to exist.
“England, with its Established Church, France, with its tendencies so
unfavourable to Christianity, both tolerate the Salvation Army;
Geneva, with its pretensions to largeness and to liberality, refuses
to tolerate it! The Committee of the Evangelical Alliance ought not to
have passed over in silence such a state of things.
“Our Committee ought also to have acted from another point of view.
The Evangelical Alliance has intervened in favour of Jews, Roman
Catholics, and many others. How much more important are the duties
entailed on such a league when the liberty at stake is that of
brothers who boldly hold aloft the standard of Jesus Christ, and whose
faith and hope are the same as our own.
“We take objection to several points in their method of
evangelisation, perhaps also to several secondary points of doctrine
held by them; these objections are felt more strongly by some of our
members than by others; but we cannot deny that the Salvationists whom
we have seen at work at Geneva all bear the character of faithful,
convinced and devoted Christians. This being so, the Evangelical
Alliance which exists precisely for the purpose of manifesting to the
world the essential unity existing among all the disciples of Jesus,
our Saviour and our God, a unity which rises above all the diversities
which, under the name of churches or sects, have been created by human
weakness; the Evangelical Alliance which professes to gather into one
group all who seek their salvation at the foot of the cross, is silent
in face of this prohibition of meetings for prayer! It contemptuously
passes by, under the pretext that many of its members have no sympathy
with these people,—the Salvationists,—or that they even entirely
disapprove their mode of action. We cannot, we will not, follow the
Alliance in adopting such an attitude. It is true that we, the
undersigned, have no authority to speak in the name of the Evangelical
Alliance; but since the Geneva Committee, who alone could have done
it, refuses to protest, we do so in the only way in our power;—we
withdraw from the Geneva Committee.
“But on leaving the Geneva Committee, we declare openly that we do not
mean to leave the Evangelical Alliance itself. On the contrary, our
wish is to be faithful to the spirit of the Alliance. We remain
members of it, and we remain attached to it with all our heart. Nor do
we mean to break the bonds of fraternity and of co-operation which
unite personally several of us with many members of your Committee. A
clear position taken on the ground of principles can only make us more
desirous of showing our personal sympathies to brothers with whom we
are separated on a special point.
“Yours respectfully, &c.,
[Signed] “TH. AUDEOUD, J. P. DARDIER, FR. DE MORSIER, A. DE
MEURON, JAMES BALMER, D. LENOIR, P. BOURNE, GD. FILLIOL, G. TOPHEL,
PH. PRIVAT.”
The “Inner Mission” of France holds much the same position in regard to
this matter as the Swiss branch of the Evangelical Alliance. One of its
members having become an “Auxiliary” of the Army, was requested by the
authorities of that Association to sign a paper promising that he would
“request to have his name erased from the list of the Auxiliaries, and
that henceforth he would take no part in any of their meetings public or
private.” He declined to surrender his liberty to the extent of so
doing, and in consequence was obliged to send in his resignation to the
Committee of the Inner Mission.
I have here dwelt chiefly on the attitude of the religious world towards
the invading army of Evangelists. Of the deadly hatred on the part of
those outside all religious communions which they have encountered in
Switzerland, I shall speak in the course of the subsequent narrative, in
presenting the facts of the official and governmental action in the
matter. With regard to the latter, English readers may be assured that
there are many Swiss who are now fully awakened by the tyrannous conduct
of the Cantonal and Federal Governments in this direction, to the
extreme dangers of the “Radicalisme Autoritaire,” of which they have
long been suspicious. They are asking themselves how long their
political independence and unity are likely to last, or ought to last,
under such conditions. The persecution of the Salvation Army presents
itself to them as a question above all the minor and petty objections
raised by the persecutors to excuse their own action—_i.e._, as a plain
question of religious liberty of the most elementary kind. A Swiss
gentleman writes:—“To my mind, this persecution aims at the suppression
of all religion, not at one form of it alone. It is a pure piece of
dogmatic atheism. France will not probably go so far as Switzerland
seems now to be going. The suppression of the Salvation Army is only one
step in the series which tends to the suppression of the _Christian
morality_.”
But we have confidence, that whatever of tribulation and conflict may be
at hand, these gloomiest predictions will not be fulfilled. For the work
of the new Evangelists is prospering and progressing daily, both outside
and in the Churches, even while its leaders are banished, or forbidden
to meet and to speak.
Such has ever been the effect of attempts to stamp out a divine seed
once sown, or to extinguish the spark of divine fire once kindled in the
souls of God’s people. Go on, if you will, police, mobs and Governments,
in the way on which you have entered! Persecute, forbid, spy, hunt,
fine, insult and slay! You will only fortify the movement which you
hate, and help to build up, on the strongest foundation which can be
laid, the living Church of the future in Switzerland.