SIR: A short time ago a generous and philanthropic friend wrote to me,
placing at my disposal a large sum of money for the furtherance of the
vast scheme which the "General" of the Salvation Army has propounded,
if I thought it worthy of support. The responsibility of advising my
benevolent correspondent has weighed heavily upon me, but I felt that
it would be cowardly, as well as ungracious, to refuse to accept it. I
have therefore studied Mr. Booth's book with some care, for the
purpose of separating the essential from the accessory features of his
project, and I have based my judgment--I am sorry to say an
unfavourable one--upon the data thus obtained. Before communicating my
conclusions to my friend, however, I am desirous to know what there
may be to be said in arrest of that judgment; [238] and the matter is
of such vast public importance that I trust you will aid me by
publishing this letter, notwithstanding its length.
There are one or two points upon which I imagine all thinking men have
arrived at the same convictions as those from which Mr. Booth starts.
It is certain that there is an immense amount of remediable misery
among us, that, in addition to the poverty, disease, and degradation
which are the consequences of causes beyond human control, there is a
vast, probably a very much larger, quantity of misery which is the
result of individual ignorance, or misconduct, and of faulty social
arrangements. Further, I think it is not to be doubted that, unless
this remediable misery is effectually dealt with, the hordes of vice
and pauperism will destroy modern civilization as effectually as
uncivilized tribes of another kind destroyed the great social
organization which preceded ours. Moreover, I think all will agree
that no reforms and improvements will go to the root of the evil
unless they attack it in its ultimate source--namely, the motives of
the individual man. Honest, industrious, and self-restraining men will
make a very bad social organization prosper; while vicious, idle, and
reckless citizens will bring to ruin the best that ever was, or ever
will be, invented.
The leading propositions which are peculiar to Mr. Booth I take to be
these:--
[239] (1) That the only adequate means to such reformation of the
individual man is the adoption of that form of somewhat corybantic
Christianity of which the soldiers of the Salvation Army are the
militant missionaries. This implies the belief that the excitement of
the religious emotions (largely by processes described by their
employers as "rousing" and "convivial") is a desirable and trustworthy
method of permanently amending the conduct of mankind.
I demur to these propositions. I am of opinion that the testimony of
history, no less than the cool observation of that which lies within
the personal experience of many of us, is wholly adverse to it.
(2) That the appropriate instrument for the propagation and
maintenance of this peculiar sacramental enthusiasm is the Salvation
Army--a body of devotees, drilled and disciplined as a military
organization, and provided with a numerous hierarchy of officers,
every one of whom is pledged to blind and unhesitating obedience to
the "General," who frankly tells us that the first condition of the
service is "implicit, unquestioning obedience." "A telegram from me
will send any of them to the uttermost parts of the earth"; every one
"has taken service on the express condition that he or she will obey,
without questioning, or gainsaying, the orders from headquarters"
("Darkest England," p. 243).
[240] This proposition seems to me to be indisputable. History confirms
it. Francis of Assisi and Ignatius Loyola made their great
experiments on the same principle. Nothing is more certain than that a
body of religious enthusiasts (perhaps we may even say fanatics)
pledged to blind obedience to their chief, is one of the most
efficient instruments for effecting any purpose that the wit of man
has yet succeeded in devising. And I can but admire the insight into
human nature which has led Mr. Booth to leave his unquestioning and
unhesitating instruments unbound by vows. A volunteer slave is worth
ten sworn bondsmen.
(3) That the success of the Salvation Army, with its present force
of 9416 officers "wholly engaged in the work," its capital of three
quarters of a million, its income of the same amount, its 1375 corps
at home, and 1499 in the colonies and foreign countries (Appendix, pp.
3 and 4), is a proof that Divine assistance has been vouchsafed to its
efforts.
Here I am not able to agree with the sanguine Commander-in-chief of
the new model, whose labours in creating it have probably interfered
with his acquisition of information respecting the fate of previous
enterprises of like kind.
It does not appear to me that his success is in any degree more
remarkable than that of Francis of Assisi or that of Ignatius Loyola,
than that [241] of George Fox, or even than that of the Mormons, in
our own time. When I observe the discrepancies of the doctrinal
foundations from which each of these great movements set out, I find
it difficult to suppose that supernatural aid has been given to all of
them; still more, that Mr. Booth's smaller measure of success is
evidence that it has been granted to him.
But what became of the Franciscan experiment?* If there was one rule
rather than another on which the founder laid stress, it was that his
army of friars should be absolute mendicants, keeping themselves
sternly apart from all worldly entanglements. Yet, even before the
death of Francis, in 1226, a strong party, headed by Elias of Cortona,
the deputy of his own appointment, began to hanker after these very
things; and, within thirty years of that time, the Franciscans had
become one of the most powerful, wealthy, and worldly corporations in
Christendom, with their fingers in every sink of political and social
corruption, if so be profit for the order could be fished out of it;
their principal interest being to fight their rivals, the Dominicans,
and to persecute such of their own brethren as were honest enough to
try to carry out their founder's plainest injunctions. We also know
what has become of Loyola's experiment. For two centuries the Jesuits
have been the hope of the enemies of the Papacy; whenever it becomes
too prosperous, they are sure to bring about a catastrophe by their
corrupt use of the political and social influence which their
organization and their wealth secure.
* See note pp. 245-247]
[242] With these examples of that which may happen to institutions
founded by noble men, with high aims, in the hands of successors of a
different stamp, armed with despotic authority, before me, common
prudence surely requires that, before advising the handing over of a
large sum of money to the general of a new order of mendicants, I
should ask what guarantee there is that, thirty years hence, the
"General" who then autocratically controls the action, say, of 100,000
officers pledged to blind obedience, distributed through the whole
length and breadth of the poorer classes, and each with his finger on
the trigger of a mine charged with discontent and religious
fanaticism; with the absolute control, say, of eight or ten millions
sterling of capital and as many of income; with barracks in every town,
with estates scattered over the country, and with settlements in the
colonies--will exercise his enormous powers, not merely honestly, but
wisely? What shadow of security is there that the person who wields
this uncontrolled authority over many thousands of men shall use it
solely for those philanthropic and religious objects which, I do not
doubt, are alone in the mind of Mr. Booth? Who is to say that the
Salvation Army, in the year [243] 1920, shall not be a replica of what
the Franciscan order had become in the year 1260?
The personal character and the intentions of the founders of such
organizations as we are considering count for very little in the
formation of a forecast of their future; and if they did, it is no
disrespect to Mr. Booth to say that he is not the peer of Francis of
Assisi. But if Francis's judgment of men was so imperfect as to permit
him to appoint an ambitious intriguer of the stamp of Brother Elias
his deputy, we have no right to be sanguine about the perspicacity of
Mr. Booth in a like matter.
Adding to all these considerations the fact that Mr. Llewelyn Davies,
the warmth of whose philanthropy is beyond question, and in whose
competency and fairness I, for one, place implicit reliance, flatly
denies the boasted success of the Salvation Army in its professed
mission, I have arrived at the conclusion that, as at present advised,
I cannot be the instrument of carrying out my friend's proposal.
Mr. Booth has pithily characterized certain benevolent schemes as
doing sixpennyworth of good and a shilling's worth of harm. I grieve
to say that, in my opinion, the definition exactly fits his own
project. Few social evils are of greater magnitude than uninstructed
and unchastened religious fanaticism; no personal habit more surely
degrades the conscience and the intellect than [244] blind and
unhesitating obedience to unlimited authority. Undoubtedly, harlotry
and intemperance are sore evils, and starvation is hard to bear, or
even to know of; but the prostitution of the mind, the soddening of
the conscience, the dwarfing of manhood are worse calamities. It is a
greater evil to have the intellect of a nation put down by organized
fanaticism; to see its political and industrial affairs at the mercy
of a despot whose chief thought is to make that fanaticism prevail; to
watch the degradation of men, who should feel themselves individually
responsible for their own and their country's fates, to mere brute
instruments, ready to the hand of a master for any use to which he may
put them.
But that is the end to which, in my opinion, all such organizations as
that to which kindly people, who do not look to the consequences of
their acts, are now giving their thousands, inevitably tend. Unless
clear proof that I am wrong is furnished, another thousand shall not
be added by my instrumentality.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.
[245]