Sir,--In discussing Mr. Booth's projects I have hitherto left in the
background a distinction which must be kept well in sight by those who
wish to form a fair judgment of the influence, for good or evil, of
the Salvation Army. Salvationism, the work of "saving souls" by
revivalist methods, is one thing; Boothism, the utilization of the
workers for the furtherance of Mr. Booth's peculiar projects, is
another. Mr. Booth has captured, and harnessed with sharp bits and
effectual blinkers, a multitude of ultra-Evangelical missionaries of
the revivalist school who were wandering at large. It is this
skilfully, if somewhat mercilessly, driven team which has dragged the
"General's" coach-load of projects into their present position.
[262] Looking, then, at the host of Salvationists proper, from the
"captains" downwards (to whom, in my judgment, the family hierarchy
stands in the relation of the Old Man of the Sea to Sinbad), as an
independent entity, I desire to say that the evidence before me,
whether hostile or friendly to the General and his schemes, is
distinctly favourable to them. It exhibits them as, in the main,
poor, uninstructed, not unfrequently fanatical, enthusiasts, the
purity of whose lives, the sincerity of whose belief, and the
cheerfulness of whose endurance of privation and rough usage, in what
they consider a just cause, command sincere respect. For my part,
though I conceive the corybantic method of soul-saving to be full of
dangers, and though the theological speculations of these good people
are to me wholly unacceptable, yet I believe that the evils which must
follow in the track of such errors, as of all other errors, will be
largely outweighed by the moral and social improvement of the people
whom they convert. I would no more raise my voice against them (so
long as they abstain from annoying their neighbours) than I would
quarrel with a man, vigorously sweeping out a stye, on account of the
shape of his broom, or because he made a great noise over his work. I
have always had a strong faith in the principle of the injunction,
"Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." If a
kingdom is worth a Mass, as a great [263] ruler said, surely the reign
of clean living, industry, and thrift is worth any quantity of
tambourines and eccentric doctrinal hypotheses. All that I have
hitherto said, and propose further to say, is directed against Mr.
Booth's extremely clever, audacious, and hitherto successful attempt
to utilize the credit won by all this honest devotion and
self-sacrifice for the purposes of his socialistic autocracy.
I now propose to bring forward a little more evidence as to how things
really stand where Mr. Booth's system has had a fair trial. I obtain
it, mainly, from a curious pamphlet, the title of which runs: "The New
Papacy. Behind the Scenes in the Salvation Army," by an ex-Staff
Officer. "Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise" (John ii.
16). 1889. Published at Toronto, by A. Britnell. On the cover it is
stated that "This is the book which was burned by the authorities of
the Salvation Army." I remind the reader, once more, that the
statements which I shall cite must be regarded as ex parte; all I can
vouch for is that, on grounds of internal evidence and from other
concurrent testimony respecting the ways of the Booth hierarchy, I
feel justified in using them.
This is the picture the writer draws of the army in the early days of
its invasion of the Dominion of Canada:--
[264] "Then, it will be remembered, it professed to be the humble
handmaid of the existing churches; its professed object was the
evangelization of the masses. It repudiated the idea of building up a
separate religious body, and it denounced the practice of gathering
together wealth and the accumulation of property. Men and women other
than its own converts gathered around it and threw themselves heart
and soul into the work, for the simple reason that it offered, as they
supposed, a more extended and widely open field for evangelical
effort. Ministers everywhere were invited and welcomed to its
platforms, majors and colonels were few and far between, and the
supremacy and power of the General were things unknown . . . Care was
taken to avoid anything like proselytism; its converts were never
coerced into joining its ranks... In a word, the organization
occupied the position of an auxiliary mission and recruiting agency
for the various religious bodies.... The meetings were crowded, people
professed conversion by the score, the public liberally supplied the
means to carry on the work in their respective communities; therefore
every corps was wholly self-supporting, its officers were properly, if
not luxuriously, cared for, the local expenditure was amply provided,
and, under the supervision of the secretary, a local member, and the
officer in charge, the funds were disbursed in the towns where they
were collected, and the [265] spirit of satisfaction and confidence
was mutual all around" (pp. 4, 5).