SIR,--In making use of the only evidence of the actual working of Mr.
Booth's autocratic government accessible to me, I was fully aware of
the slippery nature of the ground upon which I was treading. For, as I
pointed out in my first letter, "no personal habit more surely
degrades the conscience and the intellect than blind and unhesitating
obedience to unlimited authority." Now we have it, on Mr. Booth's own
showing that every officer of his has undertaken to "obey without
questioning or gainsaying the orders from headquarters." And the
possible relations of such orders to honour and veracity are
demonstrated not only by the judicial deliverance on Mr. Booth's
affidavit in the "Eagle" case, which I have already cited; not only by
Mr. Bramwell Booth's admission before Mr. Justice Lopes that he had
stated what was "not quite correct" because he had "promised Mr. Stead
not to divulge" the facts of the case (the "Times," November 4th,
1885); but by the following passage in Mr. Hodges's account of the
reasons of his withdrawal from the Salvation Army:--
"The general and Chief did not and could [281] not deny doing these
things; the only question was this, Was it right to practise this
deception? These points of difference were fully discussed between
myself and the Chief of the Staff on my withdrawal, especially the
Leamington incident, which was the one that finally drove me to
decision. I had come to the conclusion, from the first, that they had
acted as they supposed with a single eye to the good of God's cause,
and had persuaded myself that the things were, as against the devil,
right to be done, that as in battle one party captured and turned the
enemy's own guns upon them, so, as they were fighting against the
devil, it would be fair to use against him his weapons. And I wrote to
this effect to the "General" (p. 63)."
Now, I do not wish to say anything needlessly harsh, but I ask any
prudent man these questions. Could I, under these circumstances, trust
any uncorroborated statement emanating from headquarters, or made by
the General's order? Had I any reason to doubt the truth of Mr.
Hodges's naive confession of the corrupting influence of Mr. Booth's
system? And did it not behove me to pick my way carefully through the
mass of statements before me, many of them due to people whose moral
sense might, by possibility, have been as much blunted by the army
discipline in the [282] use of the weapons of the devil as Mr. Hodges
affirms that his was?
Therefore, in my third letter, I commenced my illustrations of the
practical working of Boothism with the evidence of Mr. Redstone,
fortified and supplemented by that of a non-Salvationist, Dr.
Cunningham Geikie. That testimony has not been challenged, and, until
it is, I shall assume that it cannot be. In my fourth letter, I cited
a definite statement by Mr. Hodges in evidence of the Jesuitical
principles of headquarters. What sort of answer is it to tell us that
Mr. Hodges was dismissed the army? A child might expect that some such
red herring would be drawn across the trail; and, in anticipation of
the stale trick, I added the strong prima facie evidence of the
trustworthiness of my witness, in this particular, which is afforded
by the "Eagle" case. It was not until I wrote my fourth letter to you,
Sir--until the exploitation of the "captains" and the Jesuitry of
headquarters could be proved up to the hilt--that I ventured to have
recourse to "The New Papacy." So far as the pamphlet itself goes, this
is an anonymous work; and, for sufficient reasons, I did not choose to
go beyond what was to be found between its covers. To any one
accustomed to deal with the facts of evolution, the Boothism of "The
New Papacy" was merely the natural and necessary development of the
Boothism of Mr. Redstone's case and of the [283] "Eagle" case.
Therefore, I felt fully justified in using it, at the same time
carefully warning my readers that it must be taken with due caution.
Mr. Trotter's useful letter admits that such a book was written by a
person with whom he had the "pleasure of an interview," and that a
version of it (interpolated, according to his assertion) was published
against the will of the author. Hence I am justified in believing that
there is a foundation of truth in certain statements, some of which
have long been in my possession, but which for lack of Mr. Trotter's
valuable corroboration I have refrained from using. The time is come
when I can set forth some of the heads of this information, with the
request that Mr. Trotter, who knows all about the business, will be so
good as to point out any error that there may be in them. I am bound
to suppose that his sole object, like mine, is the elucidation of the
truth, and to assume his willingness to help me therein to the best of
his ability.
1. "The author of 'The New Papacy' is a Mr. Sumner, a person of
perfect respectability, and greatly esteemed in Toronto, who held a
high position in the Army. When he left, a large public meeting,
presided over by a popular Methodist minister, passed a vote of
sympathy with him."
[284] Is this true or false?
2. "On Saturday last, about noon, Mr. Sumner, the author of the
book, and Mr. Fred Perry, the Salvation Army printer, accompanied by a
lawyer, went down to Messrs. Imrie and Graham's establishment, and
asked for all the manuscript, stereotype plates, &c., of the book. Mr.
Sumner explained that the book had been sold to the Army, and, on a
cheque for the amount due being given, the printing material was
delivered up."
Did these paragraphs appear in the "Toronto Telegram" of April 24th,
1889, or did they not? Are the statements they contain true or false?
3. "Public interest in the fate or probable outcome of that mysterious
book called 'The New Papacy; or, Behind the Scenes in the Salvation
Army,' continues unabated, though the line of proceedings by the
publisher and his solicitor, Mr. Smoke, of Watson, Thorne, Smoke, and
Masten, has not been altered since yesterday. The book, no doubt, will
be issued in some form. So far as known, only one complete copy
remains, and the whereabouts of this is a secret which will be
profoundly kept. It is safe to say that if the Commissioner kept on
guessing until the next anniversary, he would not strike the secluded
[285] location of the one volume among five thousand which escaped,
when he and his assistant, Mr. Fred Perry, believed they had cast
every vestige of the forbidden work into the fiery furnace. On Tuesday
last, when the discovery was made that a copy of 'The New Papacy' was
in existence, Publisher Britnell, of Yonge Street, was at once the
suspected holder, and in a short time his book-store was the resort of
army agents sent to reconnoitre" ("Toronto News," April 28th, 1889).
Is this a forgery, or is it not? Is it in substance true or false?
When Mr. Trotter has answered these inquiries categorically, we may
proceed to discuss the question of interpolations in Mr. Sumner's
book.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. H. Huxley.
[On the 26th of December a letter, signed J. T. Cunningham, late Fellow of
University College, Oxford, called forth the following commentary.]
[286]