The Salvation Army, contrary to what has often been thought by
surface observers, has owed its existence, its strength, and its
success chiefly to our careful attention to the profoundest
questions of the soul.
And still, as always, we wish to urge upon all the study of those
great practical truths, without the proclamation of which our
work for men would cease to have any abiding value. We glory in
the knowledge of Christ as a perfect Saviour just as much for
this, our own time, as for any past generation, or for any
generation yet to come. The pretence that this age has reached
some superior development, whether mental or moral, for which a
new kind of Saviour is needed, seems to us absurd. And we do not
believe it can long endure where Christ is really known.
To the most thoughtful, therefore, as well as to those who have
the least time for thought, I earnestly commend the words of
devout and practical men upon those great questions, which I hope
to see reproduced in the series of which the present volume is
the first. Prayerful reading of their messages cannot but lead to
immediate action, to a complete self-abandonment to God, and to a
realizing faith in His power to use every one of His sons and
daughters for the healing of the world's open sores and the
triumph of His Rule.
BRAMWELL BOOTH. LONDON, January, 1909.