Part 15 (1/2)

To only one point will I call attention--that of the general note of confidence which runs through Mr. Bramwell Booth's remarks. Clearly he at least does not believe that the Salvation Army is in danger of dissolution. Like his father, he believes that it will go on from good to good and from strength to strength.

There remain, however, one or two other points that we discussed together to which I will allude. Thus I asked him if he had anything to say as to the attacks which from time to time were made upon the Army. He replied as his father had done: 'Nothing, except that they were best left to answer themselves.'

Then our conversation turned to the matter of the resignation of certain Officers of the Army which had caused some pa.s.sing public remark.

'We have an old saying here,' he said, with some humour, 'that we do not often lose any one whom we very much desire to keep.'

I pointed out that I had heard allegations made to the effect that the Army Officers were badly paid, hardly treated, and, when they proved of no more use, let go to find a living as best they could.

He replied that, as to the matter of money, the Army had established a Pension fund in all the Western countries, which now amounts to a large total. In this country the sum was about 44,000, and during 1909 about 1,800 had been paid here in pensions. This, however, was only a beginning, but he thought that the effort was being made on the right lines, and that, notwithstanding their poverty, a really adequate Pension fund would be built up in due course.

Then of a sudden he became eloquent. He said he admitted that the Army had little to offer. Those who came into its service knew that this was so; that they had no hope of temporal reward; that thenceforth the great feature of their life and work was that it must be filled with labour and self-denial. The whole business of helping and saving our fellow-creatures was one of struggle and suffering. Sacrifice was the key-note of Christianity as laid down by its Founder. Those who sought money and temporal honour must look elsewhere than to the Salvation Army. Its pride and glory was that thousands were willing to suffer and deny themselves from year to year, and to find their joy and their recompense in the consciousness that they were doing something, however little, to lighten the darkness and relieve the misery of the world.

Here are some of his actual words upon this matter that I will quote, as I cannot better them:--

'The two facts of real consequence about our Officers are these: First, that their numbers go on increasing year by year, and second, that they remain devoted to their work, very poor, and absolutely bent on obtaining a reward in Heaven. But let me quote here from General Booth on this matter:--

'”I resolved that no disadvantage as to birth, or education, or social condition should debar any one from entering the list of combatants so long as he was one with me in love for G.o.d, in faith for the salvation of men, and in willingness to obey the orders he should receive from me and from those I authorized to direct him. I have, of course, had many disappointments--not a few of them very hard to bear at the time--but from the early days of 1868, when I engaged my first recognized helper, to 1878, when the number had increased by slow degrees to about 100, and on to the present day, when their number is rapidly approaching 20,000, there has not been a single year without its increase, not only in quant.i.ty, but in quality.

'”I am sometimes asked, What about those who have left me? Well, I am thankful to say that we remain in sympathetic and friendly relations with the great bulk of them. It was to be expected that in work such as ours, demanding, as it does, not only arduous toil and constant self-denial and often real hards.h.i.+ps of one kind or another, some should prove unworthy, some should grow weary, and others should faint by the way, whilst others again, though very excellent souls, should prove unsuitable. It could not be otherwise, for we are engaged in real warfare, and whoever heard of war without wounds and losses? But even of those who do thus step aside from the position of Officers, a large proportion--in this country nine out of ten--remain with us, engaged in some voluntary effort in our ranks.”'

'But,' continued Mr. Bramwell Booth, 'I would be the last person to minimize our losses. They may be accounted for in the most natural way, and yet we cannot but feel them and suffer from them. And yet it is all just a repet.i.tion of the Bible stories of all ages; nay, of all stories of genuine fighting in any great cause. The great feature of our present experience in this matter is that the number who go out from us grows every year smaller in proportion to the whole, and that, as the General says in the above extract, a very large proportion of those continue in friendly relations with us.

'The triumph of these splendid men and women, in the face of every kind of difficulty in every part of the world is, however, really a triumph of their faith. It is not the Army, it is not their leaders, it is not even the wonderful devotion which many of them manifest, which is the secret of their continued life and continued success, nor is it any confidence in their own abilities. No! The true representative of the Army is relying at every turn upon the presence, guidance, and help of G.o.d in trying to carry out the Father's purpose with respect to every lost and suffering child of man. By that test, alike in the present and future, we must ever stand or fall. The Army is either a work of faith or it is nothing at all.

'Everything throughout all our ranks can really be brought to that test, and I regard with composure every loss and attack, every puzzle and danger, chiefly because I rely upon my comrades' trust in G.o.d being responded to by Him according to their need.'

Perhaps I may be allowed to add a few remarks upon this subject. A great deal is made of the resignation of a few Salvation Army Officers in order that they may accept excellent posts in other walks of life; indeed, it is not uncommon to see it stated that such resignations herald the dissolution of the Society. Inasmuch as the number of the Army's Officers is nearing 20,000 it would seem that it can very well spare a few of them. What fills me with wonder is not that some go, but that so many remain. _This_ is one of the facts which, amongst much that is discouraging, convinces me of the innate n.o.bility of man.

An old friend of mine of pious disposition once remarked to me that _he_ could never have been a Christian martyr. At the first twist of the cord, or the first nip of the red-hot pincers, he was sure that _he_ would have thrown incense by the handful upon the altar of any heathen G.o.d or G.o.ddess that was fas.h.i.+onable at the moment. His spirit might have been willing, but his flesh would certainly have proved weak.

I sympathized with the honesty of this confession, and in the same way I sympathize with those Officers of the Salvation Army who, in racing slang, cannot 'stay the course.'

Let us consider the lot of these men. Any who have entered on even a secular crusade, something that takes them off the beaten, official paths, that leads them through the thorns and wildernesses of a new, untravelled country, towards some distant goal seen dimly, or not seen at all except in dreams, will know what such an undertaking means. It means snakes in the gra.s.s; it means savages, or in other words veiled and poisonous hatreds and bitter foes, or, still worse, treacherous friends. The crusader may get through, in which case no one will thank him except, perhaps, after he is dead. Or he may fail and perish, in which case every one will mock at him. Or he may retreat discouraged and return to the official road, in which case his friends will remark that they are glad to see that his insanity was only of the intermittent order, and that at length he has learned his place in the world and to whom he ought to touch his cap.

Well, these are official roads to Heaven as well as to the House of Lords and other mundane goals, a fact which the Salvation Army Officer and others of his kind have probably found out. On the official road, if he has interest and ability--the first is to be preferred--he might have become anything, and with ordinary fortune would certainly have become something.

But on the path that he has chosen what is there for him to gain? An inheritance of dim glory beyond the stars, obscured doubtless from time to time, if he is like other men, by sudden and sickening eclipses of his faith. And meanwhile the daily round, the insolent gibe, and the bitter ingrat.i.tude of men that leaves him grieving. Also not enough money to pay for a cab when it is wet, and considerable uncertainty as to the future of his children, and even as to his own old age. Few comforts for him, not even those of a gla.s.s of wine to stimulate him, or of tobacco to soothe his nerves, for these are forbidden to him by the rules of his Order. Unless he can reach the very top of his particular tree also, which it is most unlikely that he will, no public recognition even of his faithful, strenuous work, and who is there that at heart does not long for public recognition?

In short, nothing that is desirable to man save the consciousness of a virtue which, after all, he must feel to be indifferent (being well aware of his own secret faults), and the satisfaction of having helped a certain number of lame human dogs over moral or physical stiles.

In such a case and in a world which we must admit to be selfish and imperfect, the wonder is not that certain Salvation Army Officers, being trained men of high ability, yield to tempting offers and go, but that so many of them remain.

'Look at my case,' said one of them to me. 'With my experience and organizing ability I am worth 2,000 a year as the manager of any big business, and I could have it if I liked. Here I get about 200!'

This was one of those who remain. I say all honour to such n.o.ble souls, for surely they are of the salt of the earth.

NOTE ON THE RELIGION OF THE SALVATION ARMY