Twenty years ago the Hallelujah Band spread itself far and wide, but soon spent itself like a straw fire. Then arose the Salvation Army, doing the same kind of work, and indulging in the same vagaries. These were imitations of the antics of the cruder forms of Methodism. Even the all-night meetings of the Whitechapel Salvationists, ten years ago, were faint copies of earlier Methodist gatherings, especially of those in Cornwall, which were described by the Rev. Richard Polwhele.(1) “At. St. Agnes,” said this writer, “the Society stays up the whole night, when girls of twelve and fourteen years of age ran about the streets, calling out that they are possessed.” At Probus “the preacher at a late hour of the night, after all but the higher classes left the room, would order the candles to be put out, and the saints fall down and kneel on their naked knees; when he would go round and thrust his hand under every knee to feel if it were bare.” The Salvationists never went so far as this. Freaks of such description are left, in this age, to the followers of King Solomon in the Brighton Glory Hole. But a friend of ours, who visited an all-night Salvation meeting at Whitechapel in 1882, told us that the light was very dim, the voices were low, cheeks came perilously close in prayer, and at one moment the proceedings threatened to develope into a thoroughgoing love-feast. Anecdotes of Methodism.
As far as a more cultivated age would allow, the Salvation Army advertised and recruited itself by the familiar practices of what Professor Huxley calls “corybantic Christianity.” During the last six or seven years it has grown more decorous, but prior to that time its vulgarity was excessive. Its songs, its rowdy meetings, its coarse, imbecile language, its ludicrous street processions, were enough to furnish a Swift with fresh material for his indictment of mankind. The names of its officers, as reported in its journal, were curiosities to the student of human aberration. There was the “Hallelujah Fishmonger,” the “Blood-washed Miner,” the “Devil Dodger,” the “Devil Walloper,” and “Gypsy Sal.” Many of the worshippers of success who are now flocking around General Booth as a new Savior of Society, would be astonished if they were to turn over the old pages of the War Cry.
No one can pretend that “General,” Booth is a man of spiritual genius. He is essentially a man of business. His faculty is for organisation, not for the promulgation of new ideas or the creation of new material. His eye for a good advertisement is unequalled. Barnum forgot Booth in calling himself the greatest showman on earth. As the present writer said in 1882, the head of the Salvation Army is “a dexterous manager; he knows how to work the oracle; he understands catering for the mob; in short he is a very clever showman, who deals in religion, just as other showmen deal in wild animals, giants, dwarfs, two-headed sheep, fat women, and Siamese twins.”
Everything in the Salvation Army is subordinated to “business.” At the head-quarters a minute register is kept of all the officers. Few of them are paid a regular salary. They are largely dependent on “results.” Whatever their faculty may be for “saving souls,” they must rake in enough shekels, or they are drafted from post to post, and finally discharged. On the same principle, Booth has married his family “well,” as the world calls it, and put them into all the higher posts.
By this means he secures a select circle of trusted subordinates, who convey his orders to the lower circles of the Army, and see to their execution. While this plan lasts there will be no dangerous mutiny; especially as, in addition, the whole of the Army’s property is held in the name of William Booth. There is, in fact, a Booth dynasty; though it may be doubted if the dynasty will long outlast its founder. Certainly his death will cause changes, and his empire will probably split up like Alexander’s.
Eight years ago the General’s eldest sun was married to a young lady of ‘‘great expectations,” who joined the Booths against her father’s wishes. With a keen eye for business, the General resolved to turn the marriage into a public show. Of course, the legal ceremony had to be performed elsewhere, but the Salvation performance came off at the Army’s biggest meeting-place. The price of admission was a shilling a head, and ￡300 was taken at the doors. A collection was also made inside. During the speech of “Commissioner” Railton, an able man who has had an eccentric career, the crowd began to press towards the door. “Stop,” cried Booth, “don’t go yet, there’s going to be a collection.” But the audience melted faster than ever. Then the General jumped up, stopped Railton unceremoniously, and shouted, “Hold on! we’ll make the collection now.”
During the farcical marriage ceremony the General was duly facetious. His remarks tickled the ears of the groundlings. There was also the usual spice of blasphemy. Before Bramwell Booth marched on to the platform a board was held up bearing the inscription,
“Behold the bridegroom cometh.”
Begging letters were sent out by Commissioner Railton, though cheques were to be “payable to William Booth, as usual.” It was sought to raise a good sum, not for Bramwell personally, but to reduce the Army’s debt of ￡11,000. The printed slips were headed,
“Wedding Presents to Mr. Bramwell Booth,” who was stated to have worked so hard for the Army that his hair was grey at twenty-seven. But the piety was properly mixed with the business, and subscribers were told that their cash would not only gladden the hearts of the Booths, but “make the devil tremble,” and “give earth and hell another shock.”
This experiment was so successful that the General has repeated it on several occasions. But he carried indecency to the point of disgustfulness at the funeral of Mrs. Booth. The poor lady’s corpse was dragged hither and thither by the inveterate old showman. It was brought up from Clacton-on-Sea and exhibited to the public at Clapton. Collection boxes were well in evidence, and although there was no charge to see the corpse, there were significant hints that a trifle was expected. Then the corpse was removed to Olympia, the scene of Barnum’s triumphs. No effort was spared to secure a great success. Officers were ordered up from all parts of the kingdom. The rank and file of the Army were also invited, and tickets were available for any number of outsiders. With regard to the performance, we must remember that tastes differ. But one portion of it was calculated to shock every person with any delicacy of feeling. Booth and his kindred stood up to sing around the coffin the hymn they sang around Mrs. Booth’s death-bed. The performers seemed to say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you were not present when we sang your mother to glory, but just look and listen, and you will see how it was done.”
For a third time the corpse was shifted to Queen Victoria-street. Unlimited advertising brought a tremendous crowd of sight-seers. Booth headed the procession, followed by the Booth dynasty, and all of them bowed and smiled to the cheering multitude.
Even in a funeral coach the Grand Old Showman had an eye to business.
Such being General Booth’s attitude towards the public, what is his attitude towards the Salvation Army? Any one who reads his “Orders and Regulations” will see that he has his cattle well in hand, and not only can drive them where he pleases, but flick them smartly on any part with his long-reaching whip. He subjects them absolutely to his persona! despotism. Every part of his soldiers’ lives is regulated. They must court and marry within the ranks. “Should a soldier,” he says, “become engaged to an officer who afterwards gives up or forfeits his or her commission, the soldier would be justified in breaking off the engagement.” The General wishes to breed Salvationists. He tells them what to eat and what to wear. He informs them that they are only passengers through this world. “Though still living in the world,” he says, “the Salvationist is not of it, and he has, in this respect no more business with its politics— that is, the public management of affairs—than he has with its pleasures.” When the General wants his soldiers to vote or act politically, he will issue a manifesto, and every one is then expected to “act in harmony with the rules and regulations laid down for him by his superior officers.” These superior officers, who take their orders from General Booth, must be perfectly obeyed, for “they have the Spirit of God, and will only command what is right.”
Now it is well to remember all this in discussing General Booth's new scheme of social salvation. He insists on retaining absolute command of all the funds, and on working the whole scheme through the Salvation Army. All who assist him, therefore, are helping to promote the development of a vast body of religious fanatics, under the despotic control of a single man, who will not scruple, when it serves his purpose to, use his voluntary slaves, for political as well as social objects. For General Booth has his own notions— crude as many of them are—and it is not in human nature to refrain from using power for the realisation of one’s ideas. And Pope Booth is more absolute than Pope Pecci. The Vicar of Christ at Rome is unable to move without his Holy Council of Cardinals; but the Vicar of Christ in Queen Victoria-street, London, is the unchecked and irresponsible ruler of the whole Salvation Army.
General Booth’s success as an organiser is great, though he has had a comparatively easy task in organising sheep. Now, however, he proposes to deal with the goats. Some of his scanty leisure has been devoted to studying the social question, and as the interest in the Army’s old methods is obviously declining, he proposes to raise a million of money, and reform that part of the population which John Bright called “the residuum.” In other words, the wily old General has launched a new boom.
Plaudits are heard on nearly every side. The religious bodies give him the homage of fear. They shout approval because they dare not show hostility. Next come the mob of cheap philanthropists. This consists of rich ladies and gentleman, who feel twinges of remorse at living sumptuously while others are starving, and who are ready to pay conscience-money to any social charlatan. When they have written out a cheque they feel relieved. “On with the dance, let joy be unconfined.” But it is not thus that the spectre of poverty and misery will be laid.
Evil is wrought by want of thought,
 
As well as by want of heart.
If the so-called lower classes are to be elevated, the so-called upper classes will find they will have to do some thinking. Social knots cannot be cut, they must be untied. The Sphinx says you must read her riddle. All the money-bags in the world will never smooth her terrible brow.
General Booth's scheme of social salvation is before the world in the form of a book. Let us examine the prophecy of this would-be Moses of the serfs of poverty and degradation.
An ordinary author would sign himself “William Booth,” but this one is “General” even on a title-page. In Darkest England is an obvious plagiarism on Stanley, and The Way Out is suggested by his long travel through the awful Central African forest.
In the preface General Booth acknowledges the “valuable literary help” of a “friend of the poor, who, though not in any way connected with the Salvation Army, has the deepest sympathy with its aims, and is to a large extent in harmony with its principles.” The friend is Mr. Stead. This gentleman has “written up” the scheme in the manner of “the born journalist,” that is, in the fashion of the Modern Babylon” and the adventures of Eliza Armstrong. He contributes the descriptions, the gush, the hysterics, the sentences crowded with adjectives and adverbs. Sometimes he writes a whole chapter, unless our literary scent misleads us; sometimes he interpolates the General, and sometimes the General interpolates Stead. One result of this twofold authorship is that the book is twice as big as it should be; another result is that it often contradicts itself. For instance, the General states in the preface that he has known “thousands, nay, I can say tens of thousands,” who have proved the value of spiritual means of reformation, having “with little or no temporal assistance, come out of the darkest depths of destitution, vice, and crime, to be happy and honest citizens and true sons and servants of God.” Elsewhere (p. 243) he speaks of them as “multitudes.” Yet in the very next paragraph of the preface Mr. Stead (if we mistake not) breaks in with the assertion that “the rescued are appallingly few,” a mere “ghastly minority.”
This little contradiction may throw light on the rumor that Booth has been urged into this scheme of temporal salvation. Once upon a time he was down on “Commissioner” Smith, whose tendencies in this direction were obtrusive; and how long is it since he wrote in the new Rules and Regulations, that the members of the Salvation Army had nothing to do with the world, its politics, its business, or its pleasures? The hand is the hand of Booth, but the voice seems the voice of Stead.
Here is another contradiction, and this time a vital one. The General curls his upper lip (p. 18) at those “anti-Christian economists who hold that it is an offence against the doctrine of the survival of the fittest to try to save the weakest from going to the wall, and who believe that when once a man is down the supreme duty of a self-regarding Society is to jump upon him.” Without dwelling on the fact that this is a shocking and perfectly gratuitous libel, probably meant to pander to Christian prejudices, we content ourselves with drawing attention to a contradictory declaration (p. 44) that “In the struggle for life the weakest will go to the wall, and there are so many weak. The fittest, in tooth and claw, will survive. All that we can do is to soften the lot of the unfit and make their suffering less horrible than it is at present. No amount of assistance will give a jellyfish a backbone. No outside propping will make some men stand erect.” Thus the General, or Mr. Stead, joins hands with the “anti-Christian economists” in the doctrine that it is useless to try to save the weakest from going to the wall. Of course he does not endorse the policy of jumping on them, but that policy is merely a production of his own pious imagination.
This contradiction we say is vital. The first statement is a sneer at Natural Selection, the second is a frank admission of its supremacy. They represent two antagonistic philosophies. They mark the parting of the ways between the Christian and the Evolutionist. They are as incompatible as oil and water, and no thoughtful man would attempt to reconcile them. But Booth (or isn’t it Stead?) combines incompatibles with the alkali of sentiment. And this failure to discern the distinctiveness of opposite first principles shows the book to be the work of sciolists, and vitiates its scheme of social reform from beginning to end. No work can succeed without a knowledge of materials. Every effort at improvement has in it the elements of success or failure as it recognises or ignores the special laws of human nature, and the more general laws of biology that lie behind them.
An amusing contradiction occurs in another place (p. 14), to which we call attention in order to show the chaotic character of the writing; and this time, we judge from the style, it is Stead contradicting Stead. Speaking of the harlot, he says—
“But there, even in the lowest depths, excommunicated by Humanity and outcast from God, she is far nearer the pitying heart of the One true Savior than all the men who forced her down, aye, and than all the Pharisees and Scribes who stand silently by while these fiendish wrongs are perpetrated before their very eyes.”
The theology of this passage is worthy of the wild exaggeration with which it closes. The poor harlot is “outcast from God,” but near the “pitying heart” of Christ; in other words, God the Father is on the side of injustice and cruelty, and God the Son on the side of justice and mercy. One person of the Trinity is played off against another, and it is not for us to settle the difference between them. We leave the matter to the second thoughts of Mr. Stead, or the divine illumination of General Booth.
Indeed, the entire theology of this book is worthy of Bedlam, and especially of the criminal lunatic department. A personal Devil is seriously trotted out (p. 159) for the laughter of intelligent men and women, and even of decently educated children. Prosperous people, we are told, see something strange and quaint in the language of the Bible, which “habitually refers to the Devil as an actual personality,” but Hell and the Devil are certitudes to the Salvationists who work in the slums.
Well, if the Devil is so active, what is God doing? Apparently nothing. Booth is going to reform our drunkards, or try to if we give him the money, but he candidly admits (p. 181), perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness, that the confirmed toper will drink himself “into a drunkard’s grave and a drunkard’s hell,” unless he is “delivered by an Almighty hand.” It is God alone, then, who can save the most fallen. Their fate lies in his hands. And what does he do for them? The answer is to be found in General Booth’s appeal. A million of money, and the co-operation of a multitude of men and women, are requested for the purpose of saving at least some of the poor wretches who are beyond the power of self-help, although “the Almighty hand” could easily pluck them out of their degradation. Nor does Booth expect that all will be saved by his scheme, however well supported and successful. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the God he worships will allow men and women to perish whom he might promptly save; yes, allow them to perish in this world, physically, intellectually, and morally, and afterwards torment them for ever and ever in Hell. And it is this God, this incredible monster of wickedness, in whom General Booth trusts, and whom he bids the Freethinker look up to with admiration and love. Nay, he regards “trust in Jehovah” (p. 241) as the chief credential of the Salvation Army for carrying out an enterprise which is to cost a million sterling. Let the worshippers of Jehovah support him then. The Freethinker will necessarily regard this insane theology as a rottenness at the very heart of the experiment.
Without going through all the insane theology of this book, we may—nay, we must—give a crowning instance of it.
“I am quite satisfied that these multitudes will not be saved in their present circumstances. All the Clergymen, Home Missionaries, Tract Distributors, Sick Visitors, and everyone else who care about the Salvation of the poor, may make up their minds as to that. If these people are to believe in Jesus Christ, become the Servants of God, and escape the miseries of the wrath to come, they must be helped out of their present social miseries. They must be put into a position in which they can work and eat, and have a decent room to live and sleep in, and see something before them besides along, weary, monotonous, grinding round of toil, and anxious care to keep themselves and those they love barely alive, with nothing at the further end but the Hospital, the union, or the Madhouse. If Christian Workers and Philanthropists will join hands to effect this change, it will be accomplished, and the people will rise up and bless them, and be saved; if they will not, the people will curse them and perish.”—(p. 257).
Did ever a human being excogitate such blasphemous nonsense? God is openly declared to be a passive spectator of the great struggle between good and evil. At the end of it he will save the succeeders and damn the failers; although, according to Booth’s own admission, hosts of both classes are what they are through the pressure of circumstances. Compared with such a God the bloody Moloch was a respectable deity.
Four men are living within sight and sound of each other, and one of them goes to the bad. Thereupon it is the duty of Smith, Jones, and Brown to rescue Robinson. If they succeed, God will give him a seat in Heaven; if they fail, or neglect their duty, God will cast him into Hell. Thus Robinson’s fate depends upon the sympathy, self-sacrifice, and wisdom of Smith, Jones, and Brown. Want of heart on their part, and even want of sense, are alike fatal to his chance of salvation. God lets them do their best; if they do nothing, he is just as serene; and at the day of judgment he sends Robinson to bliss or damnation, accordingly as Smith, Jones, and Brown—separately or collectively—have succeeded or failed in keeping him out of the gutter.
What a view of God! And what a ghastly, roundabout way of stating the truth that religion is powerless to save the fallen, that men and women can only be elevated by secular agencies!
This truth has always been proclaimed by Freethinkers. It is a commonplace of their teaching. Yet the Churches have ignored or denied it. Here is General Booth, however, announcing it clearly enough to all who will take the theological wadding out of their ears. True, the discovery is late, but better late than never.
It is upon this truth that Booth’s scheme is founded. Sometimes, indeed, he forgets it, and talks as though the preaching of Christ and him crucified were enough to regenerate society. But this truth, that man is very largely the creature of circumstances, and that evil circumstances should be changed if there is to be any improvement, is the governing idea of his project.
No doubt the “General” seeks an escape from the logical consequences of this truth. He says, for instance, that (p. 286) “to me has been given the idea,” as though God had intervened and selected him as the human agent. But this is all nonsense. In the first place, if God gave Booth the idea, he might as well have given him the cash. In the second place, the idea—or rather, the set of ideas—is by no means a revelation. Every part of Booth’s scheme has been advocated by other men, and several parts are already reduced to practice, though not on the gigantic scale he contemplates. His Farm Colony is admittedly borrowed from Mr. B. T. Craig, a veteran Freethinker who was the soul of the Ralahine experiment. With this gentleman Booth has had interviews; indeed, the “General”—perhaps with Mr. Stead’s assistance—has simply picked other men’s brains, although he takes care to conceal his indebtedness.
Naturally, too, the astute leader of the Salvation Army recognises the necessity of a pious appeal to wealthy Christians. He therefore “asserts in the most unqualified way that it is primarily and mainly for the sake of saving souls” that he “seeks the salvation of the body” (p. 45). And he declares (p. 3) it must not be supposed that he is “less dependent upon the old plans” or that he “seeks anything short of the old conquest.” At the same time (p. 279) he “does not think that any sectarian differences or religious feelings whatever ought to be imported into this question.” Is it not better, he asks, that miserable crowds of men and women should have work, food, clothes, and a home, even with “some peculiar religious notions and practices,” than that they should be “hungry, and naked, and homeless, and possess no religion at all”? Put in this way, of course, the question admits of only one answer. But this way of putting it begs the wider question; for it does not follow that Booth's is the only possible scheme of social reform, or even that it is calculated to succeed.
The real fact is, disguise it how it may, that Booth’s scheme is only an extension of the Salvation Army. He promises that there shall be no compulsion, that the poor he gets hold of shall not be pressed into any form of faith, that religious freedom shall be respected. But what will the promise avail? The whole scheme, from top to bottom, is to be worked by the Salvationists; every penny is to pass through Booth’s hands, and every order is to issue from his brain. Outsiders are only wanted in the shape of subscribers. Is it not idle then, to suppose that the scheme will, in practice, be anything else than a huge recruiting system for the Salvation Army? We venture to say that if Booth’s first thought were for the poor, he would invite the formation of an influential Committee, and not seek the monopoly of all the cash and credit for his own sect.
Let us now turn to the scheme itself. Let us see what evils are to be remedied, and the nature of the remedy proposed.
In the opening chapters, written almost exclusively by Mr. Stead, there is a vivid, but, of course, exaggerated, picture of the diseases of society. The writer has walked through the “shambles of our civilisation,” until “it seemed as if God were no longer in this world, but that in his stead reigned a fiend, merciless as Hell, ruthless as the grave.” Of course the grave is neither ruthless nor tender; and, of course, it is not Hell, but the God of Hell, that is merciless. But, apart from these criticisms, it is evident that Mr. Booth-Stead or Mr. Stead-Booth, is aware of much preventible evil; nor are we disposed to quarrel with him for calling it “a satire upon our Christianity,” although we might suggest the impossibility of satirising a creed which has to make such shameful confessions after so many centuries of wealth, power, and privilege, and such a supreme opportunity of cleansing the world if it had the capacity for the task. This Christianity has failed —disastrously and ignominiously; yet has it played the dog in the manger, and refused to allow Science and Philosophy a trial; and even now, when condemned and self-condemned, it only whines for another chance, like an old offender for the hundredth time in the prisoners’............