THE SALVATION ARMY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1714, 4 January 1905, Page 90 (Supplement)

THE SALVATION ARMY.

STRONGLY INDICTED. A severe condemnation of the Salvation Army is the feature of the November number of the “ Monthly Review ” (says a recent notice). The writer, “ John Manson,” sees in the recent “ International Congress ” another effort to deceive the public about a movement which he describes as rapidly becoming a pitiful failure. The public believe that the Army is still doing a grand work in connection with the prisons and the slums. But we are told : — c( Anyone who has cared to interest himself in the open-air work of the Array of late years cannot but havo been struck by two things; the increasing respectability of the officers and soldiers, both male and female, and their increasing inability to interest grown persons of any class to the point of getting them to march with them to barracks. The reformed cracksman and the penitent wife-beater of twenty years ago are now conspicuous by their silence, and in comparison with their pictursqu© c testimony ’ that of Methodist maid-servants and seceded classleaders is tame. So far, then, as observation can help one to a conclusion, the Army now makes no impression whatsoever on the immense class for whose reformation it is alone supposed to exist.” Mr Charles Booth is quoted as saying that in England nowadays “ many, if not most, come to it from some other religious body, and may even have been ardent Christians previously.” The explanation of this transfer is tliat such persons find in the Army a more suitable atmosphere for a “ forward ” spiritual life, and a better means of satisfying their consuming passion for “ testifying ” publicly than is furnished by their own particular sect. In all London, it is shown by the “ Daily News ” census that the Salvation Army counts only for 2 per cent., while the Methodists are 9 per cent., tire Baptists 11 per cent., and the Church of England 4,0 per cent., these figures being for actual church attendances. Where the Salvation Army is increasing enormously is in the number of its officers. “ The national strength of few religious bodies is greater than four or five times their London strength, and the Army, unlike some of the others, can hardly be said to exist throughout the vast stretches of rural population in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Taking 60,000. then, as the strength, it follows that close upon 20 000 of this total are officers, nearly 5000 being paid, and some 15,000 unoaid. So that, of the whole Army, one man or woman in every three is an officer, while one in every twelve is paid.” The expense of maintaining such an organisation is described as enormous, and an effort is made to show how in various ways the public is exploited by a pushing, selfadvertising organisation. Mr Manson writes :—“ General Booth has boasted that his Army is now the only religious body that believes in hell fire.’ How long will the other religious bodies be content to oountenano© the propagation by others of doctrine which they themselves either ooenly reject, or shamefacedly avoid, and which, instead of being in any degree congenial to the masses, plainly constitutes an insurmountable barrier between them and those who would influence them for good P”