192 SOCIAL DISEASES AXD v 



perhaps, one step lower; and that is that men, 

 who profess freedom of thought, should fail to 

 see and appreciate that large soul of goodness 

 which often animates even the fanatical adherents 

 of such tenets. I am sorry for any man who can 

 read the epistles to the Galatians and the Corin- 

 thians without pelding a large meed of admiration 

 to the fervent humanity of Paul of Tarsus ; who 

 can study the lives of Francis of Assisi, or of 

 Catherine of Siena, without wishing that, for the 

 furtherance of his o^^Tl ideals, he might be even 

 as they ; or who can contemplate unmoved the 

 steadfast veracity and true heroism which loom 

 through the fogs of mystical utterance in George 

 Fox. In all these gi'eat men and women there 

 lay the root of the matter ; a burning desire to 

 amend the condition of their fellow-men, and to 

 put aside all other things for that end. If, in 

 spite of all the dogmatic helps or hindrances in 

 which they were entangled, these people are not 

 to be held in high honour, who are ? 



I have never expressed a doubt — for I have 

 none — that, when Mr. Booth left the Methodist 

 connection, and started that organisation of the 

 Salvation Army upon which, comparatively re- 

 cently, such ambitious schemes of social reform 

 have been grafted, he may have deserved some 

 share of such honour. I do not say that, so far 

 as his personal desires and intentions go, he may 

 not still deserve it. 



