262 LETTERS TO THE " TIMES " v 



Looking, then, at the host of Salvationists 

 proper, from the " captains " downwards (to whom, 

 in my judgment, the family hierarchy stands in 

 the relation of the Old Man of the Sea to Sinbad ), 

 as an independent entity, I desire to say that the 

 evidence before me, whether hostile or friendly to 

 the General and his schemes, is distinctly favour- 

 able to them. It exhibits them as, in the main, 

 poor, uninstructed, not unfrequently fanatical, en- 

 thusiasts, the purity of whose lives, the sincerity of 

 whose belief, and the cheerfulness of whose en- 

 durance of privation and rough usage, in what 

 they consider a just cause, command sincere 

 respect. For my part, though I conceive the 

 corybantic method of soul-saving to be full of 

 dangers, and though the theological specu- 

 lations of these good people are to me Avholly 

 unacceptable, yet I believe that the evils which 

 must follow in the track of such errors, as of all 

 other en'ors, will be largely outweighed by the 

 moral and social improvement of the people 

 whom they convert. I would no more raise my 

 voice against them (so long as they abstain from 

 annoying their neighbours) than I would quarrel 

 with a man, vigorously sweeping out a stye, on 

 account of the shape of his broom, or because he 

 made a great noise over his work. I have always 

 had a strong faith in the principle of the injunc- 

 tion, " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth 

 out the corn." If a kingdom is worth a Mass, as 



