192 SOCIAL DISEASES AND v 



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 Corinthians with- 

 out yielding a large meed of admiration to the 

 fervent humanity of Paul of Tarsus; who can 

 study the lives of Francis of Assisi, or of Cather- 

 ine of Siena, without wishing that, for the further- 

 ance of his own 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 great men and women there lay the root of 

 the matter; a burning desire to amend the condi- 

 tion of their fellow-men, and to put aside all other 

 things for that end. If, in spite of all the dog- 

 matic helps or hindrances in which they were en- 

 tangled, 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 organization 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. 



But the correlate of despotic authority is un- 

 limited responsibility. If Mr. Booth is to take 



