Y "DARKEST ENGLAND" SCHEME. 243 



1920, shall not be a replica of what the Francis- 

 can order had become in the year 1260? 



The personal character and the intentions of 

 the founders of such organizations as we are con- 

 sidering count for very httle in the formation of 

 a forecast of their future; and if they did, it is 

 no disrespect to Mr. Booth to say that he is not 

 the peer of Francis of Assisi. But if Francis's 

 judgment of men was so imperfect as to permit 

 him to appoint an ambitious intriguer of the stamp 

 of Brother Elias his deputy, we have no right to 

 be sanguine about the perspicacity of Mr. Booth 

 in a like matter. 



Adding to all these considerations the fact that 

 Mr. Llewelyn Davis, the warmth of whose philan- 

 thropy is beyond question, and in whose compe- 

 tency and fairness I, for one, place implicit reli- 

 ance, flatly denies the boasted success of the Salva- 

 tion Army in its professed mission, I have arrived 

 at the conclusion that, as at present advised, I 

 cannot be the instrument of carr}dng out my 

 friend's proposal. 



Mr. Booth has pithily characterized certain 

 benevolent schemes as doing sixpennyworth of 

 good and a shilling's worth of harm. I grieve to 

 say that, in my opinion, the definition exactly fits 

 his own project. Few social evils are of greater 

 magnitude than uninstructed and unchastened re- 

 ligious fanaticism; no personal habit more surely 

 degrades the conscience and the intellect than 



