262 "DARKEST ENGLAND" SCHEME. 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 dis- 

 tinctly favourable to them. It exhibits them as, 

 in the main, poor, uninstructed, not unfrequently 

 fanatical, enthusiasts, the purity of whose lives, 

 the sincerity of whose belief, and the cheerfulness 

 of whose endurance of privation and rough usage, 

 in what they consider a just cause, command sin- 

 cere respect. For my part, though I conceive the 

 corybantic method of soul-saving to be full of dan- 

 gers, and though the theological speculations of 

 these good people are to me wholly unacceptable, 

 yet I believe that the evils which must follow 

 in the track of such errors, as of all other errors, 

 will be largely outweighed by the moral and so- 

 cial improvement of the people whom they con- 

 vert. 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 injunction, " Thou 

 shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the 

 corn." If a kingdom is worth a Mass, as a great 



