Darkest India Part 16

_The Earl of Airlie Subscribes._

"The Earl of Airlie has forwarded towards General Booth's fund a cheque for 1,000."

_The Marquis of Queensberry offers his services._

GLENLEE, NEW GALLOWAY, N.B.,

_November_ 21.

My Dear General Booth--I have read your book "In Darkest England" with the greatest interest, also with thrills of horror that things should be as bad as they are.

I send you a cheque for 100, and shall feel compelled if your scheme is carried out to give you a yearly subscription. You say you want recruits. When I come to town I should very much like to see you to talk this matter over, for I see no cause which a man could more put his heart and soul into than this one of endeavouring to alleviate this fearful misery of our fellow-creatures. I see you quote Carlyle in your book, but is it possible for any one like myself, who is even more bitterly opposed than he was against what to me is the Christian falsehood, to work with you! We have two things to do as things are at present--first to endeavour to alleviate the present awful suffering that exists to the best of our abilities, and surely this ought to be a state affair; and secondly to get at the roots of the evils and by changing public opinion gradually develop a different state of things for future generations, when this help will not be so necessary. I do not wish to get into a religious controversy with you on how this is to be brought about, but I tell you I am no Christian and am bitterly opposed to it. A tree, I believe, is to be judged by its fruits.

Christianity has been with us many hundreds of years.

What can we think of it when its results are as they are at present with the poor whom Christ, I believe, you say informed us we should always have with us. I know nothing about other worlds, beyond that I see thousand around me whom I presume look after their own affairs. It appears to me our common and plainest duty to help and to try and change the lot of our suffering fellow creatures here on this earth. You can publish this if you please, but without suppressing any of it. If not and any notice is given of subscriptions as I see you are doing, I beg it may be notified that I send this mite as a reverent agnostic to our common cause of humanity.

Yours faithfully,

QUEENSBERRY.

_Lord Scarborough is amongst its supporters._

"Lord Scarborough, writing from Lumley Castle Chester-le-street, has subscribed 50."

_Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone lend to it the weight of their influence._

"Mr. Gladstone has already expressed has interest in the scheme and now Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone with a like kindly expression forward 50 towards it."

_Mr. Pickersgill, M.P., looks upon it with increasing favour._

At the New Debating Society, Haverstook Hill, Mr. Pickersgill, M.P., said when he first began to read the book he did not approach it with any particularly favourable feelings towards the Salvation Army. He thought that the scheme was the most plausible ever devised. There was in it a happy blending of the ideal with the practical, and a nice balancing of its various parts in the attempt to solve the problem involved in the question "Can we get back to the ordinary conditions of life as they exist in a small healthy community."

_The Bishop of Durham reviews the Scheme._

Speaking on Thursday night at the closing meeting of the General Church Mission at Sunderland, the Bishop of Durham said that just now men were talking on all sides of a great scheme which had been set forth for dealing with some of the social sorrows of our age. The remarkable book in which it was sketched was well calculated to present, in a most vivid combination, the various forms of work to which Christian men must bring the power of their faith. It brought together with remarkable skill the different problems which were pressed upon them; it allowed them to gain a view of the whole field and something of the relation of the different parts one to another. For his own part he trusted that many might be stirred to some unwonted exertion.

_The Bishop of Lincoln thanks the General._

"I thank you heartily for the book you have sent me. The name of it is already well known to English Churchmen, and its object is one in which, we all agree.

"The Cross of Christ is the only effectual remedy for the great ma.s.s of vice and wretchedness in our large towns, to which you are endeavouring to call public attention; and we must not be content with presenting that Cross in words alone, but must endeavour to show, by our personal efforts and example, how it may practically be applied so as to purify the lives and quicken the hopes of those amongst our countrymen who are now as much strangers to its power as the inhabitants of darkest Africa."

_The Bishop of Bath and Wells values the book._

"I beg to acknowledge, with very many thanks, the receipt of your letter and the volume of your work, 'In Darkest England,' which you have been so good as to send me. I shall read it with much interest, both from the deep importance of the subject, whether viewed in its social, political, or Christian aspect, and also from its containing the opinion of one who has had such universal opportunities as you have had of becoming acquainted with the wants of the lowest and most unhappy section of our great population."

_The Bishop of Rochester is glad to possess the book._

The Bishop of Rochester writes that he hastens to thank Mr. Booth for sending him his book, and he is glad to possess it, and hopes it may be productive of much good. He takes the opportunity of expressing his profound sympathy with him in Mrs. Booth's death.

_The Bishop of Wakefield (Dr. Walsham How) studies the scheme with deepest interest._

I have just received your book, which you have so kindly sent me. I have already bought a copy, which I shall give away. I am studying your scheme with the deepest interest, and I trust and pray it may bring blessing and hope to many. May I venture to express my sympathy with you in your recent heavy bereavement? You do not sorrow as those that have no hope.

_Canon Farrar preaching at Westminster Abbey, says we are bound to help the scheme or find a better one._

It was not difficult to see, as early as half past one on Sunday afternoon last, that something was about to take place in Westminister Abbey. A friendly policeman informed me that the service in the fine old pile of buildings did not commence till three o'clock, but that as Canon Farrar was announced to preach, and upon such an all-absorbing topic as General Booth's new book, people were bent upon securing a good position by being in time.

Some three-quarters of an hour before the service commenced the gigantic building was crowded, and the trooping mult.i.tudes only arrived at the doors to find a crowd waiting for the least opportunity of getting in.

It was reported that thousands were turned away.

Canon Farrar had announced his subject as "Social Amelioration," and at the outset stated that he alone was responsible for the opinions he proposed to express in connection with General Booth's scheme. In a very masterly and eloquent way he pictured the social evils which disgrace our civilisation, the small and ineffectual efforts being put forth for their removal, and the terrible responsibility resting upon us as a nation to do our utmost to forward any scheme which appeared likely to effect an amelioration. He proceeded:--

Well, here was General Booth's scheme, which he had examined, and with which he had been deeply struck. He pitied the cold heart which could read and not be stirred by "Darkest England." In his best judgment he believed the scheme to be full of promise if the necessary funds were provided, and he merely regarded it as his humble duty to render the undertaking such aid as he could.

Had any such scheme been proposed by a member of the Church of England, he should have given it every support. He regarded the scheme as supplementing, not interfering with, the work of the Church, as preparing for, not hindering, the Church's work. The scheme, although no Christian scheme could be wholly dislinked from religion, was yet most prominently a social scheme; its origin was The Salvation Army, but it was intended to promote the work of the common Church.

Was the scheme to be thrown aside contemptuously at once on account of prejudice, because it emanated from The Salvation Army? If any thought so, he blamed them not, but he for one declared he could not share their views. He was, perhaps, more widely separated from some of the methods of the Salvation Army than many of his brethren, but the work of the Army had not been unblessed, and there was much that might be learned from an organisation which in so short a time had accomplished so great a work. He dwelt upon the nature of The Salvation Army's work, the officers who were exerting themselves in connection with it, the number of countries to which the organisation had spread. The Salvation Army in its work and extent had credentials which could not be denied. Were they to stand coldly, finically aside because they were too refined and nice, and full of culture to touch this work of The Salvation Army with the point of the finger? He took it that he should fail grievously in his duty if insult or self-interest caused him to hold aloof from any movement which Christ, if He had been on earth, would have approved.

Then Dr. Farrar quoted the late Bishop Lightfoot and the late Canon Liddon in favor of The Salvation Army as an organisation which had accomplished a deal of good work.

Next he asked, "How shall we receive General Booth's scheme now that it is here to our hands?" With some people the simplest way of treating any scheme for good was to leave it alone. To those who took that position with reference to General Booth's scheme he had nothing whatever to say.

There was no need for saying anything either to the other cla.s.s of people who would talk about a scheme, and having talked about it drop the matter and think no more about it.

Another way in which General Booth's scheme might be received was that of examining it, and if convinced against it of rejecting it. That, at all events, was a perfectly manly course; a clear and decided method of reception which there can be no mistaking. To those included in this cla.s.s, those who would regard the scheme as migratory or pernicious, there was nothing to be said. But what about those who did not mean to help in this or any other scheme, those who left others the burden of the work, the opportunists who would want to step in when the breach had been made? Here, no doubt, there would be such a cla.s.s, but the last way of receiving General Booth's scheme, and the way in which as he trusted it would be received, was to support it by their influence, and to give to it of their means. It was an immense and far-reaching scheme, which, might bring help and hope to thousands of the helpless and hopeless, made helpless and hopeless by the terrible conditions of society, but for every one of whom Christ died.

To begin the scheme in earnest would require a sum of 100,000, but he asked, "What was that to the wealth of England--to the wealth of London?" It was a mere drop in the ocean compared to what was every year spent on drink and wasted in extravagance. There were a hundred men in England who might immortalise themselves by giving this sum, and yet not have a luxury the less. He left the response to General Booth's appeal with the public, but would it not, he asked, be a desperate shame for England if any scheme giving so hopeful a promise of social amelioration should fail without a trial, and like a broken promise, be lost in air?

But to this observation somebody might reply in the form of a queried objection, "The scheme might fail." _Yes, it might fail; anything might fail. But if to die amid disloyalty and hatred meant failure, then St.

Paul failed. If to die in the storm meant failure, then Luther and Wesley and Whitfield failed; if to die at the stake by the flames meant failure, did not martyrs fail; Finally, if to die on the cross, with the priests and the soldiers spitting out hatred, meant failure, then Jesus Christ failed._ Yes, the scheme might fail; but was all this failure?

Were there none among them bold enough to look beyond the possibility of failure? Could they not somehow get round the word? Fear and jealousy and suspicion and intolerance and despair were counsellors finding mult.i.tudes to listen, but he for one would listen to the n.o.bler counsellor "Hope." Were none of them bold enough at the last moment to prefer even failure in a matter like this to the most brilliant success in pleasing the world and making truce with the devil? He would try to hope that the scheme might not fail, but what each one had to consider was the question, "Shall it fail through my cowardice, my greed, my supineness, my prudential cautiousness, my petty prejudices, my selfish conventionality?"

"If, on examining this plan in the light of conscience, we see in it an augury for the removal of the deadly evils which lie at the heart of our civilisation, it seems to me we are bound to do our utmost to help it forward. 'But,' you say, 'if we conscientiously disapprove of it?' Then we are in duty bound to propose or to forward

SOMETHING BETTER.

"One way only is contemptible and accursed--that is, to make it a mere excuse for envy, malice and depreciation.