Darkest India Part 18

&c., in every large town in England, who are naturally fitted for agricultural work, although they have lived all their lives, perhaps, far away from the green fields. For the training of these General Booth has a scheme of a large "Farm Colony" which will be nearly or entirely self-supporting. When trained sufficiently in agricultural work, they will be drafted off by emigration to a great "over-sea" colony in South Africa. The whole movement will be permeated by earnest Christian teaching. The man who is in trouble and professes to be converted, will be welcomed on that account, and the man who is in trouble but does not profess to be saved, will be equally welcome in the hope that he may give himself to Christ.

It is computed that there are three million people in England whom this scheme will eventually hope to help. A first instalment of 100,000 towards an eventual million, is asked for as a starting-point for the scheme.

This seems a large undertaking and a large sum, but compared to the needs of the world, it is very small.

There is a still darker France than the darkest England, a darker Italy than the darkest France, and deeper depths of darkness still in India.

We think that those who know the "slums" of London and large English towns the best, will be the heartiest in wis.h.i.+ng G.o.d-speed to General Booth's latest movement, which also includes every possible form of Christian benevolent activity.

When Christ reigns as Viceroy for Jehovah for a thousand years, as the Word of G.o.d so distinctly intimates, it may be that some such plan as this, far more perfect and world-wide in its aim, will form part of the inaugurative forces of that happy lot.

Speaking broadly, General Booth's great scheme is in harmony with views that are accepted by all Christians. His design is to elevate the wretched to more favourable conditions of life, on the principle of the Temperance reformer who seeks to remove temptations to drunkenness; or of the opponent of the iniquitous opium traffic, who insists upon the prohibition of the drug which is the curse of millions; or of the antagonist of licensed impurity, who demands that the tendency of law shall be to make it easy to do right, and not afford facilities to do wrong. Some pa.s.sages of "In Darkest England and the Way Out" are certainly capable of being misconstrued. But on looking at the book and its scheme as a whole, the Christian heart is drawn into lively sympathy with it, without being committed to every detail. If all that is antic.i.p.ated be not realized by this gigantic scheme, the attempt to carry it out cannot do otherwise than prove a source of great and eternal good to mult.i.tudes, as the labourers carry on their work in dependance upon G.o.d.

_The London "Speaker" testifies to the capacity of Gen. Booth for winning the ma.s.ses._

Seeing from what the Salvation Army has grown, and to what it has grown, we are extremely reluctant to denounce any scheme seriously and carefully elaborated by its leader, as being "too big to be practicable." We must remember who will be the "one head and centre" of the scheme. There are many weak points in General Booth: he is only human. But he is an earnest man; he has proved his talent for organisation; he has proved his capacity for winning the sympathies of the ma.s.ses. We would say nothing against gentleness, and quiet, and culture. We hope to attain them in the end. It is a pretty work to prune the vine, a beautiful thing to let in the sunlight on the fruit, and to watch the perfection of bloom, and shape, and color; but first of all something has to be done at the roots, something at which we may hold our noses, but which is for all that requisite.

It remains to be seen, first, whether the people concerned would accept the scheme; secondly, whether discipline could be maintained; thirdly, whether money can be raised. As to the first two questions, experience in some degree answers. The people _do_ come to the Salvation Army's establishments, and they do behave well in the Shelters and the Workshops. Those who best know the poorer working cla.s.ses of the country, will be the least likely to despair on these points. A group of poorer English men and women are easily led by a leader who instils regularity and order, and of whose hearty goodwill to them, they are a.s.sured. Organisation is in the English blood; and the rougher East End crowd has orderly elements ready to respond at once to the word of command from men and women whom they know and trust. Only the crowd must be sober; and that which its leader preaches must be hope. As to the money, some portion has come in already; and if this is used, as it will be, in making a visible beginning, there will be plenty of people troubled in their consciences who will be ready to give more. Let us give General Booth money, and five years for his experiment. At the end of that time it will be clear enough whether or no the best thing which we can provide for the unemployed is a lethal chamber.

_The Book has an unprecedented sale._

Up to the middle of January the book had reached a total circulation of 200,000 copies, beside running through two separate editions in America.

It is now being translated into j.a.panese, French, Swedish and other languages.

_The Book of the year._

I do not think I say too much when I say it will not be the att.i.tude ten per cent. after they have read from cover to cover the most remarkable volume that has been issued from the press this year.

A UNIQUE BOOK.

It is a book that stands by itself. In one sense it may be said that there is nothing new in it. That many men are miserable, that it is the duty of all calling themselves by the name of Christian, to do their utmost to save their peris.h.i.+ng brethren, and that if they set about the task in earnest, certain well-known methods will have to be resorted to; all this is familiar enough. Neither can it be said that the spirit of exalted enthusiasm which breathes in every page of the book is one appears for the first time in the writings of General Booth. It is on the contrary the abiding evidence of the presence of the Divine Spirit in men, which has never failed in this world since "the first man stood G.o.d conquered, with his face to heaven upturned." But the unique character of the book arises from the combination of all these elements, with others which have never hitherto been united even within the covers of a single volume. There is a buoyant enthusiasm in every page, a sanguine optimism at which the youngest among us might marvel, combined with a familiar acquaintance with the saddest and darkest phenomena of existence. The book deals with problems which of all others are most calculated to appal, and overwhelm the minds with the sense of desolation and despair, yet it is instinct throughout with a joyous hope and glowing confidence. General Booth, face to face with the devil, still believes in G.o.d.

A MIRACLE OF THE BURNING BUSH.

Another distinctive feature of the book is the extent to which it combines the shrewdest and most practical business capacity with the most exalted religious enthusiasm. The fanatic is usually regarded as somewhat of a fool; no one can read this book through and think that General Booth has the least deficiency in practical capacity, in shrewd common sense and enormous knowledge of men. From one point of view it is easy to be a saint, and it is easy to be a man of the world; the difficulty is to combine the two qualities, the cunning of the serpent with the innocence of the dove. There is nothing of the naive and guileless innocence of a cloistered virtue in the book, but though the serpent is very cunning his wiliness and craftiness coexist with a simple enthusiasm of humanity which is very marvellous to behold. When we read General Booth's expressions of confidence in the salvability of mankind and note the intrepid audacity with which he sallies forth like another David to attack the huge Goliath who threatens the hosts of our modern Israel, and remember that he is no mere shepherd boy fresh from the fold, but one who for forty years of his life has lived and laboured in an atmosphere saturated with emanations from every form of human vice and wretchedness, then we feel somewhat as did Moses when he stood before the burning bush, "and he looked, and behold the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed."

THOMAS CARLYLE REDIVIVUS.

It is impossible not to be impressed by the parallel and at the same time by the contrast between General Booth's book and the latter day prophecies of Mr. Carlyle. For forty years and more Mr. Carlyle prophesied unto the men of his generation, proclaiming in accents of deep earnestness, tinged, however, by a bitter despair, what should be done if we were not utterly to perish. I remember the bitterness with which he told me, while the shadows of the dark valley were gathering round him, that when he wrote his whole soul out in "Latter Day Pamphlets," and delivered to the public that which he believed to be the very truth and inner secret of all things, his message was flouted, and "it was currently reported," said he, with grim resentfulness "it was currently reported that I had written them under the influence of too much whiskey." Now, however, another prophet has arisen with practically the same gospel, but with oh, how different a setting! In Mr. Carlyle's books, his prophetic message s.h.i.+nes out lurid as from the background of thunder-cloud amid the gloom as of an eclipse heralded by portents of ruin and decay. Here "In Darkest England and the Way Out"

there is a brightness and a gladness as of a May day sunrise. Infinite hope bubbles up in every page, and in every chapter there is a calm confidence which comes from the experience of one who in sixty years of troubled life can say with full a.s.surance "I know in whom I have believed." That is not the only contrast between the two. Mr. Carlyle as befitted the philosopher in his study, contented himself with writing in large characters of livid fire, "This is the way, walk ye in it;" but the generation scoffed and walked otherwhere. General Booth, equally with Mr. Carlyle writes up in characters so plain that the way-faring man, though a fool, cannot help reading it, "This is the way, walk ye in it." But he does more. He himself offers to lead the van, "This is the way," he declares, "I will lead you along it, follow me!"

CATHOLICITY--SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS.

Another distinctive characteristic of this book is its extraordinary catholicity. In this respect I know no book like it that has appeared in our time. While declaring with pa.s.sionate conviction the truth and necessity of the gospel which the Salvation Army preaches, there is not one word of intolerance from the first page to the last. It is easy to be broad when there is no intensity of conviction. The liberality of indifference is one of the most familiar phenomena of the day. But General Booth is broad without being shallow, and his liberalism certainly cannot be attributed to indifference! He is as earnest as John the Baptist, for now and then the aboriginal preacher reappears crying aloud, Jonah-like, messages calling men to flee from the wrath to come.

But no broad churchman of our time, from Dean Stanley downwards, could display a more catholic spirit to all fellow workers in the great harvest field, which is white unto the harvest, but where the labourers are so few. This spirit he displays not only in the religious field, but what is still more remarkable, he carries it into the domain of social experiment. The old intolerance and fierce hatred which raged in the churches at many great crises in the history of the world is with us still, but it is no longer in religious dress. The rival sects of socialists hate each other and contend with each other with a savagery which recalls the worst days of the early church. Every man has got his own favourite short cut to Utopia and he d.a.m.ns all those who do not work therein with the unhesitating a.s.surance of an Athanasius. Hence catholicity is much more needed and much more rarely found in the domain of social economics than in that of religious polemices. General Booth as befits a practical man is supremely indifferent to any particular fad, and constructs his scheme on the principle of selecting every proposal which seems to have stuff in it, or is calculated to do any good to suffering humanity. The socialist, the individualist, the political economist, the advocate of emigration, and all social reformers will find what is best in their own particular schemes incorporated in General Booth's schemes. He claims no originality, he disclaims all prejudice even in favour of his own scheme. His suggestions, he says, seem for the moment the most practicable, but he is ready, he tells us with uncompromising frankness, to abandon them to-morrow if any one can show him a better way.

A TEACHABLE PROPHET.

Another extraordinary characteristic of the book is its combination of supreme humility with what the enemy might describe as overweening arrogance. The General's confidence in himself and his men is superb.

Not Hildebrand in the height of his power, or Mahommed, at the moment when he was launching the armies which offered to the world Islam or the sword, showed himself more supremely possessed with the confidence of his providential mission than does General Booth in his book. "For this end was I created, to this work was I called, all my life has been a preparation to fit me for its accomplishment." While thus speaking with the confidence of a man who feels himself charged with a divine mission, General Booth displays a humility and a teachableness that is as beautiful as it is rare. Over and over again he deplores his lack of knowledge and the insufficiency of his experience, and admits that his most elaborate proposals may be vitiated by some flaw or some defect which will make itself only too apparent when they get into action. So far from being determined to thrust his scheme as a panacea down the throats of reluctant humanity he appeals to all those who may differ from him not to stand idly cavilling at his proposals, but to produce something better of their own, a.s.suring them that he will be only too good to carry out the best of his ability any scheme which will do more for the benefit of the lapsed cla.s.ses than his own.

A s.h.i.+FTY AND RESOURCEFUL MARINER.

General Booth shows himself in the capacity of a bold and s.h.i.+fty mariner who has been ordered to take a s.h.i.+p filled with precious cargo across a stormy and rock-strewn ocean to a distant port. Quicksands abound, cross currents continually threaten to carry the s.h.i.+p from her course, the wind s.h.i.+fts from point to point, now rising to a hurricane and then dying away to a dead calm. But alike by night and day, whether the sky be black with clouds, or bright with radiant suns.h.i.+ne, in the teeth of the wind or in a favourable gale, he presses forward to his distant haven. He will tack to the right or to the left, availing himself to the utmost of every favourable current and every pa.s.sing breeze, supremely indifferent to all accusations of inconsistency, or of deviating from the straight line from the port which he left to the port for which he is bound, if so he can get the quicker and the more safely to his goal.

Hitherto General Booth had practically been in the condition of a Captain who relied solely on his boilers to make his voyage. "Get up steam, make the heart right, keep the furnace fires going, and drive ahead through the darkness regardless of a lowering tempest or of the swift rus.h.i.+ng current which sweeps you from your course." This book proclaims his decision in favour of adopting a less reckless and more practical mode of navigation. While his reliance is still placed on the inner central fire he will not disdain to utilise the currents, the tides, and the winds which will make it easier for his straining boilers and untiring screw to forge its way across the sea.

The book is interesting in itself as a book, but of the bookmaking part of it, it is absurd to speak. You might as well speak of the rivets and the paint, in describing the performance of a Cunarder; as to speak of the literary merits or demerits of this book. As a piece of actuality, full of life and force, it comes to us in paper and ink and between two covers; but the vehicle of its presentation is as indifferent as the quality of the boards in which it is bound. The supreme thing is not the form but the substance.--_The Review of Reviews._