Salvation Syrup; Or, Light On Darkest England
George Foote
G.В W. Foote
Salvation Syrup; Or, Light On Darkest England
SALVATION SYRUP; OR, LIGHT ON DARKEST ENGLAND
Twenty years ago the Hallelujah Band spread itself far and wide, but soon spent itself like a straw fire. Then arose the Salvation Army, doing the same kind of work, and indulging in the same vagaries. These were imitations of the antics of the cruder forms of Methodism. Even the all-night meetings of the Whitechapel Salvationists, ten years ago, were faint copies of earlier Methodist gatherings, especially of those in Cornwall, which were described by the Rev. Richard Polwhele.[1 - Anecdotes of Methodism.] “At. St. Agnes,” said this writer, “the Society stays up the whole night, when girls of twelve and fourteen years of age ran about the streets, calling out that they are possessed.” At Probus “the preacher at a late hour of the night, after all but the higher classes left the room, would order the candles to be put out, and the saints fall down and kneel on their naked knees; when he would go round and thrust his hand under every knee to feel if it were bare.” The Salvationists never went so far as this. Freaks of such description are left, in this age, to the followers of King Solomon in the Brighton Glory Hole. But a friend of ours, who visited an all-night Salvation meeting at Whitechapel in 1882, told us that the light was very dim, the voices were low, cheeks came perilously close in prayer, and at one moment the proceedings threatened to develope into a thoroughgoing love-feast.
As far as a more cultivated age would allow, the Salvation Army advertised and recruited itself by the familiar practices of what Professor Huxley calls “corybantic Christianity.” During the last six or seven years it has grown more decorous, but prior to that time its vulgarity was excessive. Its songs, its rowdy meetings, its coarse, imbecile language, its ludicrous street processions, were enough to furnish a Swift with fresh material for his indictment of mankind. The names of its officers, as reported in its journal, were curiosities to the student of human aberration. There was the “Hallelujah Fishmonger,” the “Blood-washed Miner,” the “Devil Dodger,” the “Devil Walloper,” and “Gypsy Sal.” Many of the worshippers of success who are now flocking around General Booth as a new Savior of Society, would be astonished if they were to turn over the old pages of the War Cry.
No one can pretend that “General,” Booth is a man of spiritual genius. He is essentially a man of business. His faculty is for organisation, not for the promulgation of new ideas or the creation of new material. His eye for a good advertisement is unequalled. Barnum forgot Booth in calling himself the greatest showman on earth. As the present writer said in 1882, the head of the Salvation Army is “a dexterous manager; he knows how to work the oracle; he understands catering for the mob; in short he is a very clever showman, who deals in religion, just as other showmen deal in wild animals, giants, dwarfs, two-headed sheep, fat women, and Siamese twins.”
Everything in the Salvation Army is subordinated to “business.” At the head-quarters a minute register is kept of all the officers. Few of them are paid a regular salary. They are largely dependent on “results.” Whatever their faculty may be for “saving souls,” they must rake in enough shekels, or they are drafted from post to post, and finally discharged. On the same principle, Booth has married his family “well,” as the world calls it, and put them into all the higher posts.
By this means he secures a select circle of trusted subordinates, who convey his orders to the lower circles of the Army, and see to their execution. While this plan lasts there will be no dangerous mutiny; especially as, in addition, the whole of the Army’s property is held in the name of William Booth. There is, in fact, a Booth dynasty; though it may be doubted if the dynasty will long outlast its founder. Certain