Up to this stage the great social scheme of General Booth for uplifting the “sunken tenth,” has been, so to speak, “in the air.”  Monday night’s meeting at Exeter Hall may be said to have set it on the solid ground and given good hope that it will run as fast and as far as the supplied resources will allow.  The great audience to which the General had to address himself, was not mainly of the usual enthusiastic Army type; but it cannot be said that it was not ready to approve and applaud when any good and telling point was made.  The brief religious service at the beginning gave the proceedings the spiritual stamp of Army gatherings, but the larger part of the time was taken up with the statement of the General.  For more than two and a half hours he was on his feet so that he did not, at any rate, spare himself in his effort to interest the public in his gigantic plan of campaign.  At the outset, he expressed diffidence in entering on the exposition of somewhat new lines of work, but he soon showed himself at home, and in much that he advanced there was a happy audacity and a confidence that boded well for the future developments of his scheme.

The “Bombay Guardian” defends the Scheme.

General Booth’s aim is to give every one who is “down in the world” a chance to rise.  No one, however poor or however degraded, is to be left out.  By means of shelters and training factories in the towns, he would give every one a chance who wishes to work, however “lost” their character may have become.  There is to be absolutely no charity.  All will work for their food and lodging, until they have gained sufficient character and experience to take a situation as a respectable working man or woman.  There are thousands of “out-of-works,” “ne’er-do-wells,” &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 L100,000 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.