against those abominations and against the gambling dens, by Mr. Comstock—­even at the risk of personal violence and in defiance of the most malignant opposition—­entitles him to a place among our veritable heroes.  At a time when deeds of military prowess receive such adulation, and when the “man on horseback” outstrips the man on foot in the race for popular favor, it is well to teach our young men that he who takes up arms against the principalities and powers of darkness, and makes his own life the savior of other lives, wins a knightly crown of heavenly honor that outshines the stars, and “fadeth not away.”

The most unique organization that has been formed in our time for the evangelizing of the lost masses is the “Salvation Army.”  When I was in London, in the summer of 1885, I attended one of their monster meetings in Exeter Hall.  There was an enormous military band on the platform behind the rostrum.  Their Commander-in-Chief, General Booth, presided—­a tall, thin, nervous man, who looked more like an old-fashioned Kentucky revivalist than an Englishman.  His bright-eyed and comely wife, Mrs. Catharine Booth, was with him.  She was a woman of remarkable intellectual force and spiritual character, as all must acknowledge who have read her biography.  Her speech (on the Protection of Young Girls) was finely composed and finely delivered, and quite threw into the shade a couple of members of Parliament who spoke from the same platform on the same evening.  When she made any telling point that awakened applause, her husband leaped up, and gave the signal:  “Fire a volley!” Whereupon his troops gave a tremendous cheer, followed by a roll of drums and a blast of trumpets.  The chief agency which the army employs to gather its audiences is music—­whether it be the rattling of the tambourine, or the martial sound of a brass band.  Some of their hymns are little better than pious doggerel, and they do not hesitate to add to Perronet’s grand hymn, “All hail the power of Jesus name,” such a stanza as the following: 

   “Let our soldiers never tire,
     In streets, in lane, in hall,
   The red-hot Gospel’s shot to fire
     And crown Him Lord of All.”

Grotesque as are some of the methods of this novel organization, I cannot but admire their zeal and courage in dredging among the submerged masses with such spiritual apparatus as they can devise.  They are doing a work that God has honored, and that has reached and rescued a vast number of outcasts.  Their chief weakness is that they appeal mainly to the emotions, and give too little solid instruction to their ignorant hearers.  Their chief danger is that when the strong arm of their founder is taken away he may not leave successors who can hold the army together.  Let us hope and pray that the period of their usefulness may yet be protracted.