The motto of the Army is ‘Salvation for all,’ and, as I have hinted in these pages, it has a sure conviction of the essential persistence of miracle in these modern days.  It holds that when a man kneels at the Penitent-Form and ‘gets converted,’ a miracle takes place within him, if his repentance is true, and that thenceforward some Grace from on High will give him the power to overcome the evil in his heart and blood.

It believes, too, in the instant efficacy of earnest prayer, and in the possibility of direct communication by this means between man and his Maker.

Here is an instance of this statement.  While inspecting the Shelters in one of the provincial cities, I was shown a certain building which had recently passed into the possession of the Army.  The Officer who was conducting me said that the negotiations preliminary to the acquisition of the lease of this building had been long and difficult.  I remarked that these must have caused him anxiety.  ‘Oh, no,’ he answered, simply.  ’You see I had talked with the Lord about it, and I knew that we should get the place in the end.’

This reply may cause some to smile, but I confess I find such childlike faith touching and even beautiful.

There is small doubt that consciously or unconsciously, the Salvation Army has followed St. Paul’s example of being all things to all men, if ‘by all means’ it may save some.  This is the reason of its methods which to many seem so vulgar and offensive.  Once I spoke to an Officer high up in the Army of this matter, instancing, amongst other things, its brass bands and loud-voiced preaching at street corners.

‘My dear sir,’ he replied, ’if we came to convert you, we should not bring a brass band or send a missionary who shouted out sacred names every minute.  Possibly, if we thought that you were open to the influences of music, we might send a first-rate violinist to play pieces from the classical masters, and we should certainly send a man whom we knew to be your intellectual equal, and who could therefore appeal to your reason.  But our mission at present is not so much to you and your class, as to the dregs of humanity.  The folk we deal with live in a state of noise of which you have no conception, and if we want to force them to listen to us, we must begin by making a greater noise in order to attract their attention at all.  In the same way it is of no use wasting subtleties on them; we have to go straight to the main points, which are clear and sharp enough to pierce their drink-besotted intelligences, or to reach any fragment of conscience they may have remaining in them.’

I thought the argument sound and well put, and results have proved its force, since the Salvation Army undoubtedly gets a hold of people that few other forms of religious effort seem able to grasp, at least to any considerable extent.