But perhaps the very extremity of his one need helped him with the most practical wisdom to avoid all unnecessary expenditure, and to cultivate all those habits of economy and systematic effort which alone made it possible to keep up so vast a work mainly by the gifts of the poor.  To this very day it is the same old struggle to get each L5 that is wanted together.  Yet all of it is precious to us because it so guarantees exemption from indifference, and the pervasion of all our ranks everywhere with the principles of self-help which The General always so inculcated as to make The Army everywhere independent of the wealthy, yet their trusted and skilful almoners.

Rejoicing as we do in all that, we cannot too strongly guard every one against the impression that The Army has become, either at its centre, or anywhere else, so situated that there is not at any given moment extraordinary strain in some financial direction.  It has come to be very generally known that the individual Officer can only keep in existence because he has schooled his desires to be content with what others all around would regard as “an impossible pittance.”

We hear one day of a great city where the conditions of life are such that a Rescue Home is evidently urgently needed, and the lady who calls our attention to the matter offers at once to find L500 towards the fitting-up of such a Home.  But we know that to keep it up requires gifts amounting to some thousands of pounds each year, which, if not subscribed locally, we shall have to provide from Headquarters.

Now what is to be done?  Are we to stand still with what seems to us so valuable an offer, not only of money-helps but of opportunity to help?  Under the circumstances we know what The General would have done.  He would without a moment’s hesitation have said:  “This ought to be done, and must be done”; and, trusting in God, he would have made the other step forward, though perfectly conscious that it would probably involve him in new cares and anxieties.

“Four shillings and tenpence.  Now, really, can’t we manage that twopence to make five shillings?”

Such an appeal, heard at a street-corner, where one of our Open-Air Meetings is being closed, is, I fear, the first and last that many people hear of The Salvation Army.  They have not been present at the Meeting.  All the beautiful speaking and singing of happy men and women, anxious to do anything they can for the good of others—­of this the passers-by know nothing.  Many of them “would not be seen standing to listen” amidst the crowd, still less when, for want of any considerable crowd, they would be more conspicuous.  Hence they have no chance to see or know what really takes place.  Had they even seen the whole process of getting that four shillings and tenpence they would have noted that most of the money really came from the Salvationists forming the ring, who threw their pence, or sixpences, gradually, in the hope of inciting others to do likewise.