“This General believes in the Salvation of the worst and the most deeply sunken.  He preaches the gospel of holding on, of going steadily forwards, of freedom from the lusts of the flesh and from public opinion.  He preaches at the same time the gospel of work, of unwearied faithfulness in business, and of love to all mankind.

“When he has finished The Army sings with musical accompaniment and clapping of hands its glad and even merry-sounding songs, not without a mixture of that sudden inrush of enthusiasm which springs from the conviction of having the only faith that can make people blessed, and the consciousness of a resistance hard to be overcome.  And then begins that extraordinary urgent exhorting of the sinner from the stage—­the ten-and-twenty times repeated ’Come’—­come to the Penitent-Form, represented here by a row of twenty chairs.  ’In the last Meeting of The General’s in Copenhagen thirty-three came out.  How many will it be in Hamburg?’ cries the leading Officer.

“The first are soon kneeling, sobbing, praying, their hands over their eyes at the chairs.  Ever new songs are sung—­spiritual songs set to worldly melodies.  Ever anew sounds the ringing ‘Come’ from the stage.  Below, the men and women Soldiers go from one to another, speaking to the hesitating ones, laying a hand on the shoulder of the ready ones, and leading them to the front.  What a long time it may be since any loving hand was laid on the shoulder of many of those Recruits!  Life, the rough, pitiless life of the great city, has always been pushing them along lower and lower down till it got them underfoot.  Here they listen to the sound of a voice of sympathy, and feel the pressure of a hand that wishes to lead them.  And there above sits The General for a while in an arm-chair, saying:  ’The deepest-fallen may rise again.  He has only to step out into the ranks of The Army, which is marching upwards to the Land of Grace.’  As we left the Hall the thirty-fourth had already come out.”

It must be remembered that all these descriptions come from part of a single month’s journeys, and that The General was dependent upon translation for nearly every moment of intercourse either in public or private with the people, and that it will be entirely understood how great a power for God in this world a man entirely given up may be after he has passed his eightieth year, and with what clearness witness for God can be borne even in a strange tongue when it is plain and definite.