are mostly composed of those who have long frequented them and of a certain number of new members drawn rather from existing sects than from persons till now untouched by religion.  Then, with regard to the other side of The Army’s work, the Social Schemes outlined in In Darkest England have met with only moderate success, as all cool observers foretold in 1890.  They have, at least, provided no panacea for poverty.  Probably Mr. Booth felt this during the last years of his life; but he has been spared the sight of the still further decline of his projects, which to most of us seems inevitable.  Of course, some persons are more confident:  they argue that Napoleon’s system did not disappear after Waterloo, nor Wesley’s system with the death of its founder, and that the Roman Catholic Church is as strong as ever, though Pope after Pope disappears.  That is true, but for the very reason that these systems were elaborate organisations, based on the facts of life.  The Code Napoleon and the Methodist Connexion were much too well adapted to human needs to disappear with their authors.  On the other hand, movements and systems which depend wholly upon one man do not often prove to be more than ephemeral.  But none would deny that there is much to be learnt from The Salvation Army and from the earnest, strenuous, and resourceful personality of the man who made it.  Let us hope that, if The Army as an Organisation should ultimately fade away, the great lesson of its even temporary success will not be forgotten:  the lesson that any force which is to move mankind must regard man’s nature as spiritual as well as material, and that the weak and humble, the poor and the ‘submerged,’ share in that double nature as much as those who spend their lives in the sunshine of worldly prosperity.”

The Daily Chronicle, August 21, 1912

“To-day we have the mournful duty of chronicling the passing of William Booth, the Head of that vast Organisation, the Salvation Army.  The world has lost its greatest missionary evangelist, one of the supermen of the age.  Almost every land on the face of the globe knows this pioneer and his Army, The Army which has waged such long, determined, and successful battle against the world’s ramparts of sin and woe.  Not one country, but fifty, will feel to-day a severe personal loss.  From Lapland to Honolulu heads will be bowed in sorrow at the news that that striking figure who has been responsible for so much of the religious progress of the world of to-day is no more.

“The stupendous crusade which he initiated had the very humblest beginnings.  It opened in the slummy purlieus of Nottingham, that city which gave to the world two of the greatest religious leaders of modern times—­General Booth and Dr. Paton.  It has passed through periods of open enmity, opposition, criticism, but its Leader and his band of devoted helpers have never lost sight of their high aim.  They were engaged in ‘war on the hosts that keep the underworld submerged,’ and they have now long been justified by their unparalleled achievements.  The time of scorn and indifference passed, and General Booth lived to receive honour at the hands of kings and princes, and to have their support for his work.