class-leader who will look after his most important interests.  The magnificent Methodist organization, unequalled outside the Roman Catholic Church, has developed within the century, and its aggressive forces have been felt throughout Christendom.  All the denominations have received an impetus from its abundant energy and each in its measure has caught the contagion of its activities.  In country districts, in the great cities and in foreign lands, its representatives, loyal to their Church and the principles of its founder, are pressing forward in self-denial and apostolic fervor foremost everywhere in the van of the Christian army.

Kindred with the Methodist in its enthusiasm and still more highly organized, is the youngest of all the religious organizations—­the Salvation Army.  In its origin, a daughter of the Methodist Church, with a strong resemblance in spirit and purpose and methods to its mother, the Salvation Army has a mission peculiarly its own.  It too has grown with a rapidity unexampled in the religious history of other centuries.  More than one quarter of the century had passed when William Booth first saw the light, more than half the century had passed before he had begun to give his life to his Master’s service.  From 1857 to 1859 he was simply a Methodist minister, at an unimportant town, appointed by his conference, sparsely paid, and certain to be removed to another sphere at the end of his term.  In 1865, he and his devoted wife resigned home and income and dependence on conference for support, and went to London.  They settled in the poorest and most degraded district of the city, and began to preach in tents, in cellars, in deserted saloons, under railroad arches, in factories and in any place which could be had for nothing, or at a low rental.  The people gathered in multitudes wherever Mr. Booth and his wife preached, veritable heathen, many of them, who knew nothing of the Bible and had never attended a religious service in their lives.  Converts were numerous and they were required to testify to the change in their souls and their lives and to become missionaries in their turn.  In 1870 an old market was purchased in the densest centre of poverty in London and was made the headquarters of the Mission.  Bands of men and women were sent out to hold meetings, sing hymns and “give their testimony” in the open-air, in saloons, or any resort where an audience could be gathered.  These bands were busy every night in a hundred wretched districts of the great city, and at every stand, some poor forlorn creatures would be gathered in and encouraged to begin a new life in faith in Christ.  Some method of organization became necessary, and was eventually devised.  The perfect obedience and confidence manifested everywhere to the man who directed the movement, and the entire dependence of every worker on him for guidance and support, may have suggested the military system.  However that may be, the military organization was adopted, and a perfect system