  Her Majesty the Queen-Empress cordially sympathises. Her Majesty says "The Queen cannot of course express any opinion on the details of the scheme, but understanding that your object is to alleviate misery and suffering, her Majesty cordially wishes you success in the undertaking you have originated." His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, Writes to express his hearty interest in the scheme and is seen earnestly studying the book and making notes upon it. The Empress Frederick reads the book with interest. THE EMPRESS FREDERICK'S PALACE, BERLIN,November 1, 1890. Count Seckendorff begs leave to acknowledge by command of her Majesty The Earl of Aberdeen expresses his sympathy. In common with thousands of others I have been studying your "plan of campaign." Last night I saw Mr. Bancroft's letter. I think he has performed a public service in coming forward in this spirited manner at the present time. Those who have been in any way associated with past or existing efforts on behalf of the classes which you aim at reaching should reasonably be amongst the first to welcome a scheme so practical, so comprehensive, and so carefully devised as that which you have placed before the country. I shall be happy to become one of the hundred contributors who according to Mr. Bancroft's proposal shall each be responsible for £1,000 on the condition specified. With the offer of sympathy, and the assurance of hearty good wishes, I remain, yours very faithfully, ABERDEEN.The Earl of Airlie Subscribes. "The Earl of Airlie has forwarded towards General Booth's fund a cheque for £1,000." The Marquis of Queensberry offers his services. GLENLEE, NEW GALLOWAY, N.B.,November 21. My Dear General Booth—I have read your book "In Darkest England" with the greatest interest, also with thrills of horror that things should be as bad as they are. I send you a cheque for £100, and shall feel compelled if your scheme is carried out to give you a yearly subscription. You say you want recruits. When I come to town I should very much like to see you to talk this matter over, for I see no cause which a man could more put his heart and soul into than this one of endeavouring to alleviate this fearful misery of our fellow-creatures. I see you quote Carlyle in your book, but is it possible for any one like myself, who is even more bitterly opposed than he was against what to me is the Christian falsehood, to work with you! We have two things to do as things are at present—first to endeavour to alleviate the present awful suffering that exists to the best of our abilities, and surely this ought to be a state affair; and secondly to get at the roots of the evils and by changing public opinion gradually develop a different state of things for future generations, when this help will not be so necessary. I do not wish to get into a religious controversy with you on how this is to be brought about, but I tell you I am no Christian and am bitterly opposed to it. A tree, I believe, is to be judged by its fruits. Christianity has been with us many hundreds of years. What can we think of it when its results are as they are at present with the poor whom Christ, I believe, you say informed us we should always have with us. I know nothing about other worlds, beyond that I see thousand around me whom I presume look after their own affairs. It appears to me our common and plainest duty to help and to try and change the lot of our suffering fellow creatures here on this earth. You can publish this if you please, but without suppressing any of it. If not and any notice is given of subscriptions as I see you are doing, I beg it may be notified that I send this mite as a reverent agnostic to our common cause of humanity. Yours faithfully, QUEENSBERRY.Lord Scarborough is amongst its supporters. "Lord Scarborough, writing from Lumley Castle Chester-le-street, has subscribed £50." Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone lend to it the weight of their influence. "Mr. Gladstone has already expressed has interest in the scheme and now Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone with a like kindly expression forward £50 towards it." Mr. Pickersgill, M.P., looks upon it with increasing favour. At the New Debating Society, Haverstook Hill, Mr. Pickersgill, M.P., said when he first began to read the book he did not approach it with any particularly favourable feelings towards the Salvation Army. He thought that the scheme was the most plausible ever devised. There was in it a happy blending of the ideal with the practical, and a nice balancing of its various parts in the attempt to solve the problem involved in the question "Can we get back to the ordinary conditions of life as they exist in a small healthy community." The Bishop of Durham reviews the Scheme. Speaking on Thursday night at the closing meeting of the General Church Mission at Sunderland, the Bishop of Durham said that just now men were talking on all sides of a great scheme which had been set forth for dealing with some of the social sorrows of our age. The remarkable book in which it was sketched was well calculated to present, in a most vivid combination, the various forms of work to which Christian men must bring the power of their faith. It brought together with remarkable skill the different problems which were pressed upon them; it allowed them to gain a view of the whole field and something of the relation of the different parts one to another. For his own part he trusted that many might be stirred to some unwonted exertion. The Bishop of Lincoln thanks the General. "I thank you heartily for the book you have sent me. The name of it is already well known to English Churchmen, and its object is one in which, we all agree. "The Cross of Christ is the only effectual remedy for the great mass of vice and wretchedness in our large towns, to which you are endeavouring to call public attention; and we must not be content with presenting that Cross in words alone, but must endeavour to show, by our personal efforts and example, how it may practically be applied so as to purify the lives and quicken the hopes of those amongst our countrymen who are now as much strangers to its power as the inhabitants of darkest Africa." The Bishop of Bath and Wells values the book. "I beg to acknowledge, with very many thanks, the receipt of your letter and the volume of your work, 'In Darkest England,' which you have been so good as to send me. I shall read it with much interest, both from the deep importance of the subject, whether viewed in its social, political, or Christian aspect, and also from its containing the opinion of one who has had such universal opportunities as you have had of becoming acquainted with the wants of the lowest and most unhappy section of our great population." The Bishop of Rochester is glad to possess the book. The Bishop of Rochester writes that he hastens to thank Mr. Booth for sending him his book, and he is glad to possess it, and hopes it may be productive of much good. He takes the opportunity of expressing his profound sympathy with him in Mrs. Booth's death. The Bishop of Wakefield (Dr. Walsham How) studies the scheme with deepest interest. I have just received your book, which you have so kindly sent me. I have already bought a copy, which I shall give away. I am studying your scheme with the deepest interest, and I trust and pray it may bring blessing and hope to many. May I venture to express my sympathy with you in your recent heavy bereavement? You do not sorrow as those that have no hope. Canon Farrar preaching at Westminster Abbey, says we are bound to help the scheme or find a better one. It was not difficult to see, as early as half past one on Sunday afternoon last, that something was about to take place in Westminister Abbey. A friendly policeman informed me that the service in the fine old pile of buildings did not commence till three o'clock, but that as Canon Farrar was announced to preach, and upon such an all-absorbing topic as General Booth's new book, people were bent upon securing a good position by being in time. Some three-quarters of an hour before the service commenced the gigantic building was crowded, and the trooping multitudes only arrived at the doors to find a crowd waiting for the least opportunity of getting in. It was reported that thousands were turned away. Canon Farrar had announced his subject as "Social Amelioration," and at the outset stated that he alone was responsible for the opinions he proposed to express in connection with General Booth's scheme. In a very masterly and eloquent way he pictured the social evils which disgrace our civilisation, the small and ineffectual efforts being put forth for their removal, and the terrible responsibility resting upon us as a nation to do our utmost to forward any scheme which appeared likely to effect an amelioration. He proceeded:— Well, here was General Booth's scheme, which he had examined, and with which he had been deeply struck. He pitied the cold heart which could read and not be stirred by "Darkest England." In his best judgment he believed the scheme to be full of promise if the necessary funds were provided, and he merely regarded it as his humble duty to render the undertaking such aid as he could. Had any such scheme been proposed by a member of the Church of England, he should have given it every support. He regarded the scheme as supplementing, not interfering with, the work of the Church, as preparing for, not hindering, the Church's work. The scheme, although no Christian scheme could be wholly dislinked from religion, was yet most prominently a social scheme; its origin was The Salvation Army, but it was intended to promote the work of the common Church. Was the scheme to be thrown aside contemptuously at once on account of prejudice, because it emanated from The Salvation Army? If any thought so, he blamed them not, but he for one declared he could not share their views. He was, perhaps, more widely separated from some of the methods of the Salvation Army than many of his brethren, but the work of the Army had not been unblessed, and there was much that might be learned from an organisation which in so short a time had accomplished so great a work. He dwelt upon the nature of The Salvation Army's work, the officers who were exerting themselves in connection with it, the number of countries to which the organisation had spread. The Salvation Army in its work and extent had credentials which could not be denied. Were they to stand coldly, finically aside because they were too refined and nice, and full of culture to touch this work of The Salvation Army with the point of the finger? He took it that he should fail grievously in his duty if insult or self-interest caused him to hold aloof from any movement which Christ, if He had been on earth, would have approved. Then Dr. Farrar quoted the late Bishop Lightfoot and the late Canon Liddon in favor of The Salvation Army as an organisation which had accomplished a deal of good work. Next he asked, "How shall we receive General Booth's scheme now that it is here to our hands?" With some people the simplest way of treating any scheme for good was to leave it alone. To those who took that position with reference to General Booth's scheme he had nothing whatever to say. There was no need for saying anything either to the other class of people who would talk about a scheme, and having talked about it drop the matter and think no more about it. Another way in which General Booth's scheme might be received was that of examining it, and if convinced against it of rejecting it. That, at all events, was a perfectly manly course; a clear and decided method of reception which there can be no mistaking. To those included in this class, those who would regard the scheme as migratory or pernicious, there was nothing to be said. But what about those who did not mean to help in this or any other scheme, those who left others the burden of the work, the opportunists who would want to step in when the breach had been made? Here, no doubt, there would be such a class, but the last way of receiving General Booth's scheme, and the way in which as he trusted it would be received, was to support it by their influence, and to give to it of their means. It was an immense and far-reaching scheme, which, might bring help and hope to thousands of the helpless and hopeless, made helpless and hopeless by the terrible conditions of society, but for every one of whom Christ died. To begin the scheme in earnest would require a sum of £100,000, but he asked, "What was that to the wealth of England—to the wealth of London?" It was a mere drop in the ocean compared to what was every year spent on drink and wasted in extravagance. There were a hundred men in England who might immortalise themselves by giving this sum, and yet not have a luxury the less. He left the response to General Booth's appeal with the public, but would it not, he asked, be a desperate shame for England if any scheme giving so hopeful a promise of social amelioration should fail without a trial, and like a broken promise, be lost in air? But to this observation somebody might reply in the form of a queried objection, "The scheme might fail." Yes, it might fail; anything might fail. But if to die amid disloyalty and hatred meant failure, then St. Paul failed. If to die in the storm meant failure, then Luther and Wesley and Whitfield failed; if to die at the stake by the flames meant failure, did not martyrs fail; Finally, if to die on the cross, with the priests and the soldiers spitting out hatred, meant failure, then Jesus Christ failed. Yes, the scheme might fail; but was all this failure? Were there none among them bold enough to look beyond the possibility of failure? Could they not somehow get round the word? Fear and jealousy and suspicion and intolerance and despair were counsellors finding multitudes to listen, but he for one would listen to the nobler counsellor "Hope." Were none of them bold enough at the last moment to prefer even failure in a matter like this to the most brilliant success in pleasing the world and making truce with the devil? He would try to hope that the scheme might not fail, but what each one had to consider was the question, "Shall it fail through my cowardice, my greed, my supineness, my prudential cautiousness, my petty prejudices, my selfish conventionality?" "If, on examining this plan in the light of conscience, we see in it an augury for the removal of the deadly evils which lie at the heart of our civilisation, it seems to me we are bound to do our utmost to help it forward. 'But,' you say, 'if we conscientiously disapprove of it?' Then we are in duty bound to propose or to forward SOMETHING BETTER."One way only is contemptible and accursed—that is, to make it a mere excuse for envy, malice and depreciation. "He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear; but God shall be the judge between us, and His voice says in Scripture: 'If thou forbear to deliver them that are bound unto death, and those who are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, "Behold," we knew it not, doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it, and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it, and shall not He render to every man according to his work?'" Archdeacon Sinclair wishes the scheme success. Speaking at Bromley, Kent, on Friday night, in connection with the The Rev. Brooke Lambert defends the scheme in the "Times." There is much that is not new in the scheme. General Booth allows that much. But there are two factors in his scheme which, if not new, at least acquire a new prominence. These two factors are help and hope. Society drops these two h's. For help it substitutes money-giving, and as for hope for the disreputable, it has none. The personal contact of General Booth's workers, of his 10,000 officers, is an essential feature of the scheme. They take the man or the woman as they enter the shelter, and prevent it from becoming a means of dissemination of crime, of filth, of disease. They stand by the new-fledged proselyte to work, to encourage perseverance. They follow him to the country colony, the abomination of desolation to one who has walked the London pavements and found his heaven in the gin-palace and the music-hall, to stimulate effort. They accompany him to the colony to remind him that true freedom is not licence, that the conditions of success are a change of mind and not of climate. But for them, one might doubt whether the hope General Booth conceives for the "submerged tenth" would be hope at all in their eyes. Nothing so difficult as to persuade the Londoner to go into the country, and the emigrant to keep to work away from the congenial interludes of town pleasure. But once create this hope (and persistent reiteration can do much when the agent is a kindly man or woman) and you have introduced a new element into the life of the wastrel. Our prison system, growing in harshness, failed utterly to deter; with the reformatory system, based on the principle of making it to a man's interest to behave well within the walls, a new era dawned on criminal legislation. It is for these reasons that I look with deep interest on General Booth's experiment. Do not let us say, "The experiment has been tried before; it is useless to attempt it again." I believe there is enough of novelty in General Booth's scheme to justify a hope of success. But for past failures I can but say that people do not regard failure as a ground for inaction when their interest is deeply involved. When I was a boy, some 45 years ago, I saw at the old Polytechnic experiments in electricity: the electric light, the electric cautery, &c. For years I expected to see them introduced into the work-day world. Now, at last, they are coming into use, but I do not think the shares stand at a very high premium. None the less electricity will one day be of universal use. That is what experiment in spite of failure has done; that is what we ought to do in social matters. When all is done, the result will be comparatively small when compared with our aspirations, but it will create, as all good work does, new outlets for effort, new objects for hope. BROOKE LAMBERT.The Vicarage, Greenwich, Nov. 19. Dr. Parker approves the General's Scheme. A report in the Star says:—"Dr. Parker, preaching his one-minute sermon at the City Temple yesterday (Sunday) morning, said, 'I hope General Booth will get every penny he asked for. No man can make better use of money. I wish be would include other Englands in his scheme. There is another England, darker than the darkest he has in view. I mean the England of genteel poverty and genteel misery…. These people are not in the slums, but they are fast being driven in that direction…. From my point of view, one of the best features in General Booth's scheme is that nobody is to receive anything for nothing. It is easy to throw money away. Money we work for goes farthest. There is NO STAIN OF PAUPERISMupon it. DR. PARKER SAYS "NO BOARDS."—Dr. Parker, addressing his congregation on Thursday morning, said:—"General Booth spoke to me the other day at my house, amongst others, about boards of trustees and referees, and all the rest of it, in reference to his scheme. I said that would spoil the whole thing. I do not want any boards of reference. We have boards enough and referees enough—(laughter)—and we do not want little men to assume an awful responsibility which Providence never meant them to handle. They had better let a great governing spirit like General Booth manage the whole thing in his own way. I am afraid I was even more of a democrat than even General Booth suspected. (Laughter.) I am an autocrat—I believe in one man doing a thing. Some persons imagine if they have got six little men together that they will total up into a Booth. The Lord makes His own Booths, and Moodys, and Spurgeons, and sends them out to do His work, and we shall do well to get out of their way, except when we have anything to give of sympathy, money, prayer and assistance. Presently, some Thursday morning, I am going to give you a chance of giving—which you will—to this great scheme." (Applause.) Dr. Moulton, President of the Wesleyan Conference, is grateful for the labour which the General has expended upon this problem. "No one can read your book without recognising the claim which you have established on the sympathetic help of all Christian churches. For myself, I am deeply grateful to you for the enormous labor which you have expended on the great problem, and for your able treatment of its difficulties." Revd. Alfred Rowland says he believes the working of the Scheme will be for the good of the people. Yesterday morning the Rev. Alfred Rowland preached at Park Chapel, Crouch End, the first portion of a sermon on General Booth's book. The preacher said the scheme was a noble, bold, and generous effort to reach the masses. He believed the result of the working of the scheme would be for the good of the people at large. He asked them to give liberally to the project, even if it was only an experiment, because he believed it would succeed, and all he could do, financially and otherwise, he should be pleased to do in support of the scheme. A Collection for the Scheme is raised at City Church, Oxford. At the City Church, Oxford, on Sunday, the rector, the Rev. Carterel Revd. H. Arnold Thomas makes a successful appeal on behalf of the Scheme. A HANDSOME OFFERING.The sum of £650 was collected at Highbury Congregational Chapel, Bristol, on Sunday, as a contribution to General Booth's fund, for his scheme unfolded in his book, "In Darkest England." This was in response to an appeal from the pastor, the Rev. H. Arnold Thomas. Revd. Champness looks upon it as a forlorn hope. A letter dated from Rochdale, and bearing the well-known name "Thomas Champness," has reached General Booth, with a contribution of £50. "I wish," writes Mr. Champness in his letter, "I could make you know how much my heart is with you in your great scheme. I am not as sanguine as some of your admirers are as to the success you are sure to win; but I look upon it as a forlorn hope, in which a man had better lose his life than save it by ignoble do-nothingness." Mrs. Fawcett points out the great value of the Scheme. MRS. FAWCETT'S VIEWS.Mrs. Henry Fawcett, lecturing last night on "Private Remedies for Poverty," before the Marylebone Centre of the university Extension Lectures Society, at Welbeck Hall, Welbeck-street, W., said that according to classified directories of London charities, these charities had a yearly income of £4,000,000, but she did not think full returns were made in all instances, and that the total sum was nearer £7,000,000 than £4,000000, while the entire cost of poor-law relief in the United Kingdom was only £8,000,000. Having dwelt upon the evils of misdirected charity, she said the keynote of General Booth's scheme, and what, as it seemed to her, gave her great hope of its being to some extent a success, was the amount of personal devotion and energy which it called for and which she believed the Salvation Army was prepared to give to its development. Its keynote was the possibility of bringing about a change in the individual by personal effort and influence. As General Booth pointed out, the problem was unsolvable unless new soul could be infused in the poor and outcast class whom it was designed to help: and to this end it was not money that was wanted so much as the personal service of men and women. One great feature of the scheme was that no relief was to be given without work, except in very exceptional cases. She had personally visited the workshops and shelters of the Salvation Army in Whitechapel, and she found a number of people apparently of the very lowest moral and physical type, and yet they were de-brutalised and had a happy human look as they went on with their work, which in some cases was the same as they had performed in gaol. No temptation was afforded by the workshops or shelters to induce people to stay away from ordinary industrial life longer than they could possibly help. The men had to sleep in a kind of orange-box without bottom, on the floor, upon an American oilcloth mattress; and with a piece of leather for a coverlet. Most previous schemes for employing the unemployed upon colonies and waste land had failed because of the men put upon them, who were drunken, lazy, and half-witted. By General Booth's scheme there was process of selection which would weed out those individuals: and she thought photography might be employed in getting to know bad and unsatisfactory characters. Mrs. Howard M'Lean hopes the Scheme may have an immediate trial. Mrs. Howard M'Lean "presents her compliments to General Booth, and begs to send him her promise of £100, in the earnest hope that the scheme set forth in 'In Darkest England' may at least have a fair trial, and that immediately." The "Times of India" points out the advantages of the Scheme. If we apprehend the scheme aright, it will be carried out independently of existing charities, and indeed not under the guise of a charity at all. The bread of poverty is bitter enough, but that of pauperism is bitterer still, and General Booth, it would seem, intends to foster rather than discourage such spirit of independence as he may find among the lost souls for whom he works. But it seems to us that where such a scheme as his chiefly gains its power, is in its total dissociation from church or sect. However good the work which is done by the Church and by the more widely ramified agency of the Non-conformist sects—and no one will be found to deny that this work is of the greatest possible value in relieving the destitute and reclaiming the criminal classes—there is little or no unity about it. It is under no individual control, it is not carried out on any uniform system, and one agency has no means of knowing what another agency is doing. The result is that relief gets very unevenly distributed, and the lazy and dissolute profit at the expense of the deserving poor. Nor do any of these agencies, as a general rule, aim at any systematic crusade against other destitution than that of the moment. When they touch the lowest of low-life deeps; it is for the most part in the way of temporary relief only, without the effort (because they have not power) to set these people on their feet again and give them the means of earning a living. It is here that General Booth steps in, and by an elaborate but perfectly feasible system, proposes without any attempt at proselytization to drag the poor from their poverty, put them in the way of doing work of any kind they may be fitted for, and eventually establish them in an over-sea colony. Looking now to the objections which may be urged against General Booth's scheme, we are at once confronted by two important considerations. The first concerns the "General" himself. He asks for a million pounds sterling to enable him to carry out his project, and the question seems to have already been asked, Is he the person to whom a million pounds may be entrusted? Will it be so safeguarded that those who subscribe may feel assured that the money will be properly applied and an honest attempt made to do the work here planned out? To all these questions we are disposed to reply in the affirmative. General Booth and his Salvation Army have by this time pretty well weathered the storm of abuse and scorn with which their methods were at first received, and however much we may be disposed even now to question the taste or propriety of those methods, there can be no amount of doubt in the mind of any reasonable man that the Salvation Army has been the means of achieving enormous good the whole world over. In his administration of this huge organization of which himself was the founder, Mr. Booth has proved himself a man of probity and of the strictest possible integrity. We do not hesitate to say that all the money he requires for this great scheme may be safely placed in his hands, and that he will render a strict account of its disbursement. Then comes the question, how far is it possible for him to succeed in the work he proposes to undertake? He has already in the field a vast organization doing good work among the dregs of the population, and the extension of this organization to carry out the main points of his project is not a matter of difficulty. The ill is a terrible one, the evil gigantic, and the means to grapple with it must be gigantic also. But given the means, will they be effective? We frankly confess that we do not believe they will be so effective as General Booth hopes, but we believe at the same time that if he can achieve only one-tenth of what he hopes to achieve, ten millions of pounds would be worthily laid out upon it. The hungry, the dirty, the ragged, the hopeless and outcast, the criminal and the drunkard, the idle and the vicious—can he gather all these in with any hope of starting them afresh on the journey of life? So much work of this kind has already been done without any special system, that there can be little doubt that to a large extent he can. With the honestly poor it is not a difficult matter, but with the vicious and criminal classes, who have no inclination to work so long as they can steal, it will be a long time before the Salvation Army or any other agency can effect any sweeping reform. The work will be slow, but we believe it will be done. It has been objected against General Booth's scheme that it is not new, except in the fact that General Booth proposes that it shall be himself who carries it out. It seems to us, on the contrary, that it is new in one most vital aspect, and that is, that its details are to be worked out by an enormous united body on a definite plan, instead of by numberless charitable agencies all working independently of each other. We believe, in short, that General Booth will meet with a very large measure of success, and we believe also that when the details of his scheme come to be read and discussed, he will have no difficulty in getting all the money he asks for, and more besides. Looking at the enormous wealth of England, a million pounds is as nothing. It is the Duke of Westminister's income for three months, and it would open up the means of finding hope and work and refuge, and a new life beyond the seas, for a million or more of the helpless poor. We wish Mr. Booth God-speed in his great undertaking. The "Bombay Gazette" of November 15th, 1890, gives an exhaustive review, from which we cull the following extracts:— There is little of the form, though there may be much of the spirit, of the Salvation Army in General Booth's "Darkest England and the Way Out." It is on the whole a sober, and in some respects well-reasoned, attempt to solve the most urgent problem of the day. Whosesoever the actual workmanship of the book may be, the personality of General Booth pervades every page—nowhere obtrusively it is true, but sufficiently to impart life and warmth to the discussion of a problem whose solution, though it must be sought for only within the limits marked out by economic principles, will never be found, unless it is sought for with a certain passionate sympathy for the outcast. The dramatic parallel which the writer establishes between the savagery of Darkest Africa and the suffering and sin of Darkest England, will arrest attention, and will of itself make the book popular. Here, however, we are concerned with the more matter-of-fact elements in the problem, and with the practical remedies which are proposed for it. The heading of "the Submerged Tenth" which is given to one of the chapters, roughly indicates the dimensions of the task that has to be performed. General Booth takes three millions to be the strength of the army of the destitute in England. The total comprises the representatives of every phase of want—criminals and drunkards and idlers and their dependants, as well as the class who are destitute through misfortune, who are honest in their poverty, and whom no man can blame for it. For these last-named, society does next to nothing. There is the workhouse for people who have spent their last penny; for so long as it remains unspent, it is a legal disqualification for the help of the State. Or there is the casual ward, where a hard task is exacted in payment for hard fare, but where absolutely nothing is done to help the wayfarer to gain or regain a place and a living in society. Out-relief has been reduced to the minimum. A few weeks ago the whole parish of St. Jude, Whitechapel, with a population of sixty thousand, provided only four applicants to the Board of Guardians for out-relief. Thus far the organized official agency has done little enough for the raising of the "submerged tenth." If laissez faire were a cure for all the ills of society, they would have been cured long ago, for the remedy has been applied with a persistency that has failed not. General Booth thinks that he has discovered a more excellent way, and is entitled to a hearing for his plan, for part of it is already in operation. In the "shelters" established by the Salvation Army in the east of London, casual relief is given on almost as large a scale as in the casual wards of the London Workhouses; but he claims for it that it is a less degrading form of help, that sympathy goes with it; and with him of course the emotional accompaniments which the Salvation Army is careful to provide, count for much. The "Christian" prognosticates a good future for the Scheme. Up to this stage the great social scheme of General Booth for uplifting the "sunken tenth," has been, so to speak, "in the air." Monday night's meeting at Exeter Hall may be said to have set it on the solid ground and given good hope that it will run as fast and as far as the supplied resources will allow. The great audience to which the General had to address himself, was not mainly of the usual enthusiastic Army type; but it cannot be said that it was not ready to approve and applaud when any good and telling point was made. The brief religious service at the beginning gave the proceedings the spiritual stamp of Army gatherings, but the larger part of the time was taken up with the statement of the General. For more than two and a half hours he was on his feet so that he did not, at any rate, spare himself in his effort to interest the public in his gigantic plan of campaign. At the outset, he expressed diffidence in entering on the exposition of somewhat new lines of work, but he soon showed himself at home, and in much that he advanced there was a happy audacity and a confidence that boded well for the future developments of his scheme. The "Bombay Guardian" defends the Scheme. General Booth's aim is to give every one who is "down in the world" a chance to rise. No one, however poor or however degraded, is to be left out. By means of shelters and training factories in the towns, he would give every one a chance who wishes to work, however "lost" their character may have become. There is to be absolutely no charity. All will work for their food and lodging, until they have gained sufficient character and experience to take a situation as a respectable working man or woman. There are thousands of "out-of-works," "ne'er-do-wells," &c., in every large town in England, who are naturally fitted for agricultural work, although they have lived all their lives, perhaps, far away from the green fields. For the training of these General Booth has a scheme of a large "Farm Colony" which will be nearly or entirely self-supporting. When trained sufficiently in agricultural work, they will be drafted off by emigration to a great "over-sea" colony in South Africa. The whole movement will be permeated by earnest Christian teaching. The man who is in trouble and professes to be converted, will be welcomed on that account, and the man who is in trouble but does not profess to be saved, will be equally welcome in the hope that he may give himself to Christ. It is computed that there are three million people in England whom this scheme will eventually hope to help. A first instalment of £100,000 towards an eventual million, is asked for as a starting-point for the scheme. This seems a large undertaking and a large sum, but compared to the needs of the world, it is very small. There is a still darker France than the darkest England, a darker Italy than the darkest France, and deeper depths of darkness still in India. We think that those who know the "slums" of London and large English When Christ reigns as Viceroy for Jehovah for a thousand years, as the Word of God so distinctly intimates, it may be that some such plan as this, far more perfect and world-wide in its aim, will form part of the inaugurative forces of that happy lot. Speaking broadly, General Booth's great scheme is in harmony with views that are accepted by all Christians. His design is to elevate the wretched to more favourable conditions of life, on the principle of the Temperance reformer who seeks to remove temptations to drunkenness; or of the opponent of the iniquitous opium traffic, who insists upon the prohibition of the drug which is the curse of millions; or of the antagonist of licensed impurity, who demands that the tendency of law shall be to make it easy to do right, and not afford facilities to do wrong. Some passages of "In Darkest England and the Way Out" are certainly capable of being misconstrued. But on looking at the book and its scheme as a whole, the Christian heart is drawn into lively sympathy with it, without being committed to every detail. If all that is anticipated be not realized by this gigantic scheme, the attempt to carry it out cannot do otherwise than prove a source of great and eternal good to multitudes, as the labourers carry on their work in dependance upon God. |
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