THE SALVATION ARMY AND CONVERSION.
[TO MI EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Neither of your correspondents, "Arnica Pauperum" (Spectator, October 13th) and " Observer " (Spectator, October
27th), appears to have studied the evidence adduced by me in "The Salvation Army and the Public," recently reviewed by you. The first assures me that "profession of
conversion. is /tot extorted from applicants for assistance" ; the second deprecates my "complaint that the Salvation Army require from thoee seeking their assistance a profession of salvation or conversion.' " I do not allege or 00/31plain, as your correspondents imagine, that the Army =torte or exacts any such profession froza applicants for admission to its " social " institutions. My contention is, rather, that so long as the Army is true to its acknowledged beliefs, and so long as its officers are sincere in these beliefs and their sincerity is allowed full play, the test of conversinu must in the long run operate upon the inmates of its inetitutions —in the words of your reviewer—" as a condition of promo- don and favour."
In my book I have quoted an order to officials engagediu prisoa- gate work to the effect that "when a man gives himself up to their care they are under obligation to look after him until he has had a good chance of being saved," that no substantial help is to be given him "until he shows proof of the genuineness of his desire for reformation at the penitent form," and that "when he gives evidence of being really saved he must be provided with employment," &c. As the Army's ex-criminal home in this country has been given up, it is difficult to say what its present practice in regard to criminals really is. Even if this regulation has recently been modified or abrogated, the spirit and belief which dictated it must still be supposed to animate the Army's officers, and must be reckoned with in all its institutions. "It is primarily and mainly for the sake of saving the soul," asserts General Booth, "that I seek the salvation of the body.° "We aim at getting our men converted; say the officers of the General's " elevators " to the readers of the War Cry ; "we believe that salvation is an essential condition of lasting reforma- tion." Such declarations represent Salvationism in its freshest and purest form. I do not ignore the fact that the Army's "social" institutions have their commercial aspect, and that financial and other exigencies may, in certain circumstances, make it expedient to check and stifle that enthusiasm for souls which is, and must be, the chief motive of most men and women in joining the Army's service as officers. For this and other reasons, the application of the Army's belief in the supreme importance ef conversion cannot well be uniform throughout its whole system.
It seems to me impossible for officers who regard salvation, or the profession of it, as "an essential condition of lasting reforms- tion," to deal impartially with those under their charge who find it possible or expedient to become converted, and with those who do not. In such circumstances a very undesirable state of things may come about without the employment of actual compulsion or force. As an ex-staff officer acquainted with the "social" work recently expressed it, "many of the men soon get to know that If they don't get converted they are net likely to get very far." The officer of an "elevator" has stated with satisfaction in the War Cry that eighty-nine of the inmates professed salvation, and forty-eight of them were soldiers of the Army. I am compelled to doubt the genuineness of conversions obtained under such conditions.
Your reviewer has defined "religious influences" as "the inculcation of reasoned motives of restraint with regard to conduct," and your correspondent "Observer" suggests that this definition correctly describes the religious influences of Hadleigh Colony. These influences, however, have always conyeraion for their object, and I venture to doubt whether the methods employed to obtain it at Hadleigh can be any more "reasoned" than those which I have examined in detail as more or less prevalent throughout the whole Salvationist system. The degree of inducement that is desirable, or can be exercised, in regard to attendance at the Army's or other religious meetings naturally varies with circumstances. Thus, according to the Daily News religious census, while attendance at the services in the Army's East London sheltera may not have been compulsory, it was "more or less regarded as such by all who use the shelters." In the "elevators" the degree of inducement, I have reason to believe, is sensibly greater. As regards Hadleigh Colony, I, have cited two cases, which engaged the attention of the Law Courts, of actual compulsion to attend religious services, and, in spite of the freedom of which " Observer " speaks, I hesitate to believe that the Army authorities have and show no preference in regard to the particular services attended.
Previous page
