Regeneration by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard
page 6 of 222 (02%)
page 6 of 222 (02%)
|
him; but he knows which side his bread is buttered and does not care.
When he is gone no doubt his family will divide up the cash, and we shall hear no more of the Salvation Army!' Such are still the honest beliefs of thousands of our instructed fellow-countrymen, and of hundreds of thousands of others of less degree belonging to the classes which are generally typified under the synonym of 'the man in the street,' by which most people understand one who knows little, and of that little nothing accurately, but who decides the fate of political elections. Let us suppose, however, that the questioner should succeed in interesting an intelligent and fair-minded individual holder of these views sufficiently to induce him to make inquiry into the facts concerning this Salvation Army. What would he then discover? He would discover that about five and forty years ago some impulse, wherever it may have come from, moved a Dissenting minister, gifted with a mind of power and originality, and a body of great strength and endurance, gifted, also, with an able wife who shared his views, to try, if not to cure, at least to ameliorate the lot of the fallen or distressed millions that are one of the natural products of high civilization, by ministering to their creature wants and regenerating their spirits upon the plain and simple lines laid down in the New Testament. He would find, also, that this humble effort, at first quite unaided, has been so successful that the results seem to partake of the nature of the miraculous. Thus he would learn that the religious Organization founded by this man and his wife is now established and, in most instances, firmly |
|