Of the attacks that have been and are continually made upon the
Salvation Army, some of them extremely bitter, General Booth would say
little. He pointed out that he had not been in the habit of defending
himself and his Organization in public, and was quite content that the
work should speak for itself. Their affairs and finances had been
investigated by eminent men, who 'could not find a sixpence out of
place'; and for the rest, a balance-sheet was published annually. This
balance-sheet for the year ending September 30, 1909, I reprint in an
appendix.[1]

With regard to the Social Work of the Army, which in its beginning was
a purely religious body, General Booth said that they had been driven
into it because of their sympathy with suffering. They found it
impossible to look upon people undergoing starvation or weighed down
by sorrows and miseries that came upon them through poverty, without
stretching out a hand to help them on to their feet again. In the same
way they could not study wrongdoers and criminals and learn their
secret histories, which show how closely a great proportion of human
sin is connected with wretched surroundings, without trying to help
and reform them to the best of their abilities. Thus it was that their
Social operations began, increased, and multiplied. They contemplated
not only the regeneration of the individual, but also of his
circumstances, and were continually finding out new methods by which
this might be done.

The Army looked forward to the development of its Social Work on the
lines of self-help, self-management and self-support. Whenever a new
development came under consideration, the question arose--How is it to
be financed? The work they had in hand at present took all their