e,
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
rooted in 56 Countries and Colonies, where it preaches the Gospel in
33 separate languages: that it has over 16,000 Officers wholly
employed in its service, and publishes 74 periodicals in 20 tongues,
with a total circulation of nearly 1,000,000 copies per issue: that it
accommodates over 28,000 poor people nightly in its Institutions,
maintaining 229 Food Depots and Shelters for men, women, and children,
and 157 Labour Factories where destitute or characterless people are
employed: that it has 17 Homes for ex-criminals, 37 Homes for
children, 116 Industrial Homes for the rescue of women, 16 Land
Colonies, 149 Slum Stations for the visitation and assistance of the
poor, 60 Labour Bureaux for helping the unemployed, and 521 Day
Schools for children: that, in addition to all these, it has Criminal
and General Investigation Departments, Inebriate Homes for men and
women, Inquiry Offices for tracing lost and missing people, Maternity
Hospitals, 37 Homes for training Officers, Prison-visitation Staffs,
and so on almost _ad infinitum_.

He would find, also, that it collects and dispenses an enormous
revenue, mostly from among the poorer classes, and that its system is
run with remarkable business ability: that General Booth, often
supposed to be so opulent, lives upon a pittance which most country
clergymen would refuse, taking nothing, and never having taken
anything, from the funds of the Army. And lastly, not to weary the
reader, that whatever may be thought of its methods and of the noise
made by the 23,000 or so of voluntary bandsmen who belong to it, it is
undoubtedly for good or evil one of the world forces of our age.

Before going further, i