chapter there is a calm
confidence which comes from the experience of one who in sixty years of
troubled life can say with full assurance "I know in whom I have
believed." That is not the only contrast between the two. Mr. Carlyle as
befitted the philosopher in his study, contented himself with writing in
large characters of livid fire, "This is the way, walk ye in it;" but
the generation scoffed and walked otherwhere. General Booth, equally
with Mr. Carlyle writes up in characters so plain that the way-faring man,
though a fool, cannot help reading it, "This is the way, walk ye in
it." But he does more. He himself offers to lead the van, "This is the
way," he declares, "I will lead you along it, follow me!"

CATHOLICITY--SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS.

Another distinctive characteristic of this book is its extraordinary
catholicity. In this respect I know no book like it that has appeared in
our time. While declaring with passionate conviction the truth and
necessity of the gospel which the Salvation Army preaches, there is not
one word of intolerance from the first page to the last. It is easy to
be broad when there is no intensity of conviction. The liberality of
indifference is one of the most familiar phenomena of the day. But
General Booth is broad without being shallow, and his liberalism
certainly cannot be attributed to indifference! He is as earnest as John
the Baptist, for now and then the aboriginal preacher reappears crying
aloud, Jonah-like, messages calling men to flee from the wrath to come.
But no broad churchman of our time, from Dean Stanley downwards, could
display a more catholic spirit to all fellow workers in the great
harvest field, which is white unto the harvest, but where the labourers
are so few. This spirit he displays not only in the religious field, but
what is still more remarkable, he carries it into the domain of social
experiment. The old intolerance and fierce hatred which raged in the
churches at many great crises in the history of the world is with us
still, but it is no longer in religious dress. The rival sects of
socialists hate each other and contend with each other with a savagery
which recalls the worst days of the early church. Every man has got his
own favourite short cut to Utopia and he damns all those who do not work
therein with the unhesitating assurance of an Athanasius. Hence
catholicity is much more needed and much more rarely found in the domain
of social economics than