“I’m thinking it is better for men to meddle wi’ the things o’ God, which they canna change, than wi’ those o’ the government wi’ which they can wark a’ kinds o’ mischief and mischance. Thae Irish kirns now!” Then his face flushed, angrily, and fixing his eyes on a lad who was in the procession he cried,
“If there isna my Jock wi’ thae loons! Certie, the words arena to seek, that I’ll gie him, when he wins home again!”
“Then you don’t approve of the movement?” I asked.
“What way would I do that?”
“Have you read or heard anything of Mr. Booth?”
“Ow, ay, he is just a parfect Goliath o’ conceit, but he isna the man to hold the deil, for a’ his talk.”
“Is there a deil to hold? You know some ministers have given up the idea of personal devil,” I said; and I quite anticipated the look I got in reply,
“Have they? Ay weel, getting rid o’ the Wicked One, hasna got us rid o’ the wicked. Good day to you, ma’am. I’ll be requiring to go ben.”
These scenes were in the early days of the Salvation Army. A short time afterward, I saw Glasgow ministers of the strictest sect of the Calvinistic Pharisees, with their congregations at their heels, following the music of the Moody and Sankey evangelical movement, and I met their leaders as guests in the most exclusive religious families. After my return home Dr. Talmage, then editor of the Christian At Work, asked me to tell him frankly, which side the paper ought to take.