Salvation Syrup; Or, Light On Darkest England

by G. W. Foote

Without going through all the insane theology of this book, we may—nay, we must—give a crowning instance of it.

“I am quite satisfied that these multitudes will not be saved in their present circumstances. All the Clergymen, Home Missionaries, Tract Distributors, Sick Visitors, and everyone else who care about the Salvation of the poor, may make up their minds as to that. If these people are to believe in Jesus Christ, become the Servants of God, and escape the miseries of the wrath to come, they must be helped out of their present social miseries. They must be put into a position in which they can work and eat, and have a decent room to live and sleep in, and see something before them besides along, weary, monotonous, grinding round of toil, and anxious care to keep themselves and those they love barely alive, with nothing at the further end but the Hospital, the Union, or the Madhouse. If Christian Workers and Philanthropists will join hands to effect this change, it will be accomplished, and the people will rise up and bless them, and be saved; if they will not, the people will curse them and perish.”—(p. 257).

Did ever a human being excogitate such blasphemous nonsense? God is openly declared to be a passive spectator of the great struggle between good and evil. At the end of it he will save the succeeders and damn the failers; although, according to Booth’s own admission, hosts of both classes are what they are through the pressure of circumstances. Compared with such a God the bloody Moloch was a respectable deity.

Four men are living within sight and sound of each other, and one of them goes to the bad. Thereupon it is the duty of Smith, Jones, and Brown to rescue Robinson. If they succeed, God will give him a seat in Heaven; if they fail, or neglect their duty, God will cast him into Hell. Thus Robinson’s fate depends upon the sympathy, self-sacrifice, and wisdom of Smith, Jones, and Brown. Want of heart on their part, and even want of sense, are alike fatal to his chance of salvation. God lets them do their best; if they do nothing, he is just as serene; and at the day of judgment he sends Robinson to bliss or damnation, accordingly as Smith, Jones, and Brown—separately or collectively—have succeeded or failed in keeping him out of the gutter.

What a view of God! And what a ghastly, roundabout way of stating the truth that religion is powerless to save the fallen, that men and women can only be elevated by secular agencies!

This truth has always been proclaimed by Freethinkers. It is a commonplace of their teaching. Yet the Churches have ignored or denied it. Here is General Booth, however, announcing it clearly enough to all who will take the theological wadding out of their ears. True, the discovery is late, but better late than never.

It is upon this truth that Booth’s scheme is founded. Sometimes, indeed, he forgets it, and talks as though the preaching of Christ and him crucified were enough to regenerate society. But this truth, that man is very largely the creature of circumstances, and that evil circumstances should be changed if there is to be any improvement, is the governing idea of his project.

No doubt the “General” seeks an escape from the logical consequences of this truth. He says, for instance, that (p. 286) “to me has been given the idea,” as though God had intervened and selected him as the human agent. But this is all nonsense. In the first place, if God gave Booth the idea, he might as well have given him the cash. In the second place, the idea—or rather, the set of ideas—is by no means a revelation. Every part of Booth’s scheme has been advocated by other men, and several parts are already reduced to practice, though not on the gigantic scale he contemplates. His Farm Colony is admittedly borrowed from Mr. B. T. Craig, a veteran Freethinker who was the soul of the Ralahine experiment. With this gentleman Booth has had interviews; indeed, the “General”—perhaps with Mr. Stead’s assistance—has simply picked other men’s brains, although he takes care to conceal his indebtedness.

Naturally, too, the astute leader of the Salvation Army recognises the necessity of a pious appeal to wealthy Christians. He therefore “asserts in the most unqualified way that it is primarily and mainly for the sake of saving souls” that he “seeks the salvation of the body” (p. 45). And he declares (p. 3) it must not be supposed that he is “less dependent upon the old plans” or that he “seeks anything short of the old conquest.” At the same time (p. 279) he “does not think that any sectarian differences or religious feelings whatever ought to be imported into this question.” Is it not better, he asks, that miserable crowds of men and women should have work, food, clothes, and a home, even with “some peculiar religious notions and practices,” than that they should be “hungry, and naked, and homeless, and possess no religion at all”? Put in this way, of course, the question admits of only one answer. But this way of putting it begs the wider question; for it does not follow that Booth's is the only possible scheme of social reform, or even that it is calculated to succeed.

The real fact is, disguise it how it may, that Booth’s scheme is only an extension of the Salvation Army. He promises that there shall be no compulsion, that the poor he gets hold of shall not be pressed into any form of faith, that religious freedom shall be respected. But what will the promise avail? The whole scheme, from top to bottom, is to be worked by the Salvationists; every penny is to pass through Booth’s hands, and every order is to issue from his brain. Outsiders are only wanted in the shape of subscribers. Is it not idle then, to suppose that the scheme will, in practice, be anything else than a huge recruiting system for the Salvation Army? We venture to say that if Booth’s first thought were for the poor, he would invite the formation of an influential Committee, and not seek the monopoly of all the cash and credit for his own sect.