The secretary’s report of the state of the Association’s finances is read to the audience; some monotonous and endless hymns are sung; and an edifying conference follows, showing the flourishing condition of the society, and the benefits it confers upon humanity in general, and its ministers in particular.
The meeting then breaks up, and at the door, little groups are formed, a great deal of hand-shaking goes on, accompanied with felicitations on the subject of the success of the good cause. Here is a sample conversation that I caught one day in passing, and which I give word for word:—
1st Cherub (male).—“How do you do, Mrs. Jones? Are you pooty well?”
2nd Cherub (female).—“Pooty well, thank you; are you pooty well?”
1st Cherub.—“Pooty well. How is dear Miss Evans? Is she pooty well?”
3rd Cherub (female).—“Not very well; she has such a bad cold!”
4th Cherub (male).—“Has she really? This is a dreary world, is it not? Dear soul, I hope she will take care of herself.”
5th Cherub (female).—“Glorious meeting, was it not?”
I make my way to the door of the Hall. The entrance and lobby are covered with advertisements: the programmes of the performances. In this steeple-chase of people, who know how to believe in God and make a snug little income out of it, it is the General of the Salvation Army that carries off the palm: he announces assets to the amount of over 350,000 pounds sterling, and an army of 500,000 soldiers, male and female, well disciplined, and devoted to the cause. He has outshone Messrs. Moody and Sankey, the American evangelists, who, in 1875, were preaching every evening to London audiences of thirty and forty thousand persons, and that for months running! It is all over. Mr. Sankey accompanies himself on a harmonium; the general has big drums, cymbals and trombones; long live the general! Since the imprisonment of Miss Booth, in Switzerland, the shares of the Salvation Army have gone up steadily: there is no more lucrative profession than that of a martyr, when it is properly carried out ... and the “General” knows how to battre la caisse et la remplir.