It was the hand of a woman which struck the first blow in Switzerland against the work of the Salvation Army, resulting in a course of action on the part of the authorities of that country which has produced astonishment and a righteous indignation in every breast in which there is any sense of justice and of respect for liberty. If, as a woman, I can in any degree vindicate the cause of justice outraged in the person of a fellow woman, a compatriot, I shall be relieved of a solemn sense of responsibility.

I can, in fact, no longer hold my peace. I have withheld any expression of opinion hitherto, because of the love and respect I have for Switzerland, the country in which I have been so frequently resident. In common with all my countrymen and women we love that land, not only because of its unparalleled beauty and the health and repose we have so often sought and found here, but because we believed it was a free and a God-fearing and a law-abiding people, into whose midst strangers were constantly welcomed. We believed that it was a land in which liberty and human dignity were respected, a land where the extremes of wealth and poverty being unknown, there was an absence of many ills and sorrows which afflict our own country; a land in which, since it was penetrated by the light of the Reformation, absolute religious liberty had secured the free evangelising of the people, as well as open discussion of all important questions.

This was the general impression among my countrymen concerning Switzerland. The events which have recently transpired have opened our eyes to the fact that the elements above mentioned, forming some of the essential conditions of a nation’s welfare, have been undergoing a gradual process of undermining and decay; and we are forced to look back over fifty years or more of the past history of that country in order to read rightly the meaning of these startling events. Such a retrospect reveals above all things a decay of religious faith. This in itself is sufficient to account for the undermining of liberty, of respect for individual right, and of reverence for womanhood. These are followed by violations, repeated and persisted in, not alone of the written Constitution of the country, but of the first principles accepted by republican peoples—the principles of justice, and of equality of all citizens before the law, as well as the principles of international honour in the maintaining inviolate of treaties made with foreign nations in the interests of freedom and of peace.

A few words of personal explanation seem to be expedient, in respect to my own participation in the present conflict. For fourteen years I have been engaged in a work, now sufficiently widely known, a conflict in which the opposing parties respectively attack and defend the identical principles which are now at stake in the legal conflict into which the Salvationists have been forced to enter. The Federation for which I work, primarily the opponent of officially legalised vice, has found itself inevitably drawn into the sacred duty of publicly defending throughout the world the highest principles which govern human society,—constitutional liberty, the rights of the individual, respect for law, equality of all citizens before the law, and just and impartial administration of the laws. The Federation, so far as its representatives are Christian, holds up everywhere and on all occasions the principle of individual right and personal dignity on the basis of Christ’s teaching concerning the value of the individual soul, a value to be measured only by the price paid for its redemption. The difficulty which the Federation has met with in the propagation of the above-named great principles lies chiefly in the fact that we have been ordained, so to speak, to contend for them in the case of individuals who are the least interesting of all human beings to society, in the person of the most despised, the weakest, and, as men of the world express it, the most worthless of human creatures, namely, the outcast woman. Nevertheless, (or perhaps by the very reason of the low and despised estate of her whose defence the Federation has undertaken), the conflict on behalf of great principles fought out in her case has been extraordinarily fruitful, and has carried its vitalizing influence more or less into every civilized country. We expected such a result, because we took our stand on eternal and undying principles of truth and of justice.

On re-visiting Switzerland this year, I saw the very principles for which we have so long contended, violated in the person, not of one of these poor outcasts, but in that of a young English woman of pure and holy character and life, a friend, a sister in Christ, one whose only motive of action is a deep compassion for our poor sinful and suffering humanity, and a desire to give her whole being for the fulfilment of her portion of responsibility in the gathering in of the harvest of souls for which the Lord of the harvest is waiting. I asked myself, “can I stand still, silent, in the presence of such a collision as this between the great principles I have been accustomed to defend, and the egotism and injustice of those who have openly violated them, of those Christians even who being ‘at ease in Zion,’ are,—unconsciously it may be,—abetting the betrayers of liberty of conscience in this land?” I have said that I hesitated to speak, because the facts to be recorded are not honourable to Switzerland. But is it the true heart of Switzerland, is it the worthy portion of Swiss citizenship which are represented by those at present in possession of political power? No. There are leading men, and many men and women of every class there who have not forgotten the honourable traditions of their noble past. There has been a terrible decay of religious faith, but there are yet believers; there is a great increase of the class of “jouisseurs,” of those who live for material ends alone, of drunkards, of careless livers, of cynics, of vicious and sensual men; yet there is a people within this people who are as a salt to prevent universal corruption. My respect and love for this true people of Switzerland embolden me to expose without mercy the violations of justice, the infidelity, and the unworthy spirit of those who at this day are misrepresenting that country before the world. Again, I have hesitated somewhat to speak, because of the counsels of some of my fellow-workers in the Federation who, strongly objecting to the methods of evangelizing adopted by the Salvation Army, or not fully believing the message delivered by them, judge that it might be disadvantageous to the work of the Federation for one of its prominent members to be identified with them even to the extent of protesting against an injustice from which they are suffering. With all respect for the advices of certain members of our league, I have yet to learn that any good cause has ever suffered on account of the truthfulness of its advocates, and I am convinced that it is now my duty to record my deep personal convictions both on the legal and the religious side of the matter before us. I desire, however, while doing so, emphatically to declare, that I here speak as an individual only, and that I do not in the smallest degree implicate in what I say, the international Federation for which I labour, nor any single individual belonging to it. Above all, I wish it to be understood that what I now do is done without the concurrence, and, I may even say, without the knowledge, of those members of the Federation who reside in Switzerland, the country which is the seat of its Continental Administration.

One word further, expressive of my personal appreciation of the subject before us. I am not a member of the Salvation Army; I speak as an outside observer—an impartial observer so far as all questions of the methods and administration of the Army are concerned. The adoption of military titles seems to me open to objection; but I do not feel any duty imposed on me at this moment to criticize the methods employed. I believe—with a well-known and distinguished Swiss gentleman, M. Sautter de Blonay—that these things are external to the real and essential work of the Army. Madame de Gasparin endeavoured to prove that the military character of the Army identifies it with Jesuitism. M. Sautter replies: “The success of Jesuitism is not due alone to its military character, nor to the passive obedience required of its adherents in every act of life; but much more is it due to the absolute subjection imposed in matters of _thought_ and of _faith_. Herein lies the strength of Jesuitism, but herein also lies its criminality. The Salvation Army is entirely Protestant—so entirely Protestant, that it imposes no special form of belief on its converts, (beyond the broad, essential doctrines of our Christian faith), but leaves them free to attach themselves to any among all the different religious denominations around them.” The outward organization may be modified, or even abandoned in its present form. It is the spirit and the essential work of the Army of which alone I desire to speak.

In respect to these I may be said to be a partizan. I am content, nay proud, to be one, in this sense. I thank God for the honour granted to me of being permitted, in however feeble a manner, to plead the cause of these evangelists. If we regard truly, and without prejudice, their motives of action, their spiritual power, and the astounding success which has been granted to them in their efforts for the lost, lapsed classes of society, we Christians may well fear to lift our hand or our voice against them; for God is with them. That they sometimes make mistakes, all must confess. Where do we find a church, a missionary agency, a Christian organization on the earth which is perfect, or which stands clear of blame in all respects, either as regards the occasional scandals caused by some of its individual members, or the doubtful tendency of some portion of its own practical direction? To me it has ever seemed to redound to the honour of God that He can and does make use of imperfect instruments in working out His perfect designs for the good of man. It is true, He requires His instruments in spiritual matters to be perfect in one sense—in one sense only—that is in the _will_ to be His instruments, and to bear and to do His will in all things. He requires absolute sincerity and whole-hearted self-surrender in this respect; but beyond this, where shall we find among earth’s records of holy and vital work done for God, anything like perfection? Errors of judgment, and imperfections of many kinds have entered more or less into the work of all God’s chosen instruments since the days of the Patriarchs and Apostles. In the perfection and simplicity of a whole-hearted devotion to the world’s salvation, it seems to me, few, if any, Christians have ever excelled those of the despised and much criticized Salvation Army. What is their aim? To quote again M. Sautter de Blonay[1]—“As I understand it, their great thought is this:—the world is being lost, in a great revolt, ever more and more violent, against God. The Gospel of our Salvation, that restorer of the individual man, and, through the individual man, of Society, is unknown to the great mass of human beings, in spite of the efforts made, up to the present time, by Christians. The masses know only, on the one hand, what a materialistic science may have imparted to them; and, on the other, what they may have learned from a corrupt Roman Catholicism. At all costs, the Gospel—the glad tidings of Salvation—must be proclaimed to _all_ the poor, and if the churches are not sufficient for the task, we must do it; and, if it is necessary, in order to speak to the Chinese, to dress as the Chinese dress, we will adopt that dress, &c.... It cannot be too much insisted upon, that what they offer is not offered to us—Christians—but to those who remain to this day outside the reach of all religious influences.”

As one who has seen something of the miseries and sorrows and degradation of humanity in the persons of the most disinherited of God’s creatures, it is impossible that I should not from the first moment have hailed with joy the advent of this advanced guard of God’s great “company of preachers” of the latter days by whom the gospel shall be announced to “every creature!” It is impossible but that my sympathies should go with them, and that I should praise God, daily, as I do, because the dark lot of the world’s outcasts is now beginning to be illuminated by a fuller ray of light and hope, because more of the hungry multitudes are beginning to be fed, and because the rebels begin to lay down their arms and to be reconciled to their God. I marvel how anyone whose heart has bled for the woes of humanity, and whose desire, (far above and beyond his loyalty to any particular sect or form of worship), is that this poor humanity may find God and be at rest, can fail to rejoice in what our eyes are at this day permitted to see. I fail to understand how such can find the heart or the leisure for endless criticism and reiterated attack on points which seem secondary and minor. I speak with all respect for those who differ from me, or who proclaim themselves at variance in matters of grave and primary import with the Salvation Army. I bear in mind also while I write, and thank God for, every Christian effort made and for all the noble work done by those whom He is calling to harvest work in every church and sect, even in those which most disapprove the methods of the Army.

For myself, however, I am prostrated in humiliation before God, because, (albeit this new evangelizing force was a dream of my childhood, and has been at all times the desire of my heart), I have, through the weakness of my faith, so late in life, recognised the possibility of its fulfilment, and only recognised that possibility when it is presented to me in part as a realized fact. But now I rejoice and thank God.

No doubt many of the ways of the Army are very repugnant to the more refined classes of Society; yet, in general their manner of dealing with the people appears to be excellently and beautifully adapted to win, comfort, instruct and control the classes whom they seek to save. I have been especially struck with their _humanness_; a quality much wanting in some Christian workers. It has been lately said, “Preachers and Christian workers are so busy about saving _souls_, that they forget that those whom they have to save are _men_ and _women_.” Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, presented Himself to those who sought Him as a most complete Saviour, the Saviour of the soul and the body, of the whole being. He freed and blessed the whole man, woman, or child, who sought His aid.

We may imagine, a poor, uncared-for, perhaps guilty and police-hunted creature of our streets entering a church, and hearing a discourse concerning pardon and peace. He is touched; he feels that the preacher is full of concern and love for souls, for the souls of all those before him; and he has spoken of One who gave His life for the lost. The poor outcast of society leaves the church and mingles again in the crowd; he feels again that he, personally, is of no account to anyone, and is never sure after all that the message was for _him_, or that it is possible for anyone to care for _him_. He needs a human encounter, a living hand to grasp his, a personal recognition, in order to force into his dark and hopeless soul the knowledge that God loves _him_; he needs in fact that the assurance should come to him from the Eternal Father, as to the prophet of old, “_thou_ hast found grace in My sight, and I _know thee by name_.” This, the human side of the work of ministering to souls, the Salvation Army understand well. They open the door of hope to the poor, to sinners, criminals, rebels, outcasts, by proclaiming the worth, the dignity, the preciousness of each individual man and woman among them. Their kindly smiles are ever ready, their friendly hands are always held out to grasp the hands of the dirtiest toilers in the holes and corners of our cities, hands stained with crime, even with blood! “Come! You are welcome! God loves you, God needs you,” is the word addressed to each and to all. Rude rebuffs and insulting conduct do not discourage them. They are ready with good-natured banter and repartee, with a humorous sally, or homely persuasion, as the case may be.

That exquisite gift of God to human nature—a sense of humour,—prevails largely among them, and is recognised by them as one of the attributes of human beings which is to be purified and made use of in His service. The solemn fears of some persons concerning the “eccentricities” of the Salvation Army may be attributed to some extent to their absolute incapacity for comprehending this almost universal attribute of at least the lower classes of human beings—this humorousness, this playfulness, which, delicately handled, aids and softens all our dealings with our fellow men. It is a quality which has undoubtedly a tendency to run to levity and coarseness, but on the other hand it is intimately allied with all that is most tender and sweet in human nature. Solemnity is not necessarily reverence. It required in my own case an effort of many years to emancipate myself from the dismal and repelling impression made upon me in childhood by attending some services in a Scottish Presbyterian Church. The very walk of the churchgoers as they approached the church, the artificially solemn manner and peculiarly lugubrious tones of the preacher, the slowness of utterance, the heavy hymn tunes!—these may be acceptable to persons of one character or age, peculiarly constituted; but the gloom, and estrangement, for a time, from all religious teaching that they worked in myself as a child lead me to think it probable they have had the same effect on many others—children not perhaps in age, but in knowledge and in judgment. On this subject, M. Sautter de Blonay writes:—“Now, in every nation the proportion of children is great. It is not only those who are yet immature in age who are in reality children, but all those may be called so in all classes of life, who in the domain of religion are novices in the higher gymnastics of the intellect and the conscience. It is these that the Salvation Army seeks to reach.... They have even expressed regret that believers, spiritual adults, have come, through curiosity, or some kind of sympathy to their meetings, for they felt that they had nothing to give to these.... It is undoubtedly a fact that in our churches, and even in our evangelizing fields of labour, we frequently understand very little how to speak to children in spiritual matters a language which they can understand. How often, I myself, who however am not altogether a child in this respect, after having listened in one of our places of worship, to a good and beautiful Christian dissertation, have left the place wearied, exhausted. I wanted a little fortifying, a little consolation, a little pure milk; and they gave me for nourishment a dish of arguments which my weak intelligence or my lassitude made me incapable of digesting. A child in music, I am unable to comprehend the high harmonies of the German masters; but the simple song of an Italian, with few notes, moves and charms me. Have we not often heard at the foot of our Jura some honest peasant woman declare that she liked much better to go to the little meetings of Madame —— than to the church or the chapel, because _there_ she could understand at least what was said? In thus speaking, I do not attack the preaching which is in vogue in our churches: it is the fruit of our wholesome traditions; it must be respected, and may not be attacked without danger. I only maintain that though that teaching may nourish and edify the churches, it does not tend to enlarge them, and but very feebly attracts towards them the mass of our population. Those stragglers, wanderers, rebels against the religion of the churches are precisely the people whom the Salvation Army hope to attract by their innovations, (in form and method). It is possible that this reaction may go beyond what is just or useful. But when I look at the activity, the love of souls, the gentleness, the spirit of self-consecration of these our brothers—not only, as has been said, to the Army, but to God—when, on the other hand, I look at my own inactivity, and the comfort in which I live, I blush for myself, not for them.”

The Army no doubt owes some portion of its success in arresting the attention and awakening the interest of the lower classes to the fact that they never allow dullness to reign in their assemblies. Joy is permitted to have free expression among them. Gladness of heart on account of a newly found salvation, or of full soul-freedom gained, is more unconventionally expressed among the inhabitants of our city slums than it would be in a drawing-room conference or a cathedral or church filled with refined and educated people. The cry against the Army for its “irreverence” is often uttered in entire ignorance of the facts of that human society into the midst of which their influence has come as a light in a dark place. They are simple, ignorant people, those who scandalize us; they are a literal people; they interpret the Scriptures perhaps too literally. They read our Saviour’s words to His disciples, “rejoice ye, and _leap for joy_.” They read in the Hebrew prophets the reiterated call to sing and “make a noise,” to “shout for joy,” because “great is the Holy One in the midst of thee!” Moreover, they are actually filled with joy, with the irrepressible mirthfulness of prisoners loosed, of bondmen set free; they have no high poetic speech at command, they are not practised as we, in a more refined class, are, in the polite repression of every natural or spiritual emotion; and I, for one, neither blame nor wonder, therefore, when I see the pleasant quickening of the pulses induced by joy of heart, develop into some energetic physical movement, or a shout of praise set to an old familiar, rapid song-tune hitherto devoted to the service of folly or evil only. Can we justly blame the leaders of this great movement because they do not succeed in forming, or do not even think it wise to attempt to form out of these children of nature, (a very rough and unpolished nature), polished gentlefolks, or even such men and women as we meet in the decent lower middle class in England? It is the spontaneity, however, alone of all such outward expressions of the spiritual life which is their apology and _raison d’être_, and which alone gives them the genuine grace, which, in my eyes at least, they possess. If once they are studied for a certain rude effect, or are announced as something to be performed, they become puerile, unmeaning, and misleading. So far, however, as the leaders of the Army meetings give full permission for the spontaneous expression of feeling, I take it they are wise,—wise in respect of that portion of the people whom they chiefly desire to save.

Our fellow Christians in Switzerland may possibly be scandalized by the latitude granted in England to the eccentricities of revivalists. Although my main object here is to present a true picture to English readers of what has recently occurred in Switzerland, on the other hand, I wish that what the Salvation Army has done for England, should also be known in Switzerland. If an adequate conception could be formed by the religious teachers in Switzerland of the actual condition of our great cities, they would cease, I think, to condemn any methods by which the awful problems presented by it may be brought nearer to their solution. The population of London exceeds that of the whole of Switzerland. We have, besides, our immense industrial cities of the provinces with their teeming populations. Every evil, every difficulty of modern life is proportionately magnified, and the sources of true life are choked, so to speak, by the very exuberance of life itself, the seething, straining human life, which has become a mere desperate or sullen struggle for its own existence, and for defence against insupportable pressure on every side. Christian effort has been put forth constantly and vigorously. Much good work is done among the poor. The churches have taxed their ingenuity in many directions. But below the stratum of the decent, struggling poor, is a lower stratum still of beings who are scarcely reached at all by Christians of the better classes: these are below poverty, and beyond the pale of all civilizing influences. Again, beneath this, deeper down still, is another stratum of humanity—a class of beings of whose very existence statesmen and philanthropists only become aware at long intervals, when some shock and upheaving of the political or social ground brings up to the light of day these thousands of miserable beings—unwashed, uncombed, scarcely clothed, hungry, violent, revengeful, sullen, and only subdued for long periods, not by any principle of self-restraint, but by the weight of a dull despair. We have wondered, perhaps, in passing through the streets when some great public event had called up to the light this underground population, whence they come, how they live, where it is that these multitudes are stowed away, above all, what is their future, and the future of the nation which harbours them. There are among them men scarcely human in appearance, birds of prey, bull-dogs, low-browed, and cunning; wrinkled and old and careworn even in youth; full of deadly hatred against their fellow men and against society. Can we wonder at it? If such were our own condition, and our hearts had never been visited by a ray of heaven’s light, should not we also hate? These men are the terror of the police at all times; of our statesmen and political men occasionally. We walk and live above a volcano which may burst forth, nay _will_ burst forth, one of these days, unless these incipient elements of impending revolution can be cleared away; and how is this to be done? The Salvation Army has given us an answer; it has brought to us at least the _hope of a solution_. It is these dangerous, degraded and forgotten beings, these haters, these violent spirits, to whom, first, the Salvationists addressed themselves. They have sought them out in the lowest and most dangerous of their haunts; they have tried the power of the name of Jesus, and invoked the transforming influence of the Holy Ghost where they had never been so fully tried before; and they have seen the wild beast changed to the lamb, the hater filled with kindness and pity, the coarse and low and vicious become pure and gentle and holy in life. There is no testimony in favour of the Salvation Army half so powerful or so eloquent as the testimony of these transfigured lives and faces. Those who have not seen them can scarcely imagine them. I have seen them.

It happened that I passed one day by the door of a hall in a crowded part of London where Salvationists of the humblest class were praying. I entered. At the moment my mind was burdened by thoughts connected with the difficulty and sadness of my own special mission. I kneeled in a corner, endeavouring to free myself of the burden, in prayer. I suppose that some tears or look of sadness attracted the attention of some of those near; for I became aware that around me there was a little group, who, although I was a perfect stranger to them, had taken my burden on their own hearts, and were pleading for me. “Hear her, Lord,” they said, “O give her all her heart’s desire! Lord, we don’t know what she is wanting; but O give her all she asks, and that soon.” Wonderful kindness! blessed ministering! And who were these ministers? The poorest of the people, men and women who had been unearthed from those dark dwellings of that lowest stratum of society I have spoken of. One of the group was a young “jail-bird,” a discharged prisoner, of perhaps eighteen or twenty years of age, lean, lantern-jawed, gaunt, clothed almost in rags, with that look of prematurely developed acuteness and sorrowfulness which stamps the countenances of the young in that class. Years of misery and crime had set their mark on his poor features, but through and above all shone the new-found happiness. The expression of his lean, sunken face as he raised his eyes in prayer for me, a stranger to him, reminded me of pictures I have seen, in Italian galleries, of St. Francis, the apostle of poverty, in rapt communion with God. It was a brightness such as one may see among the Alps when the glory of the setting sun shines upon some worn and storm-blasted peak, and it stands out radiant, as one of “God’s sentinels” bathed in a light not of earth. Parenthetically I may remark that if I—who am not friendless or lonely—was so deeply touched by the loving intercession on my behalf of these poor saved outcasts, these strangers, how much must such ministering attract and win converts to God and adherents to the Army from among those who have not my advantages, and who perhaps have never met with a word of true sympathy before?

“But,” I hear many say, “is not this a temporary emotion? Does it last?” “Yes, it lasts;” I reply. None can say that there is never any falling away; but there are solid and lasting results which can be given to those who doubt;—facts and figures in abundance. There are magistrates and judges finding little or nothing to do at assizes, in towns where crime had before been rife; whole streets reformed; salvation, spiritual, moral and social—granted to families, and to entire neighbourhoods.

The modern fetishism, faith in the police, and in government by police, is a danger and delusion towards which all civilized nations are rushing more or less rapidly. It is a tyranny which establishes itself no less under the shelter of a liberal or democratic Government, than under an autocracy or empire. It has become in some nations a standing menace to liberty, and an embarrassment even to the governments which, having once given way to its encroachments, in vain attempt later to restrict its functions. This is the power by which it is imagined that society may be controlled and governed, and by which virtue and morality may be secured. Fatal delusion! England herself is blinded as much as any other nation to the dangers of this police rule. She is forging, link by link, a chain for her own enslavement, which she will find it difficult to break when she awakes to the fact that in forging it she has cast down constitutional safeguards, and abandoned true self-government. There is a cry arising from the nations, “What must we do to be saved,” politically and socially saved? For the most part they have recourse in their extremity to their fancied saviour, the police. New laws are created and placed entirely for their execution in the hands of the police. The power of the police is re-enforced continually. The most august functions are exercised by it; the most delicate problems of our social and domestic life are abandoned to it for solution. It can make “regulations which have the force of law,” may interpret law without recourse to legal authority, and exercises over a vast portion of the citizens a power (a tyranny, rather) which is practically irresponsible.

Against this encroaching fetishism, this darkening tyranny of the future, this hopeless attempt to regenerate and rule society by outward compulsion, what have we to set? Nothing, nothing, except a return to first principles, to the inflexible rule of justice, to the respect of man by man; nothing except a renewal of faith in divine and eternal truth, a moral regeneration, a practical return to the simplicity of Christ; nothing except the preaching of the everlasting gospel to every creature, and a full realization of the gift of the Spirit bestowed at first on the day of Pentecost, and to be bestowed again in like manner when there shall be found faith in the earth to claim the full accomplishment of the promise.

If God who uses the weak, the foolish things of this world, the things that are not, to do what the strong, the wise, the firmly established cannot do, shall we murmur against Him, or refuse to rejoice in His work? If He pleases to rebuke His Church and people, and to “provoke them to jealousy by a people that are no people,” shall we suffer our jealousy to express itself by criticism, blame, bitterness, persecution, violation of law, illegal judgments and interdictions?

The appearance in our days of this wonderful Salvation Army is a crucial test above all things of the existence among Christians of true love for humanity and zeal for the salvation of men. How is it that in certain parts of Switzerland, where there are the most perfect schools of Theology, ministerial training and doctrinal teaching the most careful and complete, so few are gathered in daily from the multitudes who are living merely for this world’s interests or for gross pleasures? I think it is because the hearts of the pastors and other Christians are _not_ filled with that holiest passion, that unquenchable fire of love for souls which “beareth all things, endureth all things,” which literally gives up all for Christ, and is able to do and to dare all things, even unto death.

It would scarcely have been possible for injustice to have been pushed so far as it has been against the Salvationists in Switzerland, had not the Churches largely given their sanction to that injustice by their attitude of silence, or of displeasure against what they may have deemed an impertinent or needless encroachment on their own spiritual territory. It is difficult to express the sorrow of heart, the consternation which the contemplation of this part of the question has awakened in some souls. The spirit manifested by many professing Christians is very far from the spirit of Christ. “We saw one casting out devils in Thy name,” said the disciples, “and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us.” “Forbid him not,” was the Master’s reply, “for he that is not against us is for us,” and, “there is no man that casteth out devils in My name that can lightly speak evil of Me.” This selfsame sign does follow the Salvationists; in His name they do cast out evil spirits. It cannot be denied. In the spiritual power that has been granted to them consists the rebuke given to professing Christians out of whom the life has died. In this matter judgment has begun at the household of God, and no sentence of expulsion against the evangelists will cause that judgment to cease.

The antagonism of the Christian portion of the community to the Salvation Army has been much more marked in Switzerland than in our own country. Nevertheless there is much to take to heart in this matter among us, English. It has been said that the concurrence of three social Powers is necessary for the suppression of the messengers of an unwelcome truth, viz., the Government, the rough, and the religious professor. Solemn and painful thoughts are suggested by the fact that there are Christians in Switzerland, (happily with many marked exceptions,) who have, more or less unconsciously, aided their godless Government and the mob of persecutors in this matter. The greater their success in driving out from their midst the foreign evangelists, the greater will be the loss to souls and the ultimate dishonour to the authorities who, encouraged by the tacit sanction of Christians, have committed an injustice, the sound of which will ring throughout Christendom. It seems that so great has been the “ease in Zion” in that country, that no attack could have been made upon the kingdom of darkness, without a general uneasiness, excitement and resentment being felt, not only among the irreligious, but among Zion’s watchmen who have slept. Nevertheless, the very baptism of suffering through which the persecuted Salvationists have passed, may be the precursor of renewed spiritual life for that nation. Such is our hope and confidence. The Salvationists (I do not speak of the English, but of the Swiss promoters of the movement,) are becoming stronger every day; while a movement is already in course of inauguration in those very cantons whose governments have united in an act of injustice, with the view of establishing a league in defence of civil and religious liberty.

Before quitting this portion of my subject, it is just that I should record the fact that a number of respected citizens of Geneva, who were members of the “Evangelical Alliance,” have resigned their membership of the Genevan Committee of that league on account of the refusal of that Committee to act, in this instance, in favour of religious liberty.

The Evangelical Alliance was founded in 1846, one of its first objects being the defence of religious liberty.[2] It does not impose on its members any sacrifice of their private religious views, but it holds them to an engagement not to depart, in any discussion of their views, from the true spirit of Christian brotherhood. It has interposed in favour of persecuted Christians in Europe and elsewhere, sending deputations to various Governments to demand the repeal of oppressive laws or the liberation of prisoners confined for conscience sake. Rarely have these interventions been unsuccessful. The Alliance interposed on behalf of the Madiaï in Florence, of Matamoros and his companions in Spain, of Missionaries and of converted Musselmans in Turkey and in Syria, of persecuted Lutherans in the Baltic provinces of Russia, of Lutheran Pastors at Hesse-Darmstadt, of Baptists in Germany, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland, of French Missionaries among the Basutos, of English in New Caledonia, of Nestorians in Prussia, of the Mortara family in Rome, of Jews in Russia, of Communities founded by American Missionaries in Upper Egypt, of a Pastor imprisoned in Spain, of Reformers in Bohemia, &c., &c. There are Committees of this Association at Geneva, and several other Swiss towns, these different Committees forming a special branch of the Evangelical Alliance with its centre at Berne. The refusal of this Swiss branch of the Alliance to act on the occasion with which we are dealing was so great a shock to certain members of those Committees that they saw there was no mode of action open to them except to resign their membership of that branch. Their resignation was couched in the following terms:—

“Geneva, March 22nd, 1883.

“TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE AT GENEVA.

“DEAR SIR,—The decision which was taken in the meeting of March 15th by the Geneva Committee of the Evangelical Alliance, lays upon us the painful duty of withdrawing from this society in accordance with a formal vote.

“At a meeting on March 12th, the Committee, after two long deliberations, at a three weeks’ interval, _resolved first_, to address an appeal to the Council of State of our canton in favour of religious liberty, which had been violated in connection with the Salvation Army. _Secondly_, to send an address to the Rev. W. Booth in order to express to him in a friendly way the objections and fears which several of the regulations and proceedings of his association are raising in the minds of most of the members of the Committee, and also to let him know that an appeal in favour of liberty for his work had been made to the cantonal authorities.

“In the meeting of the 15th, same month, the Committee, in consequence of several facts which had occurred in their midst, no important outward circumstance having changed the question itself, repealed the resolution of the 12th, and decided that nothing should be done. We are convinced that in acting thus, the Committee has failed to see the duties which are laid on the corps representing in Geneva the great and noble idea of the Evangelical Alliance. All the traditions of this association, its former achievements, the spirit even which called it to life, constitute it the faithful watchman of religious liberty.

“The general conference held at Geneva in 1861, had even passed a resolution which has been referred to, both in the motion presented to the Committee by one of us on February 19th last, and in the draft of the letter to the Council of State proposed the 12th of March by another member of the Committee.

“This resolution runs as follows:—

“‘The Committee of the Evangelical Alliance established in the various countries of the world are invited to watch over the interests of religious liberty, to look carefully to any breach it might suffer, to examine thoroughly all communications made on this subject, and to correspond at once with the other Committees of the Alliance, to deliberate on the best means of re-establishing or maintaining this precious liberty.’

“Now we have seen with our own eyes, in this our town, so proud of its light and its liberties, in this our country open to the free expounding and discussion of all ideas, even of the newest, the strangest, the most anti-Christian, the most anti-social—we have seen religious meetings exposed to violent and rude attacks, and finally prohibited by the Government. Harmless persons have been persecuted, insulted and ill-treated for the sake of religion; strangers have been brutally expelled by the police without having been guilty of any other fault than that of holding their own opinions and their own religious practices. And the Geneva Committee of the Evangelical Alliance considers it right to maintain silence before such facts!

“What then will be the attitude of the Alliance, if called upon in future as it has already been in the past, to make common cause with some of its members in a delegation in order to remonstrate with some Sovereign who may have tolerated such enormities on the part of some of his governors of provinces, prefects or pachas? As for us, we believe that we must cast out the beam in our own eye before trying to pull out the mote or even the beam which may be in our brother’s eye.

“Is it possible to say that religious liberty is not at stake? Perhaps not our own religious liberty. And yet, are there any among us Geneva people who do not feel that a blow has been struck at their own right of seeking edification where they choose to find it?

“True, our religious liberty remains untouched for the present; but is our own liberty the only liberty to be respected? None can deny that the prohibited meetings were religious meetings. Whatever efforts may be made to attribute another character to these meetings, this point is indisputable.

“Opinions on the doctrines and proceedings of the Salvation Army may vary, and they do vary; but religious liberty is not defined only as liberty for doctrines and religious forms which are approved of and sufferable; it also means liberty for doctrines and forms which are disapproved. So long as there is no crime, no contravention of the laws, full liberty is granted. Crimes and contraventions of law come within the province only of the tribunals. Religious liberty then, has been violated; it is still violated, and it will continue to be violated so long as either the decrees which prohibit the meetings of the Salvation Army or those which have ordered the expulsion of some of its members continue to exist.

“England, with its Established Church, France, with its tendencies so unfavourable to Christianity, both tolerate the Salvation Army; Geneva, with its pretensions to largeness and to liberality, refuses to tolerate it! The Committee of the Evangelical Alliance ought not to have passed over in silence such a state of things.

“Our Committee ought also to have acted from another point of view. The Evangelical Alliance has intervened in favour of Jews, Roman Catholics, and many others. How much more important are the duties entailed on such a league when the liberty at stake is that of brothers who boldly hold aloft the standard of Jesus Christ, and whose faith and hope are the same as our own.

“We take objection to several points in their method of evangelisation, perhaps also to several secondary points of doctrine held by them; these objections are felt more strongly by some of our members than by others; but we cannot deny that the Salvationists whom we have seen at work at Geneva all bear the character of faithful, convinced and devoted Christians. This being so, the Evangelical Alliance which exists precisely for the purpose of manifesting to the world the essential unity existing among all the disciples of Jesus, our Saviour and our God, a unity which rises above all the diversities which, under the name of churches or sects, have been created by human weakness; the Evangelical Alliance which professes to gather into one group all who seek their salvation at the foot of the cross, is silent in face of this prohibition of meetings for prayer! It contemptuously passes by, under the pretext that many of its members have no sympathy with these people,—the Salvationists,—or that they even entirely disapprove their mode of action. We cannot, we will not, follow the Alliance in adopting such an attitude. It is true that we, the undersigned, have no authority to speak in the name of the Evangelical Alliance; but since the Geneva Committee, who alone could have done it, refuses to protest, we do so in the only way in our power;—we withdraw from the Geneva Committee.

“But on leaving the Geneva Committee, we declare openly that we do not mean to leave the Evangelical Alliance itself. On the contrary, our wish is to be faithful to the spirit of the Alliance. We remain members of it, and we remain attached to it with all our heart. Nor do we mean to break the bonds of fraternity and of co-operation which unite personally several of us with many members of your Committee. A clear position taken on the ground of principles can only make us more desirous of showing our personal sympathies to brothers with whom we are separated on a special point.

“Yours respectfully, &c.,

[Signed] “TH. AUDEOUD, J. P. DARDIER, FR. DE MORSIER, A. DE MEURON, JAMES BALMER, D. LENOIR, P. BOURNE, GD. FILLIOL, G. TOPHEL, PH. PRIVAT.”

The “Inner Mission” of France holds much the same position in regard to this matter as the Swiss branch of the Evangelical Alliance. One of its members having become an “Auxiliary” of the Army, was requested by the authorities of that Association to sign a paper promising that he would “request to have his name erased from the list of the Auxiliaries, and that henceforth he would take no part in any of their meetings public or private.” He declined to surrender his liberty to the extent of so doing, and in consequence was obliged to send in his resignation to the Committee of the Inner Mission.

I have here dwelt chiefly on the attitude of the religious world towards the invading army of Evangelists. Of the deadly hatred on the part of those outside all religious communions which they have encountered in Switzerland, I shall speak in the course of the subsequent narrative, in presenting the facts of the official and governmental action in the matter. With regard to the latter, English readers may be assured that there are many Swiss who are now fully awakened by the tyrannous conduct of the Cantonal and Federal Governments in this direction, to the extreme dangers of the “Radicalisme Autoritaire,” of which they have long been suspicious. They are asking themselves how long their political independence and unity are likely to last, or ought to last, under such conditions. The persecution of the Salvation Army presents itself to them as a question above all the minor and petty objections raised by the persecutors to excuse their own action—_i.e._, as a plain question of religious liberty of the most elementary kind. A Swiss gentleman writes:—“To my mind, this persecution aims at the suppression of all religion, not at one form of it alone. It is a pure piece of dogmatic atheism. France will not probably go so far as Switzerland seems now to be going. The suppression of the Salvation Army is only one step in the series which tends to the suppression of the _Christian morality_.”

But we have confidence, that whatever of tribulation and conflict may be at hand, these gloomiest predictions will not be fulfilled. For the work of the new Evangelists is prospering and progressing daily, both outside and in the Churches, even while its leaders are banished, or forbidden to meet and to speak.

Such has ever been the effect of attempts to stamp out a divine seed once sown, or to extinguish the spark of divine fire once kindled in the souls of God’s people. Go on, if you will, police, mobs and Governments, in the way on which you have entered! Persecute, forbid, spy, hunt, fine, insult and slay! You will only fortify the movement which you hate, and help to build up, on the strongest foundation which can be laid, the living Church of the future in Switzerland.