The very people who to-day applaud our efforts to assist the poorest and worst to a self-supporting and honourable career, are often blind to the fact that we have only succeeded by doing the very things which they once said we ought not to do, and by turning away from all the old customs to which they would fain have chained us.
So far we have traced the beginnings of The Army in the United Kingdom. But would The General desire or be able to extend it to other countries? With regard to the need for it there is now, at any rate, no dispute in any "Christian country," for almost all intelligent persons, whatever may be their own creed, or want of creed, admit the presence in their great cities, if not elsewhere, of only too many of the sort of persons to whom The Army has proved useful.
But there has been no country in which the need for, or possible value of, The Army has not been at first hotly disputed. We have seen how desperately it was at first opposed in the country of its birth. And that could not have been possible had not so many really religious people looked upon it as an "un-English" sort of thing, "American" in its ideas and in its style of action. When it was beginning in Scotland, many said that it might be tolerated amidst the godless masses across the border, but that its free style of worship especially "on the Lord's Day" could not but be "a scandal" in the land of Sabbath stillness; whilst as to Ireland, we were assured that our outdoor proceedings must needs lead to bloodshed.
When, however, The General resolved to send Officers to America, there was hardly a voice in either Church or Press which did not ridicule the idea of our being of use there. And in the case of almost every other country the same prejudice against English people having "the presumption to think" that they can give lessons in true religion to any other nation has made itself more or less felt, even to this day.
But, happily, The General never took counsel with flesh and blood upon such questions. He knew that, whatever differences might exist between one race and another, there was everywhere the one sad similarity when it came to neglect of God and the soul. That The Army must adapt itself to each new population he had always taught; but that it would ultimately succeed wherever there were masses of godless people, he never doubted.