Such being General Booth’s attitude towards the public, what is his attitude towards the Salvation Army? Any one who reads his “Orders and Regulations” will see that he has his cattle well in hand, and not only can drive them where he pleases, but flick them smartly on any part with his long-reaching whip. He subjects them absolutely to his persona! despotism. Every part of his soldiers’ lives is regulated. They must court and marry within the ranks. “Should a soldier,” he says, “become engaged to an officer who afterwards gives up or forfeits his or her commission, the soldier would be justified in breaking off the engagement.” The General wishes to _breed_ Salvationists. He tells them what to eat and what to wear. He informs them that they are only passengers through this world. “Though still living in the world,” he says, “the Salvationist is not of it, and he has, in this respect no more business with its politics— that is, the public management of affairs—than he has with its pleasures.” When the General wants his soldiers to vote or act politically, he will issue a manifesto, and every one is then expected to “act in harmony with the rules and regulations laid down for him by his superior officers.” These superior officers, who take _their_ orders from General Booth, must be perfectly obeyed, for “they have the Spirit of God, and will only command what is right.” Now it is well to remember all this in discussing General Booth’s new scheme of social salvation. He insists on retaining absolute command of all the funds, and on working the whole scheme through the Salvation Army. All who assist him, therefore, are helping to promote the development of a vast body of religious fanatics, under the despotic control of a single man, who will not scruple, when it serves his purpose to, use his voluntary slaves, for political as well as social objects. For General Booth has his own notions— crude as many of them are—and it is not in human nature to refrain from using power for the realisation of one’s ideas. And Pope Booth is more absolute than Pope Pecci. The Vicar of Christ at Rome is unable to move without his Holy Council of Cardinals; but the Vicar of Christ in Queen Victoria-street, London, is the unchecked and irresponsible ruler of the whole Salvation Army. General Booth’s success as an organiser is great, though he has had a comparatively easy task in organising _sheep_. Now, however, he proposes to deal with the _goats_. Some of his scanty leisure has been devoted to studying the social question, and as the interest in the Army’s old methods is obviously declining, he proposes to raise a million of money, and reform that part of the population which John Bright called “the residuum.” In other words, the wily old General has launched a new boom.