We are in a battle, not a game of charades.
A
man who has been in the Queen's Army is a man who has learnt to obey.
He is further a man who has been taught in the roughest of rough
schools to be handy and smart, to make the best of the roughest fare,
and not to consider himself a martyr if he is sent on a forlorn hope.
I often say if we could only get Christians to have one-half of the
practical devotion and sense of duty that animates even the commonest
Tommy Atkins what a change would be brought about in the world!
Another quote:
The
ordinary operations of the Army have already effected most wonderful
changes in the conditions of the poorest and worst. Multitudes of
slaves of vice in every form have been delivered not only from these
habits, but from the destitution and misery which they even produce.
Instances have been given. Any number more can be produced. Our
experience, which has been almost world-wide, has ever shown that not
only does the criminal become honest, the drunkard sober, the harlot
chaste, but that poverty of the most abject and helpless type
vanishes away. Our fourth credential is that our Organisation alone
of England's religious bodies is founded upon the principle of
implicit obedience. For Discipline I can answer. The Salvation Army,
largely recruited from among the poorest of the poor, is often
reproached by its enemies on account of the severity of its rule. It
is the only religious body founded in our time that is based upon the
principle of voluntary subjection to an absolute authority. No one is
bound to remain in the Army a day longer than he pleases. While he
remains there he is bound by the conditions of the Service. The first
condition of that Service is implicit, unquestioning obedience. The
Salvationist is taught to obey as is the soldier on the field of
battle.
Food for thought.
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