Twenty years ago the Hallelujah Band spread itself far and wide, butsoon spent itself like a straw fire. Then arose the Salvation Army,doing the same kind of work, and indulging in the same vagaries. Thesewere imitations of the antics of the cruder forms of Methodism. Even theall-night meetings of the Whitechapel Salvationists, ten years ago, werefaint copies of earlier Methodist gatherings, especially of those inCornwall, which were described by the Rev. Richard Polwhele.(1) “At. St.Agnes,” said this writer, “the Society stays up the whole night, whengirls of twelve and fourteen years of age ran about the streets, callingout that they are possessed.” At Probus “the preacher at a late hour ofthe night, after all but the higher classes left the room, would orderthe candles to be put out, and the saints fall down and kneel on theirnaked knees; when he would go round and thrust his hand under every kneeto feel if it were bare.” The Salvationists never went so far as this.Freaks of such description are left, in this age, to the followersof King Solomon in the Brighton Glory Hole. But a friend of ours, whovisited an all-night Salvation meeting at Whitechapel in 1882, told usthat the light was very dim, the voices were low, cheeks came perilouslyclose in prayer, and at one moment the proceedings threatened todevelope into a thoroughgoing love-feast.
Anecdotes of Methodism.
As far as a more cultivated age would allow, the Salvation Armyadvertised and recruited itself by the familiar practices of whatProfessor Huxley calls “corybantic Christianity.” During the last sixor seven years it has grown more decorous, but prior to that time itsvulgarity was excessive. Its songs, its rowdy meetings, its coarse,imbecile language, its ludicrous street processions, were enough tofurnish a Swift with fresh material for his indictment of mankind. Thenames of its officers, as reported in its journal, were curiosities tothe student of human aberration. There was the “Hallelujah Fishmonger,”the “Blood-washed Miner,” the “Devil Dodger,” the “Devil Walloper,” and“Gypsy Sal.” Many of the worshippers of success who are now flockingaround General Booth as a new Savior of Society, would be astonished ifthey were to turn over the old pag