ledge that wherever he may be, there
will be some Methodist Church where he will find friends, and some
Methodist class-leader who will look after his most important
interests. The magnificent Methodist organization, unequalled outside
the Roman Catholic Church, has developed within the century, and its
aggressive forces have been felt throughout Christendom. All the
denominations have received an impetus from its abundant energy and
each in its measure has caught the contagion of its activities. In
country districts, in the great cities and in foreign lands, its
representatives, loyal to their Church and the principles of its
founder, are pressing forward in self-denial and apostolic fervor
foremost everywhere in the van of the Christian army.

Kindred with the Methodist in its enthusiasm and still more highly
organized, is the youngest of all the religious organizations--the
Salvation Army. In its origin, a daughter of the Methodist Church,
with a strong resemblance in spirit and purpose and methods to its
mother, the Salvation Army has a mission peculiarly its own. It too
has grown with a rapidity unexampled in the religious history of other
centuries. More than one quarter of the century had passed when
William Booth first saw the light, more than half the century had
passed before he had begun to give his life to his Master's service.
From 1857 to 1859 he was simply a Methodist minister, at an
unimportant town, appointed by his conference, sparsely paid, and
certain to be removed to another sphere at the end of his term. In
1865, he and his devoted wife resigned home and income and dependence
on conference for support, and went to London. They settled in the
poorest and most degraded district of the city, and began to preach in
tents, in cellars, in deserted saloons, under railroad arches, in
factories and in any place which could be had for nothing, or at a low
rental. The people gathered in multitudes wherever Mr. Booth and his
wife preached, veritable heathen, many of them, who knew nothing of
the Bible and had never attended a religious service in their lives.
Converts were numerous and they were required to testify to the change
in their souls and their lives and to become missionaries in their
turn. In 1870 an old market was purchased in the densest centre of
poverty in London and was made the headquarters of the Mission. Bands
of men and women were sent out to hold meetings, sing hymns and "give
their testi