The Church’s Responsibility to the Poor
The Independent in a recent number lauds the work of General Booth and the Salvation Army, and says that Protestants "are more than willing to turn over this great responsibility to the Salvation Army, and in our generous assignment of this particular field, which we do not want to cultivate, to them, we are quite ready to acknowledge that their methods are better than ours, more likely to reach the miserable beings that infest contaminated districts." Upon this the Christian Advocate (Methodist) remarks that if the Independent speaks truly and represents the spirit of the churches in what we have quoted above, "it bodes no good to Christianity. Woe to the church if it is willing to turn over its responsibility to an outside organization."