‘But this is making a denomination – a new sect.’ Well, and supposing it is. Is there any harm in doing so? Is there not a need for just such a ‘sect’ in many a city and town of this kingdom, where no such work is being done amongst the masses? But we deny that we are in any proper sense a sect. We refuse to settle down into places of worship such as might be agreeable to our people and their families, but insist upon the open-air stand and the place of amusement, where there may be little comfort, but where the most good may be done. WE refuse to allow our Officers to stay very long in any one place, lest they or the people should sink into the relationship of pastor and flock, and look to their mutual enjoyment and advantage rather than to the Salvation of others. The whole Army is kept in its course by the direction of one controlling will… We refuse utterly to allow of any authoritative assembly, committee, church meeting, or any other representative or popular gathering, except purely for the purpose of auditing finance and accepting and confirming and arranging for the execution of plans which have been tried and proved most calculated to promote the common object. We are not and will not be made a sect. We are an Army of Soldiers of Christ, organized as perfectly as we have been able to accomplish, seeking no Church status, avoiding as we would the plague every denominational rut, in order perpetually to reach more and more of those who lie outside every Church boundary. Owing to our adherence to this military system, we are losing almost every year Officers who, having lost their first love, begin to hanker after the ‘rights,’ ‘privileges,’ ‘comforts,’ ‘teaching,’ or ‘respectability’ of the Churches.
-Commissioner George Scott Railton as quoted by General Bramwell Booth in Echoes and Memories pg. 62, 1977 paperback edition.
Youth Department