This was also to be expected.
If we had been content with hirelings, and had sought them out from among the philanthropies and Churches, we should have found plenty in number, but it is equally certain we should have had considerably more doleful failures than those we have experienced.
We are not only making but are now training the Social Officers, and we shall doubtless improve in this respect, whilst the work they turn out will be bound to improve proportionately.
iv.

Then again a further reason for our shortcomings has been our shortness of money.
This need unfortunately is not passing away, as you will all well know.

But I suppose some of you have come from distant lands with bags of francs and dollars to present The General with an ample supply of this requirement.

He thanks you beforehand.
(b) Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all our shortcomings, the position now occupied by our Social Operations, and the influence exercised by them on the great and small of the earth, is in evidence in every Continent and on every hand.
There is no doubt that the world, as a whole, feels much of the admiration and gratitude which the Press lavished upon me on my recent Birthday--admiration which was assuredly intended not only for myself, but for The Army as a whole, and not only for The Army as a whole, but for its Social Workers in particular.
1.

And now, in conclusion, let me summarise a few of the advantages which have flowed out of the Social Work, and which will continue to flow out of it as long as time rolls on.
(a) The first benefit I will mention is the Salvation of thousands of souls.
(b) The world has been further benefited by the knowledge of Salvation spread throughout every part of the habitable globe.
(c) The world has been further benefited by the Conviction that has been brought to governmental, philanthropic, and religious agencies, as to the duty they owe to the classes we seek to benefit.
(d) The world has been further benefited by the sympathy created in the hearts of royal personages, scientists, literary people, and the Press generally; indeed, in every class and grade of mankind.
(e) The world has been further benefited by the removal of misery on such an extensive scale as had never even been dreamed of as possible.
Think of the multitudes who, by our operations, are daily saved from starvation, vice, crime, disease, death, and a hundred other nameless woes.
In some of the principal cities in Italy, Holland, Germany, and elsewhere, visited during my recent Continental Campaign, I have been looked upon with unspeakable satisfaction and enthusiasm as The General of the Poor, and The Salvation Army has been regarded as their friend.
(f) The world has been further benefited by the help which our Social Operations have afforded to the Field and other Departments of The Army all over the world.
(g) The world has been further benefited by the confidence the Social Work has created in the hearts and minds of our own people--both Officers and Soldiers--as to the truth and righteousness of the principles and practices of The Salvation Army.
(h) The world has been further benefited by the answer which the Social Work constitutes to the infidel's sneers at Christianity and the assertion of its effeteness.
Truly, our future chroniclers will have to record the fact that our Social Operations added a celestial lustre and imparted a Divine dignity to the struggles of the early years of The Salvation Army's history.
To our own eyes in The Army, however, that which has been done in connexion with the Institutions is only a very insignificant part of the whole effect produced.