Parade gloss?

The following article written by Railton seems particularly appropriate to the contemporary Salvation Army – if the cap fits let's have the courage to wear it.

"What if The Salvation Army should in any locality become as utterly useless as so many parading soldiers on the battle-field? What if a force, say, from one hundred to two hundred strong, should appear in the streets of a big city, and go through all the manoeuvres of a whole Sunday without stirring anybody?

What if that force should be always singing and saying with all the emphasis that a big Hall and Band can give it that they will follow Jesus all the way to Calvary and never getting any farther on from one year's end to another! Surely it must be worthwhile for everybody to ask himself, 'What am I doing? Am I truly fighting, or only parading?' Let us just look into the matter a little.
There cannot be fighting except in presence of the enemy. Those who only get to such Meetings or to such parts of Meetings as consist merely of the saints, take no part in the fight by so doing. And those who are present in any Meeting where fighting goes on, but who remain silent, cannot claim that they were fighting because they kept believing for other people to fight and win. The peculiarity of The Army's system is that it gives every individual a chance not merely to come on parade, to show himself, or herself, fully uniformed along with his comrades, but to do something that offends, troubles, hits (maybe even win), some of the enemy.

Do you grapple with any enemy outside yourself? When did you last have any struggle with a resisting soul, to bring: that soul down at the Saviour's feet? Do not comfort yourself by saying, 'I live right' or 'I keep on believing'. That only amounts to keeping your own self in order so that you are at any moment ready for parade. That is undoubtedly a very good and necessary and blessed thing; but it is not fighting to save other people, and you may go to your grave a useless parade Soldier after such a life, and have a big Army funeral, and yet everybody may be puzzled, at your funeral, or in 'The `War Cry,' or in Heaven, to know what to say of you, after all your professions of being a Soldier of Christ.

Do you say, 'I get little or no chance to do anything in the Meetings? That may be horribly true in some places. If so, you will surely use very eagerly every chance you can get, though it may be when there are very few people present. If you are not faithful to the little chances you get, expect God to take even those away, and to allow you to be made to sit and listen all the rest of your life, if ever He lets you get even that wonderful privilege But The Army teaches you to fight, not merely in Meetings, but when you are quite separate from every comrade: In the very room where you sit reading this; in the very shop or work-place where you have to spend the most of each day, there may be a soul on the way to Hell. Your duty, as a Salvationist is to fight that soul, and fight you can and will, if you are true to God and The Army.

You will fight against the wish of everybody to keep God out of sight. What a jolly place this world would seem to most folk if they could only get God clear out of the way for good and all! Why does the very thought of God spoil everything to them so? Because the mere thought of Him brings up all the feeling of the schoolboy who is playing truant, or the man who is neglecting his master's work. The world will not have any suggestion made that God is looking, or that God wants to be consulted about anything. Now, he wants His Soldiers to get just right there across the world's path at every turn, and hold up the red flag, sound the foghorn, block the way, and force everybody to remember that they are not their own after all, but belong to Him and must either obey Him, or rob Him. Do you ever do that sort of thing to anybody anywhere?
The world does not at all object to your parading to a certain extent. They will even admire your march to your Hall; indeed some will come a long way to see it, if you are properly uniformed, and have a big Band which plays (Oh, I beg their pardon) renders nice music, provided you never drum so as to disturb baby, or sing anything disagreeable loudly enough to be heard in the pubs, or interfere with anybody else by any direct looks at them, or words to them. That will be a parade, and you may do all that as often as you please for anything the world or the Devil cares. The world will even listen to your singing and speaking with pleasure, and clap their hands to the whole performance, if you will only make such melody as can occupy all the hearers' thoughts, or say pleasant things so eloquently that the speech can form the topic of discussion in public house or drawing-room afterward, without hurting anybody's feelings. But if you will go bawling about Hell and damnation, the Judgment-Day, the wrath of the Lamb, and suchlike horrible things, it will no longer be a nice 'parade, but a fight, 'and the world will try to get far enough off not to hear any of it.

Do you fight, or do you parade? Do you remember early days in your soul's life when your very wife and children used to dodge you, or get up any sort of reading, conversation, or play to prevent you having the chance to speak to them about Jesus and their souls?
Did the people who worked with you, or rode with you, or even passed you in the street, continually wonder what would be the next attack you would make upon them? Did people hide in corners of the Hall, and round corners of the streets, for fear you should fire right into them some of the red-hot Gospel shot you always carried? Is all that now long past? Is nobody, not even the most open sinner, afraid of you; and are you still trying to persuade yourself that you are all right?

Then you have become an out-and-out parade Soldier. There may be nothing about you that anybody finds fault with. If you have got enough money to help your Corps regularly and heartily, and one of those nice, sweet homes that a Full Salvation has made, with every sign of earthly joy and comfort, you may even be counted amongst 'the best Soldiers of my Corps' by many a parade Captain. But the Lord of Armies, who used to be so delighted with every struggle you made for Him, sorrows over you as over a Soldier who has been made prisoner.
You have learnt to parade, it may be, largely by the fault of others, but the result is that you are now the prisoner of custom and ease and doubt. You cannot believe you will ever be again the hot fighter you once were? Ah! Then let me label you a never-though-it-it prisoner in one of the Devil's Nooitgedachts*. You never thought when you were rushing into the fight every night that you would ever get so cold as to think it enough to stay out one evening per week, eh? And now you never think you will be all that you were once more. But God is mighty enough, and wise enough, to make out of the most hopeless, useless parader a conquering Soldier. Will you let Him do it for you?

* A reference to the 2nd Anglo-Boer WarChallenging stuff,

Grace and peace Andrew