It is a very significant thing, this instinctive choice of the
military form of organization, this substitution of the drum for
the organ, by the Salvation Army. Does it not suggest that the
Salvationists divine that they must actually fight the devil
instead of merely praying at him? At present, it is true, they
have not quite ascertained his correct address. When they do,
they may give a very rude shock to that sense of security which
he has gained from his experience of the fact that hard words,
even when uttered by eloquent essayists and lecturers, or carried
unanimously at enthusiastic public meetings on the motion of
eminent reformers, break no bones. It has been said that the
French Revolution was the work of Voltaire, Rousseau and the
Encyclopedists. It seems to me to have been the work of men who
had observed that virtuous indignation, caustic criticism,
conclusive argument and instructive pamphleteering, even when
done by the most earnest and witty literary geniuses, were as
useless as praying, things going steadily from bad to worse
whilst the Social Contract and the pamphlets of Voltaire were at
the height of their vogue. Eventually, as we know, perfectly
respectable citizens and earnest philanthropists connived at the
September massacres because hard experience had convinced them
that if they contented themselves with appeals to humanity and
patriotism, the aristocracy, though it would read their appeals
with the greatest enjoyment and appreciation, flattering and
admiring the writers, would none the less continue to conspire
with foreign monarchists to undo the revolution and restore the
old system with every circumstance of savage vengeance and
ruthless repression of popular liberties.

The nineteenth century saw the same lesson repeated in England.