death? Now the man who has come to believe that there is no such
thing as death, the change so called being merely the transition
to an exquisitely happy and utterly careless life, has not
overcome the fear of death at all: on the contrary, it has
overcome him so completely that he refuses to die on any terms
whatever. I do not call a Salvationist really saved until he is
ready to lie down cheerfully on the scrap heap, having paid scot
and lot and something over, and let his eternal life pass on to
renew its youth in the battalions of the future.

Then there is the nasty lying habit called confession, which the
Army encourages because it lends itself to dramatic oratory, with
plenty of thrilling incident. For my part, when I hear a convert
relating the violences and oaths and blasphemies he was guilty of
before he was saved, making out that he was a very terrible
fellow then and is the most contrite and chastened of Christians
now, I believe him no more than I believe the millionaire who
says he came up to London or Chicago as a boy with only three
halfpence in his pocket. Salvationists have said to me that
Barbara in my play would never have been taken in by so
transparent a humbug as Snobby Price; and certainly I do not
think Snobby could have taken in any experienced Salvationist on
a point on which the Salvationist did not wish to be taken in.
But on the point of conversion all Salvationists wish to be taken
in; for the more obvious the sinner the more obvious the miracle
of his conversion. When you advertize a converted burglar or
reclaimed drunkard as one of the attractions at an experience
meeting, your burglar can hardly have been too burglarious or
your drunkard too drunken. As long as such attractions are relied
on, you will have your Snobbies claiming to have beaten their