June, 1886

EXHIBITIONS: OR THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS

THIS is the age of Exhibitions. Everybody exhibits and everything is exhibited. There are and
have been Exhibi­tions of the Colonies, of the Inventories, of the Fisheries, of the Wheeleries,
and I know not what.

There was an exhibition, I believe, the other day of all the most approved and modern utensils,
engines and different methods used by brewers, publicans and beer-sellers for the
manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor. I would suggest for next year that the same
gentlemen should give an exhibition of the results produced by their machinery and utensils,
and of the varied forms of liquor manufactured therewith. It would have a curious and perhaps
a profitable effect if they were to fill up the Kensington Buildings with specimen effects of this
popular trade.

Suppose, for instance, that from London and a hundred miles round they were to fetch all the
prisoners out of the Prisons, all the lunatics out of the asylums, and all the paupers out of the
workhouses, that have been made such by their money­making traffic. To add to the effect,
they might have daily processions of the drunkards’ wives, widows, and children, all clad in
their rags and wretchedness; and if they wanted to add a little more realistic charm to the show,
they might have a few drunkards' homes got up in their ordinary emptiness, filth and misery;
and to increase the effect still further, the gathered company encouraged with a lime liquor
would probably indulge in the ordinary wranglings and blasphemies common in such society,
followed up with the usual number of fights that would be sure to take place among the same
number of people under the same conditions, concluding daily with a murder or two, a trial at
the Old Bailey, and the usual finish on the gallows. Such an exhibition might have some
beneficial effect upon society in general, and Christians in particular.

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But I was talking about exhibitions that happen every day and not such as only exist in my
imagination. These are a result, I suppose, of the inquiring and practical spirit of the age.
Nobody will take things on hearsay nowadays. Actual results are asked for, and when obtained
are brought out to the light of day that the world may look at them and test them and see and
say whether they are what they seem.

If this is allowable and commendable with regard to the works of man, why should it not to be
so with respect to the works of God? Why should we not have the same bringing forth to the
light and the same glorying in the wonderful works of God?

To this, men will make little or no exception if we will confine ourselves to the works of God in
the natural world. On the contrary, they will glory in it, and they will take us to the heavens
above, and show us wonders in the suns and stars; and they will take us into the bowel s of the
earth and show us wonders in its dark and secret depths. And they will take us to seas and
rivers, and forests, and streams, and show us wonders there — that is, if we had time to go —
while all the time the miracles and marvels, that are a thousand times more wonderful, which
are transpiring in the human world amongst the men and women around them, are of little
interest to them.

Therefore, we say, let us have an exhibition of the wonders of the spiritual world. Let us see
something of what has been accomplished in rescuing and reforming, and renewing, and
regenerating men.

But how can there be an exhibition in the spiritual world? Can the spiritual be seen? and is not
religion a spiritual power? Undoubtedly it is, but, as is often said, though you cannot see a pain,
you can feel one. Though you cannot see the wind, you can see its effects; and even so the
operations of the Holy Spirit can be felt in the soul, and its effects can be seen in the changed
characters and lives of men. So let us have an exhibition of spiritual effects.

Some of these effects will come together at the International Congress. They will be there to
be seen and talked to. They will be there by thousands, men and women who have been

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rescued from the lowest depths, delivered from the fear of death and hell, and from the power
of sin, out of whom all kinds of devils have been cast; black men, red men, yellow men, white
men, belonging to varied nationalities, of different conditions in life, speaking different
languages, but now all joining in one faith, and filled by one spirit. These are coming from the
north, and the south, and the east, and the west, to sit down together for a week in the Kingdom
of God, actuated by one purpose, to learn better how to glorify God, and spread the salvation
they have found.

They will be there for you to talk to, and to hear them talk. You can examine and cross-examine
them. You can learn how they arrived at their present experience of peace and power and joy.
They will come on purpose from their far-away homes to set forth the wonderful things that
God has done for them.

What an exhibition that was at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, when the Jews saw the
baptised apostles, and heard them speak in their own tongues of the wonderful salvation of
the Son of God, they were pricked to the heart, cried for mercy, got converted, joined the
apostles, and went out and died with them! We expect it will be so at this exhibition. The same
Holy Ghost will descend, people will come out of the same curiosity, and when they see and
hear the wonderful things about the same Saviour, they will give themselves up to God in the
same way, join the Army, and live and die with us, for the salvation of the world.

But is not an exhibition a show? And someone says, I do not approve of making a show of the
saints. Can you help yourself, my brother? If you are saved you will be different to other people;
you will be peculiar and everybody will see it. They will be puzzled with you, and observe you,
and ask questions about you. In short, you will be a show to them.

But if you object to shows, how will you do with Heaven? Won't it have very much of the show
about it? Only think of your own feelings when you get there. So soon as you have seen the
King, and worshipped at His feet, won't you want a directory, and a guide, anyway, some plan
of finding your way about the Celestial City, in order that you may go and see Enoch, and Noah,
and Abraham, and Moses and Daniel, the apostles and martyrs, Luther and Wesley, all your

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comrades who have got home before you, and I know not whom? The only men and women,
and angels who have made up the history of the Church, and stood in the front of the battle
and made a good fight for the salvation of the world will interest you far more than all the
material sights and scenes of the Celestial City all put together.

It was so with John the Divine. The King on His Throne, the Lamb that was slain, the mighty
creatures who worshipped before Him, and the great multitude, which no man could number,
who had come out of great tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in the
blood of the Lamb, absorbed and filled his vision.

And if, my comrades, the soldiers, perfected and crowned and rejoicing when the fight is over,
are so intensely interesting that all heaven will look on with dazzling wonder, is it at all amazing
that we think them of intense interest while actually engaged in the fight down here? If people
think it will be a great sight, which it unquestionably will, to see them gathered together in
heaven, a sight worth going there to see, will it not be a great sight to see them gathered
together on earth? If the victories they will recount there, and the songs they will sing there,
and if the worship of the King there will be of such surpassing interest, surely the recounting of
their victories and the singing of their songs, and the worship of their King at the Great
International will be of marvellous interest too!

Anyway, they are coming from the ends of the earth to see and hear and join in it all, and I have
never a question my mind but that those who do come, though it be out of the merest curiosity,
if it be an honest curiosity, will go back saying of The Salvation Army something very much like
what the Queen of Sheba said after her visit to the court of Solomon. "I have read about it in
the 'War Cry,' I have heard about it from platforms, and soldiers and officers and friends and
enemies have talked to me about this Salvation Army, but the half of its wonders have never
been told me."

But what will be the good of it all?

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It will be educational. That is one of the great uses of these earthly exhibi­tions, and this will
show to everybody engaged in the same line of action,

1. That the power of God to save in connection with the simplest methods, and the poorest
and most ignorant agencies, is just as great as in the first days of Christianity or in any other
time. In other words it will proclaim that the Lord's arm is as long in 1886 as it was in the year
33.

2. That God can and does save His people from their sins as well as from the penalty due to
them.

3. That the vilest and most ignorant and most hopeless can be rescued, cleansed, and set down
amongst the princes of Israel.

4. That God still performs miracles upon people's bodies as well as upon their souls.

5. That true religion is nothing more nor less than love to God and man, poured into the soul
by the Holy Ghost, through Jesus Christ, and that all that is necessary to its propagation is to
have this love and exhibit it.

6. That, at the same time, the Army system has the approval of Heaven.

7. That there are greater things to come.

The International Congress will be an important encouragement to all who belong to the Army,
who have helped the Army, who believe in the Army, or who want to believe in it. What a
strengthening of feeble knees! What a removing of doubts and a silencing of fears there will
be that week. I prophecy that hundreds of hearts, that, while I write this, are oppressed with
doleful forebodings and gloomy dreads about the future of the Army, will before that week
and the exhibition closes, feel light as a feather, and go forth to soar away in hearty joy and
triumphant feel­ing, as on the wings of eagles, to run in the way of God's commandments

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without weariness, and to walk in the processions when they get home again, without fainting
at the scoffs and the frowns of their neighbours and friends.

What a denial of all the slanders that have been uttered against the movement, and what a
contradiction of all the lies that have been sent forth about the selfishness of its leaders, will
the Congress produce, for, from one end of Heaven to the other it will be made plain that no
men could do the works which those Salvation Army officers and their leaders do, except God
were with them.

And, lastly, what a monument will hereby be erected, on which shall be inscribed with all our
hearts:

“The Salvation Army International Congress, of 1886, convened, inaugurated, continued, and
concluded, to set forth the great work of Salvation wrought by the power of God by the means
of The Salvation Army, and all to the praise and glory of God."

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