GENERAL BOOTH'S ADDRESS.

General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, spoke yesterday afternoon in Sanders Theatre upon the social principles of his great organization. The audience was the largest that the theatre has held since Irving's address last year, and was very enthusiastic. The meeting was under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. Professor Peabody introduced the speaker with a few words of welcome. General Booth then arose amid great applause.

He said he was not there to dictate to the students; to bid them take up the sword and follow him into the fight; but simply to outline the war against evil, and to show the social principles of the Salvation Army. First he told of his own struggles, when he had taken his stand alone against the tide of poverty, disease and crime in the eastern part of London. The enterprise at first seemed to him desperate, the hope of making any head against such a sea of misery and vice was forlorn. With dauntless courage he resolved to make the salvation of his suffering fellow creatures his life work, and here in this dark district of London, where the light of God had never penetrated, be found his field of labor.

The speaker then went on to show how the movement had progressed. Men and women everywhere banded together in the form of a military army, in order to give the undertaking greater strength. Today, he said, the Salvation Army had a literature, a newspaper literature at any rate, that placed it at the head of all Protestant denominations.

General Booth then explained the reason that had led him to write his book "Darkest England and the Way Out." This book, he said, was published four years ago. It was for the purpose of helping the poor, miserable inhabitants of the slums. He thought that by showing people in what a desperate state certain districts of London were, he could induce many to take hold and aid him in the work of salvation. He prefaced his scheme with a diagram, pronounced hideous by the lovers of high art, but by it he hoped to lead people to see the dark sea of misery and crime, which was so near them. We give a man the name of drunkard or tramp, said the general, and then turn away in disgust and think we have done with him. Yet the tramp is still a man; he can feel cold and the gnawing pangs of hunger; he is still suffering and in need of sympathy. There are three classes of people whom the Salvation Army means to labor for. The first is the destitute, hungry and distressed; those who are forced from poverty to live in the slums. The second is the vicious and drunken class. We should give to these certainly as much sympathy as we would give to a fallen animal. If a horse falls in the street, there are many willing hands to help him up. These vicious people in the slums are fallen, but they can be helped to rise. The third class, the criminal, is the hardest to arouse any sympathy for. Men regard the criminal as an outlaw, and think no punishment too severe for him. This is not the way to stop crime. Every one knows that the prospect of suffering does not prevent a man from sinning. The only sure way to help the criminals is to labor to change their characters, their habits, and their hearts. This is what the Salvation Army is trying to do. It offers work to the criminals, when all the rest of the world turns away from them.

In conclusion General Booth outlined his well known scheme for bettering the condition of the unfortunate classes: the City Colony, the Farm Colony, and the Colony Beyond the Sea.