CHURCH ARMY, an English religious organization, founded in 1882 by the Rev. Wilson Carlile (afterwards prebendary of St. Paul's), who banded together in an orderly army of "soldiers" and "officers" a few working men and women, whom he and others trained to act as "Church of England evangelists" among the outcasts and criminals of the Westminster slums. Previous experience had convinced him that the moral condition of the lowest classes of the people called for new and aggressive action on the part of the Church, and that this work was most effectively done by laymen and women of the same class as those whom it was desired to touch. It is essentially a working men's and women's mission to working people. As the work grew, a train ing institution for evangelists was started in Oxford, but soon moved (r886) to London, where, in Bryanston Street near the Marble Arch, the headquarters of the army are now established. Working men are trained as evangelists, and working women as mission sisters. Officers and sisters are paid a limited sum for their services either by the vicar or by voluntary local contribu tions. Church Army mission and colportage vans circulate throughout the country parishes, if desired, with itinerant evan gelists, who hold simple missions, without charge, and distribute literature. Each van missioner has a clerical "adviser." Missions are also held in prisons and workhouses, at the invitation of the authorities. In 1888 (before the similar work of the Salvation Army was inaugurated) the Church Army established labour homes in London and elsewhere, with the object of giving a "fresh start in life" to the outcast and destitute. The Army has lodging homes, employment bureaus, cheap food depots, old clothes department, dispensary and a number of other social works. There is also an extensive emigration system, under which carefully tested men and families, of good character, chiefly of the unemployed class, are placed in permanent employment in Canada through the agency of the local clergy.
See Carlile, art. "Church Army" in Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii.; Rowan, Wilson Carlile and the Church Army; The Church Army Review, and other publications of Head quarters.