Perhaps the strongest basis for a critic's belief that Major Barbara had "a complete lack of religious sense" comes from the morality and religion espoused by Andrew Under Shaft. A gunsmith, Under Shaft based his credo on the belief that “honor, justice, truth [and] mercy” are “the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong, and secure life” (93). For Under Shaft, social problems such as laziness and drunkenness can be attributed to poverty, because "the first duty of man, to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor" (15). . Shaw makes this point clearly in the preface to the play and sets out his own cynical views through the mouth of Under Shaft. Shaw explains throughout Under Shaft that poverty is “the worst of all crimes” (142). The poor “poison [the country] morally and physically” – “they force [those who are not poor] to suppress [their] own freedoms and to organize unnatural cruelties, lest [the poor] rise up against [the rich] and drag [the rich] into their abyss” (142). Life has proven to Under Shaft that money is a God on Earth; the money allowed him to raise his family comfortably despite the unreliable source from which he obtained it (namely the war). Because his faith in money and gunpowder is unconventional in that it generally focuses strictly on the economic aspects of life, this faith leaves little room for the traditional spiritualism and morality of religion. Under Shaft admits that he would not have the income of a poor man in good conscience (88). In Under Shaft's religion, typical morality—that is, earning money in a respectable manner, believing that death and destruction are abominations, and viewing God as the one who rules the world—does not has no place. Under Shaft takes advantage of the "...... middle of paper ...... ara learned from the army, that a hungry man will say anything to get bread, favoring Crosstianity over absolve his soul (142). Although Shaw respects the Salvation Army's intentions of attempting to rid the country of poverty, he believes that only a revolution can completely destroy it and that the Army's attempt to save individual people is ultimately futile. The army does not save their souls; rather, it forces them to sin by lying to obtain food. Barbara comes to this understanding at the end of the play, and through it she is converted again to the salvation of souls, this time "by raising hell to heaven and man to God" – essentially, by introducing goodness and spirituality in the soul. his father's death factory (152). Through her strength and spirituality, Barbara finds hope and reaffirms the true, albeit unconventional, Christianity she practices..