Hers was, indeed, a prolonged storm of s_The Authoritative Life of General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army

upon The General cannot easily be realised. He would go out, time after

time, to his great journeys and Meetings with, necessarily, a gnawing

uncertainty as to what might occur in his absence, and would be called,

again and again, to what he thought might be her last agony, only to see

her, after hours of extraordinary pain and weakness, rally again, to

suffer more. To the very end her mind continued to be as clear and

powerful as of old, so that her intense interest in everything connected

with his work made it difficult for The General to realise that she

might at any moment be called away from him. Often through the long

hours of the night he would watch beside her.

To a party of Officers who visited her in 1889, she said:--

"I feel that at this moment I could put all my children into their

graves, and go to a workhouse bed to die, sooner than I could see

the principles of The Salvation Army, for which I have lived and

struggled, undermined and sacrificed. God will not fail you. Give

the children my dear love, and tell them that, if there had been a

Salvation Army when I was ten years old, I should have been as good

a Soldier then as I am to-day."

To the last she maintained her interest in comrades who were furthest

off, as well as in those who were near. To Australians she sent the

message:--

"Tell them I look on them and care for them, as for my English

children, and that I expect them to gather in many a sorrowing

mother's prodigal, who has wandered far from his Father's house."

Of one of those terrible occasions when it seemed as if the end had

come, The General writes, in December, 1889:--

"To stand by the side of those you love, and watch the ebbing tide

of life, unable to stem it, or to ease the anguish, is an

experience of sorrow which words can but poorly describe. There was

a strange choking sensation in the throat which threatened

suffocation. After several painful struggles there was a great

calm, and we felt the end had come."

What a mercy that nobody knew how many months of agony were yet to

follow! It was not till October, 1890, that the end really came. She

sent that year to The Army for its Self-Denial Week, the message:--

"My Dear Children and Friends,--

"I have loved you much, and in God's strength have helped you a

little. Now, at His call, I am going away from you.

"The War must go on. Self-Denial will prove your love to Christ.

All must do something.

"I send you my blessing. Fight on, and God will be with you.

Victory comes at last. I will meet you in Heaven.

"Catherine Booth."

On October 1st violent hæmorrhage set in. The General was telegraphed

for, and after days and nights of continual suffering and extreme

weakness, she passed away on Saturday afternoon, October 4, 1890.

Writing immediately afterwards, The General said:--

"Ever since our first meeting, now nearly forty years ago, we have

been inseparable in spirit; that is, in all the main thoughts and

purposes of our lives. Oh, what a loss is mine! It cannot be

measured."

And yet, anxious, as in every other case, to make the very best of the

funeral for the good of souls, The General rose, by God's grace, so

completely above his own feelings as to be able to take part in all the

unparalleled services that followed. More than forty thousand people

visited the Congress Hall, Clapton, to look upon her remains there, and

to pray and give themselves to God in many cases, whilst her favourite

hymns were sung by bands of Cadets. The coffin was then removed to the

Olympia, the largest covered building we could hire in London, and

30,000 persons passed the turnstiles to attend the funeral service,

conducted mostly by signs, according to a printed programme.

The next day, the funeral march was restricted to Officers of whom 3,000

were present; but the crowds which looked on as it passed right through

from our Headquarters in the City to the Abney Park Cemetery were beyond

all computation. A crowd of 10,000, admitted by ticket, surrounded the

grave, where The General spoke, as one newspaper reported, "as a

Soldier, who had disciplined his emotion without effort, and straight

from the heart." Of his wonderful address, we have only room to quote

the final words:--

"What, then, is there left for me to do? Not to count the weeks,

the days, and the hours which shall bring me again into her sweet

company, seeing that I know not what will be on the morrow, nor

what an hour may bring forth. My work is plainly to fill up the

weeks, the days, and the hours, and cheer my poor heart as I go

along, with the thought that when I have served my Christ and my

generation, according to the will of God, which I vow this

afternoon I will, to the last drop of my blood, that then she will

bid me welcome to the skies, as He bade her. God bless you all!

Amen."

And then he knelt and kissed the coffin, and we lowered it into the

grave. The Chief of the Staff read a form of Covenant, which thousands

repeated, and then we parted.

From that very day The General rose up and went forward, sorrowing, as

every one could see, to his last days over his irreparable loss, but

never allowing his grief to hinder his labours for those who, amidst

their afflictions have no heavenly Comforter.

A still further blow was to fall upon him, only three years later. Mrs.

Booth had delighted, especially during her years of suffering, in the

fellowship of her second daughter, Emma, who had been married to

Commissioner Tucker, in 1890, and who had always seemed to The General

to be the nearest representative, in many respects, of her mother. He

had gladly given her up to go with her husband to India, and was equally

willing for her, later, to go to the United States. But he always kept

up a very full correspondence with her. Her last letter to him, written

on an American train, said:--

"My Precious General,--

"I am still on the wing. We were at St. Louis on Sunday, where we

had, in some respects, a rather remarkable day. The entire feeling

of the city has been distinctly different since your visit--the

sympathy now is most marked.

"I also spoke for 'fifteen minutes' (stretched a little) in the

Merchants Exchange, a huge marble structure. No woman, they say,

has ever been heard there before. This was on Saturday at noon, and

quite a number of the leading business and money men turned up at

Sunday's Meetings.

"Can't write more. How I wonder how you are! Up above us all so

high, like a diamond in our sky, though perhaps I ought to say

cyclone or race-horse, or--but there is no simile fine enough.

"Good-night! Would that you were here, so that I could say it, and

hear all that you would like to say, and then start off again to

try and carry out your wishes with better success, as

"Your unfailing Emma."

Alas, alas, for the uncertainties of human life! Little did she imagine

that before the letter could reach him she would be gone from another

train, for ever from his side.

Her own devotion to the War, from her very childhood, had always been

such as to set an example to all who knew her. As head, for ten years,

of our Training Home for women Officers, she did more than can ever be

known to ensure the purity and excellence of The Army's leaders, so that

it may be easily guessed how much her father valued her.

As joint leader with her husband of our forces in India, and afterwards

in the United States, she never spared herself, but, in spite of

repeated illnesses, and without, in any way, neglecting her duties as

mother of six children, she travelled and laboured incessantly.

Starting out at one o'clock in the morning of October 28th, from

Colorado, to ride to Chicago, she managed to make a rush-call, between

trains, in Kansas City, to view a new building The Army was about to

take as an Industrial Home. Throughout most of the two days' journey,

she was in conversation with one or another Officer as to coming

extension of the work until, finding that Colonel Addie, whose Province

she last passed, had composed a new song, she asked him to sing it over

to her, and to repeat three times the last verse, which was as

follows:--

Time and place will cease to know you,

Men and things will pass away;

You'll be moving on to-morrow,

You are only here to-day.

Little did either of them imagine how terribly the words were to be

verified within four hours of their being sung.

Just as she was leaving her place in one carriage, to go to the sleeping

berth prepared for her in another, a tremendous crash announced to all

the passengers that the car through which she and one of our Officers

were passing had left the rails and been destroyed. Both were buried in

the debris. The Colonel (Holland) survived, but Mrs. Booth-Tucker, after

lingering in unconsciousness a couple of hours, passed away.

What a blow for The General! He wrote at the end of the year: "This has

been, is, and will be, to the end of my earthly chapter, a mysterious

and painful dispensation--at least, so it appears at the moment. What

God may do for me in the future, and how He may make it work for my good

does not at present appear. But He is able to make it mightily helpful

to His glory, and the Salvation of souls. With this prospect, God

forbid, then, that I should be other than content--nay, filled with

praise. I am at present strangely supported and cheered; and not

strangely either, for is it not what might have been expected, with so

many loving prayers going up to Heaven on my account hour by hour."

Remembering that he had lost not only the most tenderly beloved one left

to him, but an Officer holding one of the most important posts he had to

fill, we can somewhat estimate the grace that could thus sustain him,

and make it possible, even then, to go gladly forward!

Yet again he was to drink the bitter cup of family bereavement, this

time affecting his youngest daughter, who had married Commissioner

Hellberg, already mentioned as one of our first Swedish Officers.

Not only had he kept all the promise of his first brave and sturdy stand

for The Army as a student, but, gaining by every year's experience in

various lands, he had shown remarkable ability in many spheres.

With his no less able and devoted wife, he had laboured in India, at

International Headquarters, in France and in Switzerland, when

consumption, alas! showed itself, and, in spite of all that could be

done for him, during years of suffering, in Algiers, and in various

resorts of health-seekers, he steadily sank. Though, of course, death

had long threatened him, he was caught suddenly at the last, and died in

Berlin on the journey homewards to Sweden from South Germany, at a time

when his wife could not be with him.

It will be readily understood how much more trying this was to The

General than if he had been near to comfort his daughter in all her

sorrow. And yet this blow, falling upon him when he was seventy-nine

years old, found him no less resolute than ever. He sent this widowed

mother out into Denmark, where she was a stranger, to persevere in the

fight. She had showed herself, like her father; able to plead at the

very grave-side with the crowd, for God.

In connexion with the loss of Mrs. Booth we began a system of special

Memorial Services which have been wonderfully blessed. The first one,

held on the first anniversary of her death, in the Agricultural

Hall--one of the largest buildings in London, was altogether too large

for any speaking to be heard. The plan was adopted, therefore, as at the

funeral, of a complete form of service, each point of which was

indicated on the programme, and by large illuminated signs. By this

means the audience, of some 15,000, was able closely and unitedly to

join in all the songs and prayers, whilst scenes from Mrs. Booth's life,

and messages taken from her writings and from The General's, were also

on the great lantern screen passed on to them. Thousands of the most

careless and thoughtless were present; but there was no break in the

solemnity of the service. Hundreds went as requested, from the Meeting

to a room in the stables, to volunteer for life-service as Officers.

What it cost The General to be present on this, and, since then, on

similar occasions, specially after his daughter's death, may be

imagined; but he never hesitated to endure this, for the sake of the

many souls such services have invariably aroused to repentance, faith,

and self-sacrifice for the War. Writing, in 1905, to a friend, he

says:--

"Were you at the Memorial Service? That was a trying ordeal for me,

but I hear that many were benefited. It seems selfish to ask for so

many intercessions; but I cannot get on without them. (In all our

Memorial Services all present are asked to unite in prayer for the

bereaved ones.) The mere fact of my knowing that so large a number

of the very elect of the Kingdom are pleading for power and love on

my account, helps me forward. God bless and keep and comfort you

every day and every hour."

Undoubtedly, these services, whilst blessed to all present, have also

served to provoke much prayer and faith for all our bereaved ones, and

for The General most of all, and have thus made it easier for him, and

for all of us, to triumph over personal sorrows and losses, and press

forward to ever-increasing victory.

That The General's example of burying his own sorrows in redoubled

effort to cheer and help others has been followed everywhere, may count

as large compensation for all he has lost. And yet, all who knew him

best, have seen that the wound caused by Mrs. Booth's loss was never

healed. With the badge of bereavement, which we have substituted for any

costly mourning, ever upon his left arm, just as it was twenty years

ago, our first General went onward to the great re-union above, "as

sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," his sadness ever touching as many

hearts as his merry remarks aroused.

Curiously enough, The General, whilst anxious at all times to remind

every one of death and judgment, and to prevent their being so

intoxicated by pleasure and passing trivialities as to prevent their

thinking of their souls and of eternity, abolished, so far as his

followers were concerned, the horrible formalities which, in all

countries have come to be thought necessary whenever death and the grave

come into view.

Nothing could be more opposed to everything taught by Christ than the

usual processes of "Christian burial," and the records of "the

departed." He who "brought life and immortality to light" through His

Gospel could not wish to see His people's graves surrounded exclusively

by signs of mourning, and then plastered over with flattering records of

earthly glory, making, as a rule, no mention of His Salvation, and the

eternal glories it assures. He manifested, indeed, and always shows the

deepest sympathy with our sorrows; but He does so most by teaching us to

make them steps to higher life and joy.

This great purpose The General aimed at in all his arrangements as to

burials, and thus alleviated sadness, and turned death into victory to a

very remarkable extent. No widow or orphan under his Flag will add to

all the inevitable costs of nursing the dying those of fashionable

"mourning," clothing, flowers, or monuments. The cross and crown badge

worn on the left arm by himself and his bereaved ones, sometimes for

years, whilst providing a most touching token of abiding affection for

lost friends, is, at the same time, a special declaration of faith and

hope, and yet obviates entirely the need for any peculiar dress "for the

occasion."

Every funeral thus becomes a very valuable opportunity for comforting

and strengthening the mourners, and for urging the unsaved to ensure an

eternal triumph. It would not be easy to compute the total of crowds

thus brought under the sound of the Gospel, in connexion with our

losses, every year.

Thus all these occasions for sadness have been turned into fountains of

joy, not merely to those most immediately concerned, but to the whole

community. We have not yet had time or opportunity, thank God!

sufficiently to redeem the grave and the cemetery from the scandal of

men-praising expenditure, for any sort of tombstone has generally been

too costly for our people. But the small, simple edge-stone which marks

the resting-place of "Catherine Booth, Mother of The Salvation Army,"

and which asks every passer-by, "Do you also follow Christ?" has set an

example, consistent with all our past and our eternal future.

Surely, the day will come when our General's teaching and practice in

this matter will help to lighten the burden of every bereaved family,

and make every cemetery the birthplace of crowds of souls. The music and

song with which we surround every deathbed and funeral, still too much

tinged sometimes with the follies of traditional show, have already been

used by God's Spirit to bring life and gladness to many a spiritually

dead soul.

Chapter XX

His Social Work

Most erroneously and unfairly it has been widely assumed that the great

work of The General was the establishment in the world of some Social

Institutions. Happily, we have got a verbatim report of an address to

his Social Officers gathered around him a year before his death in which

we have a complete statement as to the beginnings and principles of the

work, so that we can see exactly how he wished it to be regarded.

1. By the Social Work, I mean those operations of The Salvation

Army which have to do with the alleviation, or removal, of the

moral and temporal evils which cause so much of the misery of the

submerged classes, and which so greatly hinder their Salvation.

2. Our Social Operations, as thus defined, are the natural outcome

of Salvationism, or, I might say, of Christianity, as instituted,

described, proclaimed, and exemplified in the life, teaching, and

sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Here I would like to say that Social Work, in the spirit and

practice which it has assumed with us, has harmonised with my own

personal idea of true religion from the hour I promised obedience

to the commands of God.

To help the poor, to minister to them in their slums, to sympathise

with them in their poverty, afflictions, and irreligion, was the

natural outcome of the life that came to my soul through believing

in Jesus Christ.

Before many days--nay, before many hours--had passed after my

conversion, I was to be found praying in the cottages in the

working-class quarters of the town in which I lived, talking in the

slums, comforting the dying, and doing, so far as I knew how and

had ability, what seemed to me most likely to help the poor and

miserable classes, both for this world and the world to come.

3. But Social Work, as a separate entity, or department of the

Kingdom of Jesus Christ, recognised, organised, and provided for,

had to wait for The Salvation Army.

For many years after the commencement of my public work, during

which time I had, as opportunity served, helped the poor in their

distress, I was deterred from launching out to any great extent in

this direction by the fear so commonly entertained that by

relieving their physical necessities I should be helping to create,

or at any rate to encourage, religious hypocrisy and pretence.

All this time, nevertheless, I felt, and often keenly felt, that

there surely must be some way by which, without any evil

consequences, I could legitimately fulfil the cravings of my own

heart, as well as comply with the commands of my Lord, who had

expressly told me that I was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked,

care for the sick, and visit the prisoners. For a long time,

however, I failed to see how this work could be done in any

organised or extensive manner.

Gradually, however, the way opened, and opened largely, as a result

of our determination to make the godless crowds hear the message of

Salvation.

I said, "They shall hear; we will make them hear; and if they won't

hear in any other way, we will feed them, and accompany the food we

give them with the message to which they so determinedly turn a

deaf ear." In the very earliest days of The Army, therefore, in

order to reach the people whom we could not reach by any other

means, we gave the hungry wretches a meal, and then talked to them

about God and eternity.

4. Then came the gradual unfolding of our Social methods, which

have been so remarkably successful.

My dear wife's heart had been particularly drawn out on behalf of

the fallen outcasts of society, who, often more sinned against than

sinning, appealed peculiarly to her large and tender sympathies.

More than once she found opportunity for extending help to

individual cases of misfortune, obtaining homes amongst her friends

for some of the children, and assisting the poor mothers to win

their way back to virtue.

But it was not until the end of 1883, or thereabouts, that anything

like a systematic effort in this direction was organised on their

behalf. Touched by the helpless and pitiable condition of some poor

girls who had sought Salvation at the Corps at which, with her

husband, she fought as a Soldier, a baker's wife, living in one of

the most wretched streets in Spitalfields, took the girls, in

distress and trouble, into her own home. Before long it was crowded

to its utmost capacity, and still other women were clamouring for

admission. She implored us to help her, and we engaged and opened a

house as our first Rescue Home, placing it under the direction of

Mrs. Bramwell Booth.

The breaking forth of the same spirit in different directions in

other lands quickly followed.

At about this time our first Prison Rescue Brigade, in the Colony

of Victoria, was organised by the late Colonel Barker. So striking

was the success attending his effort that, before many months had

passed by, magistrates in the city of Melbourne were actually

giving delinquents the option of being sent to prison or to our

Prison-Gate Home, and the Government placed the former Detective

Police Building at our disposal, at a nominal rental.

Not only does the genuine Christian spirit carry the soul out in

sympathy with misery, but it often leads it to prefer certain

particular classes of sufferers or wrongdoers, on whom to lavish

its self-sacrificing love, and restlessly spend itself in efforts

for their benefit. In the case of one Salvationist, it will be the

dying; in another the daughters of sin and shame; in another the

homeless; in another the children, and in yet another the

drunkards.

With Colonel Barker, as with other comrades under our Flag to-day,

it was the criminals.

This spirit thrives and becomes more effective by what it feeds

upon. It must, therefore, be wise to favour its preferences, so far

as it is possible to do so without losing sight of the well-being

of the whole.

We did this with Colonel Barker, and we are acting on the same

principle with others to-day.

Then came our first Women's Rescue Home in Melbourne, to help us in

the establishment of which the Colonial Government gave £1,000.

It was upon foundations of this character that our Social

Operations in New Zealand, France, South Africa, and several other

countries were subsequently built up.

For years past our Officers, men and women, both in the United

Kingdom and elsewhere, had carried on what may be spoken of as an

unorganised form of Slum Work; but it fell to the hands of my

glorified daughter, the Consul, to institute, in London, what was

then and for some time afterwards known as "the Cellar, Gutter,

and Garret Brigade"--the forerunner of scores of Slum Posts, which

are now such a recognised feature of our operations all over the

world.

Our first Men's Shelter was opened in Limehouse, London, during the

winter of 1887-8, and was soon followed by the opening of similar

Institutions in other countries, far-off and near at hand.

From our earliest days drunkenness had been one of the many foes of

God and man against which we had specially taken our stand, and

thousands of its slaves had been rescued from its grip, and become

valiant Soldiers in our ranks. Our first Inebriates' Home,

conducted in the interest of women, was not, however, opened until

1887. This was in Toronto, Canada.

The Social Work in the United States had its birth in 1885, in an

effort made on behalf of prisoners at Hartford, Connecticut.

Similar efforts followed in other cities, and Rescue and Industrial

Homes, Shelters, and Farm Colonies followed on in due course.

All these enterprises and many others, to which I have not time now

to refer, were prior to the publication of "In Darkest England and

the Way Out," and had, no doubt, a powerful influence in inspiring

that volume.

Since then one branch or other of Social Work has been commenced in

every country in which our Flag is flying.

Notwithstanding the satisfaction produced by these and kindred

efforts in my own mind, and in the minds of those immediately

associated with me, and although the results were truly remarkable,

and the possibilities seemed to be still more wonderful, the

beginnings of these Social enterprises attracted comparatively

little notice.

The New Movement--for thus I may describe it--which, with half an

eye, thoughtful men might have seen to be pregnant with blessings

for the whole world, was almost unnoticed by either the Authorities

or the Press; while our supplies of men and money for its conduct

and extension were very limited.

Suddenly, however, the scene was changed, and, all at once,

everybody was asking, "What is The Salvation Army?" "Who is General

Booth?" and "What is this Social Scheme?"

This change was largely brought about by the publication of "In

Darkest England and the Way Out," together with the notices of the

Scheme in the Press which it brought about.

Judged by the effect produced, the book was certainly a remarkable

one. In the first place it had a title which, in a striking manner

described its character. Everybody wanted to see it, and, as a

result, it was sold, lent, read, thought about, and talked about in

every direction. Nearly a quarter of a million copies were sold.

The profits from the publication and sale amounted to about

£20,000, of which sum I had the privilege of handing over

£5,380--which might have been considered rightfully to accrue to me

personally as the Author--to the fund devoted to the promotion of

the object for which the book was published.

In its pages I propounded those Schemes which I thought would prove

most successful in alleviating the terrible misery I had described,

and in rescuing some, at least, of the sufferers from the conduct

that produced it.

In order to set the Scheme in motion, I asked the public to give me

£100,000, and a further £30,000 per annum to maintain it.

I can never forget the morning that directly followed the

appearance of the volume. I was, of course, in ignorance of what

the nation would think or say about it.

I had made plans for the book to be delivered to the newspapers at

one and the same time, and, regarding the Press as being to some

extent the voice of the people, I was anxious to hear what that

voice would say.

I was not kept long in suspense. As I ascended the stairs at

Headquarters that morning, a gentleman with a countenance beaming

with kindness and anxiety met me. I do not think he had ever seen

me before, and I was certainly in complete ignorance of him.

"General Booth, I believe?" he said.

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"I have been reading the critique in _The Times_ of your Darkest

England Scheme," he said, "and, believing your plan to be right and

good, I want to be the first to express my sympathy and practical

assistance in carrying it out, and I wish to give you the first

£1,000 towards the sum asked for."

This gentleman proved himself a firm friend of the Scheme, actively

co-operating with us so far as he had opportunity.

A short time afterwards our friend was present at the opening of

our first London Ex-Prisoners' Home. When I had finished speaking

he expressed a wish to say a few words. I invited him forward for

that purpose. He came, hurried and excited, began to speak,

staggered, reeled, fell into my arms and immediately expired. It

may be truly said that he died calling down blessings on the

Darkest England Scheme.

After meeting this gentleman on the stairs, I had scarcely sat down

at my desk, with his cheque in my hand, before a telegram was

handed me, from one of the most influential newspaper proprietors

in the city, expressing a similar hope, and promising a similar

amount for its realisation.

But along with these cheering expressions of approbation there came

the invariable murmuring objections. One of these strove to

minimise the value of the effort, by arguing that it was only an

attempt to extend The Army's religious influence. People said they

would be willing to help if all religious and propagandist motives

were eliminated from the Scheme.

One night a gentleman was announced as wishing to see me. He

declined to give his name, and the only description of him I could

gain was that he was a prominent member of the Stock Exchange.

"I want to ask you one question--only one," he said, upon entering

my office, "about this Social Scheme of yours."

"All right," I replied, "as many as you like."

"Well," he continued, "I want to know whether you are going to give

religion alongside your other benefits to these people whom you

seek to help? I am not a religious man myself. I am not saved, and

never shall be--I am a lost soul; but there is no reason why these

poor wretches should not have religion; and if you will give them

religion, I will help you."

"Yes," I answered, "we will give them religion. While we won't

refuse to help them because they are irreligious--but, on the

contrary, will take in the vilest and the worst--we will give them

all as much religion as we can."

"I will help you," he answered, as he handed me Bank of England

notes for £500.

He came to see us again and again, proving for the time being a

generous friend. Then he disappeared.

In a very short time, and in the readiest and most kindly manner,

£104,000 were subscribed. But, alas! only a very small proportion

of the £30,000 that was asked for annually was forthcoming.

In this, as in many other similar cases, I have found that whilst

the public will be ready--nay, eager--to embrace a new thing, they

soon get tired of it, run after some other novelty, and leave you

largely to struggle for its continuance, as best you can.

5. It is enough here to state that the results at the onset were

remarkable. Amongst others four, which might have been expected,

were immediately realised:--

(a) The first was the bringing into public view the ocean of

tears, misery, and evil which was rolling around us in every

direction.

(b) Another result was that people everywhere were awakened from

their selfish lethargy, to look upon these waters of tribulation,

and were amazed to find the depth, the darkness, and the despair

with which they rolled forward, as well as the damnation to which

they invariably led.

over to care for the class whom it was proposed to benefit, and to

believe in the possibility of the Scheme being realised. Many of

these proved permanent friends of our Social Operations.

(d) Yet another effect was that the fountains of compassion broke

out in the hearts of large numbers of individuals, and led them to

make similar efforts. Everywhere the call was sounded to labour for

these poor lost people, and instances were adduced which showed

that their humble toil was productive of very striking results.

But until now nothing, or next to nothing, had been done to stop

this rolling river, or deliver those perishing in its waters,

because everybody had felt helpless in the presence of the enormous

evil.

But here, now, were results of sufficient magnitude to convince

those who became interested in the matter that, by the employment

of the methods set forth in "In Darkest England and the Way Out,"

something permanently effective might be accomplished.

On the other hand, others, as might have been expected, who had

never manifested any particular interest before, either for or

against, now came out openly as our enemies, and a stiff fight

followed, out of which the Social Operations, although in their

infancy, may be said to have emerged victorious.

One of the results of this conflict of opinion was the "Darkest

England" Inquiry.

The preparation of "In Darkest England" will for ever remain

remarkable in my own memory, as it was mostly written and

corrected in the adjoining chamber to that in which my dear wife

was suffering those awful agonies associated with the disease which

finally carried her away.

The spirit which originated and controlled the Social Work had

been, pre-eminently, the spirit of her religion. She certainly was

the most practical exponent of the Christianity of which I have

been speaking that it was ever my lot to meet. It was her religion;

she preached it with natural eloquence and remarkable skill; and,

in life and death, she exemplified it.

From that day to this the history of the Social Work has been one

of steady progress and of surpassing interest, and I have sometimes

wondered whether any movement, based so solidly upon principles of

permanence, and so calculated to bless the classes for whose

benefit it was, by the Providence of God, called into being, has

ever existed within the memory of men.

Now what has come out of this beginning?

1. Here is a list of the various Social enterprises we have in

hand. I do not vouch for its completeness; but, anyway, we have

here a goodly number of schemes for the benefit of the poor and

friendless already in active and useful operation:--

(a) For the Starving, we have--

i. Children's Free and Farthing Breakfasts.

ii. Midnight Soup and Bread Brigades for the Homeless.

iii. Cheap Food Dépôts.

iv. Special Relief Funds for cases of Special Destitution.

v. Old Clothes' Dépôts for Slum Families.

vi. Poor Men's Hotels,

vii. Cheap Grain Stores.

viii. Famine Loan Fund for Destitute Indians.

(b) For the Drunkards, we have--

i. Drunkards' Brigades.

ii. Midnight Drunkards' Brigades (of use also in any sudden

emergency--Fire, Flood, etc.).

iii. Drunkards' Advice Bureaux.

iv. Homes for Inebriates--Men and Women.

i. Workhouse Brigades.

ii. Salvation Guardians of the Poor.

iii. Pauper Colonies.

iv. Pauper Transportation.

v. Labour Bureaux,

vi. Homes for the Aged.

(d) For the Unemployed, we have--

i. Labour Bureaux--Men and Women,

ii. Industrial Homes.

iii. Labour Wood Yards.

iv. City Salvage Brigades.

v. Workshops.

(e) For the Homeless, we have--

i. Midnight Scouts.

ii. Shelters for Men and Women.

iii. Metropoles.

(f) For the Criminals, we have--

i. Prison Visitation.

ii. Police-court Work.

iii. Prison-Gate Work.

iv. Probationary Police.

v. Correspondence Bureaux.

vi. Ex-Criminals' Homes.

vii. Criminal Settlements

(g) For the Daughters of Shame, we have--

i. Visitation of Streets, Brothels, Yoshiwaras, Clubs, etc.

ii. Midnight Meetings.

iii. Receiving Homes.

iv. Rescue Homes.

v. Factories, Laundries, etc.

vi. "Out of Love" Funds.

vii. Service Girls' Brigades.

viii. Shepherding Brigades.

ix. Maternity Homes.

x. Investigation and Detective Department.

(h) Slum Work. We have--

i. Visitation.

ii. First-Aid Brigades.

iii. District Nursing.

iv. "Poorest of the Poor" Aid.

(i) For the Sick, we have--

i. Visitation.

ii. Hospitals.

iii. Dispensaries.

iv. Village Dispensing,

v. Leper Hospitals,

vi. Maternity Nursing.

(j) For the Lost, we have--

i. Inquiry and Correspondence Bureaux.

ii. Legal Assistance.

(k) Prevention and Protective Work for Young Girls. We

have--

i. Servants' Homes.

ii. City Institutes.

iii. Theatrical Girls' Home.

iv. Registries.

v. Students' Homes.

(l) Anti-Suicide Bureaux. We have--

i. Advice Department.

ii. Loan Department.

(m) The Home League.

(n) Land Schemes. We have--

i. Emigration.

ii. Home Colonisation.

iii. Colonisation over the Sea.

iv. Lands and Farm Colonies.

v. Small Holdings.

(o) Deep Sea Brigades. We have--

i. Mission Boats.

ii. Life-boat.

(p) Training Colleges.

(q) Students' Homes.

(r) Working-Men's Association.

(s) Village Banks.

The total number of our Social Institutions is now 954.

The value of properties, etc., held for the use of our Social

Operations is:--

At Home (U.K.) £228,000

In other Countries 747,000

Total £975,000

2. In the history of the Social Work, nevertheless, there have

been, as you will know, any number of shortcomings. We have not

realised all our expectations, nor fulfilled all our dreams. It was

not to be expected that we should. This is an imperfect world; the

Movement has been imperfect, and the people who have carried it on

have been imperfect also. Consequently, it is only natural that we

have had imperfect results.

(a) Many things have been calculated to cause these shortcomings.

For example:--

i. There has been a great lack of direct aim at the true goal of

our Social Work on the part of some Officers who have been engaged

in its direction.

Some of our comrades have been content with a "soup-and-blanket"

régime. That is to say, they have too often been satisfied with the

alleviation of the miseries of the hour, and have stopped short of

the removal of the evils that have caused the poverty, vice, and

agony from which the sufferings sprang.

Consequently, the work, being superficial, has in some cases only

had superficial and temporary results.

You get out of a thing as much as you put in--and no more, and

that, not only in quantity, but in quality. If you go in for

root-and-branch efforts, you will get root-and-branch results.

ii. Another cause of our shortcomings has been the lamentable fact

that some of our Officers have been deficient in personal religion.

Our Social Work is essentially a religious business. It can neither

be contemplated, commenced, nor carried on, with any great success,

without a heart full of pity, and love, and endued with the power

of the Holy Ghost.

iii. Another of our difficulties has been the scarcity of suitable

people for carrying the work on. This was also to be expected.

If we had been content with hirelings, and had sought them out from

among the philanthropies and Churches, we should have found plenty

in number, but it is equally certain we should have had

considerably more doleful failures than those we have experienced.

We are not only making but are now training the Social Officers,

and we shall doubtless improve in this respect, whilst the work

they turn out will be bound to improve proportionately.

iv. Then again a further reason for our shortcomings has been our

shortness of money.

This need unfortunately is not passing away, as you will all well

know. But I suppose some of you have come from distant lands with

bags of francs and dollars to present The General with an ample

supply of this requirement. He thanks you beforehand.

(b) Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all our shortcomings, the

position now occupied by our Social Operations, and the influence

exercised by them on the great and small of the earth, is in

evidence in every Continent and on every hand.

There is no doubt that the world, as a whole, feels much of the

admiration and gratitude which the Press lavished upon me on my

recent Birthday--admiration which was assuredly intended not only

for myself, but for The Army as a whole, and not only for The Army

as a whole, but for its Social Workers in particular.

1. And now, in conclusion, let me summarise a few of the advantages

which have flowed out of the Social Work, and which will continue

to flow out of it as long as time rolls on.

(a) The first benefit I will mention is the Salvation of

thousands of souls.

(b) The world has been further benefited by the knowledge of

Salvation spread throughout every part of the habitable globe.

has been brought to governmental, philanthropic, and religious

agencies, as to the duty they owe to the classes we seek to

benefit.

(d) The world has been further benefited by the sympathy created

in the hearts of royal personages, scientists, literary people, and

the Press generally; indeed, in every class and grade of mankind.

(e) The world has been further benefited by the removal of misery

on such an extensive scale as had never even been dreamed of as

possible.

Think of the multitudes who, by our operations, are daily saved

from starvation, vice, crime, disease, death, and a hundred other

nameless woes.

In some of the principal cities in Italy, Holland, Germany, and

elsewhere, visited during my recent Continental Campaign, I have

been looked upon with unspeakable satisfaction and enthusiasm as

The General of the Poor, and The Salvation Army has been regarded

as their friend.

(f) The world has been further benefited by the help which our

Social Operations have afforded to the Field and other Departments

of The Army all over the world.

(g) The world has been further benefited by the confidence the

Social Work has created in the hearts and minds of our own

people--both Officers and Soldiers--as to the truth and

righteousness of the principles and practices of The Salvation

Army.

(h) The world has been further benefited by the answer which the

Social Work constitutes to the infidel's sneers at Christianity and

the assertion of its effeteness.

Truly, our future chroniclers will have to record the fact that our

Social Operations added a celestial lustre and imparted a Divine

dignity to the struggles of the early years of The Salvation Army's

history.

To our own eyes in The Army, however, that which has been done in

connexion with the Institutions is only a very insignificant part of the

whole effect produced. Until the present movement all over the world in

favour of the betterment of the social condition of the masses of the

people has had time to accomplish definite results, our Institutions may

yet have a good work to do.

But the great work The General did in this connexion was the restoration

to men's minds of the Saviour's own view, that we owed to every man

every care that a truly brotherly heart must needs bestow. That

principle, as The General pointed out, had always been acted upon, as

best it could be, from the beginning, and is daily acted upon to-day,

wherever The Army exists.

Chapter XXI

Motoring Triumphs

During one of his Motor Tours The General remarked:--

"It was here (Banbury) that the idea of a Motor Campaign was

conceived. Seven or eight years ago (1900) I held an afternoon

Meeting in this place. On that occasion a crowd of my own people

and friends came to the station to give me a send-off. Such was the

affection shown, and so manifest was the pleasure derived from my

visit, that I said to myself:--

"'Why should I not impart this satisfaction to those comrades and

friends throughout the country who have never had the satisfaction

of seeing my face, or hearing my voice?'

"And then the idea occurred to my mind that the automobile would

not only be the readiest means of transit, but the only plan by

which I could reach the small towns and outlying hamlets. Moreover,

it would perhaps prove the only method by which we could get

through the crowds who would be likely to assemble on such a

Campaign."

By most men, in their prime, it would be thought an ample filling up of

any week to address three large Meetings on the Sunday, and one each

week night; but The General, at seventy-four, saw that, travelling by

motor, and visiting in the daytime such smaller towns and villages as

had never seen him before, or not for many years, he could not only

reckon upon three large indoor Meetings every day, but speak, perhaps,

to millions of people he had never before addressed. And so in six Motor

Tours he passed from end to end and from side to side of Great Britain,

gathering crowds from day to day for six weeks at a time.

We have met with people frivolous enough to write of all that as if The

General's Motor Tours were luxuries! In one glorious sense they were

really so, for, to him, there could never be a greater luxury than to

proclaim the Gospel to a crowd. But, as a matter of fact, he found it

less expensive to travel in this way than to go as he ordinarily did for

a long journey to and from London by train to reach each town

separately.

And the economy of Army forces, by means of Motor Tours, has been

marvellous, every little Corps and village Outpost on the route on

week-days being given an opportunity to gather crowds they never

ordinarily reached together, and to unite their own efforts for once

with those of their General in trying to lift up Christ more than ever

before.

And The General was so alive to the value of inflaming the love of any

handful of villagers or children, but especially of his Soldiers and

Officers to the Master, that it was to him a continual delight to move

about amongst his Soldiery in every land.

The General could rarely venture to plan very far ahead, because his

public appearances had all to be made to fit in with other and often

even more important engagements, of which only his Staff knew anything.

It is, indeed, marvellous how few engagements he made ever had to be

broken, and how successful almost every Campaign of his has been, seeing

at how short notice most of them were undertaken. In one of his diaries

I found a bitter complaint of the waste of time involved in having to

wait for three hours between the steamboat and train. "Why," he asks,

"could they not have arranged a Meeting for me?"

One who has travelled 8,000 miles with him on four Motor Tours says,

though everybody, everywhere, pressmen included, were of necessity

impressed with his sincerity and transparency, they could see that he

had all the time only one object in view, the glory of God and the

Salvation of souls.

And it is the extent to which he led all ranks into the same spirit

which made it easy for arrangements to be made and carried out in so few

hours for the very largest demonstrations, as to which it was never

possible to hold any approach to a rehearsal, those joining in them

living usually so widely apart from each other.

An occasional private letter gives, perhaps, the best possible

explanation of his own heart in this perpetual motion towards the Cross.

Who that saw him in some grand demonstration could imagine that he had

been feeling just before it as this letter reveals:--

"My feelings alternate; but my faith is steadfast. Morning, noon,

and night I tell God He is my only help. He will not fail me.

To-night's Meeting will be, as you say, a great strain; but the

memories of God's goodness encourage me to go forward in spite of

unutterable sadness and gloom."

And who that heard him on one of those Congresses, in which a great

company of his Officers and Soldiers felt themselves to be feasting on

heavenly manna for days together, could imagine his writing the week

after:--

"If ever I felt my full agreement with my Lord's definition of

service as expressed in the parable, I do to-day. After all, I am a

poor, unprofitable servant, and I have lost no little sleep since

Friday night in criticising regretfully and condemning my share of

the wonderful Congress that has certainly taken a large part of the

world by storm. Nevertheless, I thank God from the bottom of my

heart for the part I have been allowed to have in the matter."

Amongst the incidents of all touring, but especially of motoring, are

storms such as the one The General thus triumphed over:--

"We are still rushing on. I had five Meetings yesterday, Friday,

and an hour's ride through the most blinding storm I ever

encountered. Two of our cars broke down, gave up, and retreated to

the nearest town for the night; another got through in a damaged

condition, and three with difficulty arrived at our destination.

However, we who did get in, were rewarded with a big audience and a

big reception. It was very wonderful. I am now reckoning on the

closing Meeting which takes place on Wednesday afternoon.

"Everybody continues to bless me and speak well of me. Is it not a

little surprising, and, viewed from the Master's Standpoint, a

little dangerous? You must keep on praying that my faith fail not.

Abundance of trying things await me. I must wait for my rest

'until the Morning.' God bless you!"

Well may a man sometimes long for rest who has experiences like the

following:--

"I nearly killed myself on Saturday and Sunday at Birmingham. For

some cause or other both throat and head got wrong, and it was with

difficulty I could frame my sentences or pronounce my words, and

yet I had to meet the great opportunity that was presented. I am

paying the price to-day in weariness extreme. There is hardly a

bone in my body that does not ache, or a nerve that does not seem

overstrung.

"But I shall rally and be myself again; indeed, I must, for things

of vast importance have to be attended to before the day is out.

Our exchequer is empty, and I have to prepare for my autumn

Campaign in Holland, Germany, Italy, etc."

"A mile or two after Penzance, the chauffeur turned to General

Booth, and 'Now she's waking up!' he said, with a satisfied sigh,

as the great car began to hurry through the open lanes.

"The General nodded his head meditatively. 'Yes,' he said, in his

beard, 'people have to wake up before they begin to move. England

wants waking up; I'm trying to wake her up myself, just a little,

and then we shall move.'

"I asked him what he made of our national apathy.

"He shook his head. 'I don't know how it is," he said, 'but people

are somehow afraid to examine themselves, afraid to see facts as

facts. There is a spirit in England which is worse than opposition

to religion; it's a spirit of--of--of detachment, of separation, a

spirit which says, "I don't want you, I can do without you; and so

long as you leave me alone I shan't interfere with you." It's a

kind of slackness. They want waking up. They want rousing. They

want a good shaking. It seems as if they have fallen into a deep

slumber--opium-eaters!'

"He is setting out to rouse England once again, make one great

final effort for the future of humanity. The future of humanity, he

believes, can only be secured by 'conversion.'

"Look at him in his car! There he sits, with a light-coloured

overcoat buttoned round his neck, a grey forage cap pressed over

his ears, his hands in his pockets, his eyes looking straight

ahead, and his lips biting at his beard--an old, old man in the

newest of motor-cars.

"Through lanes where Wesley rode his horse, poring over a book as

he went, General Booth flies in his beflagged car--on the same

errand. These two men, so dissimilar in nature, so opposed in

temperament, and separated by nearly two hundred years, the one on

horseback, the other in a motor-car, sought and are seeking the

same elusive end--the betterment of humanity.

"One feels as one rides along our country roads with General Booth

the enormous force of simple Christianity in this work of

evolution. One sees why Wesley succeeded, and why The Salvation

Army is succeeding.

"'We make too much of sin,' says evolution. 'We don't make half

enough of sin!' cries The General. Politicians and men of science

seem like scene-shifters in the drama of life, and religion stands

out clear and distinct as the only actor.

"'People have taken to The Salvation Army because it's so kind to

poor people,' General Booth tells me; 'they know I love the poor,

they know I weep bitterly for all the hunger and nakedness and

sorrow in the world. People know I'm sincere. That's it! They know

The Salvation Army is sincere, that it's doing kind actions, and

helping those whom nobody else will help or can help. That's what

makes us popular. Sympathy.'

"But the secret of The General is not humaneness. His secret is the

reality with which he invests sin. Hear him talk about sin, and you

realise the man's spell.

"At one moment he is full of humour and robust talk, a genial,

merry, shrewd-eyed old gentleman; at the next--at the mention of

real sin--his brows contract, his eyes flash, and his tongue hisses

out such hatred and contempt and detestation as no sybarite could

find on the tip of his tongue for anything superlatively coarse or

ill-flavoured.

"'Sin!' he cries to me. 'Sin is a real thing--a damnable thing! I

don't care what science calls it, or what some of the pulpits are

calling it. I know what it is. Sin is devilish. It is sin and only

sin which is stopping progress. It is sin and only sin which

prevents the world from being happy. Sin! Go into the slums of the

great cities--pick up little girls of six years of age sold into

infamy by their parents; look at the drunken mother murdering her

child, the father strapping his cripple son--sin!--that's what I

call sin; something beastly and filthy and devilish and

nasty--nasty, dreadfully nasty.'

"As you listen and as you realise that The Salvation Army contains

numberless men changed in the twinkling of an eye from lives of

such sin as this to lives of beneficent activity, you begin to feel

that General Booth, right or wrong, has at least hit upon one of

the most effective ways for helping evolution.

"He makes sin as real to the individual as only the mystics can

imagine for themselves. Perhaps humanity likes to be told how black

it is, how far it is from the perfectness after which Nature is

blundering and staggering. I know not; but it is manifest that when

this grim old man, with the ivory face, the black, flashing eyes,

the tangle of white hair and the tangle of beard, leans over the

rostrum and calls sin 'beastly' and 'devilish' and 'nasty' the

people sit as white and spellbound as the patient of the hypnotist.

"It is a different General Booth whom the villagers flock to see as

he drives, smiling and genial, through Cornish villages, whom the

band plays into towns, and whom mayors and councillors receive with

honour. But the reason of this honour and this popularity is the

fact that he is a force, a living, breathing power who has made sin

real to the world and has awakened the religious consciousness in

thousands of human beings."

William Booth was always very wide awake to the discouraging emptiness

of mere demonstrations, and never expressed himself more contemptuously

with regard to them than when he thought that any of his Officers, in

the midst of some grand display, which was attracting unusual attention,

seemed to be likely to be satisfied with the show of what had been done,

instead of pressing forward to greater things.

Yet he saw that, in presence of the continual and enthralling

exhibitions of the world, there was absolute need for such

manifestations of united force as might encourage every little handful,

usually toiling out of sight, and convince the world that we were

determined fully to overcome all its attractions.

There had been before his time large demonstrations in favour

of teetotalism, and in some parts of the country the Sunday

Schools were accustomed annually to make displays of more or less

fashionably-dressed children and teachers. But The General was alone in

his own country and time in organising any such public demonstrations in

honour of Christ, and of total abstinence from sin and from

worldly-mindedness.

How perfectly The General could always distinguish between the enjoyment

of demonstration and of real fighting, was strikingly manifested on one

of our great Crystal Palace days. Looking down from the balcony upon the

vast display, when some 50,000 Salvationists were taking part in various

celebrations, he noticed a comparatively small ring of our converted

military and naval men kneeling together on the grass, evidently within

hearing of one of the band-stands upon which one Band after another was

playing, according to programme.

"Go and stop that Band," said he to one of his A.D.C.'s. "We must not

have those praying men hindered in their fight for souls by the music."

And this was only one example of his frequent abandonment of any

programme, or practice, or arrangement which seemed to him only to have

demonstrative effect, when any more enduring benefit could be otherwise

secured.

In short, demonstration in his eyes was only valued at its military

worth, and he never wished any one to become so occupied with appearance

as to miss enduring victory.

The following description, by a writer in a big London daily, of one of

The General's tours might be fairly accepted as a sample of them all,

and as giving some idea of the way in which they manifested his care for

all that concerned men:--

"'An easy day' was The General's description of that on which we

fared to mediæval Godalming, through the beautiful Hindhead region

to Petersfield, and thence in the evening to antiquity and

Winchester. He meant that he had only to address three great

gatherings (the day's course admitted of scarcely any of the

customary wayside and hamlet musters), so his oratory would be

merely a matter of five hours or thereabouts. There were solid fact

in The General's airy designation; it _was_ an easier day than most

of those of the tour; but it had sundry distinctions of its own,

apart from the great, welcoming Meetings.

"It was curious and pleasant to see gipsies salute The General from

their wayside Bohemia on the road to Hindhead; it was delightful to

see The General himself as he descended and spoke to the church

school-children who hailed him by the wayside at Roke, in one of

the most charming wayside spots on the journey. They stood with

their teachers under the trees in the sunshine, little pictures of

bloom and happiness. 'Now wouldn't you like to be running round the

country on a motor?' he asked them straight away, and their answer

come with hearty directness. In a naïve and tender little speech,

that had a touch of airiness, he told them of the joy of motoring,

turning anon to the many glad and beautiful things within the reach

of little people who yet might not go a-motoring, and so in simple

little touches appealing to the joy of life and soul that the

child-sense could understand.

"'Isn't he like Father Christmas?' a little girl was heard to

whisper. Here he charmed those in the morning of life; away at

Petersfield in the afternoon the sight of him consoled some in

life's evening. One poor old lady, who had lost the use of both

limbs, was carried to her door and set in a bath-chair, and there

she remained till The General had passed. We noticed the light on

her face, and how vehemently she waved her handkerchief. An Army

Officer chatted with her before we left the town in the evening. 'I

can now die happy,' she said; 'I have seen The General. And when

the call comes I know that God will send down the hallelujah motor

for me, and the loss of my old limbs won't matter in the least.'

"I have mentioned 'an easy day.' Having now described in a broad

way the typical early stages, it may be well, in a somewhat more

intimate and personal way, to give an idea of the work, moods, and

trend of the average day of the whole tour. The stress and

excitement it meant in the long stretch of country from the first

town to the last were extraordinary. We mustered, as a rule, at

nine in the morning for the day's work and travel, most of the folk

of the town where the night had been spent turning out for the

send-off.

"The General was on the scene almost invariably to the minute.

Nearly always at those starts he looked grave, resigned, and calm,

but unexpectedly careworn. It was as if he had wrestled with all

his problems, with a hundred world-issues in the watches of the

night, and was still in the throes of them, and unable for the

moment to concentrate his attention on the immediate town and crowd

that hurrah'd around him. But, of course, he stood up and

acknowledged the plaudits--though often as one in a dream. But the

picturesqueness of his appearance in the morning sunshine--with his

white hair, grave face, and green motor garb--took the imagination

of the mass, and without a word from him the people were left

happy.

"He looked a new personality at the first important stopping-place,

reached usually about an hour before noon. His air and mood when he

stepped to the platform for the public Meeting had undergone a

radiant change; all the more radiant, we noticed, if the children

who had hailed him from the waysides had been many and strenuous.

There was something of the child in his own face as he stepped to

the platform's edge, and replied to the enthusiasm of the house by

clapping his own hands to the people. There was always something

naïve and delightful in The General's preliminary task of

applauding the audience.

"Here came his first important address of the day, lasting an hour

and a half, or even longer. It had many 'notes,' and displayed The

General in many moods. He was apt to be facetious and drily

humorous at first. He had racy stories to tell--and none can tell a

story for the hundredth time with fresh zest than he--in

illustration of the old and bitter prejudices against The Army. A

typical one was that of an old woman, arrested for the hundredth

time for being drunk and disorderly, who was given the option of

going to prison or being passed over to The Salvation Army. Too

drunk to realise what she did, she decided for the latter. She was

kindly tended, set in a clean cosy bed, and watched over by a

sister till the morning. When she woke the sunlight streamed

through the window, and the happy, unaccustomed surroundings

surprised her. 'Where am I?' she exclaimed in bewilderment. 'You

are with The Salvation Army,' said the sister kindly and softly.

'Oh, goodness gracious,' roared the old woman, 'take me away, or

I'll lose my reputation!'

"Often in these long and comprehensive addresses The General told

how he found the work of his life. He was never so impressive as at

this stage. And the tale in its intensity was ever new. His

language was nervous, intense, almost Biblical, his figure

suggestive of a patriarch's in a tragedy. 'Sixty years ago--sixty

years ago--sixty years ago,' each time with a different and a

grimmer intonation--'the Spirit of the Living God met me.... I was

going down the steep incline when the great God stopped me, and

made me think.'

"In the last stage of his address he was the coloniser, the

statesman, the social wizard who would recast character and

rearrange humanity. He gave an epic sense to the story of

emigration and colonisation. But he was invariably clear and lucid

in his detail, so that the immediate and practical meaning of it

all was never lost on the mayors, and corporation and council

worthies, who heard him. Then miles and miles away at the second

important stopping-place in the early afternoon, after incidental

wayside speeches and idylls, he went over the same ground in a

further address of an hour or more. Somehow in the afternoon he

appeared to speak with added individuality and passion, as if the

wants and woes of the world had been growing upon him since the

morning.

"A needed rest, perhaps a little sleep, then away once more by the

waysides and through the welcoming hamlets. The third and last

great stopping-stage was reached, as a rule, about eight o'clock.

He typified serene old age as he stood up in the white car, passing

the long lines of cheering humanity. Here in the evening light it

was not easy to regard him as a propagandist. He might be a study

for Father Christmas, or a philosopher who dealt much in

abstractions and knew little of men. The General who, twenty

minutes later, proclaimed his spiritual truths and his social

ideals to a new audience, seemed, once more, an absolutely

different personality. Often at these evening meetings he spoke for

the better part of two hours."

Chapter XXII

Our Financial System

The continued strain to raise the money needed for the work was,

undoubtedly, to William Booth the greatest part of his burden all the

way through life. And it is to this day the puzzle which makes it most

difficult to write as to The Army's finances. On the one hand, we have

to praise God for having helped him so cheerily to shoulder his cross

that he did not seem many times to feel the burden that was almost

crushing him to the ground, and hindering all sorts of projects he would

gladly have carried out. Yet, on the other hand, we must guard against

saying anything that could lead to the impression that The Army has now

got to the top of its hill of difficulty, and needs no more of the help,

in small sums as well as in big ones, that has been so generously sent

to it.

It would be hopeless to attempt to estimate the numbers of appeals The

General sent out in any one year, for he not only tried at fixed periods

to get for his various funds truly interested subscribers, but was

always seeking to link the hearty giver with the deserving receivers.

But perhaps the very extremity of his one need helped him with the most

practical wisdom to avoid all unnecessary expenditure, and to cultivate

all those habits of economy and systematic effort which alone made it

possible to keep up so vast a work mainly by the gifts of the poor. To

this very day it is the same old struggle to get each £5 that is wanted

together. Yet all of it is precious to us because it so guarantees

exemption from indifference, and the pervasion of all our ranks

everywhere with the principles of self-help which The General always so

inculcated as to make The Army everywhere independent of the wealthy,

yet their trusted and skilful almoners.

Rejoicing as we do in all that, we cannot too strongly guard every one

against the impression that The Army has become, either at its centre,

or anywhere else, so situated that there is not at any given moment

extraordinary strain in some financial direction. It has come to be very

generally known that the individual Officer can only keep in existence

because he has schooled his desires to be content with what others all

around would regard as "an impossible pittance."

We hear one day of a great city where the conditions of life are such

that a Rescue Home is evidently urgently needed, and the lady who calls

our attention to the matter offers at once to find £500 towards the

fitting-up of such a Home. But we know that to keep it up requires gifts

amounting to some thousands of pounds each year, which, if not

subscribed locally, we shall have to provide from Headquarters.

Now what is to be done? Are we to stand still with what seems to us so

valuable an offer, not only of money-helps but of opportunity to help?

Under the circumstances we know what The General would have done. He

would without a moment's hesitation have said: "This ought to be done,

and must be done"; and, trusting in God, he would have made the other

step forward, though perfectly conscious that it would probably involve

him in new cares and anxieties.

"Four shillings and tenpence. Now, really, can't we manage that twopence

to make five shillings?"

Such an appeal, heard at a street-corner, where one of our Open-Air

Meetings is being closed, is, I fear, the first and last that many

people hear of The Salvation Army. They have not been present at the

Meeting. All the beautiful speaking and singing of happy men and women,

anxious to do anything they can for the good of others--of this the

passers-by know nothing. Many of them "would not be seen standing to

listen" amidst the crowd, still less when, for want of any considerable

crowd, they would be more conspicuous. Hence they have no chance to see

or know what really takes place. Had they even seen the whole process

of getting that four shillings and tenpence they would have noted that

most of the money really came from the Salvationists forming the ring,

who threw their pence, or sixpences, gradually, in the hope of inciting

others to do likewise.

As it is, I fear, many go their way "disgusted at the whole thing,"

because of the little scrap of it they have overheard.

But, pray, what is the essential difference between the call for

"twopence to make up a shilling," and the colossal call made in the name

of some royal personage for "an additional ten thousand pounds" to make

up the £25,000 needed for a new hospital wing? Surely, a hospital, whose

value and services commend it to the entire population should need no

such spurs as subscription lists published in all the papers, or even

the memory of a world benefactor to help it to get the needed funds. But

it does, and its energetic promoters, be they royal or not, deserve and

get universal praise for "stooping"--if it be stooping--to any device of

this kind needed to get the cash. Do they get it? is the only question

any sensible person asks.

And nobody questions that our "stooping" Officers and "begging Sisters"

get the twopences and shillings and pounds needed to keep The Army

going, in spite of all its critics--whether of the blatant

street-corner, or of the kid-gloved slanderer type.

If we reflect upon the subject we shall see how sound and valuable are

the principles on which all our twopenny appeals are based.

From the very beginning The General always set up the standard of local

self-support as one of the essentials of any real work. Whilst labouring

almost exclusively amongst the poorest of the poor, he wrote, in 1870:--

[Illustration: Emma Booth-Tucker

Born January 8th. 1860. Died October 28th. 1903.]

"The entire cost of carrying on the Mission at present is about £50

per week. The offerings of the people themselves at the various

stations are now about £17 per week; indeed, nearly every Station

is paying its own working expenses. Thus the poor people themselves

do something. This they ought to do. It would be wrong to deprive

them of the privilege of giving their mite, and if they prize

the instrumentalities that have been blessed to them, and are

rightly instructed, they will cheerfully give, however small their

contribution may be."

It has only been by clinging to this plan that the little Society, begun

in the East of London, has been able to spread itself throughout the

world and yet remain independent, everywhere, of local magnates. And The

General had the sorry satisfaction of seeing the structure tested by the

most cruel winds of slander and suspicion, with the result that the

total of contributions to its funds during the last years has been

greater than ever before. Part, indeed, of our greatest difficulty with

regard to money now is the large total yearly at our disposal, when all

the totals in every country and locality are added together. Any one can

understand that this must be so, and that it could not help us to

publish the amount all together. If in a hundred places only a thousand

pounds were raised, anybody can see that to cry aloud about the hundred

thousand in any one of those places could not but make everybody in that

place less capable of strenuous struggle such as is needed to get

together each thousand.

Therefore, whilst publishing every year the properly audited

balance-sheet referring to amounts received and spent in London, and

similar balance-sheets, similarly audited, in each other capital, we

have always refrained, and always shall refrain, from any such massing

of totals, or glorying in any of them, as could help our enemies to

check the flow of liberality anywhere.

When, in 1895, there seemed to be a general cry for some special

investigation into the use made of the Fund raised as a result of The

General's "Darkest England" Appeal, we were able to get a Commission of

some of the most eminent men in the country, whose Report effectively

disposed of any doubts at the time.

The Commission had for Chairman Earl Onslow, and its members were the

Right Hon. Sir Henry James (afterwards Lord James), Messrs. Sydney

Buxton, Walter Long, and Mr. Edwin Waterhouse, President of the

Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Right Hon. Hobhouse, M.P.,

acted as Secretary.

The Report of no Commission could, however, still any hostile tongue.

The cry for "investigation" has always been simply the cry of enmity or

envy, which no amount of investigation could ever satisfy. The General

perfectly understood this at the time, and wrote to a friend of the

discerning order:--

"How I feel generally with respect to the future is expressed in

one word, or rather two, 'Go forward.' The Red Sea has to be

crossed and the people rescued from Hell here and Hell hereafter.

We must stick to our post.

"I am quite aware that I may now, probably shall be, more

misunderstood than ever. But God and time will fight for me. I must

wait, and my comrades must wait with me.

"I need not say that the subject has had, and still has, our

fullest consideration; but I cannot say more until I see clearly

what position the country will take up towards me during the next

few days."

Need I say that this Report never checked for one day the ferocity of

the attacks upon the General or his Army. Had public opinion been

deluded by the babblings of our critics in any country we should not

only have lost all support, but been consigned to jails as swindlers and

robbers. But the fact that we get ever-increasing sums, and are ever

more and more aided by grants from Governments and Corporations, or by

permissions for street-collecting, is the clearest demonstration that we

are notoriously upright in all our dealings.

So many insinuations have been persistently thrown out, year after year,

with regard to the integrity of The General's dealings with finance,

that I have taken care not merely to consult with comrades, but to give

opportunity to some who were said to "have left in disgust" with regard

to these matters, to correct my own impression if they could.

Having been so little at Headquarters myself since I left for Germany,

in 1890, I knew that my own personal knowledge might be disputed, and

my accuracy questioned; therefore, I have been extra careful to

ascertain, beyond all possibility of dispute, the correctness of the

view I now give.

One who for many years had the direction of financial affairs at the

International Headquarters, and who retired through failing health

rather than become a burden upon the Army's ever-strained exchequer,

wrote me on November 28, 1910:--

"The General has always taken the keenest interest in all questions

bearing upon The Army's financial affairs, and has ever been alive

to the necessity for their being so administered as to ensure the

contributing public's having the utmost possible value for the

money contributed, at the same time rendering a careful account

from year to year of his stewardship.

"Carefully prepared budgets of income and expenditure are submitted

to him year by year in connexion with all the central funds,

reports are called for from time to time as to the extent to which

such estimates have been realised.

"He was always keen and far-sighted in his consideration of the

proposals put before him, and quick to find a flaw or weakness, or

to point out any responsibilities which had not been sufficiently

taken into account.

"Until recent years, when his world-wide journeyings made it

necessary to pass the responsibility on to the Chief of the Staff,

he largely initiated his own schemes for raising money, and wrote

his own principal appeals.

"Those who refer to The General as 'a puppet in the hands of

others,' or as anything but an unselfish, disinterested servant of

humanity, only show their ignorance of their subject."

One of the schemes by which our finances have been greatly helped

everywhere, and which is now imitated by many Churches and Societies all

over the world--the Self-Denial Week, established in 1886--was The

General's own invention. It was at a time when, as he writes:--

"In some Corps half, and in some more than half, of our Soldiers

have been for months without any income at all, or at most with

just a shilling or two. In addition, many of our regular

contributors, as owners of land or of manufacturing houses, have

suffered from the depression, and have not been able to assist us

further.

"The rapid extension of The Army has necessitated an increased

expenditure. Our friends will see that our position is really a

serious one.

"What is to be done? Reduction, which means retreat, is impossible.

To stand still is equally so.

"We propose that a week be set apart in which every Soldier and

friend should deny himself of some article of food or clothing, or

some indulgence which can be done without, and that the price

gained by this self-denial shall be sent to help us in this

emergency.

"Deny yourself of something which brings you pleasure or

gratification, and so not only have the blessing of helping us, but

the profit which this self-denial will bring to your own soul."

This effort, which in the year of its inauguration only produced 4,280,

has in twenty-six years grown till it totalled in Great Britain in 1911,

£67,161, and has so taken hold of the people's minds and hearts

everywhere as to produce even in poor little Belgium last year 7,500 f.

Perhaps it need hardly be explained that the system of special effort

and special begging near the entrance to railway stations, and in all

the most prominent places of the cities, which has grown out of this

week, with the approval of Governments and Press everywhere, has done

more than any one could have dreamt of to increase interest in the needs

of others, and holiness and self-denial in attending to them.

And it is, after all, upon that development of practical love for

everybody that The Army's finance depends.

Merely to have interested so many rich people in The Army might have

been a great credit to The General's influence, but to have raised up

everywhere forces of voluntary mendicants who, at any rate, for weeks at

a time are not ashamed to be seen begging in the streets for the good of

people they have never seen, is an achievement simply boundless in its

beneficent value to all mankind, and limitless in the guarantee it

provides for the permanent maintenance and extension of our work.

Do let me beg you to realise a little of the intense interest taken in

our finances locally by all our Soldiers. Did you ever get to know one

of our Corps Treasurers? If not, believe me, that your education is

incomplete. Whether he or she be schoolmistress in the mining village of

Undergroundby, shopkeeper in Birmingham, or cashier of a London or

Parisian bank, you will find an experienced Salvation Army Treasurer

generally one of the most fully-developed intelligences living. He or

she could easily surpass Judas Iscariot himself, either for ability at

bargaining, or for what we call "Salvation cheek." He considers the Duke

who owns most of his county, or the Mayor of the city, is "duty bound"

to help The Army whenever its Officer thinks a fitting moment has come

to him to ask them to do so--and the Treasurer never thinks that they

already have helped us enough.

Every farthing his Corps has received or paid, for years past, has

passed through his careful fingers. In any city Corps I would accept his

judgment about a "doubtful" coin before that of almost any one. And no

human being could surpass him in eagerness or care to get the very

uttermost possible value for every penny spent. Hours after great

Meetings are over you may find him with other officers busy still

parcelling coppers, or in some other way "serving tables." His own

business or family would very often suffer for his late hours of toil in

the cause, if God allowed that sort of thing. But God has seen to it

that many such a Treasurer has climbed out of the very gutter into a

well-to-do employer's position, _because_ he sought first His Kingdom

and His righteousness.

These Treasurers, if anybody took the trouble to interview them, would

make it impossible for any decent person to believe the lies that have

been told about our "not publishing accounts," our "extravagance," etc.

They know how carefully even the smallest Corps book or collecting-card

is examined, and with what precise and skilful method every account is

kept.

Like almost all our Local Officers, they are particularly cheery,

friendly men and women. I fear we have but few women Treasurers, as

finance, like so many other things, is supposed to be "beyond women's

powers," and the sisters really do not, as a rule, like arithmetic. But

man or woman, you have only to watch one of them a few moments, when

anybody is trying to arrange a joint excursion with various Corps, to

see that, with all their kindliness, the interests committed to their

charge always command their first sympathy. Treasurer Pitman, of

Leatherby, "never could see," and never will, why either Birmingham I or

Leamington, or any other Corps, should be more favoured, or more

burdened, than his own. Even should his words at times seem rough, or

few, he will charm you, almost without exception, if you get out of his

wife or the Captain, or somebody, all he does and suffers for Christ's

sake. Nobody will ever know how often it was the Treasurer who gave half

the "twopence to make up a shilling" in the street-corner collection

that, perhaps, made the impression that The Army was "not

self-supporting!"

But, in spite of all his jollity, the Treasurer is often a sorely-tried

and burdened man. For, Oh, it is a struggle to get the pence together,

week after week, especially where the Corps has a "Hall of its own," for

ground rent and interest on which it must pay £5 to £10 a week!

The Treasurer's great opportunity comes when he has the joy of

harbouring in his own home, for a night or two, the Chief of the Staff,

or some other "Special from London." Then he may get a chance to "put a

word in" for his Corps.

Does the Chief ask him, "Why do we not get on better in this town?"

"Well, Chief," he will reply, "just look at our Hall. It fairly

stinks--always has done, owing to that canal at the back. That has

almost made it impossible for us to get a large congregation, especially

in warm weather."

"But why don't you get a better place?"

"Well, there is nothing in the town large enough to let, and as for

building--any site that would be of use would cost a pile of money, and

we have no hope of raising any large sum here."

"Why? Have you no rich friends?"

"There are a few very rich men here. I was seeing one of them myself

only last month when we wanted to get some new instruments for our Band.

But what do you think he said to me?

"'Why,' said he, 'I have more than enough to do to keep up my own

church. We have got to rebuild it, and it will cost us £30,000.'"

"There is not a mill-owner in the place who does not want to get

Salvationist workpeople, even to the boys of our Soldiers, because they

know they can depend on them. But to help us to get a Hall! Ah! 'that is

not in their line.'"

Therefore, the Treasurer and every Officer must go on week after week,

with the miserable beg, beg, beg, which afflicts them, perhaps, even

more than the most critical listener. And then our great work must

suffer both for want of the needed plant to carry it on, and from the

appearance of too much begging, which, in so many instances, has

undoubtedly hindered our gathering in the very people we most wished to

help.

What stories of self-denial, not one week in the year more than another,

any such Treasurer could tell! How Officers managed to rear a healthy

and promising family upon less than a pound a week: how The General's

own granddaughters "made six shillings a week do" for their personal

support, for months, because their Corps could not afford more: how the

Sergeant-Major's wife did her washing during the night "before

Self-Denial Week came on," so as to be able to stand all day long

outside the station, in the cold, collecting: how widow Weak "keeps up

her cartridges"; that is to say, goes on giving the Corps a regular

subscription of sixpence a week since her husband's death, as before,

"lest the Corps should go down."

Lately they took me to see a German widow, now suffering in a hospital,

who when her whole weekly cash earnings outside only totalled two

shillings a week, invariably "put in her cartridge" two pfennigs, say a

farthing. No. I gave her nothing, nor did anybody else in my presence,

as her needs are now attended to; and I am sure she would rather keep up

the fact of never having received anything from, but always having given

to, The Army.

Of course we do not pretend that all Treasurers and Soldiers are of the

model sort. If they were, many of our bitterest financial struggles

would never occur. If everybody who "kept back part" of what they ought

to give to God were struck dead for singing such words as--

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small.

God would need many a regiment of corpse carriers, I fear.

The General, seventeen years ago, wrote to a wealthy lady who had been

excusing somebody's want of liberality to us by some of the slanders

they had heard.

"Tell your friends in Gull-town the same that I am telling the

public: that nine out of every ten statements in the Press that

reflect upon us are either out-and-out _falsehoods_ or

'_half-lies_,' which are worse still; and that, though not

infallible, when in one case out of ten we do make mistakes, there

are circumstances which, if known, would excuse them very largely.

"I am having wonderful Meetings--immense crowds, soul-awakening

influences all day--Penitent-Forms; back-sliders, sinners and

half-and-half saints coming back to God. Never saw anything,

anywhere, in any part of my life, much more blessed.

"Read my letter in _The War Cry_ about the Two Days--every word as

from my heart.

"Money or no money, we must and will have Salvation. If the rich

won't help Lazarus through us, then their money must perish. We

must do the best we can.

"Join the Light Brigade, and give a halfpenny per week! We shall

get through. Is your soul prospering? Cast yourself this morning on

your Lord for a supply of _all your need_."

This "Light Brigade" is another invention of the General's, partly

founded upon the Indian habit of taking a handful out of every new

supply of food, and laying it aside for the priests.

The "Light Brigade" consists of Soldiers and friends who place on their

table a little box, into which all who like can drop a little coin by

way of thanksgiving to God and care for the poor before they eat. These

are called "Grace-before-Meat" Boxes, and in England alone they produced

last year £8,284. 17_s._ 2_d._ for the support of our Social Work.

Altogether I venture to say it will be found that for every shilling he

ever got anywhere he prompted the giving of at least a thousand

shillings to other benevolent enterprises, and that mankind is indebted

to him for the stirring up to benevolent action of countless millions

who never even heard his name.

At the same time it will be found that by his financial plans he has

made The Army so largely dependent upon public opinion that, were its

beneficent work to cease, its means of survival would at the same time

become extinct, so that it could not continue to exist when it had

ceased to be a Salvation Army.

Chapter XXIII

In Germany in Old Age

Though we have had occasion to mention Germany repeatedly, there has

been no opportunity to call attention to the great importance which The

General attached to our Work in that country. It seemed almost as though

we had been premature in our attack upon the country, so little were

either Governments or people prepared for our violent urgency, when we

began in Stuttgart, in 1886. But The General lived to see his annual

visits to Berlin looked forward to by the Press and public as a natural

provision for the spiritual wants of those who had practically ceased to

be of any religion.

In the following description of him, taken from German papers during one

of his last visits to that country, we get not only some idea of his

appearance to the people when he was eighty-one years of age, but his

sense of the importance of that people in the future of The Army. And it

is a remarkable fact that German cities should have been subsidising The

Army's work before any English one did so.

We have happily got complete enough accounts of The General's tour in

Germany, when eighty-one, to supply not merely a most artistic

representation of his own appearance and action at that age, but at the

same time to give an almost perfect view of the impressions and

teachings his Army has been giving out there for nearly thirty years.

In Düsseldorf, we are told:--

"The old idealist spoke for an hour and a half with the fire of

enthusiasm, throwing out every now and then some spark of his

humour amidst his stream of eloquence. He did not speak like a

dying greybeard, but like a young man ready to take up to-morrow

morning the struggle with the misery of the whole world. Out of

such material as this old man are made the great men who do great

deeds on the battle-field, in the sphere of science, in the

province of religion, of humanity, and of society."

The _Cologne Gazette_ goes more into detail, and says:--

"At his great age the Founder and Leader of The Salvation Army

hastens from continent to continent, from land to land, to awaken

in Public Meetings love for your neighbour. After a journey through

Holland he came into West Germany. In this week he speaks in great

cities from Dortmund to Carlsruhe, each day in a new place, and

often in several Meetings. Many thousands came together last Sunday

from Essen and neighbourhood, so that the great hall of the

Soldiers' Home itself was not large enough to hold them at the

various Meetings. Here yesterday evening 2,000 people wanted to

give him a warm welcome in the Emperor's Hall.

"The eighty-one-year-old philanthropist, who strides so unbendingly

along, is full of youthful enthusiasm. His tall figure, with its

gleaming eyes, long curved nose, and flowing beard, help him to

present himself to the audience, with lively gestures illuminating

his thoughts, as at once accuser of our times and gentle judge. He

is especially a gentle judge of fallen women and girls, 55,000 of

whom, from ten years of age upwards, he tells us, The Army has

rescued.

"'The fallen young men are forgiven by their fathers and mothers,'

says he. 'Why should not we also forgive the fallen girls? If

nobody else will do so, we will.' This sentiment called forth

general applause.

"'And then,' The General went on, 'The religion of The Army has

three main principles: (1) You must get right with your God. You

must be reconciled with Him, and feel the kiss of His forgiving

love. (2) You must live righteously in your own private life, in

your family, and in holiness of heart. (3) You must give yourself

up to the service of your fellow-men--must not wait to be called

upon, but must have a fire in yourself--the fire of love.'

"It took mightily hold of the audience as, following upon this

definition of the religion of The Army, he told them that he felt

himself now nearing the cold stream of death, but fully believed

that this religion, which had carried him through so much of care

and disappointment up to this day, would also carry him through the

dark valley into Paradise, where he, who for so long had known no

holiday, would at last find rest."

Everywhere in Germany it is this revelation of a religion, founded on

unshakable faith, which impresses even the sceptical journalist. Here

and there the tendency to doubt shows itself a little between the lines,

and it is suggested that the audience were only for the time being under

the spell of this remarkable speaker. But most impressive is always the

description of The General's calls to repentance and faith.

In Berlin for a number of years the General held Meetings in the great

Circus Busch on the National Buss-tag, Repentance Day; and, as the way

in which his name is pronounced by most Germans comes very near one of

the two words, it has almost become a Booth Day in the thoughts of many.

"It was evident," says one paper, "again in the two Meetings held

yesterday that the personality of the Founder and Leader of The

Army still exercises its charm. Both Meetings were crowded; the

Circus was filled from arena up to gallery with a pressing

multitude. At the close of the evening address there was the call

to the Penitent-Form, and 158 men and women, out of the most

differing circles of society, obeyed the call. Mr. Booth spoke in

both Meetings with the freshest energy and youthful fire, and

to-day he travels to Denmark."

The _Frankfort Gazette_, and other papers, having the opportunity for

the first time to report The General's Meetings on a whole Sunday, a

little later, gave a much completer description of his preaching:--

"The Founder of The Army," says the _Gazette_, "bears his

eighty-one years lightly. He is still equal to all the toils of the

agitation, and spoke for over five hours in three Meetings in the

great hall of the Merchants' Union. The old gentleman keeps up his

good humour, and perfectly understands how to intersperse

interesting anecdotes in his addresses."

"Last Sunday," says another paper, "was a Booth Day, and certainly

a Repentance Day. The General came to win Soldiers for his Army,

and ammunition for it, too; but there was plenty of opportunity for

repentance given. Everybody knows now the why and wherefore of The

Army's Meetings. There is music--then prayer with closed eyes, and

then a little sister sings a religious song to a worldly tune. That

was so yesterday; but then The General came as chief speaker. He

had no need of any other influence; his mere appearance works upon

every one.

"The public was composed of all sorts of people. Politicians,

Socialists, as well as clergymen and leaders in Church work were

there, together with officials and working-men and women."

Nothing could be more impressive as to the ever-widening circles who

crowded to listen to The General than the following description of his

Meeting in Potsdam, the German Windsor, where the Emperor generally

resides. Says the local paper:--

"One could not cease to marvel at the crowded state of the

auditorium. The intelligent public, which generally keeps away from

popular demonstrations, was there in force. Jurists, state

officials, officers in uniform, doctors, and many ladies were

amongst the hearers of The General."

But some of the papers in smaller but not less striking reports gave us

a far fuller description of what The General's appeals brought home to

the hearts of his hearers everywhere.

"No laboured rhetoric," said a Leipzig paper, "distinguished the

speech, and applause was not won by catchy phrases. The speaker

talks like a plain man to plain people. Everybody listens

enthralled as he tells of his life's work, of the unbounded love

with which he would like to surround and lead to Salvation every

one who lives and moves. One gets to understand how this man could

gather around him such masses of disciples, and why, right and

left, many a lady deeply touched puts her handkerchief to her eyes

and many a man wipes a tear from his cheek."

Best of all, however, comes ever and anon in these reports the

testimony that The General has not been a mere talker, like so many

others of his day, but has raised up a real fighting force who have, by

gradual painstaking labour and endurance, won for him this unbounded

confidence in what he says of The Army's religion.

"I remember," writes one reporter, "how in the nineties, in Berlin,

no Soldier, much less a Sister, could appear in the street without

being laughed at at every step, made fun of, and even abused, and I

visited Meetings in which there was great disorder. But how the

picture was altered a few years later! Quietly and patiently the

Soldiers let scorn and even assaults pass, until the very rowdiest

of the Berliners were sick of it. And on the other hand every one

soon said that these people, after all, were doing nothing but to

go right at the deepest miseries of the great cities--that they fed

the hungry, visited the sick, and generally carried out practical

Christianity."

"True," writes another, "it is naturally not every one whose taste

is pleased with the ceremonies of The Army; but before the

world-wide, unending, unselfish work of the Salvationist every one

feels like saying, 'Hats off!'

"It was not mere love of sensation that led such a stream of men to

the Princes Hall on Tuesday evening. They wished for once to come

face to face with the old General whose work they had learnt in the

course of time to value. Men of science, clergymen and officials

and educated people generally, for once made The Army their

rendezvous."

And those who had heard the General before immediately recognised that

they had not only to do with the very same resolute Leader, following

the one aim with undiminished ardour, but relying upon the same old

Gospel to win the world for Christ.

"He speaks," says a Hamburg paper, "mostly with his hands behind

his back, swaying gently to and fro. The short, sharp English

sentences are translated one by one. It is the old recruiting talk

of the chief captain in the fight against the sins of this world,

the pressing exhortation to get converted at once, to-day, in this

very hour. It is the old entreaty to become a child of God, in

spite of all opposition; the old call to purity of heart and life.

Whoever has wandered must come back again. He who has fallen a

hundred times must get up again for the hundred and first time.

"This General believes in the Salvation of the worst and the most

deeply sunken. He preaches the gospel of holding on, of going

steadily forwards, of freedom from the lusts of the flesh and from

public opinion. He preaches at the same time the gospel of work, of

unwearied faithfulness in business, and of love to all mankind.

"When he has finished The Army sings with musical accompaniment and

clapping of hands its glad and even merry-sounding songs, not

without a mixture of that sudden inrush of enthusiasm which springs

from the conviction of having the only faith that can make people

blessed, and the consciousness of a resistance hard to be overcome.

And then begins that extraordinary urgent exhorting of the sinner

from the stage--the ten-and-twenty times repeated 'Come'--come to

the Penitent-Form, represented here by a row of twenty chairs. 'In

the last Meeting of The General's in Copenhagen thirty-three came

out. How many will it be in Hamburg?' cries the leading Officer.

"The first are soon kneeling, sobbing, praying, their hands over

their eyes at the chairs. Ever new songs are sung--spiritual songs

set to worldly melodies. Ever anew sounds the ringing 'Come' from

the stage. Below, the men and women Soldiers go from one to

another, speaking to the hesitating ones, laying a hand on the

shoulder of the ready ones, and leading them to the front. What a

long time it may be since any loving hand was laid on the shoulder

of many of those Recruits! Life, the rough, pitiless life of the

great city, has always been pushing them along lower and lower down

till it got them underfoot. Here they listen to the sound of a

voice of sympathy, and feel the pressure of a hand that wishes to

lead them. And there above sits The General for a while in an

arm-chair, saying: 'The deepest-fallen may rise again. He has only

to step out into the ranks of The Army, which is marching upwards

to the Land of Grace.' As we left the Hall the thirty-fourth had

already come out."

It must be remembered that all these descriptions come from part of a

single month's journeys, and that The General was dependent upon

translation for nearly every moment of intercourse either in public or

private with the people, and that it will be entirely understood how

great a power for God in this world a man entirely given up may be after

he has passed his eightieth year, and with what clearness witness for

God can be borne even in a strange tongue when it is plain and definite.

"From time immemorial it has been customary to class

philanthropists amongst the extraordinaries, the marvellous

people--who do not pass muster in the common world--exceptions.

Nobody thinks of measuring himself with them, for the battle of

life belongs to the egotists--each one of whom fights for himself.

He who fights for others is smilingly acknowledged by the

well-disposed as a stranger in the world. The ordinary man of the

street pitilessly calls him a fool, and the mass considers him

unworthy of a second thought. He is there, and he is endured so

long as he does not bother any one.

"There are three factors against which the old General has had to

fight all his life long--against well-meaning hesitation, against

hard-hearted egoism, and against the idle indifference born of

ignorance. And these three streams that have flowed against him in

every part of the world have not been able to hold him back. To

those who think he has only become an important man, and to those

who measure a man's worth by the outer honours he gains, he became

a man of importance when London made him a citizen and Oxford an

honorary Doctor. And now men are better inclined to excuse in his

case the curious title of General of a curious Army.

"I have often heard the grey-headed General in Public Meetings. For

the first time on Saturday evening I got near to him in a more

private way. And then it seemed to me like a picture, as when a

grey warrior, a commander with snow-white beard and keen profile,

stands upright by the mast of a ship and gazes straight before him

towards a new country.

"And General Booth, despite his eighty-one years, is looking out

towards new land. He does not live on memories like the generality

of old men. He does not allow himself any favoured spot by the

fireside. Full of fight and always leading, General Booth stands at

the centre of a gigantic apparatus. And the old gentleman does not

look like allowing men to take the control out of his hands.

"Everything about him displays energy and justifiable

self-consciousness. He energetically shook my hand. With the

ability of the man of the world he drew the conversation to that

which was nearest to his heart. And what his eyes can no longer

exactly observe his ears doubly well hear. He arrived on Friday

evening from Denmark, holds three Meetings in Hamburg on Sunday,

travels on to Potsdam on Monday, and occupies himself with thoughts

of a journey of inspection in India.

"The comfortable arm-chair that was offered him he declined almost

as if it were an insult.' That is meant for an old man,' he said;

and really the remark was justified when one heard the plans of the

grey General, for he has plans such as one of the youngest might

have. He appears to me like an able business man who constantly

thinks how to expand his undertaking and to supply it with all the

novelties that a time of progress offers. He has altogether modern

views. He does not hold fast with the reluctance of old age to old

things, except to the old faith.

"In the Meetings The General seemed to me rather severe; but that

disappears when you get at him personally, especially when you have

got used to his way of speaking. He almost flings each sentence

out. Every phrase, accompanied by some energetic gesture, is like a

war cry. 'I will, and I carry out what I will,' seems to breathe in

all about him; and who can complain of this will, this iron

resoluteness with which he works at the raising up of men. He is in

his kingdom an unlimited ruler, but one with a benevolent look who

sees for the benefit of the blind. He must be all that for his

extraordinary work.

"The General asks us to put questions. I could not manage it. It

seemed to me to be so useless in the presence of this important

man. So he said, 'We are never satisfied with the progress we make

in view of what still remains to be done.' He spoke of the progress

made by the Social Work of The Army in Germany, and of his plans.

"I never heard The General speak without his having plans, upon the

carrying out of which he was at work with all his might. He puts

his whole body and soul into whatever he is engaged in.

"'The Salvation Army is the most interesting thing under the sun,'

said The General at the close of this earnest talk, and then added,

jokingly, 'next to the Hamburg Press.'

"On the Sunday I saw him again as he spoke to a Meeting of

thousands, a curiously mixed public, where there were many of the

foremost gentlemen and ladies of society and many very common

people. All, however, were equally enthused. I will only mention a

couple of sentences out of the speech: 'The Army wants to come into

competition with nobody, only to be a friendly helper--nobody's

enemy, but the friend of everybody. It will gladly be an

inspiration and example. It has become the almsgiver for many

Governments. It is not British because it was born in Britain, just

as little as Christianity is Jewish because it came into the world

in Judea.'"--Else Meerstedt.

Now that we see it all but completed, we think this book singularly

wanting in reference to The General's frequent merriness of mood. We

have thought it needless to insert any of the amusing anecdotes that

could have been so abundantly culled from any of his visits to any

country had we not been so anxious to select from the small space at our

disposal what was most important.

Nor have we wished to present the reader with the portrait of an

infallible genius, or a saint who never said or did anything that he

afterwards regretted. A victim almost all his life to extreme

indigestion, it is indeed to all who knew him best marvellous that he

could endure so much of misery without more frequently expressing in

terms of unpleasant frankness his irritation at the faults and mistakes

of others. But really after his death as during his life we have been

far too busy in trying to help in accomplishing his great lifework to

note these details of human frailty.

Chapter XXIV

The End

It seems almost impossible to describe the ending of The General's life,

because there was not even the semblance of an end within a week of his

death.

The last time I talked with him, just as I was leaving for Canada in

January, he for the first time made a remark that indicated a doubt of

his continuance in office. He hardly hinted at death; but, referring to

the sensations of exhaustion he had felt a few days previously, he said:

"I sometimes fancy, you know, that I may be getting to a halt, and

then"--with his usual pause when he was going to tease--"we shall have a

chance to see what some of you can do!"

We laughed together, and I went off expecting to hear of his fully

recovering his activity "after the operation," to which we were always

looking forward. Oh, that operation! It was to be the simplest thing in

the world, when the eye was just ready for it, as simple and as complete

a deliverance from blindness as the other one had seemed, for a few

days, to be. But this time he would be fully warned, and most cautious

after it, and I really fancied the joy he would have after so long an

eclipse.

It seemed to me that he never realised how great his own blindness

already was, so strong was his resolution to make the best of it, and so

eager his perception, really by other means, of everything he could in

any way notice. We had difficulty in remembering that he really could

not see when he turned so rapidly towards anybody approaching him or

whose voice he recognised!

To Colonel Kitching during this dark period he wrote one day: "Anybody

can believe in the sunshine. We, that is you and I and a few more of

whom we know, ought to be desperate believers by this time--Saviours of

men--against their will, nay, compellers of the Almighty."

And his writing was always so marvellous, both for quantity and quality.

His very last letters to several of us consisted of a number of pages

all written with perfect clearness and regularity with his own hand. It

was, perhaps, the greatest triumph of his own unfailing faith and sunny

optimism that he kept even those who were nearest to him full of hope as

to his complete recovery of strength till within a few days of his

death; and then, gliding down into the valley, surprised all by sinking

suddenly into eternal peace without any distinct warning that the end

was so near. His youngest daughter, Mrs. Commissioner Booth-Hellberg,

was with him during the last days.

But, really, it would be only fair to describe his end as having begun

from the day when, during his Sixth Motor Tour, the eye which had been

operated upon became blind. Though after having it taken out, he very

largely rallied, and passed through grand Campaigns for some years, he

was ever looking forward to the operation on the other eye, which was to

restore him to partial sight. His cheeriness through those years and his

marvellous energy astonished all.

The following notes of his first foreign journey after the loss of sight

cannot but be of special interest, showing with what zest and enjoyment

he threw himself into all his undertakings for Christ:--

"Saturday, _February_ 12, 1910.--The crossing has been quite rough

enough. I slept very little, and it was with real difficulty that I

shambled through the long railway dépôt to my train for Rotterdam.

At eight o'clock was woke up from a sound sleep with a startling

feeling. It is a pity I could not have slept on. Fixed up at the

old hotel six floors up (the Mass Hotel). Very fair accommodation,

but a little difficult to get anything to eat, that is, such as

meet my queer tastes and habits. Nevertheless, on the principle of

'any port in a storm,' I have had much worse accommodation.

"Sunday, _February_ 13, 1910.--Had a wonderful day. Far ahead of

anything experienced before in this place. My opinion about it is

jotted down in _The War Cry_. I had, as I thought, remarkable power

on each of the three occasions, and finished off at ten o'clock far

less exhausted than I frequently am. Still, I scarcely got into my

rooms before the giddiness came on in my head very badly, and

continued off and on until ten the next morning. I can't account

for it. It may be my stomach, or it may have something to do with

the rocking of the steamer on Friday night. It may be what the

doctors fear, my overtaxed brain, or it may be something else.

Whatever it is, it is very awkward while it lasts. Fifty-seven

souls for the day.

"Monday, _February_ 14, 1910.--Left by the 12:37 p.m. train for

Groningen. Slept a good bit of the way. Arrived about 5:12 p.m.

Reception very remarkable, considering the population is only some

78,000. It was one of the most remarkable greetings I have ever had

in any part of the world. There must have been getting on for a

couple of thousand people in the station itself, who had each paid

five cents for a platform ticket, and outside 5,000 is a low

estimate. Everybody very friendly.

"Entertained by the Governor's wife's sister. The Meeting was as

wonderful as the reception. Immense hall. Could not be less than

1,500 people packed into it on one floor. I talked for an hour and

three-quarters. Colonel Palstra, my translator, did splendidly, the

people listening spellbound; not a soul moved until the last

minute, when three or four went out for some reason or other. It

was a wonderful time. Settled to sleep about 11:30 p.m. not feeling

any worse.

The Authoritative Life of General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army · 第 31 / 33 章

Hers was, indeed, a prolonged storm of suffering, the strain of which