strange feelings in the head continue off and on, and the fact that
they don't pass off, in connexion with the entreaties of the Chief,
and those about me, made me consent to give up the Officers'
Council I was proposing to hold at Amsterdam next week, putting on
Lectures on the evenings of the two days which I would otherwise
have used for Councils. I am very loath to do this, from feeling
that the Officers are the great need. So far I have been delighted
with what I have seen of the Officers in the country. We ought to
capture Holland.
"The Governor has sent word to say that he is coming to see me this
afternoon.
"I have had a long sleep, and I hope I shall be better for it. The
Governor has just come in. He appears a very amiable person, very
friendly disposed towards The Army. We had a very nice conversation
about matters in general, and at parting he expressed his kindest
wishes for my future and for the future of The Army.
"I left at a few minutes before seven. It has been snowing and
raining, and freezing and thawing the last few hours, consequently
the atmosphere is not very agreeable. However, my carriage was well
warmed, and we arrived at Assen in half an hour.
"A very nice hall--packed with a very respectful audience. I spoke
on the old subject, 'The Lesson of my Life,' and made it 'better as
new' as the Jew says about his second-hand garments. I was very
pleased with it and the people were too. I am entertained by Baron
and Baroness Van der Velts. The lady speaks English very nicely,
and they are evidently very pleased to have me with them.
"I was glad to settle to sleep about eleven, and thankful for the
mercies of the day."
It was thus that nearly three years passed away. Then came at last the
time when the long-hoped-for operation was to take place.
Rookstone, the house in Hadley Wood, a village on the northern outskirts
of London, where The General died, stands almost at the foot of the
garden of the present General, so that they could be constantly in touch
when at home, and the General's grandchildren greatly enjoyed his love
for them.
But in the large three-windowed room, where his left eye was operated
upon, and where a few months later he died, his Successor, his youngest
daughter, Commissioner Howard, and his Private Secretary, Colonel
Kitching, had many valued interviews with him during those last months.
I had not that opportunity until it was too late to speak to him, for he
had said when it was suggested, full as he had been of the hope of
prolonged life almost to the end, "Oh, yes, he'll want to come and get
something for my life and that will just finish me."
Of the operaton itself we prefer to let the physician himself speak in
the following extract from _The Lancet_ of the 19th October, 1912:
"...He was not in very good health in March, 1910; he had
occasional giddy attacks and lapses of memory, and from April till
June of the same year he had albuminuria, from which, however, he
appeared entirely to recover. The vision of his left eye became
gradually worse, but I encouraged him to go on without operation as
long as he could. He did so until about the end of 1911, when his
sight had become so bad that he could barely find his way about;
indeed, he met with one or two minor accidents on account of not
being able to see. It then appeared to me he had much to gain and
very little to lose by an operation, and further, he was in much
better health than he had been for some time. I pointed out to him
that there was a risk and that if the operation failed he would be
totally blind, but that there were very long odds in his favour,
and that I was willing to take the risk if he was. He asked one
question: 'If you were in my place would you have it done?' I said
certainly I would. That quite decided him and all that remained to
be done was to fix a time. General Booth at that date had some work
which he wanted to finish, and eventually the date for operation
was fixed for May 23rd. On that day I operated. I did a simple
extraction under cocaine.
"Nothing could have been more satisfactory, as will be seen from
the notes, and the bulletin sent to the papers was, 'The operation
was entirely successful; the ultimate result depends on The
General's recuperative power.' When I covered the eye and bandaged
it I thought that success was certain, and was confirmed in that
opinion on the following morning when I lifted up the dressing and
found all was well, and that the patient, when he partly opened the
eye, could see. On the third day Dr. Milne, who was in attendance,
at once saw that mischief had occurred, and the sequence of events
I have narrated. How the eye became infected I am unable to say. I
used every precaution; as I told the patient afterwards, the only
omission I could think of was that I had not boiled or roasted
myself.... I looked carefully for these before each operation. I
regret two things in the case: (1) that the last operation was not
done two or three months before when General Booth was in better
health; (2) that it was not postponed for another month, in which
case I should not have done it, for looking back on the whole
history I feel certain that he was not in his best condition on May
23rd when the operation was performed."
The General's own response when he was gently informed that there was
no hope of his seeing objects any more was:--
"Well, the Lord's Will be done. If it is to be so I have but to bow
my head and accept it."
He subsequently remarked that as he had served God and the people with
his eyes he must now try to serve without them. He continued to dictate
letters, and even to write occasionally as he had been accustomed to do,
with the help of his secretaries, and a frame that had been prepared for
the purpose. But the very struggles against depression and to cheer
others, together with the sleeplessness that resulted took from his
little remaining strength, and it became evident that he was gradually
sinking. Yet he was so remarkably cheerful and at times even confident
that all around him were kept hoping up to the very last.
To a group of Commissioners who visited him he said:--
"I am hoping speedily to be able to talk to Officers and help them
all over the world. I am still hoping to go to America and Canada
as I had bargained for. I am hoping for several things whether they
come to pass or not."
But on Tuesday, the 20th August, it became evident that the end was very
near. There gathered around his bed Mr. and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, Mrs.
Commissioner Booth-Hellberg, Commissioner Howard, who had been summoned
by telegram from his furlough, Colonel Kitching, Brigadier Cox, Adjutant
Catherine Booth, Sergeant Bernard Booth, Captain Taylor, his last
Assistant Secretary, Nurse Ada Timson of the London Hospital, and
Captain Amelia Hill, his housekeeper.
The heart showed no sign of failure until within half an hour of his
death, and the feet remained warm till within twenty minutes of the
event. But the heart and pulse became gradually weaker, the breathing
faster and shorter and more irregular, and at thirteen minutes past ten
o'clock at night it entirely ceased.
London awoke to find in our Headquarters window the notice, "General
Booth has laid down his Sword. God is with us."
The day after his death, at a meeting of all the Commissioners present
in London, the envelope containing the General's appointment of his
successor was produced by the Army's Solicitors, endorsed in the
General's own writing and still sealed. Upon being opened, it was found
to be dated the 21st August, 1890, and that it appointed the Chief of
the Staff, William Bramwell Booth, to succeed him. The new General, in
accepting the appointment, and promising by God's help to fulfil its
duties, expressed his great pleasure in discovering that it was dated
during the lifetime of his mother, so that he could feel sure that her
prayers had been joined with his father's for him at the time.
Immediately there began to pour in upon us from every part of the world
expressions of admiration and sympathy which were most valuable in their
promise for the Army's increased opportunity and usefulness in the
future.
His Majesty, the King, who had manifested deep sympathy with The General
in his illness, sent the following generous message, which was one of
the first to come to hand:--
"Abbeystead Hall.
"I am grieved to hear the sad news of the death of your Father. The
nation has lost a great organiser, and the poor a whole-hearted and
sincere friend, who devoted his life to helping them in a practical
way.
"Only in the future shall we realise the good wrought by him for
his fellow-creatures.
"To-day there is universal mourning for him. I join in it, and
assure you and your family of my true sympathy in the heavy loss
which has befallen you.
"George R. I."
Queen Alexandra telegraphed:--
"I beg you and your family to accept my deepest and most heartfelt
sympathy in the irreparable loss you and the nation have sustained
in the death of your great, good, and never-to-be-forgotten Father,
a loss which will be felt throughout the whole civilised world.
But, thank God, his work will live for ever.
"Alexandra."
President Taft wired:--
"Washington.
"To General Bramwell Booth:
"In the death of your good Father the world loses one of the most
effective practical philanthropists. His long life and great
talents were dedicated to the noble work of helping the poor and
weak, and to giving them another chance to attain success and
happiness.
"Accept my deep sympathy.
"Wm. H. Taft."
The King of Denmark wired:--
"Express my sincere sympathy.
"Christian R."
The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas B. Crosby, wired:--
"The City of London sincerely mourns the passing away of its
distinguished citizen, General Booth, whose grand and good work
entitles him to imperishable gratitude."
Whilst the Governors and Premiers of most of the Colonies where the Army
is at work cabled in similar terms. The Emperor of Germany, as well as
the King and Queen, and Queen Alexandra, sent wreaths to be placed on
The General's coffin, and the tributes of the press all over the world
will be found in the following chapter.
More than 65,000 persons came to Clapton Congress Hall to look upon his
face as he lay in his coffin, and more than 35,000 gathered for the
great Memorial Service in the Olympia, the largest obtainable building
in London, on the evening before the funeral. All the press commented
upon the remarkable joyfulness of our funeral services, and the funeral
itself the next day was admitted to have been the most impressive sight
the great city has seen in modern times.
In addition to officers, many bands from all parts of the country came
to join in it.
The coffin had been brought in the night to Headquarters in Queen
Victoria Street. The funeral procession was formed on the Embankment,
and whilst it marched through the city all traffic was suspended from 11
till 1 o'clock. The millions who witnessed its passage along the
five-mile march to Abney Park Cemetery seemed as generally impressed and
sympathetic as the multitude gathered there. It was indeed touching to
see not only policemen and ambulance workers; but publicans and numbers
of the people offering glasses of water to the sisters who had been on
their feet for six or seven hours before the service was ended.
The memorial services held all over the world on the following Sunday
were attended by quite unparalleled crowds, of whom very many publicly
surrendered their lives to God.
The following letters to members of his own family show the spirit of
affection and of cheerfulness which to the very last distinguished him.
To his youngest daughter, the widow of Commissioner Booth-Hellberg, who,
though she had been fighting in one post or another in this country,
India, America, Sweden, Switzerland, or France for over twenty years, he
still regarded as his "baby" and special darling, he wrote:--
"Hadley Wood,
"_May_ 3, 1912.
"My very dear Lucy,--
"Your letter is to hand. I am interested in all you say. It was
very kind, indeed beautiful, of you to sit by the couch of dear
Erickson all those hours. But it will be a recollection of pleasure
all through your life, and I have no doubt, after the fading hours
of this life have passed out of sight and thought, it will give you
satisfaction in the life to come.
"There is a great deal in your suggestion that we should do more in
the hospitals. It would be, as you say, beyond question a means of
blessing and comfort--indeed, of Salvation to many of the lovely,
suffering, dying people whose melancholy lot carries them there.
But the old difficulty bars the way--the want of Officers and money
for the task. Well, we are doing something in this direction, and
we must wait for the power to do more.
"I think much about many of the things you say. Your practical
common sense comes out at every turn. Based, as your comments and
suggestions usually are, on the _religion of love_, makes them very
precious.
"Go on, my dear girl. God, I feel, is preparing you for something
very useful in His Kingdom. I feel quite sure.
"But, oh, do be careful and not overrun your strength.
"Through mercy I am keeping better. I had a very trying day
yesterday on the top of my table work, which I find a continuous
trial to my nerves, but I came through it--that is, through
yesterday's hard pull. It was a visit to my native town. But you
will read about it in the _Cry_.
"I am eating much more, not only in quantity, but am indulging in a
little more variety.
"My difficulty at the moment is, that while a good supper helps me
to sleep, a scanty supper is agreeable to my brains, and my
feelings hinder me from sleeping, as I am so lively after it.
"_Later._
"I have just had a nice little sleep. Quite refreshing it has been,
and very welcome also.
"I am now in for a cup of tea. What a pleasure it would be if you
were here to pour it out and chatter to me while I drink it.
"Well, I had anticipated this delight on my visit to Norway and
Sweden in this coming July, but that, I am afraid, will not
come--that is, my visit to Denmark; but I shall hold on to it
(D.V.) in connexion with my Annual Campaign in Berlin and round
about. Then I shall expect quite a long stay in your Territory,
similar to my last; or better, I hope.
"I am positively working night and day now, and only hope I shall
not break down; but I am careful, after all, and seem to be really
substantially improved.
"I cannot finish this letter now, and, although it is not worth
posting, I think it will be best to send it off. I may put in a
P.S. if there is opportunity.
"Anyway, believe me, as ever and for ever,
"Your affectionate father,
"W. B."
At his last public Meeting to celebrate his 83d birthday, at the Royal
Albert Hall, on the 9th day of May, the General had said:--
"And now comrades and friends I must say good-bye. I am going into
dry dock for repairs, but The Army will not be allowed to suffer,
either financially or spiritually, or in any other way by my
absence, and in the long future I think it will be seen--I shall
not be here to see, but you will, that The Army will answer every
doubt and banish every fear and strangle every slander, and by its
marvellous success show to the world that it is the work of God and
that The General has been His Servant."
In his last letter to the Chief, he wrote two months later:--
"International Headquarters, London, E.C.
"_July 4, 1912_.
"My Dear Chief,--
"I am pleased to hear that you are sticking to your intention of
going away for a few days, in spite of my continued affliction, for
affliction it can truthfully be called.
"I am very poorly, and the trial of it is that I cannot see any
positive prospect of a definite, speedy recovery. But it will come;
I have never seriously doubted it. God won't let me finish off in
this disheartening manner--disheartening, I mean, to my comrades,
and to those I have to leave with the responsibility of keeping the
Banner flying. God will still do wonders, in spite of men and
devils.
"All will be well. Miriam will get well, Mary will get well, and
both be brave warriors. Florrie will flourish more than ever, and
you will be stronger; and, although it may require more patience
and skill, I shall rally!
"I am in real pain and difficulty while I dictate this. These
horrid spasms seem to sit on me like a mountain, but I felt I could
not let you go without a longer good-bye and a more affectionate
kiss than what is so ordinarily. This is a poor thing, but it
speaks of the feeling of my heart, and the most fervent prayer of
my soul. Love to all,
"Yours, as ever,
"W. B.
"The Chief of the Staff."
To his second daughter, in command of The Army in the United States,
his last letter read as follows:--
"_July 20, 1912_.
"My dear, dear Eva,--
"I had your letter. Bless you a thousand times! You are a lovely
correspondent. You don't write your letters with your pen, or with
your tongue, you write them with your heart. Hearts are different;
some, I suppose, are born sound and musical, others are born
uncertain and unmusical, and are at best a mere tinkling cymbal.
Yours, I have no doubt, has blessed and cheered and delighted the
soul of the mother who bore you from the very first opening of your
eyes upon the world, and that dear heart has gone on with that
cheering influence from that time to the present, and it will go on
cheering everybody around you who have loved you, and it will go on
cheering among the rest your loving brother Bramwell and your
devoted General right away to the end; nay, will go on endlessly,
for there is to be no conclusion to our affection.
"I want it to be so. I want it to be my own experience. Love, to be
a blessing, must be ambitious, boundless, and eternal. O Lord, help
me! and O Lord, destroy everything in me that interferes with the
prosperity, growth, and fruitfulness of this precious, Divine, and
everlasting fruit!
"I have been ill--I have been very ill indeed. I have had a return
of my indigestion in its most terrible form. This spasmodic feeling
of suffocation has so distressed me that at times it has seemed
almost impossible for me to exist. Still, I have fought my way
through, and the doctors this afternoon have told me, as bluntly
and plainly as an opinion could be given to a man, that I must
struggle on and not give way, or the consequences will be very
serious.
"Then, too, the eye has caused me much pain, but that has very
much, if not entirely, passed off, and the oculist tells me that
the eye will heal up. But, alas! alas! I am absolutely blind. It is
very painful, but I am not the only blind man in the world, and I
can easily see how, if I am spared, I shall be able to do a good
deal of valuable work.
"So I am going to make another attempt at work. What do you think
of that? I have sat down this afternoon, not exactly to the desk,
but any way to the duties of the desk, and I am going to strive to
stick to them if I possibly can. I have been down to some of my
meals; I have had a walk in the garden, and now it is proposed for
me to take a drive in a motor, I believe some kind soul is loaning
me. Anyhow, I am going to have some machine that will shuffle me
along the street, road, and square, and I will see how that acts on
my nerves, and then perhaps try something more.
"However, I am going into action once more in the Salvation War,
and I believe, feeble as I am, God is going to give me another good
turn, and another blessed wave of success.
"You will pray for me. I would like before I die--it has been one
of the choicest wishes of my soul--to be able to make The Salvation
Army such a power for God and of such benefit to mankind that no
wicked people can spoil it.
"Salvation for ever! Salvation--Yellow, Red, and Blue! I am for it,
my darling, and so are you.
"I have heard about your Open-Air services with the greatest
satisfaction, and praise God with all my heart that in the midst of
the difficulties of climate and politics, etc., you have been able
to go forward.
"I have the daily papers read to me, and among other things that
are very mysterious and puzzling are the particulars that I gather
of the dreadful heat that you have had to suffer, both as a people
and as individuals.
"You seem to have, indeed, been having lively times with the
weather. It must have tried you very much.
"My telling you not to fret about me is the proper thing to do.
That is my business in this world very largely, and if I can only
comfort your dear heart--well, I shall do good work.
"Good-bye, my darling child. Write to me as often as you can, but
not when overburdened. I am with you, and for you, and in you for
ever and ever. Love to everybody.
"Your affectionate father and General,
"William Booth."
To an Officer whom he regarded almost as a daughter, and whose hearing
had been greatly affected, he wrote:--
My Dear C.,--
"Thanks for your sympathetic letter. It is good of you to think
about me now and then. Specially so as you must be much and often
exercised about your own affliction.
"Perhaps you will think that it is easier for me to accept mine
than it will be for you to accept yours. I have just been thinking
that to have any difficulty in the Hearing Organ is not so serious
as a difficulty with the Seeing. You can read and write, and with a
little contrivance and patience you can hear any communication that
may be specially interesting and important. It is true, you are
shut out from the pleasure and profit that comes from the general
conversation of a company, and from listening to Public Speakers,
although a great deal that you miss is no serious loss at all!
"In my case, I can imagine I am worse off. With me, reading is
impossible, and writing is so difficult that, although I can
scratch a few lines, the work soon becomes so taxing and difficult
that I have to relinquish it. So we'll sympathise the one with the
other. We will trust in God, take courage, and look forward to
brighter days.
"Anyway, God lives, and there are a thousand things we can do for
Him, and what we can do we will do, and we will do it with our
might."
Every thoughtful reader of this volume will naturally have asked himself
many times over, how was it possible for the Leader of a great
world-wide Mission to leave his Headquarters, year after year, for weeks
and sometimes for months at a time, without involving great risk of
disaster to his Army?
The answer, familiar to every one at Headquarters, and, indeed, to many
others, lay in the existence, largely out of sight even to the vast
majority of the Soldiers of The Army, of a man who, since his very
youth, had been The General's unwearyable assistant. It was the present
General Bramwell Booth, content to toil mostly at executive or
administrative work, whether at Headquarters or elsewhere, unseen and
unapplauded, who was ceaselessly watching over every portion of the vast
whole, and as ceaselessly preparing for advances, noting defects,
stopping mistaken movements, and urging at every turn, upon every one,
the importance of prayer and faith, the danger of self-confidence,
and, the certainty of God's sufficiency for all who relied wholly upon
Him. It was this organiser of victory in the individual and on many
fields who made it possible for the Army to march forward whilst its
General was receiving from city to city, and from village to village, in
motor and other tours, the reward of faithful service to the poorest
everywhere, and was also ever advancing on the common foe.
Therefore this book could not be complete without some account of the
then Chief of the Staff to explain his construction.
Born in Halifax, in 1856, amidst one of those great Revival Tours in
which his parents shared in the tremendous toils that brought, in every
place they visited, hundreds of souls into deep conviction of sin and
hearty submission to God, the little one must have drunk in, from his
very childhood, some of that anxiety for the perishing, and joy in their
deliverance, which form the basis of a Salvationist career. Named after
one of the greatest Holiness preachers, who accompanied John Wesley in
his campaigning, in the express hope to both father and mother, that he
should become an apostle of that teaching, the faith of his parents
received abundant fulfilment in his after life.
As a boy he shared with them all the vicissitudes of their eight gipsy
years, during which they were practically without a home, and the one
settled year of (as they thought) half wasted time, amidst the usual
formalities, always galling to them both, or ordinary Church life; so
that, with his usual acuteness of observation, he must have noted all
their horror of routine, and learnt, more than anybody noticed, the
reasons why the Churches had become divorced from the crowds and the
crowds from the Churches.
In his tenth year, when they settled in London, and began their real
life work, he cannot but have partaken fully of the satisfaction this
gave to them, whilst they were, as yet, buried amidst the mass of
East-End misery. It was shortly before the foundation of the Work that
he was converted at one of his mother's own Meetings. The shrinking from
publicity, which seems an essential part of every conscientious person,
held him long back from resolving to become one of their Officers. But
during all the years between his being saved and that great decision,
he was constantly helping, first in Children's Meetings, and then in
office work, so that at twenty-one he was already a very experienced
man, both in the work of saving souls, and in much of the business
management for which a great Movement calls.
When I first saw him at seventeen, he was still studying; but he had
been, during the previous eighteen months of the General's illness and
absence, his mother's mainstay in the managing both the public and the
office work of "The Christian Mission," and the Secretary and, largely,
manager of a set of soup kitchens, the precursors, in some ways, of our
present Social Wing. For all this to be possible to a lad of seventeen,
of delicate health, may give some little indication of the faculties
with which God had endowed him.
It was not, however, till five years later, when he had fully conquered
his own taste for a medical career that he gave himself fully to the
War. Alone, or with one of his sisters, he visited the towns where many
of our largest Corps were being raised, holding Meetings in theatres and
other popular resorts, so that he gained first-hand all the experiences
of Officers, both in the pioneering days and in the after years of
struggle against all manner of difficulty, when every sort of problem as
to individuals, and Corps, had to be dealt with from hour to hour.
This much to explain how it was possible for a man so young to become at
twenty-five the worthy and capable Chief of the Staff of an Army already
at work in both hemispheres and on both sides of the world. The reader
will also be able to understand how the Chief, travelling by night as
often as by day, could visit the General in the midst of any of his
Campaigns, and in the course of a brief journey from city to city, or
between night and morning confer fully with him, and take decisions upon
matters that could not await even the delay of a mail.
The comfort to The General, as he often testified, of the continual
faithful service of this slave of a son was one of the most invaluable
forces of his life. Whilst, on the one side we may see in such
self-renouncing abandonment a certificate to and evidence of the nature
of The General's own life, we must read in it, at the same time, some
part of the explanation of his boundless activities and influence.
For the Chief of those days, The General of these, to have gone to and
come away from his father's daily scenes of triumph without getting the
slightest appetite himself for public displays, or yielding in the
slightest to the craving after human support or encouragement, to turn
him aside from the humdrum of duty, is one proof of those gracious
evidences of God's saving and keeping power with which the history of
The Salvation Army abounds.
Chapter XXV
Tributes
The great tribute The General received by the vast assemblies in every
country at his Funeral and Memorial services, said far more than any
words could have expressed of the extent to which he had become
recognised everywhere as a true friend of all who were in need, and of
the degree to which he had succeeded in prompting all his Officers and
people to act up to that ideal.
The following, a small selection of the most prominent testimonies borne
to his life by the Press of various countries, will give some idea of
what was thought and felt by his contemporaries about him and his
work:--
The Christian World, _August 22, 1912_
"No name is graven more deeply in the history of his time than that of
William Booth, Founder and General of The Salvation Army, who passed to
his rest on Tuesday night. At sixteen, the Nottingham builder's son
underwent an 'old-fashioned conversion,' and, as he told a
representative of _The Christian World_, 'within six hours he was going
in and out of the cottages in the back streets, preaching the Gospel
that had saved himself.' From that day he toiled terribly, and never
more terribly than since his sixtieth year, after which the Social
Scheme was launched, and The General undertook those evangelistic tours
in which he traversed England again and again in every direction, and
covered a great part of the Western world. How he kept up is a miracle,
for he was a frail-looking figure, and he ate next to nothing--a slice
or two of toast or bread and butter or rice pudding and a roasted apple,
were his meals for many years past. It was his great heart, his
invincible faith, his indomitable courage that kept him going.
"Plutarch would have put William Booth and John Wesley together in his
'Parallel Lives.' Each man 'thought in continents.' 'The world is my
parish,' said Wesley, and Methodism to-day covers the world. So General
Booth believed in world conquest for Christ, because he believed in
Christ's all-conquering power, and he had the courage of his conviction.
He learnt much from Wesley, for he began as a Methodist. He knew what
can be done by thorough organisation, and what financial resources there
are in the multiplication of small but cheerful givers. Like Wesley,
too, he combined the genius for great conceptions with the genius for
practical detail, without which great conceptions soon vanish into thin
air. He was more masterful than Wesley. When he broke away from the
Methodist New Connexion, and founded the Christian Mission of which The
Salvation Army was the evolution, he found that committees wasted their
time in talk and were distracted in opinion. He read lives of Napoleon,
Wellington, and other great commanders, and came to the conclusion that
a committee is an excellent thing to receive and carry out instructions
from a masterful man who knows what he wants, but otherwise they are
worthless. He persuaded those of his colleagues who had unbounded belief
in him, and whose sole concern was the progress of the Mission, to
accept the military organisation with himself as Commander-in-Chief, and
with his driving power and the inspiration of his heroic example, those
Officers went to every part of Great Britain and to something like fifty
different countries and 'did exploits.' That system may work with a
selfless Christian hero who is a born Cæsar or Napoleon. The Salvation
Army's severe testing time has now come, when it will be seen whether,
after all, the more cautious Wellingtonian methods of Wesley laid firmer
foundations.
"The secret of General Booth's personal force and commanding power was
an open one. To him there were no realities so demonstrable as the
realities of the spiritual world--most of all, the reality of Christ's
real personal presence and saving power to-day. He found that
unquestioning faith in Christ's saving power worked everywhere and under
all conditions. We differed from him on theological details, but we
gladly recognise that scores of thousands of 'moral miracles,' in the
shape of lives remade that were apparently shattered beyond repair and
trodden in the mud of dissipation and bold habitual sinning, verified
the faith. The burglar who had been forty years in prison and penal
servitude, the most shameless of Magdalens, the drinker and gambler
brought down to the Embankment at midnight, greedy for a meal of soup
and bread, the man or woman determined to end a state of despair and
disgust with the world by suicide, these, under the influence of The
Salvation Army, became 'new creations.' But the same conviction, and the
evidences of its miraculous Operation, captured a large number of men
and women of the cultured and refined classes, who were either the
victims of moral weakness, or who felt the challenge to service and
sacrifice for the sake of others. Kings, Queens, and Royal Princes and
Princesses were glad to see General Booth, and gave their encouragement
to his work, and it was fitting that, when King Edward died, a Salvation
Army band should comfort the widowed lady by playing in the courtyard of
Buckingham Palace her husband's favourite hymns.
"The Social Work was an inevitable outcome of the evangelistic work. It
had its dangers, and The Salvation Army has not escaped all of them
without scathe. But it was found that the difficulty with thousands of
the Converts was that of giving them a chance to redeem their past, and
to nurse them physically and morally till they were able to stand alone,
in a position to take their places again in the ranks of decent and
self-respecting citizenship. Then there was the 'Submerged Tenth'--the
human wreckage tossed hither and thither by the swirling currents of the
social sea. To safeguard the one class, and to save the other from
themselves and their circumstances, the Social scheme was launched, and
those who estimate its success by moral valuation rather than in terms
of finance, will say that it has justified itself, though it never
accomplished what The General fondly hoped.
"Now that his worn-out body lies awaiting burial, The General's personal
worth and the worth of his work are frankly confessed even by those who
were once his bitterest critics. _The Times_ had a leader in which it
said that he rose from obscurity to be known as the head of a vast
organisation 'well known over all the world, and yielding to him an
obedience scarcely less complete than that which the Catholic Church
yields to the Roman Pontiff.' We wish _The Times_ had followed _The
Standard_ in dropping the invidious quotation marks from the title,
General. William Booth was a great leader of men in a world campaign of
individual and social Salvation. Why reserve the title only for men
skilled in the art of wholesale human slaughter?"
The Times, _August 8, 1912_
"The death of General Booth, which we announce with great regret this
morning, closes a strange career, one of the most remarkable that our
age has seen, and will set the world meditating on that fervent,
forceful character, and that keen, though, as some would say, narrow
intelligence. Born of unrecorded parentage, educated anyhow, he had
raised himself from a position of friendless obscurity to be the head of
a vast Organisation not confined to this country or to the British race,
but well known over half the world, and yielding to him an obedience
scarcely less complete than that which the Catholic Church yields to the
Roman Pontiff. The full memoir which we publish to-day shows how this
Salvation Army grew up--the creation of one man, or rather of a pair of
human beings, for the late Mrs. Booth was scarcely less important to its
early development than was her husband. Both of them belonged to the
Wesleyan body, of which William Booth at the time of his marriage was a
minister, though a very independent and insubordinate one; and deep
ingrained in both was the belief which is a more essential part of the
Wesleyan than of any other creed, the belief in conversion as an
instantaneous change affecting the whole life. Booth himself had been
converted at fifteen, and at sixty he wrote of 'the hour, the place of
this glorious transaction' as an undying memory. Out of this idea of
conversion, as not only the most powerful motive force in life, but as a
force which was, so to speak, waiting to be applied to all, arose the
whole Salvation Army Movement. It was not, of course, in any sense a new
idea. Christians had been familiar with it in all ages, and both the New
Testament and the history of the early saints supply instances in
support of it. But Booth was probably more affected by more recent
evidence. Imperfect as had been his training for the ministry, he
doubtless learnt pretty thoroughly the history of Wesley and Whitefield,
and of the astonishing early years of the Methodist movement. In his own
youth, too, Revivalism was an active force, and he himself had been
strongly moved by an American missionary. His originality lay in
carrying down the doctrine not only to the highways and hedges, but to
the slums, the homes of the very poor, the haunts of criminals and
riff-raff; in getting hold of these people; in using the worst of
them--'converted,' as he honestly believed--as a triumphant
advertisement; and then in organising his followers into a vast Army,
with himself as absolute Chief. On the methods adopted nothing need be
added to what is said in the memoir; they are familiar to all, though
not so familiar as they were some twenty years ago.
"The root-idea of William Booth's religion, the object of his missionary
work, was 'the saving of souls.' Translated into other language, this
means the establishment of a conviction in the minds of men, women, and
children that they were reconciled to God, saved, and preserved to all
eternity from the penalties of sin. We do not propose to enter on the
delicate ground of theological discussion, or to argue for or against
the truth or value of such a conviction. The interesting point, in
relation to General Booth's ideas and personality, is to note how this
belief is worked into the system of The Army in the official programme,
fantastically called the Articles of War, which has to be signed by
every Candidate for enrolment. This curious document, which will greatly
interest future social historians, consists of three parts--a creed, as
definite as any taught by the Churches; a promise to abstain from drink,
bad language, dishonesty, etc.; and a solemn promise to obey the lawful
orders of the Officers, and never on any consideration to oppose the
interests of The Salvation Army. The last part, the promissory part, is
made much stricter in the case of Candidates for the position of
Officer; these solemnly promise not only to obey The General, but to
report any case they may observe in others of 'neglect or variation from
his orders and directions.' Membership of the Organisation thus depends
on absolute obedience, and on a profession of faith in Salvation in the
definite sense formulated in the Articles of War. The two are
inseparably conjoined. When we reflect upon what human nature is, in the
class from which so many of the members of The Army have been drawn,
when we think how difficult it is to reconcile the hand-to-mouth
existence of the casual labourer with any high standard of conduct, let
alone of religion, General Booth's success, partial though it has been,
is an astonishing fact. It implies a prodigious strength of character,
and a genius for seeing what would appeal to large numbers of humble
folk.
"Will that success continue now that General Booth is dead? Everywhere
we hear that The Army is not bringing in Recruits as fast as of old. Its
novelty has worn off; its uniforms are no longer impressive; its street
services, though they provoke no opposition, do not seem to attract the
wastrel and the 'rough' as they did at first. We can readily believe
that the work goes on more or less as before; but the gatherings, we
suspect, are mostly composed of those who have long frequented them and
of a certain number of new members drawn rather from existing sects than
from persons till now untouched by religion. Then, with regard to the
other side of The Army's work, the Social Schemes outlined in _In
Darkest England_ have met with only moderate success, as all cool
observers foretold in 1890. They have, at least, provided no panacea for
poverty. Probably Mr. Booth felt this during the last years of his life;
but he has been spared the sight of the still further decline of his
projects, which to most of us seems inevitable. Of course, some persons
are more confident: they argue that Napoleon's system did not disappear
after Waterloo, nor Wesley's system with the death of its founder, and
that the Roman Catholic Church is as strong as ever, though Pope after
Pope disappears. That is true, but for the very reason that these
systems were elaborate organisations, based on the facts of life. The
Code Napoleon and the Methodist Connexion were much too well adapted to
human needs to disappear with their authors. On the other hand,
movements and systems which depend wholly upon one man do not often
prove to be more than ephemeral. But none would deny that there is much
to be learnt from The Salvation Army and from the earnest, strenuous,
and resourceful personality of the man who made it. Let us hope that, if
The Army as an Organisation should ultimately fade away, the great
lesson of its even temporary success will not be forgotten: the lesson
that any force which is to move mankind must regard man's nature as
spiritual as well as material, and that the weak and humble, the poor
and the 'submerged,' share in that double nature as much as those who
spend their lives in the sunshine of worldly prosperity."
The Daily Chronicle, _August 21, 1912_
"To-day we have the mournful duty of chronicling the passing of William
Booth, the Head of that vast Organisation, the Salvation Army. The world
has lost its greatest missionary evangelist, one of the supermen of the
age. Almost every land on the face of the globe knows this pioneer and
his Army, The Army which has waged such long, determined, and successful
battle against the world's ramparts of sin and woe. Not one country, but
fifty, will feel to-day a severe personal loss. From Lapland to Honolulu
heads will be bowed in sorrow at the news that that striking figure who
has been responsible for so much of the religious progress of the world
of to-day is no more.
"The stupendous crusade which he initiated had the very humblest
beginnings. It opened in the slummy purlieus of Nottingham, that city
which gave to the world two of the greatest religious leaders of modern
times--General Booth and Dr. Paton. It has passed through periods of
open enmity, opposition, criticism, but its Leader and his band of
devoted helpers have never lost sight of their high aim. They were
engaged in 'war on the hosts that keep the underworld submerged,' and
they have now long been justified by their unparalleled achievements.
The time of scorn and indifference passed, and General Booth lived to
receive honour at the hands of kings and princes, and to have their
support for his work.
"It is not given to every man who sets out with a great purpose to
accomplish his aims. But of General Booth it may be said that he did
more. His Movement reached dimensions of which he probably never dreamed
in its early days, yet the extraordinary results made him ever hungrier
for conquest. In a way the latter years of his life were perhaps the
most notable of his whole career. He displayed a vitality and enthusiasm
which seemed to increase with the weight of time. At a time when most
men seek a greater measure of repose, General Booth worked on with all
the freshness of early years. And it can be said that he has died in
harness. He did not lift his finger from the pulse of the far-reaching
Organisation which he brought into being until death called.
"The story of the growth of The Salvation Army is the most remarkable in
the history of the work of the spiritual, social, and material
regeneration of the submerged. From the by-ways of all the world human
derelicts, which other agencies passed by, have been rescued. No one was
too degraded, too repulsive to be neglected. The work is too great to be
estimated in a way which can show its extent. It has been achieved
mainly by two great factors. The first is perfect organisation. Lord
Wolseley once described General Booth as the greatest organiser in the
world. The second feature was the wonderful personality of The Army's
chief. He impressed it not only upon his colleagues but upon those whom
he wished to rescue, and on the public at large. He radiated human
sympathy and enthusiasm. His loss will be a heavy one for the world; it
will be a severe blow for The Army. But we cannot think that his good
work has not been built upon sound foundations, and that the war he
directed so ably and so long will be relaxed. Nationally The Army has
done magnificent work in fifty countries, and it has, therefore, tended
to promote a greater spirit of brotherhood among the nations. To-day the
whole world will unite to pay its tribute to a splendid life of devotion
to a great cause. To that world he leaves a splendid example, and it
will be the highest tribute that can be paid to his memory to keep green
that lofty example which he set before all peoples."
The Daily Telegraph, _August 21, 1912_
"It is with no ordinary or conventional regret that we record this
morning the death of General Booth. The news will be received by
hundreds of thousands of Salvationists with profound and reverential
grief, and by many who are not Salvationists, and who never could be,
with respectful and sympathetic sorrow. For, whatever we may think of
William Booth and of the wonderful Organisation which he so triumphantly
established, it is certain that he belonged to the company of saints,
and that during the eighty-three years of a strenuous life, he devoted
himself, so far as in him lay, to the solemn duty of saving men's souls
and extending the Divine Kingdom on earth. That success attended his
efforts is, from this point of view, not of so much consequence as that
the success was deserved by the patient, devout, and self-sacrificing
zeal of the Founder of The Salvation Army. Long ago William Booth
prevailed against the easy scepticism of those who found fault with his
aims, and the sincere dislike of humble and reverent men, who doubted
whether the cause of religion could be advanced by such riotous methods.
Not only was The General of The Salvation Army a saint and a mystic, who
lived in this world and yet was not of this world, but he also was
possessed of much practical ability and common sense, without which the
great work of his life could never have been accomplished. We need only
refer to that remarkable book which he published in 1890, _In Darkest
England, and the Way Out_, in which will be found proposals to remedy
the crying evils of pauperism and vice by such eminently wise expedients
as Farm Colonies, Oversea Colonies, and Rescue Homes for Fallen Women;
to say nothing of picturesque but also practical devices, such as the
Prison-Gate Brigade, the Poor Man's Bank, the Poor Man's Lawyer, and
Whitechapel-by-the-Sea. How is it possible to ridicule the objects or
character of a man who has proved himself so earnest a worker for God?
As a matter of fact, William Booth was nothing less than a genius, and
towards the end of the nineteenth century the world at large gave very
generous recognition, not only to the spirit and temper, but to the
results of an extraordinarily effective, and, indeed, epoch-making
Movement. At the instance of King Edward VII The General was officially
invited to be present at the Coronation ceremony in 1902. Nothing could
have marked more significantly than this single fact the completeness of
the change of public feeling; and when, in 1905, William Booth went on a
progress through England, he was welcomed in state by the Mayors and
Corporations of many towns.
"Is it better to live in this world with no religion at all or with a
narrow and violent form of religious belief? People will judge the
deceased teacher and chief, in respect of his theological and
propagandist work, in accordance with the views which they hold upon
this alternative. As regards his social labours, his passionate efforts
to help the 'submerged tenth,' his widespread helpfulness of the poor,
his shelters and refuges, the feeling must and will be almost universal
that he was an energetic and warm-hearted benefactor of his kind, who
wrought much good to his times, and helped others to do it, and who had
what Sir John Seeley called the 'enthusiasm of humanity' in very
honourable, if noisy and demonstrative, form. But, since The General
mingled all this with a cult--a distinct theological teaching, a theory
of the Divine government and destiny of mankind which was in external
form, as Huxley styled it, 'Corybantic'--the question does and must
arise whether religion of the Salvationist school does good or harm to
the human natures which it addresses. It is not necessary to dwell upon
the dislike--we might, indeed, say the repulsion--felt by serious and
elevated minds at the paraphernalia, the pious turmoil, the uproar and
'banalite' of much that has developed under the Banners of The Salvation
Army. Prayers uttered like volley-firing, hymns roared to the roll of
drums and the screaming of fifes, have been features of this remarkable
revival which outraged many of the orthodox, and made even the judicious
and indulgent ask whether any good could come out of such a Nazareth.
Nobody gave utterance to this feeling with greater moderation or
kindliness than Cardinal Manning, when, while confessing that the need
of spiritual awakening among the English poor was only too well proved
by the success of General Booth--that the moral and religious state of
East London could alone have rendered possible The Salvation Army--his
Eminence added these grave sentences: 'Low words generate low thoughts;
words without reverence destroy the veneration of the human mind. When a
man ceases to venerate he ceases to worship. Extravagance, exaggeration,
and coarseness are dangers incident to all popular teachers, and these
things pass easily into a strain which shocks the moral sense and
deadens the instinct of piety. Familiarity with God in men of chastened
mind produces a more profound veneration; in unchastened minds it runs
easily into an irreverence which borders upon impiety. Even the Seraphim
cover their faces in the Divine Presence.'
"Yet against what new movement of spiritual awakening in the
people--against what form of religious revival might not the same
argument of offended culture and decorous holiness be employed? And
where would the lower masses of men be to-day if Religion had not
stooped out of her celestial heights--from the first chapters of
Christendom until the last--to the intellectual and moral levels of the
poor and lowly? In the sheet, knit at four corners, and lowered out of
Heaven, there was nothing common or unclean. If, as is practically
certain, General Booth, by the vast association which he founded and
organised, touched with the sense of higher and immortal things
countless humble and unenlightened souls; if, in his way, and in their
way, he brought home to them the love and power of Heaven, and the duty
and destiny of men, then it is not for refined persons who keep aloof
from such vulgar tasks to mock at the life and deeds of this remarkable
man. The particulars which we give elsewhere of his career show how,
like Wesley, Whitefield, and Spurgeon, in this country, and like
Savonarola, Peter the Hermit, and the Safi mystics abroad, William
Booth, the builder's son of Nottingham, was obviously set apart, and
summoned by time, temperament, and circumstances for the labours of his
life. Like Luther, his answer to all objections--worldly or
unworldly--would always have been, 'I can no other'. Meeting in Miss
Catherine Mumford the wife who exactly suited him, and reinforced by
many children, all brought up in the temper and vocation of their
parents, The General made his family a sort of Headquarters' Staff of
The Salvation Army, and celebrated his household marriages or bewept his
domestic bereavements with all the éclat and effect of œcumenical
events. We saw him buy up and turn into stations for his troops such
places as the 'Eagle Tavern' and 'Grecian Theatre,' overcome popular
rioting at Bath, Guilford, Eastbourne, and elsewhere; fill the United
Kingdom with his _War Cry_ and his fighting centres, and invade all
Europe, and even the Far East. At home he plunged, insatiable of moral
and social conquests, into his crusade for 'Darkest England,' being
powerful enough to raise in less than a month as much as all England and
the Colonies contributed for the Gordon College at Khartoum in response
to another victorious general. For General Booth certainly ended by
being victorious. If the evangelical creed he inculcated was rude,
crude, and unideal, it was serious, sincere, and stimulating. He waged
war against the Devil, as that mysterious personage was understood by
him, with the most whole-hearted and relentless zeal. He enjoined, let
it be remembered, an absolute temperance, soberness, and chastity upon
the Officers and rank and file of his motley host; and, ugly as some may
think the uniforms of Salvationists, the police and magistrates know
that they cover for the most part honest hearts. Could The General have
affected all this--or a tenth part of it--if he had not lent himself to
the eternal necessities and weaknesses of the uneducated, and given them
his drill, his banners, his drums, his prayer-volleys, his poke-bonnets,
and his military tunics? We doubt it, and in contemplating, therefore,
the enormous good this dead man did, and sought to do, and the neglected
fields of humanity which he tilled for the Common Master, we judge him
to be one of the chief and most serviceable figures of the Victorian
age; and well deserving from his own followers the ecstasy of grief and
veneration which is being manifested, and from contemporary notice the
tribute of a hearty recognition of pious and noble objects zealously
pursued, and love of God and of humanity made the passion and the
purpose of a whole unflinching life."
Daily Chronicle, _August 22, 1912_
By Harold Begbie
"Scarcely could you find a country in the whole world where men and
women are not now grieving for the death of General Booth. Among peoples
of whom we have never heard, and in languages of which we do not know
even the alphabet, this universal grief ascends to Heaven--perhaps the
most universal grief ever known in the history of mankind.
"One realises something of the old man's achievement by reflecting on
this universal grief. It will not do to dismiss him lightly. More, it
will not do to express a casual admiration of his character, an
indulgent approbation of his work. The man was unique. In some ways he
was the superman of his period. Never before has a man in his own
lifetime won so wide a measure of deep and passionate human affection.
"It will not do to say that by adopting vulgar methods and appealing to
vulgar people, General Booth established his universal kingdom of
emotional religion. Let the person inclined to think in this way dress
himself in fantastic garments, take a drum, and march through the
streets shouting 'Hallelujah.' There is no shorter cut to humility. Many
have tried to do what William Booth did. Many men as earnestly and as
tenderly have sought to waken drugged humanity and render the Kingdom of
Heaven a reality. Many men have broken their hearts in the effort to
save the Christian religion from the paralysis of formalism and the
sleeping sickness of philosophy. It is not an easy thing to revivify a
religion, nor a small thing to rescue many thousands of the human race
from sin and misery.
"Let us be generous and acknowledge, now that it is too late to cheer
his heart, that General Booth accomplished a work quite wonderful and
quite splendid, a work unique in the records of the human race. Let us
be frank and say that we ourselves could have done nothing like it. Let
us forget our intellectual superiority, and, instead of criticising,
endeavour to see as it stands before us, and as it really is, the
immense marvel of his achievement. Our canons of taste, our notions of
propriety, will change and cease to be. The saved souls of humanity will
persist for ever.
"I remember very well my first impression of General Booth. I was young;
I knew little of the sorrow of existence; I was perfectly satisfied with
the traditions I had inherited from my ancestors; I was disposed to
regard originality as affectation, and great earnestness as a sign of
fanaticism. In this mood I sat and talked with General Booth, measured
him, judged him, and had the audacity to express in print my opinion
about him--my opinion of this huge giant, this Moses of modern times. He
offended me. The tone of his voice grated on my ears. His manner to a
servant who waited upon him seemed harsh and irritable. I found it
impossible to believe that his acquaintance with spirituality was either
intimate or real. Saints ought to be gentlemen. He seemed to me a vulgar
old man, a clumsy old humourist, an intolerant, fanatical, one idea'd
Hebraist.
"Later in my life I met him on several occasions, and at each meeting
with him I saw something fresh to admire, something new to love. I think
that he himself altered as life advanced; but the main change, of
course, was in myself--I was able to see him with truer vision, because
I was less sure of my own value to the cosmos, and more interested to
discover the value of other men. And I was learning to know the sorrows
of the world.
"There is one very common illusion concerning General Booth. The vulgar
sneers are forgotten; the scandalous slander that he was a self-seeking
charlatan is now ashamed to utter itself except in vile quarters; but
men still say--so anxious are they to escape from the miracle, so
determined to account for every great thing by little reasons--that his
success as revivalist lay only in his powers as an organiser. Now,
nothing is further from the truth. General Booth was not a great
organiser, not even a great showman. He would have ruined any business
entrusted to his management. He would long ago have ruined the
organisation of The Salvation Army if his life had been spent on that
side of its operations. Far from being the hard, shrewd, calculating,
and statesmanlike genius of The Army's machinery, General Booth has
always been its heart and soul, its dreamer and its inspiration. The
brains of The Army are to be looked for elsewhere. Bramwell Booth is the
man of affairs. Bramwell Booth is the master-mind directing all those
world-wide activities. And but for Bramwell Booth The Salvation Army as
it now exists, a vast catholic Organisation, would be unknown to
mankind.
"General Booth's secret, so far as one may speak about it at all, lay in
his perfectly beautiful and most passionate sympathy with suffering and
pain. I have met only one other man in my life who so powerfully
realised the sorrows of other people. Because General Booth realised
these sorrows so very truly and so very actually, he was able to
communicate his burning desire for radical reformation to other people.
The contagiousness of his enthusiasm was the obvious cause of his
extraordinary success, but the hidden cause of this enthusiasm was the
living, breathing, heart-beating reality of his sympathy with sorrow.
When he spoke to one of the sufferings endured by the children of a
drunkard, for instance, it was manifest that he himself felt the very
tortures and agonies of those unhappy children--really felt them, really
endured them. His face showed it. There was no break in the voice, no
pious exclamation, no gesture in the least theatrical or sentimental.
One saw in the man's face that he was enduring pain, that the thought
was so real to him that he himself actually suffered, and suffered
acutely. If we had imagination enough to feel as he felt the dreadful
fears and awful deprivation of little children in the godless slums of
great cities, we, too, should rush out from our comfortable ease to
raise Salvation Armies. It would be torture to sit still. It would be
impossible to do nothing.
"This wonderful old man suffered all his life as few have ever suffered.
And his suffering arose from the tremendous power of his imagination. At
a Meeting he would tell amusing stories, and in the company of several
people he would talk with a gaiety that deceived; but with one or two,
deeply interested to know why he was a Salvationist, and what he really
thought about life, he would open his heart, and show one at least
something of its agony. He was afflicted by the sins of the whole world.
They hurt him, tore him, wounded him, and broke his heart. He did not
merely know that people suffer from starvation; that children run to
hide under a bed at the first sound of a drunken parent's step on the
stair; that thousands of women are friendless and defaced on the
streets; that thousands of boys go to their bodily and spiritual ruin
only for want of a little natural parental care; that men and women are
locked up like wild beasts in prison who would be good parents and
law-abiding citizens were love allowed to enter and plead with them--he
did not merely know these things, but he visualised and felt in his own
person the actual tortures of all these perishing creatures. He wept for
them. He prayed for them. Sometimes he would not sleep for thinking of
them.
"I have seen him with suffering face and extended arms walk up and down
his room, crying out from the depths of his heart: 'Oh, those poor
people, those poor people!--the sad, wretched women, the little,
trembling frightened children meant to be so happy!--all cursed with
sin, cursed and crushed and tortured by sin!' And he would then open his
arms as if to embrace the whole world, and exclaim, 'Why won't they let
us save them?'--meaning, 'Why won't society and the State let The
Salvation Army save them?'
"His attitude towards suffering and sorrow was, nevertheless, harder in
many ways than that of certain humanitarians. He believed in a Devil, he
believed in Hell, and he believed in the saying that there are those who
would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead. And so he held it
the wisdom of statesmanship that when all men have been given a fair
opportunity for repentance, and after love has done everything in its
power to save and convert the lawless and bad, those who will not accept
Salvation should be punished with all the force of a civilisation that
must needs defend itself. The word punishment was very often on his
lips. I think that he believed in the value of punishment almost as
profoundly as he believed in the value of love. He believed that love
could save the very worst man and the very worst woman in the world who
wanted to be saved; and he also believed that nothing was so just and
wise as rigorous punishment for the unrighteous who would not be saved.
I think that he would have set up in England, if he had enjoyed the
power which we give to politicians, two classes of prison--the reforming
prison, controlled only by compassionate Christians who believe in love;
and the punishing prison, which isolates the evil and iniquitous from
contact with innocence and struggling virtue. In that direction this
most merciful man was merciless.
"Why he became a Salvationist is very clear. He knew that the centre of
life is the heart. He saw that all efforts of statesmanship to alter the
conditions of existence must be fruitless, or, at any rate, that the
harvest must be in the far distant future of humanity, while the heart
of man remains unchanged. He suspected the mere respectability which
satisfies so many reformers. Even virtue seemed to him second-rate and
perilous. He was not satisfied with abstention from sin, or with the
change from slum to model lodging-house. He held that no man is safe, no
man is at the top of his being, no man is fully conscious of life's
tremendous greatness until the heart is definitely and rejoicingly given
to God. He was like St. Augustine, like Coleridge, and all the supreme
saints of the world in this insistence upon the necessity for a cleansed
heart and a will devoted to the glory of God; he was different from them
all in believing that this message must be shouted, dinned, trumpeted,
and drummed into the ears of the world before mankind can awaken to its
truth.
"He made a tremendous demand. Towards the end of his life he sometimes
wondered, very sadly and pitifully, whether he had not asked too much of
his followers. I think, to mention only one particular, that he was
wavering as to his ban upon tobacco. He was so certain of the happiness
and joy which come from Salvation, that he had no patience with the
trivial weaknesses of human flesh, which do not really matter. Let us
remember that he had seen thousands of men and women all over the world
literally transformed by his method from the most miserable animals into
radiant and intelligent creatures conscious of immortality and filled
with the spirit of unselfish devotion to humanity. Is it to be wondered
at that The General of this enormous Army should scarcely doubt the
wisdom of his first terms of service?
"But towards the end he suffered greatly in his own personal life, and
suffering loosens the rigidity of the mind. Those of his own household
broke away from him, the dearest of his children died, trusted Officers
forsook him, some of those whose sins he had forgiven again and again
deserted his Flag, and whispered scandal and tittle-tattle into the ears
of degraded journalism. He was attacked, vilified, and denounced by the
vilest of men in the vilest of manners. Sometimes, sitting alone by
himself, blind and powerless, very battleworn and sad, this old man at
the end of his life must have suffered in the solitude of his soul a
grief almost intolerable. But he became more human and more lovable in
these last years of distress.
"We are apt to think that very remarkable men who have risen through
opposition and difficulty to places of preeminence, must sometimes look
back upon the past and indulge themselves in feelings of
self-congratulation. It is not often true. A well-known millionaire told
me that the happiest moment in his life was that when he ran as a little
boy bareheaded through the rain into his mother's cottage carrying to
her in a tight-clenched fist his first week's wage--a sixpenny bit. Mr.
Lloyd George told me that he never looks back, never allows himself to
dream of his romantic life. 'I haven't time,' he said; 'the present is
too obsessing, the fight is too hard and insistent.' Mr. Chamberlain in
the early days of Tariff Reform, told me much the same thing. Perhaps we
may say that men of action never look back. And so it was with General
Booth. He might well have rested during these last few years in a large
and grateful peace, counting his victories, measuring his achievement,
and comparing the pulpit in Nottingham or the first wind-battered tent
in East London with this innumerable Army of Salvation which all over
the world has saved thousands of human beings from destruction.
Sometimes smaller men are able to save a family from disgrace, or to
rescue a friend from some hideous calamity, or to make a crippled child
happy for a week or two, and the feelings created by these actions are
full of happiness and delight. But this old, rough-tongued,
weather-beaten, and heart-tortured prophet, who had saved not tens but
thousands, who could see with his own eyes in almost every country of
the world thousands of little girls rescued from defamation, thousands
of women rescued from the sink of horrid vice, thousands of men new-born
from lives of unimaginable crime and iniquity, thousands of homes once
dreary with squalor and savagery now happy and full of purest joy; nay,
who could see, as I have seen in India, whole tribes of criminal races,
numbering millions, and once the despair of the Indian Government,
living happy, contented, and industrial lives under the Flag of The
Salvation Army--he who could see all this, and who could justly say,
'But for me these things had never been,' was not happy and was not
satisfied. He ached and groaned to save all such as are sorrowful.
"In the last letter he ever wrote to me, a letter that broke off
pitifully, because of his blindness, from the big, bold, challenging
handwriting, and became a dictated typewritten letter, occurred the
words, 'I am distressed.' He was chiefly distressed by the over-devotion
most of us pay to politics and philosophy, by the struggle for wages, by
the clash between master and man, by the frivolity of the rich, the
stupor of the poor, by the blindness of the whole world to the necessity
for the cleansed heart. He did not want to establish a Salvation Army,
but to save the whole world. He did not want to be acclaimed by many
nations, but to see suffering and poverty and squalor clean banished
from the earth. And he believed that with the power of the State at his
back, and with the wealth now squandered in a hundred abortive
directions in his hands, he could have given us a glad and unashamed
England even in a few years. He knew this and believed it with all his
heart. And he held that his dictatorship would have hurt no just man.
He suffered because poverty continues and thousands are still unhappy.
For such men this world can never suffice. They create eternity.
"Others may criticise him. And no man ever lived, I suppose, easier for
every little creature crawling about the earth in self-satisfied
futility to criticise and ridicule. For myself, I can do nothing but
admire, revere, honour, and love this extraordinary old realist, who
saved so many thousands of human beings from utmost misery; who aroused
all the Churches of the Christian religion throughout the world; who
communicated indirectly to politics a spirit of reality which every year
grows more potent for social good; who was so tender and affectionate
and cordial, and who felt for suffering and sorrow and unhappiness
wherever he found it with a heart entirely selfless and absolutely pure.
"Even if The Salvation Army disappeared from every land where it is now
at work--and, though it will not disappear, I anticipate during the next
ten years many changes in its organisation--to the end of time the
spirit of William Booth will be part of our religious progress. We
cannot unthink ourselves out of his realism, out of his boundless pity,
out of his consuming earnestness. He has taught us all to know that the
very bad man can be changed into the very good man, and he has brought
us back, albeit by a violent method, to the first simple and absolute
principles of the only faith which purifies and exalts humanity.
"When the dust has blown away, we shall see him as perhaps the greatest
of our time."
The Post of Berlin
"What he aimed at, for the solution of the Social question and the
uplifting of the lowest classes of people by their own works, assures
for him the respect of the entire civilised world."
Berlin Local Gazette
"In the person of General Booth was embodied one part of the Social
question, and, if any man succeeded in bringing any part of it even
nearer to a solution one must say it was William Booth.
"His plainness as a man, his genial gift as an organiser, his burning
zeal, his self-sacrificing devotion to his aim, prepared and levelled
the road for him, and no man, friend or foe, will withhold from him
their tribute of high respect as he lies on his bed of death."
The Morning Post of Berlin
"General Booth, the ancient blind man, always kept his glad heart. He
was able to point his opponents, who brought up their theoretical maxims
against him (and who latterly became ever fewer) to his practical work."
The Berlin Evening Paper
"There has hardly ever been a General who in an almost unbroken career
of victory subdued so many men and conquered so many countries as
William Booth. His person gained the high respect of his contemporaries
through his long, priestly life, and he will ever remain an example of
how much, even in a time of confusion and division, one man can do who
knows what he wants, and keeps a clear conscience."
Berlin Midday Paper
"In General Booth we have, undoubtedly, lost one of the most successful
organisers of the day."
Berlin Day Paper (Tageblatt)
"Whoever has seen and heard Booth in a huge Meeting in Circus Busch will
never forget him--the snow-white, flowing beard and the great, upright
figure in the blue uniform, with the red-figured jersey, the furrowed
face of typical English character, and the finely mobile orator's mouth,
with the searching eyes under the noble forehead, and the prominent nose
that gave him almost the aspect of an eagle."
German Watchman
"With that constant will power which sprang from deep and upright
conviction, and with a faculty for organisation which won hearty
recognition from all who knew him, he was able to do such great things."
National Gazette, Berlin
"His unselfishness and his zealous devotion to his creation (The Army)
was beyond all question."
Berlin Exchange Courier
"Whoever saw and heard him knows that he remained, after all, the
simple, unassuming, humble man. The secret of this personality was the
embodiment of an unshakable religious devotion. It rang out in his
burning, earnest words, it breathed in the deep heartfelt prayers in his
Meetings, it expressed itself in wondrous deeds of love, which ignored
difficulties and shrank from no sacrifice. This made of him the
organising genius who led the world-wide Salvation Army, with all its
higher and lower departments, with strength and security. William Booth
was as its Founder and General perhaps the most popular man of our day."
Neckar-Journal of Heilsbron
"And so General Booth, who has now died at eighty-three, risen to be one
of the greatest benefactors of the murdering industry period. His name
is graven in brass in the social history of the nineteenth century.
"He was a man through whose soul the great breath of brotherly love and
devotion moved, and, therefore, his example will never be forgotten."
The Baden Press of Carlsruhe
"The Salvation Army is to-day the mightiest free Organisation of Social
help in the world, and the man who made it was once a street missionary,
despised, and without influence, whom part of the despairing mass of the
East of London threw stones at, whilst another part, with
alcohol-fevered eyes, hung on his lips. 'If ye have faith like a grain
of mustard seed!'"
The General Gazette of Erfurt
"In General Booth, one has closed his eyes who was able to make a
visible reality of the faith that can remove mountains. The Bonaparte of
free Social help has died."
The Cologne Times
"One of the greatest benefactors of mankind has passed away, and as
success is the greatest joy, also one of the happiest of men. The
Salvation Army is a good, Christian undertaking, and William Booth was
one of the noblest Christians whose name history can record."
Hanover Courier
"Booth was the born orator of the people. He possessed above all the
rare gift of keeping always to the level of his hearers, and so to speak
about the highest themes that the wayfaring man understood him."
Hamburg Strangers Paper
"To the last he was the living, energising centre of The Army, and to
the last breath in the truest sense its General."
Munchen Latest News
"With the decease of General Booth, mankind has to mourn the loss of a
willing, self-sacrificing benefactor, a noble philanthropist of the most
distinguished purpose."
The Kingdom's Messenger of Berlin
"What he accomplished in the fighting of drunkenness or other evils is
too well known to need description. Taken all in all, whatever any one
may have to say about any details of The Army's methods, one must agree
with _The Daily Chronicle_ that the loss of General Booth is a heavy
blow, and the whole world will unite with us in applauding such a life
of devotion to a great end."
The Cross Gazette of Berlin
"It was seen that he was not merely a preacher of repentance, but a real
shepherd of his sheep, who had an open heart, and a good understanding
for all in need."
German News of Berlin
"He was no quack, no charlatan, and Carlyle, had he known him, would
have certainly put him into his list of heroes as priest and prophet. It
is great, what The Army has done in fighting manifold human miseries,
such as drunkenness. We have often known learned men and politicians who
went over the sea scoffers at it come back its admirers."
Markish People's Paper of Barmen
"Our opposition on principle does not prevent our acknowledging that The
Army has done much good to the poorest of the poor."
German Daily Paper of Berlin
"With the greatest pity he combined the most iron discipline, and
sacrificed to the happiness of all every personal enjoyment."
Germania of Berlin
"But the light that always led him out of the deepest darkness to the
day was his sympathy for his brethren, whose misery in the East End of
London so deeply laid hold of him."
Daily Look-round of Berlin
"Perhaps the most remarkable fact about him was that with all his
gigantic plans he never lost himself in phantasy, but always knew how to
keep himself down to the practical."
Strassburg Post
"Hard upon himself, he exercised the same severity upon others, from the
highest of his Officers to the least in his Army."
Schwalish Mercury of Stuttgart
"He made his Army out of the soil of London's misery-quarter, and its
present is the work of his unwearyable devotion, the energy sustained by
the fire of his zeal for his idea."
Muhlhaus Daily
"His personality grew out of the old Puritan spirit."
Elbing Latest News
"He is the model of a successful business man. But he is a business man
who never works for himself, only for others. So wrote one of the man
whom death has now taken from what was the creation of his life. In him
has passed away one of the characteristic figures of the century's
tendency. His many-sidedness, it is not too much to say, had no equal.
Bringer of Salvation--social politician--wholesale business man--are
only three comparisons which cannot by far exhaust the description of
the phenomenon Booth. If ever the word can rightly be used of any one,
then of William Booth it can be said he was a benefactor of mankind."
Altona News
"Modern time has few men to show whose spirit had any such
world-embracing might, and who, out of so unlikely a beginning, knew
how to raise up _so_ gigantic a work as compels us to be filled, if not
with love to him, at least with the greatest respect for his honourable
intentions."
Vogtland Gazette Plauen
"These were the innermost feelings of his whole life which drove him to
his marvellous life's work--religious zeal and sympathy."
Frankfurt Gazette
"William Booth had a mighty will, and he strove on for tens of years
from promise to fulfilment."
Augsburg Evening Gazette
"His brilliant talent for organisation, and his ability always to strike
the right note, which would take with the masses, were the most
outstanding specialities of the deceased."
Rhein-Westphalian Gazette
"Here is a work done by an extraordinarily organising genius so great
and such a model, socially speaking, as to fill even the opponents of
the old philanthropist with respect."
Journal Des Debats, Paris
"Never, perhaps, has a man been the creator of such Social Work as this
one who has died after having passed fifty years running all over the
world in search of the miserable ones; who had no hope."
Gaulois, Paris
"His life may be thus summarised. He brought back to God and to morality
many souls who had gone to materialism and vice. He founded pretty well
everywhere 750 Refuges for the unfortunate; he found work for those who
had none; he despised human respect in order to do good."
The Little Republican, Paris
"It is a very exalted moral figure which has disappeared from this
world, as well as even more than a person singularly famous. If he
became a preacher, he was certainly born an apostle. He had the genius
of conversion, and wanted no other career here below. There is not a
city of the Anglo-Saxon world where his Army has not snatched, by
hundreds, men from drunkenness and women from prostitution."
[Illustration: Commander Miss Booth
In Charge of the Salvation Army Work in U.S.A.]
The Republic, Paris
"An indefatigable organiser, ceaselessly working for the success of his
effort, he created besides numerous groups of Salvationists, night
Refuges, popular Restaurants, Workplaces, journals, and reviews."
The Intransigent, Paris
"In General Booth passes away a truly world-personage, whose influence
extended to the two hemispheres, and, perhaps, as much amongst the
savage as the civilised.
"He discovered, his real path, and founded The Salvation Army, which has
recruited millions of faithful ones in the most diverse nations--even in
our sceptical France."
The Voltaire, Paris
"We have not to judge his religious efforts, nor even his methods, which
often seemed to us from some aspects so very absurd.
"But one must recognise that The Army created Hospitals, Retreats,
Refuges without number in all countries of the world, including France,
and that the devotion of its Soldiers has been unbounded. From the
social point of view General Booth was certainly a benefactor."
Gil Blas, Paris
"Struck by the misery which some quarters of London displayed to him, he
conceived the idea of evangelising these masses, and to bring them along
with the Christian light, physical comfort, and moral union.
"An intelligent work, humane in its principles, beautiful in its
aspirations, it merits that we salute with respect the remains of him
who undertook it with all his disinterestedness and all his heart."
General Business Paper of Amsterdam
"The world has to mourn the death of one of the noblest men who ever
lived, of a man who undiscouraged by scorn, contempt, and continual
mockery, kept on working according to his convictions, conscious that he
had a great vocation to fulfil, seeking the welfare of his fellows of
no matter what race or class they might belong to.
"With his departure will be mourned a man who accomplished great things,
and of whom his most ardent opponents have to admit that he by his
example and by his incomparable power to work, and his mighty talent for
organisation, has been able to be a blessing to many.
"William Booth has gone to his eternal rest. He has not lived and worked
in vain. His name does not belong only to his Fatherland, but to the
whole world, for he was a benefactor to every land, to all humanity. If
any name shall continue to live, it is his."
The People, Amsterdam
"A man has died whose figure, owing to his career, his self-chosen
sphere of labour, his manifested power and talent, and through his
success, too, has become a world-figure, who may be variously judged,
but awakened sympathy everywhere, and scarcely anywhere enmity.
"Booth was the man for the outcasts of society, for the poorest and most
miserable, for those who had no strength left, and were entirely unarmed
in the fight for existence."
The Fatherland, Amsterdam
"Yes, truly he was a great idealist. That was why he could not be
content to remain an ordinary minister. His ideal went beyond the circle
of his communion. He wanted to overcome the world by love and Divine
worship, and work for all mankind. And we see the results everywhere
just as in this country, so at the other side of the world."
The Amsterdammer
"The saving of souls was the great, all-consuming passion of the Founder
of The Salvation Army. To satisfy this heart-moving desire he began his
wide-stretched Organisation, and, notwithstanding the great Social Work,
which represented a great amount of practical social betterment, he
continued in every direction in The Army only to honour the opportunity
it gave him to win souls for God and The Army."
The Evening Courier, of Milan
"When he stepped to the front of the platform, he seemed transfigured.
His rapid and incisive words poured from his mouth with unrestrained
eloquence.
"'All the foundation of all we say,' he cried, 'are the eternal truths
of the Gospel, indestructible as the pillars of the throne of God.'
"The Apostle spoke out. In that body, worn with age, was born again
something of that unconquerable faith which had made Booth as a lad cry
out seventy years before, in a prophetic transport, 'The trumpet has
sounded the signal for the fight. Your General assures you of success
and a glorious reward. Your crown is ready. Why do you wait and hesitate
so? Forward, forward, forward!'
"Booth was not one to be intimidated. He tolerated insults with Olympic
patience. He just wiped off the dirt his persecutors threw at him, and
smilingly invited them to follow him. Thus, about seventy years of age,
he began the beneficent career which accomplished a truly marvellous
work of philanthropy and love, and which gained for him not only the
esteem and veneration of the poor of East London, and of the choicest
citizens, but the personal friendship of his Sovereign."
The Age, of Milan
"The death of Booth causes consternation through all England, because
through the vast Organisation, The Salvation Army, he was so well known
for his works of humanity and beneficence.
"Indeed, he was one of the most celebrated men in the world. The great
humane work he founded during the seventy years of his apostolate is
destined to remain as one of the highest expressions of modern
philanthropy and charity. The Army is an immense federation of hearts
and consciences which was created, guided, and led to triumph by Mr.
Booth."
The Press, of Turin
"The Founder and General of The Salvation Army, dead at eighty-three
years of age, after seventy years of unwearyable apostolate, was one of
the purest and most popular heroes of modern Christianity. He was not
content to preach the Gospel only from the parchment--a mystic and a
poet, yet a practical man of forethought, he was able, out of nothing,
to create a Society of militant propagandists for the social redemption
of the lost crowds, and to fight against idleness, alcoholism, and evil
habits."
The Halfpenny Paper
"The message that General Booth is dead will cause sorrow not only in
his country or in Europe, but all over the world. Now, at his death, the
whole world knows his name, and thousands follow in his footsteps."
Social Demokrat
"No free religious movement has ever become so great or laid so strong a
hold upon all classes of society.
"General Booth will be named in history as one of the strongest and most
remarkable personages that ever lived. He was a product of society, such
as it was, and the Movement he raised was born of that state of things,
firstly as a reconciler, and then as a protest.
"To accomplish such a work as has been done cannot be without result on
the future shaping of society."
The Morning
"To-day The Salvation Army stands as one of the mightiest and most
remarkable religious organisations that the world has ever seen."
Jonkoping Post
"One of our times, and perhaps all times, greatest and most remarkable
personages, The Salvation Army's Founder and General, William Booth,
died in London yesterday evening. Behind him lies a path such as few
have ever travelled. Before him lies the rest with his Lord, in whose
service he laboured almost all his long life."
Swedish Morning Standard
"The world has lost one of its noblest and most remarkable men. A great
benefactor of mankind has been called home. Our times' greatest
spiritual General has died at his honourable post. Peace to his brave
and worthy memory."
Norkoping News
"Few of the most noted men of the day did anything like as much work as
The General. He was the leading spirit in all this world-Organisation's
least details. He spent most of his time travelling all round the
world."
Gothenburg's Post
"Wherever in the world men's hearts beat for men's sorrows and misery,
the message of General Booth's death will be received with sadness and
mourning. For with General Booth departed the greatest modern apostle of
Christianity, charity, and mercy--a sort of Saviour up to the level of
modern machinery and wholesale industrial city life, and one of the most
discussed and remarkable of modern personages."
Gothenburg's Evening
"William Booth's life was one in storm and battle--a great man's life,
the life of an unwearied fighter. Now the whole world bows before the
great man and the great life which will live through all time, and go on
bringing help to the suffering."
Smaland's Post
"Booth's blessed and energetic all-world-embracing efforts have, during
the last decades, had general recognition, and his native land has in
various ways testified its respect for what he has done in the service
of mercy."
Upsala News
"William Booth's sleepless energy and restless activity succeeded in
forcing his work's recognition, even where people did not approve his
methods, and many who before despised him will, now that he is gone,
admit that he has done more for his fellows than many whose names have
gone down to posterity."
Malmo S. S. Daily
"It is one of the day's strongest personages who is gone--a man with the
utmost wealth of energy and power. One could hardly believe he belonged
to our times, and yet he had all the qualities of our nervous and
restless epoch. There was much in him to remind of the old prophets--the
lonely man of God fighting with the mighty and the wrong. Nobody can
dispute that The Army did much good."
Stockholm Morning
"It lay in the Leader's extraordinary foresight that The Army had a
great and blessed work to fulfil to save the deepest sunken in the
community."
Chapter XXVI
Organisation
The high reputation which The General gained as an Organiser seems to
make it desirable to explain, as fully as we can, what he aimed at, and
by what means he made The Army the remarkable combination it has become.
We have, happily, in several of our books his own dissertations on the
subject, for he always sought to make clear to all who should follow
him, especially in this respect, the reasons for his plans. In his
introduction to _Orders and Regulations for Staff Officers_, he writes
as follows:--
"Some of the Converts resided in other parts of London, and they
soon commenced themselves to hold Meetings afterwards, and to win
souls in their localities. I was entreated to care for these also.
The Christian Churches, even when they were willing to receive
these Converts, were as a result generally so much occupied with
the maintenance of their own existence, or so lukewarm in coping
with the necessities of the poor people, as to be unequal to the
task of caring for them. I soon found that the majority of those
who joined the Churches either relapsed again into open
backsliding, or became half-hearted professors. I was, therefore,
driven to select men and women who I knew to be lovers of souls,
and to be living holy lives, for the purpose of caring for these
new Converts. These helpers I afterwards directed to hold Meetings
in the streets and in cottages, and then in Halls and other Meeting
Places. The Lord was with them in great power, and hundreds of
wicked and godless people were converted and united together in
separate societies.
"These operations were, in course of time, extended to the
Provinces, where my late beloved wife, who was my unfailing helper
and companion in this work until God took her from me, preached
with much acceptance and remarkable results. It soon became
difficult, and at length impossible, for me to express my wishes
and give my instructions to my helpers by word of mouth, and
consequently I had to issue them in the form of correspondence.
This I also soon found to be a task beyond my ability. And yet, if
unity and harmony were to be preserved among the people God had
given me, and if the work were to be carried on successfully, it
was evident that they must know my wishes. I was, therefore,
compelled to _print_ such Directions and Rules as I deemed to be
necessary.
"This practice has continued to the present day, and been increased
by reason of the advance of the Work to an extent I never could
have anticipated. Some seventeen years ago I issued a volume of
_Orders and Regulations for Field Officers_. More than once since
then this book has been enlarged, and revised to date, and,
although some further developments have been made since that time,
that volume may be taken as the expression, in general terms, of my
present convictions of what a Field Officer of The Salvation Army
should be and do, and as such I commend it to the attention of
Officers and Soldiers of every rank in The Army throughout the
world.
"Soon after the publication of the _Orders and Regulations for
Field Officers_, a volume describing the duties of Divisional
Officers was issued. This volume has also been outgrown, by reason
of continued developments in the organisation of the Army rendering
further enlargements necessary.
"Meanwhile, the ablest and most devoted Officers throughout the
world have been contriving, and, with the authority of
Headquarters, executing what have seemed the wisest and best
methods for attaining the objects we have in view. It now appears
to me not only desirable, but absolutely necessary, that these
usages should be again examined and classified, and, if found to be
in harmony with our principles, corrected, reduced to writing, and
then, endorsed by my authority, published for the benefit of The
Army throughout the world, and for the advantage also of those who
will hereafter be our successors in the responsibility for carrying
forward the War. The _Orders and Regulations_ contained in this
volume are the result.
"It was my intention to make this book a complete Compendium of
Regulations for Staff Officers of all Departments in all parts of
the world; but it became evident that, owing to the multiplication
of the different branches of our operations, and the diversity of
the Regulations required by their varied character and conditions,
such a volume would have been swollen to most inconvenient
dimensions, and I therefore determined to omit everything not
applying to the Officers under the command of the British
Commissioner.
"It must not be inferred from this that the Staff Officers employed
at International Headquarters, or of those engaged in the Social
Work, do not rank equally with those whose duties are herein
described. Further _Orders and Regulations_ required by them, and
for Staff Officers in other Territories, will be issued from time
to time as needed. The Regulations contained in Part I of this
volume are to be carried out as far as possible in all Territories
and Departments.
"The Regulations herein contained must not be regarded as a final
authority on the duties and responsibilities to which they refer.
Development has been the order of The Army from the beginning, and
will, I hope, remain so to the end. Our methods must of necessity
be always changing with the ever varying character and
circumstances of the people whom we seek to benefit. But our
principles remain as unchangeable as the Throne of Jehovah. It is
probable that in succeeding years other _Orders and Regulations_
will be issued by the Central Authority to take the place of these
I am now publishing. It is right, and safe, and necessary that it
should be so. God will, I believe, continue to make known from time
to time, to those who follow His good pleasure, the way in which
the War should be carried on, and The Army will, I hope, continue
to receive and record in _Orders and Regulations_ that manifested
Will, and, by obedience, continue to go forward from victory unto
victory!
"I think I may truthfully say that in no words which it has been my
privilege to write in the past, and in no work that it has ever
been my lot to undertake, have I been more conscious of the
presence and guidance of another Spirit, than in the preparation of
these Regulations. That Spirit has been, I believe, the Spirit of
Eternal Light. I have asked wisdom of God, and I verily believe
that my request has been favourably regarded. Of this, I think,
these Regulations will, to those for whom they have been prepared,
bear witness.
"These Regulations are not, I repeat, intended as a finality. If
any Staff Officer into whose hand this book may come, or may be
brought into knowledge of the working of the Regulations contained
in it, can suggest any improvement, let him do so. If he can show
any plan by which the end aimed at can be more simply, or
inexpensively, or effectually gained, either as regards work, or
men, or methods, or money, by all means let him make the discovery
known to us. God is in no wise confined to any particular person
for the revelation of His will. It would be the vainest of vain
desires were I so foolish as to wish that it should be so. Let Him
speak by whom He will. What I want to see is the work done, souls
saved, and the world made to submit at the Saviour's feet.
"I cannot conclude without saying that there has been present with
me, all the way through the preparation of this book, a vivid sense
of the utter powerlessness of all system, however wisely it may
have been framed, which has not in the application of it that
Spirit of Life who alone imparts the vital force without which no
extensive or permanent good can be effected.
"And now, on the completion of my task, and at the moment of
placing it in the hands of my Officers, this conviction is forced
upon me in an increasing, I may almost say, a painful, degree.
"No one can deny that the religious world is full of forms which
have little or no practical influence on the minds, or hearts, or
lives, of those who travel the weary round of their performances
day by day. Are the Regulations that I am now issuing at no distant
date going to swell the number of these dead and powerless systems?
God forbid that it should be so! Nothing could be further from my
contemplation than such a result.
"However, there must be Regulations. They are necessary. If work is
to be done at all, it must be done after some particular fashion,
and if one fashion is better than another--which no one amongst us
will question--it must be the wisest course to discover that best
fashion, and to describe it in plain language, so that it may be
acted upon throughout our borders until some better method is made
known. We want certain things done in The Army for the Salvation of
souls, for the deliverance of the world from sin and misery, and
for the glory of our God; and the Regulations herein set forth
represent the best methods at present known either to me, or to
those around me, for the accomplishment of these things. Therefore
praying for God's blessing upon them I send them forth with the
expectation that the Staff Officers whom they concern will render a
faithful, conscientious, and believing obedience to all that they
enjoin."
All this was only written in 1904, and there has been nothing since
materially to change the system set forth in the 350 odd pages which
follow, and which explain as fully as was necessary how the plans which
are so fully explained in the volume of _Orders and Regulations for
Field Officers_, above referred to, were to be carried into effect
throughout the whole country.
The opening chapter of these _Regulations_ explains the Organisation as
follows:--
"THE GENERAL DIVISIONS OF THE ARMY
"The divisions of The Army in the Field are at present as follow:--
"Ward, under the charge of a Sergeant.
"Corps, under the charge and command of a Field Officer.
"Section, under the charge and command of a Sectional Officer.
"Division, under the charge and command of a Divisional Commander.
"Province, under the charge and command of a Provincial Commander.
"Territory, under the charge and command of a Territorial
Commissioner.
"A Ward is a part of a town or neighbourhood in which a Corps is
operating, placed under the charge of Local Officers, whose duty it
is to watch over the welfare of the Soldiers and Recruits belonging
to it.
"A Corps is that portion of a country in which a separate work is
carried on, and for which it is responsible. It may consist of a
city, a town, or a particular district of either, and it may
include one or more Societies in adjoining places, or it may
consist of a number of such Societies grouped together, in which
case it is called a Circle Corps.
"A Section is a group of Corps placed under the command of one or
more Officers.
"A Division consists of a number of Corps grouped together with
that part of a country in which these Corps are situated.
"A Province comprises a number of Divisions.
"A Territory consists of a Country, or part of a Country, or
several Countries combined together, as The General may decide."
In _Orders and Regulations_ for his Territorial Commissioners, that is,
those who hold the highest command over whole countries, he writes:--
"The higher the authority with which Officers are entrusted, and
the larger the responsibilities resting upon them, the greater is
the need for that absolute devotion to the principles of The Army,
and that complete abandonment to the purposes of God which our
_Orders and Regulations_ express and represent, and without which
no system, however perfect, and no body of men, however capable,
can achieve the great work He has called us to do in establishing
the Kingdom of God in the earth."
One of the greatest problems connected with all organisation is the
keeping up to the ideal of those who are in danger of forgetting it;
and, therefore, the following section will, we think, be found
especially interesting to those who may ask, How has it been done, or
how is it to be done? It is the section on "The Development of Field
Officers," and reads as follows:--
"The Divisional Officer is responsible for seeking to develop the
spiritual life of the F.O.'s. No matter what gifts or zeal the
Officer may possess, if he is not walking in the light, and living
in the favour of God, it is vain to hope that he will be really
successful.
"The D.O. must always, therefore, when he comes in contact with
Officers under his command, make inquiries with regard to their
spiritual life, leading them to acknowledge their faults and heart
conflicts, so that he may give suitable counsel and help.
"The D.O. must regard himself as responsible to God for
maintaining the _devotion_ of the Officers under him to the great
purpose to which they have already consecrated their lives. He
cannot expect to deal faithfully with an Officer on such matters
unless he does so, and he must bear in mind how easy it is to draw
back from that whole-hearted sacrifice without which no Officer can
succeed.
"The D.O. must see that his Officers possess, and live in, the
_spirit_ of The Army. Without it their Officership will be like a
body without a soul, or like a locomotive without any power. The
D.O. must encourage Officers to cry out to God for this, and must
continually explain its importance.
"The D.O. must understand that if Officers under his command
decline in their love for souls and become careless about the
progress of their work, he will have failed in a very important
part of his duty. The D.O. exists for the purpose of helping and
saving his F.O.'s.
"The D.O. is responsible for the development of energy and
enterprise in his Officers. One great temptation of F.O.'s is to
settle down and to be content with a formal discharge of duty, and,
what is worse still, to offer all sorts of excuses for their
lackadaisical Laodicean condition. Few people have in themselves
sufficient force of character, human or Divine, to keep them
pushing ahead for any considerable length of time. Officers who
when they first enter the Field are like flames of fire, will, if
not looked after, get into ruts, and content themselves with
holding so many Meetings, doing so many marches, raising the
ordinary Corps funds, Meeting the ordinary expenditure, keeping the
ordinary number of Soldiers on the Roll, and doing everything in
the ordinary day, while the world, undisturbed, is going forward at
express speed to Hell. The D.O. should endeavour to prevent this
settling down on the part of his Officers by continually stirring
up their minds with inducements to labour and encouragements to
renewed activity and increased sacrifice for the Salvation of the
world.
"The D.O. is also responsible for the improvement of the gifts of
his Officers and of their efficiency for the work they have in
hand. He must not only show them wherein they fail, but must teach
them how they may do better.
"The D.O. must encourage his Officers. If they have gifts and
capacities--and none are without some--he should cheer them
forward by acknowledging them. He should point out where they do
well, at the same time setting before them the higher positions of
usefulness they may reach with a little application and
perseverance. He may always remind them of Officers who during the
early part of their career have had little success, but who, by
sticking to the fight have reached positions of great usefulness.
There are few Officers who during their early days are not cast
down and tempted to think that they do not possess the gifts
necessary to success, and that they have missed their vocation in
becoming Officers. This class of melancholy feelings should be
battled with by the D.O. with all his might, for if allowed to run
their course the result will be not only depression, but despair,
and perhaps desertion.
"The D.O. should give particular attention to the development of
the ability, energy, and religion of the Lieutenants in his
Division. Their position in a Corps often makes it difficult for
them to exercise their gifts to advantage, and they are often
depressed and discouraged. A D.O. should always inquire on his
visiting a Corps having a Lieutenant--
"Whether he is happy with his C.O. and in the Work;
"What special work he has to do and for which he is actually
responsible.
"Every Division must have its own Officers' Meeting, which should
always be conducted by the Divisional Officer, unless the
Provincial Commander, or some Officer representing Headquarters be
present.