THE STORY OF GENERAL BOOTH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2579, 19 August 1903, Page 70

THE STORY OF GENERAL BOOTH.

(By Laweexce Stuart, in Men and Women.)

On the sth of July, 1865, a tall, spare, bearded man, with a prominent hooked nose and the burning eyes of the enthusiast, went out on to Mile End Waste and began to preach. He took his "pitch" close to the curious, detached, nautical-looking publiehouse that still stands upon the Waste. The audience was sparse, and the preacher was alone. His name was William Booth, and he was holding what was practically the first meeting of the Salvation Army.

Not many weeks ago the Albert Hall was crowded as th.at large and rather dreary building rarely gets crowded. 3len in red jerseys, women in poke bonnets, were everywhere. In the boxes one saw ex- Cabinet Ministers, members of the House of Lords as well as of the Commons, dignitaries of the Church. Singing, praying, enthusiasm everywhere. Suddenly a frenzy of excitement, 'shouts of devoted affection and confidence, as this same WHliam Booth, now an old" man of seventy-four, who might well sit for a picture of the prophet Isaiah, stepped on the platform. His followers were welcoming him home after a protracted tour among his stations across the seas.

'Ihese two pictures make a strange contrast. How great a fire a little spark has kindled ! The solitary preacher has in 38 years become Jie head of a great organisation that numbers its officers by thousands and its adherents by hundreds of thousands, that has branches in every part of the world, and that attacks with its unique methods every social evil. Certainly the work of few men has been so entirely justified by results'. William Booth was born in Nottingham in April. 1829. His father was a member of the Church of England ; but at the age of 13 young Booth joined the Wesleyans, and among them he became a definite convert two years later. It ws.s' characteristic of the mail that he at once began to preach. Mi- Booth is- a born propagandist. Having •once become convinced of the truth of a vital proposition, his whole being forces him to proclaim the truth to others. It is not unfair to say that he alone among modern prominent religious teachers has the real apostolic fervour. It was also characteristic that from the foist he sought his converts among the poor affel the degraded, and that his early sermons were addressed to crowds of roughs who not infrequently greeted him, with volleys of garbage. When he was 20 Mr Booth came to London, and shortly afterwards met_tite very remarkable lady who was to become his wife, and whose beautiful personality ■supplied during her lifetime one of the most cherished possessions of the Salvation Armj*. His marriage and his final abandonment of business for the career of an evangelist soon followed, though it was not •till 1858 tha.t Mr Booth was duly ordained a mlni&tei 1 of the Methodist New Connexion.

William Booth is a ruthless iconoclast, and the most daring of reformers. He is also a man of one idea and of immense .strength of character. His. one idea for 40 years has been to lescue the lowest and most degraded persons he can find, and put them in the way of being decent men and women. That is his religion, and when foimuldries and traditions have got in his way it has happened with them much as it did with Stephenson's "coo." From the first his work was viewed with suspicion by the ecclesiastical authorities. The chapel keeper at Nottingham was horrified at the appearance of the roughs *hat young Booth brought to service with him, and banished them to seats behind the pulpit ; and he had not been long in London before he was removed from the roll of Wes'syan Methodism — a removal that the Wesleyans must often regret.

In the Methodist New Connexion Mr Booth remained three years, but tiouble soon arose. He hated the restricted life of a parson. Pulpit sermons had iv fascination for him. He wanted to get right among the people, and fire sharp, red-hot ■wordh at them. Tho conference of hi 1 - sect took pl?.ce in 1361. and the upshot was that Mr Booth and his wife walked out of the meeting, having thrown up fnea.h, home, and salary rather than surrender lie right to do their work in what to them .seemed the only possible way. For lie next four } - ears Mr and Mrs Booth devoted themselves to holding "revival" ervicf?, something after the manner of 'Tloody ; i-d sSankey, in vaiious parts of the country. In Cornwall they had a most remarkable niccess, 7000 persons professing to be .onverts. Cardiff and the Midlands were also visited, and then they came to London, and Mr Booth held the historic meeting on Mile End Waste referred to at the I egmning of this sketch. London attracted Mr Booth as it attracted Sir Walter Besanfc and still attracts ■Mr Ueoige R. Sims. Permeate London, affect London, and the whole world feels your influence. Consequently Mr Booth came to London, and the Christian Mission that begat the Salvation Army came into being on Mile End Waste. Mr Booth held his meetings in a tent and in ai skittle alley at the old Effingham Theatre, and elsewhere, all the time converting prizefighters, drunkaidx, and genera? rascallions, and as soon as they were converted sending them out after others of their kind at Barking, Cubitt Town, Woolwich, and the legions beyond. Mrs Booth, meaaiwhile, went further afield, and spread the reputation of the mission in the large provncial cities. The keynote of 3lr Booth's success is in the fact that I have touched on — that "the sinner saved is sent after other sinners."

"Where are you «oing to get your preachers, Mr Booth ? M a sympathiser once asked.

"From the publichouses," was the prompt reply.

Four principles have guided Mr Booth as ?.n evangelist. First, seeing that the people will not go to chapel, the preacher must go out and find the people. Then you must attract and interest the people. This last the Salvation Army has certainly done, though some of its methods have been . considerably criticised. Then, having attracted the people," convert them ; and then employ them finding other converts. The Christian Mission grew enormously in a few years. At first, following the example of the .various Methodist .sects, its aft'ahs were managed by conferences. But theie was too much unpractical talk at thtir meetings, and the direction of "affairs gradually came into the hands of the Gen-e-ral Superintendent of the Mission, who in 1877 became tlie General of the Salvation Army. With the Army came the flags— the "first was unfurled in 1878 — and the uniforms.

The uniform now worn by the Salvaton soldier is largely the outcome of evolution, but the famous Hallelujah bonnet was the remit of the ingenuity of Mrs Booth and her daughters. Mission haTTs became \ rurack», preachers captains, arid so on. The introduction "of the military system fas been incalculably successful. The garb cf its adherents is a. constant advertisement for the Army, and induces a sense of comradeship and mutual dependence. The picturesqueness—picturesqueness of a somewhat bizarre character, perhaps — has been a constant attraction to tlie very class that General Booth most seeks. The military discipline has made it possible to send men and women, uncomplaining as Jesuits, to the ends of the «arth without a penny in their purse", their livelihood dependent on the free gifts of their converts.

To the outsider the greatest achievement of General Booth and the ScJvation Army is the great scheme of social Christianity outlined in the General's book "In Darkest England, and the Way Out." Shelters for the homeless, work for the workless, hope for the hopeless are provided by Salvation officers, not only in London, but in America, Australia, and the world over; and the work is so thorough and so beneficent that in several of the colonies it has received Government recognition and support. Everywhere the success of the Army has been gained by the ultra-demo-cratic conditions of the service. Once m its ranks, social distinctions disappear. The ex-convict and the ex-banker, the converted Magdalen, the servant girl, and the laay of fashion stand shoulder to shoulder, and all men end women are their brothers and sisters. In India the Army officer wears native dress and takes a native name ; everywhere he is the equal of the lowest.

And the man whose hand has made.this wondrous organisation, what of him? Let us say at once that the old fables of his self-seeking, his personal ambition, his insincerity, have ceased to exist. No one not genuinely in earnest could have done his work ; and as for his ambition, the personal power that has come to him has come largely against 'his wish, and wa.s mode inevitable if his work Mas to be carried on. A masterful man, with one great ambition— to spiead what to him 's the one important thing in the world. A man of enormous vitality, he will travel thousands of miles and give four discourses in one day immediately on his arrival at his destination. A man of persistent industry, he rise's very early and works — writes, travels, talk 1 -— practically without break all day long. A man of simple tastes, his food is spare and of the simplest— of luxuiies and of amusement he knows nothing. Latterly a man of great sorrows. When the body of his wife, drawn on a gun-carriage draped with the Army flag, on which lay her bonnet and her Bible, was can led to Abney Park Cemetery the light went out of his life. The stoicism of his creed broke down for a moment. "Theie has been taken away from me the delight of mine eyes, the inspiration of my soul. I have never turned from her these forty years for any journeyings on my mission of mercy but I have longed to get back, and have counted, the weeks, the "days, and the hours which should take me again to her side. When she has gone away irom me it has been just the same. And now she has gone away for the last time. What, then, is there left for me to doV"

He lias worked on ; but since tlie death of the mother one and another of the eight children, all of whom were' dedicated to the Army, have left the organisation, and each sepaiation has been a very terrible blow to the old man. The last was perhaps the worst — the secession of Mrs Booth-Clibborn, who, as "La Marechale,'' carried the Aimy war into Paris. With it all, his work is his life, and, like the Hebrew prophets he so much icsemble.% he can "look m the travail of his soul and ba satisfied." Whether or not one likes his methods, he has served his generation well, and thousands cf decent lives and thousands of clean, happy homes &tand as his monument.