The
Life of General William Booth
Vol. 2- Chaper 1 ~ 1882
Contents
A CRITICAL YEAR
BEFORE
proceeding to describe the violent opposition which set itself to destroy
the Salvation Army in the ‘eighties, it is well to bear in mind
that William Booth was not only supported at this period by wealthy enthusiasts
like Mr. Samuel Morley and Mr. T. A. Denny, but that he was encouraged
by public men so eminent as Ruskin and Bright.
In May of 1882 John Bright replied from the House of Commons to a letter
addressed to him by Mrs. Booth, in the following terms:
DEAR
MADAM — I gave your letter to Sir W. Harcourt. He had already given
his opinion in the House of Commons, which will be to some extent satisfactory
to you. I hope the language of Lord Coleridge and the Home Secretary will
have some effect on the foolish and unjust magistrates to whom, in some
districts, the administration of the law is, unfortunately, committed.
I suspect that your good work will not suffer materially from the ill-treatment
you are meeting with. The people who mob you would doubtless have mobbed
the Apostles. Your faith and patience will prevail.— I am, with
great respect and sympathy, yours sincerely, JOHN BRIGHT.
Archbishop
Tait and Lord Coleridge championed the Salvation Army in the House of
Lords; Lord and Lady Cairns gave it their earnest support; Mr. W. I. Stead,
who had come from editing The Northern Echo in Darlington to assist Mr.
John Morley on the staff of The Pall Mall Gazette, seized every opportunity
in his power to defend the crusade of the Army; Mrs. Josephine Butler
was also a warm friend and a bold ally of the Salvationists — writing
to Mrs. Booth, “there is not a day, scarcely an hour, in which I
do not think of you and your fellow-workers”; Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop
of Durham, nobly declared: “Whatever may be its faults, it has at
least recalled us to this lost ideal of the work of the Church —
the universal compulsion of the souls of men.”
And among people in society those at least were not actively antagonistic
who had reflected upon Mrs. Booth’s question as to whether it were
better to face the masses with the Gospel or the sword.
At this time, then, the work of the Booths was beginning to be recognised
by a few great and powerful people as a work that deserved well of the
public. But the opinion of the country as a whole was apparently against
the Army, and the opposition of the Churches, the publicans, and the mob
only tended to increase with the rapid growth of the movement.
Perhaps the worst of the riots was that which occurred at Sheffield this
year, when a procession led by General and Mrs. Booth was attacked by
a numerous and savage multitude armed with sticks and stones.
The procession arrived at its destination with bruised and bleeding faces,
with torn and mud-bespattered garments, cheering the General who had passed
unscathed through the rabble. “Now’s the time,” he said,
regarding his ragged, wounded, and excited followers, “to get your
photographs taken.” A graphic account of this disturbance appeared
in The Times.
Riots occurred at Bath, Guildford, Arbroath, Forfar, and many other places.
In twelve months, it is recorded, 669 Salvationists, of whom 251 were
women, were “knocked down, kicked, or brutally assaulted.”
Fifty-six buildings of the Army were stormed and partially wrecked. Eighty-six
Salvationists, fifteen of them women, were thrown into prison. From one
end of the Kingdom to the other, this effort to break up the Army was
carried on in a most shameless fashion under the very eyes of the law,
the mob attacking the Salvationists. the police arresting the Salvationists,
the magistrates sentencing the Salvationists. But those persecutions failed
to damp the courage of the Salvationists, and only tended to swell the
ranks of the Army.
As many as 30,000 people assembled to welcome one Salvationist’s
release from prison. Converts came in by hundreds, many of them the roughest
of the rough, and many of the worst won by women who faced public-house
mobs to effect their rescue. If the Salvationists suffered, the Salvation
Army grew; and William Booth, watching the movement, came to think at
last that he had evoked a spirit which would influence the world.
Some of the best friends of the Army were, however, disturbed from time
to time by its excesses, or by some sign on its part of what they took
to be narrowness and uncharitableness. Mr. W. T. Stead, for instance,
addressed an interesting reproof to Commissioner Railton on the latter
score, writing from the offices of The Pall .Mall Gazette on Febuary 15,
1882:
I
am glad to hear from you. The Bolton affair I had noticed in the Manchester
papers. They say you marched through the Catholic quarter in an aggressive
fashion and got your heads broken. I fear Mr. Morley will not be inclined
to protest in this case, for the question of Protestant versus Catholic
comes in.
I have read your account of your visit to the Russian Church with much
interest not unmixed with some regret. I have so often had to defend the
Salvation Army from precisely the charges you bring against the Russian
Church, and that to Russians themselves, that I confess I had hoped you
would have been more sympathetic, not to say charitable.
My dear Mr. Railton, do remember that you do not understand Slavonic,
that what to you was mummery is to a hundred millions of men, women, and
children rich with all the associations of a faith cradled at Bethlehem
and glorified at Calvary, and that an intelligent foreigner witnessing
the excited services of the Army — say at an All-Night — might
retort upon you with effect if he were unable to understand what was said.
. .
Public
feeling at the same time was manifesting a rigorous disapproval. From
all over the country protests were issued against the processions, the
bands, and the too lively spirit of the Army.
A report in The War Cry of March 23, 1882, shows how the question was
brought before the House of Commons:
The
other day a certain Member of Parliament . . . thought proper, we hope
at the suggestion of others, to give notice —
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention
has been called to the performances of a so-called religious body, entitled
the “Salvation Army.”
And whether he will issue special instructions to the local magistrates
to suppress the street processions of this body, processions which have
caused, and are likely to cause, serious rioting, which tend also to create
gross profanity; and which have been the means of greatly disturbing the
peace and quiet of respectable citizens.
Doubtless, a good deal to his surprise, four other members immediately
put on the order-list six questions looking all the other way, and of
which the following were the most interesting:
Mr. Mason (Member for Ashton-under-Lyne) .— To ask the Secretary
of State for the Home Department if he will be so good as to devise some
means of protection from mob-ruffianism and occasional magisterial weakness
for the loyal and law-abiding people called the “Salvation Army,”
who are endeavouring to rescue from vice and crime the very dregs of the
population not hitherto cared for by the greatest religious organizations
of the country.
Mr. Caine (Member for Scarboro’).—To ask the Secretary of
State for the Home Department if he has received a Memorial, accompanied
by sworn information, from several of the leading tradesmen of Basingstoke,
with regard to the riots which have taken place in that town recently,
and at recurring intervals during the last twelve months, caused by the
persistent efforts of an organized gang of roughs to suppress by violence
and intimidation the processions and meetings of a religious body known
as the “Salvation Army.”
Whether he has instituted any inquiry, with a view of ascertaining the
names or positions of those who are well known to be the ringleaders of
this dangerous mob:
And, if he will take prompt and immediate steps to secure for the “Salvation
Army” that protection from injury arid outrage which the magistrates
and police of Basingstoke do not afford them.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention
has been called to a paragraph in The Daily News of yesterday, headed
“Uproarious Meeting at Basingstoke,” describing a meeting
held by Mr. Arch in that town, in the Corn Exchange, to consider the question
of the agricultural labourer.
It states that “the room was occupied before the proceedings commenced
by a gang of roughs. Mr. Arch attempted to speak, but was refused a hearing,
and was pelted with rotten eggs and ochre. Mr. Mitchell shared the same
fate. After an hour and a half had been vainly spent in endeavouring to
obtain quietude, the meeting was brought to an end amid much uproar.”
Whether the authorities of Basingstoke were aware that this meeting was
broken up by the same organized gang whose violence towards the members
of the Salvation Army has more than once been the subject of Parliamentary
inquiry:
And, if the Home Office will take the matter into immediate consideration.
Mr. M’Laren (Member for Stafford).— To ask the Secretary of
State for the Home Department if he is aware that a young man is being
prosecuted in the City of London for selling a religious periodical called
The War Cry in the streets.
And, whether he is prepared to direct the prosecution also of the persons
who habitually obstruct the streets of London by offering for sale the
indecent periodicals, with offensive contents bills, which have been hawked
in public for the last nine months without any interference on the part
of the police.
Sir Wilfred Lawson (Member for Carlisle).—To ask the Secretary of
State for the Home Department, whether it is true that, on September 21,
1881, ten of the Basingstoke roughs were released from Winchester Gaol,
where they had been suffering a fortnight’s imprisonment for attacks
on the Salvation Army.
Whether they were brought home to Basingstoke in a carriage-and-four,
escorted by outriders in fancy costumes, and accompanied by their supporters
— the brewers and publicans of Basingstoke.
Whether in the evening, a banquet was given to the released prisoners
in the Corn Exchange, which was granted for the purpose by the Corporation,
the proceedings being wound up by a free fight, in which the police were
powerless.
And, whether any communication has been made from the Home Office to the
authorities of Basingstoke, with a view to a better preservation of order.
The reply of the Home Secretary, though lengthy, did not contain very much information. But two practical sentences should command universal attention:
“It
is not in my power to compel the magistrates to do what they don’t
see fit to do. If they don’t preserve the peace they are liable
to a criminal information for not preserving the peace. (Hear, hear.)
I cannot, as I am at present situated, issue any instructions to the magistrates.
If I am asked for an opinion I am bound to give it. I may say that those
people cannot be too strongly condemned who attack persons who are only
meeting for a lawful, and I may say laudable, object.”
The right honourable gentleman showed a lamentable want of information
to exist at the Home Office when he said that the famous proclamation
at Basingstoke had produced peace, and its withdrawal renewed rioting,
whereas the said proclamation is posted up in Basingstoke to this very
day, and the rioting was never affected by it in the least, nor peace
in any degree restored to the town, till the magistrates, the other day,
wisely decided to protect us in processioning as if there had been no
such proclamation!
We notice, with pleasure, that Mr. Sclater Booth, Member for that part
of the county, corrected with a “No” one misstatement as to
Basingstoke. There was also a repetition of the old story as to Stamford,
corrected at the time it first arose by so many papers. We have no Station
at Stamford to this hour.
No wonder that honourable gentlemen were not satisfied with the replies
made, and gave notice to move again in the matter at a later date! We
hope that all parties concerned will take timely warning by all this,
and act as the Basingstoke bench has now done, seeing that we have now,
thank God, got friends in high places, who are determined that we shall
be no longer abandoned either to the “mob-ruffianism,” or
to the “magisterial weakness,” as to which the Home Office
has been left, it would seem, so much in the dark.
In the following month an absurd attack upon General Booth appeared in The Times. The writer was a Wesleyan minister. In a leading article, which was not unkind to General Booth, The Times administered an elegant chastisement to its correspondent: —
Most interesting is it to notice how soon ivy, lichen, and moss can throw the honours of time on the congregations of yesterday. His complaint is that the Salvation Army not only takes a line antagonistic to all the Churches, but has the audacity to act as a permanent institution, acquiring money, houses. arid land, as well as a despotic organization.
A month after this discussion in the House of Commons, General Booth received the following cordial and encouraging letter from the Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson):
BISHOPTHORPE,
YORK,
April 18, 1882.
SIR — Some of my clergy have written to me to beg that I would ascertain
how far it was possible for the Church to recognise the work of the Salvation
Army as helping forward the cause of Christ consistently with our discipline.
For this purpose they asked me to put myself into communication with your
Leaders. I now, in compliance with their request, address you with this
friendly object.
In two at least of the Churches of this diocese bodies of the Salvation
Army have been admitted to Holy Communion at their request; and nothing
has occurred on those occasions to hinder a compliance with like requests
in future.
What I would ask of you, Sir, is that you would refer me to some document
in which the principles of the Army are stated concisely and clearly,
as the clergy would thus be enabled to judge for themselves.
Any remarks which you are good enough to add will receive my best attention.
Some of us think that you are able to reach cases, and to do so effectually,
which we have great difficulty in touching. They believe that you are
moved by zeal for God and not by a spirit of rivalry with the
Church
or any other agency for good, and they wish not to find themselves in
needless antagonism with any in whom such principles and purposes prevail.—
Wishing you every blessing, I am yours faithfully, W. EBOR.
William Booth, Esq.,
General of the Salvation Army.
An
event which marked an epoch in the history of the Salvation Army occurred
in June of this year. There was a very notorious public-house in London
called The Eagle, to which gardens and a theatre were attached, the tavern
having its main entrance in the City Road, the gardens and the theatre
facing a side-street known as Shepherdess Walk. This place was sufficiently
notorious to inspire a comic song which became popular in the music-halls,
the jaunty chorus of which was sung by many people wholly unaware of the
true character of the tavern.
Up and down the City Road,
in and out the Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop goes the weasel.
In truth the tavern was a sink of iniquity. Drunkenness was perhaps the
least of its vices. The gardens at night, with their rustic arbours, were
a scene of the most flagrant immorality, and thither flocked some of the
very worst characters of the town.
This corner of Shepherdess Walk was indeed a meeting-place for all that
was most base and shameless in the London of those days; and although
the scandal of it had attracted attention, and although complaints about
its challenging debauchery had been made again and again, nothing was
done by authority either to end or to abate this abominable disgrace.
William Booth, on learning in 1882 that the premises were for sale, made
up his mind that this scandal should be put a stop to, and he determined
to stop it in a very characteristic way. He planned to purchase an assignment
of the underlease from its holder, and to convert it into a religious
meeting-place.
Thus he would not only destroy a work of the devil, but out of that destruction
build a temple to God. He saw the opportunity of publicly challenging
the conscience of London, of forcing London to confront the degradation
of sin; and with great zest he flung himself into this crusade —
the beginning of a new offensive on the part of religious morality.
It was necessary, of course, to proceed with caution, and no hint was
given in the negotiations that the purchaser was the Salvation Army. The
purchase price was agreed upon at £16,750, and it is interesting
to know that out of some £9,000 subscribed towards this sum no fewer
than £3,000 were given by the poor Soldiers of the Salvation Army,
who only a few weeks before had subscribed handsomely towards the new
Training Home at Clapton.
Queen Victoria gave her sympathy to this movement, the Archbishop of Canterbury
subscribed the first £5 towards the purchasing fund, and among other
of William Booth’s well-known supporters was the Rector of St. Botolph’s,
Bishopsgate —“Hang-Theology” Rogers. The money was raised,
the underlease of the tavern, with its gardens, its music-hall, and its
Grecian theatre, was purchased, and William Booth took triumphant possession
of the property.
But no sooner had the conversion been made than such a storm broke upon
him as we in these days can scarcely imagine.
“Up with the Lark to capture the Eagle,” the Salvationists
marched in force on the first day, singing hymns of triumph. But their
progress was disputed, something like a riot occurred, and the police
had to intervene in great numbers.
The contest was only the beginning of a stern fight. Howling mobs besieged
the place by day and by night, the worst pimps and crimps of London stormed
it, drunken and savage gangs armed with sticks and stones assailed it;
for some months the place had to be guarded by police, on many occasions
with drawn truncheons.
William Booth was many times in grave danger of his life. Once he would
have surely been torn to pieces by the savage mob but for one of his staff
and a friendly workman who enabled him to escape over a garden wall —
the workman remarking that he was not religious, but he believed in the
work William Booth was doing for the poor.
Close on the heels of their mobbing came legal actions. William Booth
had inspired the enmity of a very powerful trade, and the whole machinery
of the law was set in motion to crush him. If such a man were allowed
a free hand what would become of our liquor interests, of our British
workman’s right to get drunk as often as he pleased? Clearly such
a fighter must be fought.
The legal dispute turned on the question whether a man could hold licensed
premises without offering alcoholic drink for sale, and a great deal was
made of the meaning of the words “ inn,” “tavern,”
and “public-house.” It was first decided in the Court of Chancery
that William Booth had taken an assignment of an underlease of a public-house,
and must be restrained from any breach of its covenants which would imperil
its existence as licensed premises.
One of the judges said that by his letters to the newspapers he had given
rise to the supposition that he intended to use the Eagle Tavern in a
way which would be a breach of the covenant, “but his subsequent
affidavit showed that this was not his intention.”
The action was decided therefore in favour of the Army. But the ground
landlords, who were trustees of an East End parish, raised the question
in another form by means of an action in the Court of Queen’s Bench,
and there the liquor interest won the day. For a time, in order to fight
his case, the General had stood a pot of ale on the counter of The Eagle,
but this was much against his will and was finally abandoned.
The Salvation Army historian remarks of this final judgment: “Not
content with condemning us to hand over the entire property, for which
£20,000 had been paid, that it might become what it had been before,
the judge, who had said, after hearing all the evidence, that ‘he
had seen nothing in the case as it came before the Court to lead him to
think that Mr. Booth was wanting in good faith,’ thought proper
to make reflections upon the General’s action which were so reported
and commented upon as undoubtedly to make a very bad impression on many
minds.”
Nothing was said of William Booth’s effort to pluck this cancer
out of London’s life, but a great deal was said of the judge’s
remark that he had not been quite frank in making his purchase.
We shall see later on how Professor Huxley made use of this judicial stricture,
tearing it from its context, to discredit William Booth in the public
estimation, a course of conduct thoroughly unworthy of so honest a man
and so able a controversialist.
But what must strike most people at this distance of time is the fact
that in a fight for public morality so gallant and so desperate William
Booth should have been unsupported by the whole organized force of righteousness.
The very fact, however, that it was to all intents and purposes a solitary
fight, shows clearly the need of that day for the awakening challenge
of the Salvation Army.
This event, as we have said, was epoch-making; and we may claim for it
that it did indeed mark a new offensive on the part of religion. Other
men before William Booth had attacked public evils, but it was his particular
merit that somehow or another he always roused the national conscience
and gave fresh courage to the rather timid and passive forces of religion.
The case of The Eagle was a step on the road to his tremendous challenge
in the name of the submerged tenth.
Later in the same year, General Booth’s work attracting more and
more attention, a committee was appointed by the Upper House of Convocation
to consider the possibility of an alliance with the Salvation Army. This
committee consisted of Dr. Benson, then Bishop of Truro; Canon Westcott,
Canon Wilkinson, and the Rev. Randall J. Davidson.
A real desire was manifested on this occasion to bring the Army under
the wing of the Anglican Church, but the difficulties of any such union,
from the Salvation Army’s point of view, were considered to be so
great that the effort was eventually abandoned.
General Booth made certain concessions. He was willing, says Mr. Booth-Tucker,
“for the two organizations to run side by side like two rivers with
bridges thrown across, over which the members could mutually pass and
repass; nor did he object to the Corps marching at stated intervals to
Church”; but the Army could not submit to the authority of the Church,
nor could it abandon its central position concerning the primacy of conversion,
nor give up its now firmly established conviction that the catholic sacraments
were not necessary to salvation.
During this year, too, the Salvation Army had spread to Switzerland, Sweden,
India, and Canada; it had already established itself in the United States
of America, in Australasia, and in France. William Booth was now not merely
the head of an unsectarian mission society in England, hut the General
of an Army which looked like spreading its influence to all parts of the
world.
He could not, it will readily be seen, attach this great and growing force
to the national Church without in some measure paralysing its foreign
legions. But his relations with Dr. Benson remained of a friendly character,
and when the Bishop was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury he wrote to
him in the following terms:
January 5, 1883.
MY LORD — I think you should know sufficient of me as well as of
this Army to accept with the utmost assurance of its heartfelt sincerity
this expression of the great satisfaction and thankfulness to God with
which we have heard of your Lordship’s appointment to the Primacy.
Although we are no more likely to admire all the plans adopted by others
than to have our own generally admired, we cannot but look forward with
pleasure to the prospect of that long career of determined spiritual activity
to which we trust God will spare you.
We shall prove the groundlessness of all the fears that have been expressed
as to our becoming sectarian by the heartiness with which we shall hail
every fresh advance against the common enemy by all true godly men.
We have held back our notes on the list of queries with regard to the
Army sent to the Clergy, thinking it improbable that the Committee would
endeavour to complete their report much before the reassembling of Convocation.
Our Annual Report, of which we send a copy herewith, does in part reply,
but of course every week’s progress very materially affects our
position.
We have only this very week, for instance, heard of our first services
attended by blessed success in Sweden and Switzerland. The multiplication
of these foreign extensions will, we think, greatly widen the sphere of
our usefulness in this country by delivering us from any narrow grooves
of thought and by promoting amongst persons of education those ideas of
world-wide aggression for Christ with which it is admitted that we have
imbued so many thousands of poor.
It would be quite out of place for me to make any suggestions as to the
future of the Church in its purely ecclesiastical capacity, though it
might well be congratulated upon the prospect of a general extension of
recent progress in Cornwall.
But we cannot but regard the elevation of your Lordship to the See of
Canterbury at this time as an invaluable sign of the quickening of the
nation’s conscience and as an indication that the Church, in its
larger national character, is about to enter upon an era of greater activity
and more practical sympathy with all soul-saving efforts than it has ever
yet known.
Should an opportunity arise for public demonstration on our side of heart-felt
sympathy with your Grace in this grand purpose we shall be pleased to
avail ourselves of it, but whether in public or in private be assured
that our prayers on your behalf shall go up to God, and that we shall
rejoice with you over every victory won for God.— I am, my Lord,
yours most faithfully, (Signed) WILLIAM BOOTH.
The Bishop of Truro.
Unhappily their friendly relations were not destined to continue without interruption. A few months after the writing of this letter a charge of a most serious character was brought against the Salvation Army by the Bishops of Oxford and Hereford.