ON THE THRESHOLD
OF THE PICTURESQUE PERIOD

 

SELDOM without friends, and never without enemies, William Booth arrived with the new century not only on the frontier of old age but at the gateway of a very wide popularity. We may describe him from now onwards as living in this world’s sunshine. He had become a patriarch, and one of the most picturesque of patriarchs. His romantic figure was known to nearly all the nations of the earth. His work was recognized in nearly every land as the work of one honestly inspired by love for humanity. He ceased to be an object of scorn. He became a hero of the world.

His appearance at this time was striking to the point of the dramatic. Tall and attenuated, with slightly stooping shoulders, the frail body of the man would have seemed almost feeble but for the vigour and distinction of the strong head. His hair, which was snow-white, grew long and was brushed carelessly, standing up from the brow and falling backward to the neck and ears. His face was almost bloodless in its pallor. The rather small eyes, under dark and restless eyebrows, had the brightness of beads. The lower part of his face was covered by moustache and beard as white as his hair. It seemed as if he were a figure carved out of chalk.

In repose, he was like a tired man who observes and reflects between spells of nodding sleep; but in action, with his thin arms raised above his head, his eyes blazing, and his powerful voice hurling out his thoughts, he was like a prophet. For myself, I loved the man most in repose, when his gentleness and tenderness and even sweetness gave a singular beauty to the old and rugged face; and I think this expression of his spirit is visible in the famous photograph which appears as the frontispiece of our book, a photograph which the whole Army seized upon at once as the truest likeness of their General, and perhaps as an emblem of the Army.

In that face one can see how the spirit was bowed down by the sorrows and sufferings of humanity. There is nothing there of the thundering preacher or the vigorous “showman” or the burning prophet, but only the infinite compassion of an old man for a world which is unhappy, a world for which he has given all his days.

His tours were now events of considerable importance. Instead of encountering hordes of howling roughs in the manufacturing towns of England, he found himself welcomed in the capitals of the world by monarchs, statesmen, and the heads of churches as well as by the multitude. Some of these tours resembled a royal progress. The streets of cities were hung with flags, bands played their welcome, civic dignitaries in robes of state greeted him on arrival, and immense multitudes of people thronged about him shouting an affectionate acclamation.

Moreover, he was seriously consulted by statesmen concerning the problem which affects all countries, the problem of poverty, a problem which exists under so many and various forms of government, that this circumstance alone should convince intelligent people of a spiritual rather than a mechanistic cause. In all the countries he visited, William Booth was asked by kings, governors, or politicians what he would recommend them to do for the alleviation of human suffering and the removal of poverty. He had become an authority on the weakness and miseries of mortality.

During these wonderful campaigns he remained as humbly and usefully active as ever with his pen. A secretary records on one journey that after meetings and receptions of a most exhausting character he would work at his “Children’s Catechism.”

Very earnest about Catechism, which he considered would be of immense value to the Army in the future — spent much time on it.

Then such a reference to doctrinal matters as that which follows, shows how watchful the General was of the Army’s spiritual life:

Conference at tea-table . . . about the Doctrinal Question in Norway. General said that the time had now come when the Army must take a definite stand in Norway, and that Officers who had difficulties about Doctrine must not give expression to them publicly, or in any way that would injure the faith of others.

We find, too, an amusing entry by his Secretary like this:

Worked all the morning on his article for the Sunday Strand, which he considers is a paper differing from the weekly papers in so far as it proposes to amuse people on the way to Hell on Sunday instead of on week-days.

References to the Boer War are not very numerous in his diaries, but we know from other sources that the General regarded this conflict with horror, and felt in particular the enmity which it aroused against England in almost every part of the world. The following entries occur in the Secretary’s diary, which records a visit to Berlin:

Awful news in the streets with regard to the Transvaal War. Rumours that Buller is murdered. Weighs very heavily on the dear General’s mind. Seems very distressed.
Very much perturbed with news of disaster to British Arms at Ladysmith. Says it is going to be an awful business, and grieves over the possible shooting of Salvationists by each other.

He is mortified by

. . . the Continental spirit which seems to gloat over any news that it can get Concerning British disasters.

It was not only the dreadful and inhuman hatreds roused by war which distressed William Booth. The moral earnestness which it occasions always seemed to him a waste of the human spirit. He saw with bewilderment and pain a nation which tolerates sin and suffering in its own midst roused by war to an almost incredible condition of moral energy and spiritual enthusiasm. Why, he asked himself, would not people give to the war against evil – which is the root cause of poverty and pain — something of this same energy and enthusiasm
During the Boer War he visited Paris, where, just then, Englishmen were far from being popular, and conducted Salvation meetings on his own lines:

Before coming to his text he spoke for a few moments on the work of the Army, and made a very great impression upon the crowd, which was composed of about 700 people, most of them intelligent and a few influential. The General, in spite of suggestions that had been made to him as to the fastidious nature of the Parisian audiences, launched out in the same fashion and spoke the same plain unvarnished Gospel truth that he would do in a British audience. A little apprehension was felt at first as to the result, but the audience accepted it and went down before it; for a long time we had to wait for the first soul, but at last it came, and we finished up with 18 at the Mercy-Seat. There were two or three very remarkable cases amongst them. This is the first time that a penitent-form has been introduced in any (secular) Public Hall in Paris.

That he was absorbed in his spiritual work, and that neither great public events nor his own international popularity had power to deflect this main direction of his soul, may be gathered from the following very simple entries in his journals:

We were startled last night by the news of the death of Colonel Pepper. He was in the Crimean War, but for the last thirty years has been in the Salvation War. He was a loyal, devoted soldier of Jesus Christ. Travelling with his devoted wife throughout Great Britain wherever it was thought they could be useful.

One of the characteristics of the Colonel was his War Cry Booming. Every Saturday in the Restaurants — Public Houses — Market Places — Open Air — everywhere, he was to be seen pushing his Cry.

His translation has been sudden. Well and at work Sunday — attacked by a shivering fit on Monday — and in Heaven on Thursday morning.
His dear wife has written for an out-and-out funeral, and requests that an Officer who will understand making the event a blessing to the City may be sent down for that purpose.

Had special Soldiers’ Meeting at night in Templ-: and 74 souls, including a man who threatened to knock the Commissioner to pieces if he did not let him in; but he didn’t do that, he got saved instead.
One man, who had travelled 51 miles on his bicycle to get saved, came out to the Penitent-Form, being almost the last.

One young man leapt from the Gallery behind to the platform, and hurt himself, in order to be saved.
Quite a number of young men came out completely drunk. One would have thought they would not have known what they were doing, but for the fact that they were at the meetings on the following day testifying and praising God.

The Secretary writes elsewhere:

A Jewess got to the penitent-form. Had been attending our Halls for five years. Frequently used to curse the name of Christ aloud and disturb the meetings. Perspiration rolled down her, and yet she was as cold as ice,

In the evening the meeting was much more hopeful, and 23 came out. Michael Baxter was again present, and was very much impressed. He made Commissioner Howard a promise of £100. One of the converts was a girl who confessed to having murdered her child. She came to the Mercy-Seat to make her peace with God, and in the morning is to go to the Police and give herself up.

The night meeting was a wonderful time. The power of the Holy Ghost clothed the General, and his sermon, “This year thou shalt die,” riveted the attention of all to the need of being saved at once. 88 came forward to the Penitent-Form.

The first to come this afternoon was a man who is called out for the Reserve to go to S. Africa in connection with the war. He wanted to be saved before he started. May God keep him, and if he dies take him to Heaven.

Another interesting incident was a Salvation Soldier walking 6 miles to obtain the General’s blessing before he went to South Africa. He too had been called out to go and fight. The General saw him, gave him his blessing and kissed him, the Soldiers standing at attention all the time. When he got outside into the passage he cried with emotion. In the evening he was on the platform weeping, laughing, and clapping his hands over the sinners coming to repentance.

Later we heard that a Band Sergeant who was playing his instrument in the meetings to-day died at 3 o’clock the next morning.

Then we get William Booth himself:

Some years ago I was preaching at Linkopping in Sweden. The night was warm and the windows were wide open. Altho’ everything was very quiet the power of God was upon the people. One man was so deeply convicted that he rose up and leapt out of the window, and ran four miles away and then ran four miles back. I had left, but the Soldiers were still praying with some convicted people. This young man made straight for the penitent-form and found salvation. His career since has been one of almost uninterrupted success, his last victory being a powerful Revival at Eskilstuna where the _____ Movement has been like a blight on the people. They doubled the Corps, and now in the height of summer he has four meetings a day.

I have just promised to visit Wigan Sunday week, and in talking about it Brigadier Kitching has been telling me a good story. When opened, the girl Captain found it difficult to get any attention either out-door or in to her message. They treated her with indifference, if not with contempt. She was determined, however, not to sit down with this sort of neglect, so she hit on the following device. Wigan is full of Colliers, Iron Workmen, and the like, many of whom are not a little given to dog-racing.

So one day the Captain walked down one of the main streets with a dog under each arm, announcing as she went along that she was going to race these, and would start them off from the corner of a certain street. It can readily be believed that a large number of the doggy part of the community gathered to witness the event — before whom she started off the dogs, which made their way to their homes from which she had borrowed them, to the best of their ability; and then turning to the crowd she quietly gave out the first song. . .

Stories of this nature are now and again interrupted by such an entry as the following:

Mr. Stead has written a short life of Mrs. Booth which the Chief of the Staff considers clever and bright and will do us good. It has some wretched flaws in it. For example, he tried to make out that my dear wife had some sort of sympathy with spiritualists, and there are other matters equally absurd. The Chief is going to alter this — if he can.

Then we have the industrious Secretary:

The crowds that waited outside for the General to pass were immense, and most enthusiastic. One old woman — a Salvationist — shouted out in the afternoon as the General was walking, “Give us a kiss. General.” Nothing loath, he did so. Roars of cheering.

Breakfast with ... a Wesleyan Minister . . . proved a very interesting fellow, if misguided. General talked with him on the state of the world, which the parson thought was delightful. He says that taken as a whole the world is turning round towards God. The General, who does not think this by any means, gave him his mind.

 

Top

Then the General writes himself: -

Bramwell came in with a telegram announcing the death of Commissioner Dowdle. Having been on the sick list so long, and so frequently at the gates of death, we could not be very much surprised.

Still I could not help being much impressed. He was my oldest living Officer, it being 27 years since he entered the field. Loyalty itself; I cannot call to mind a single instance in which he has been other than faithful to what he has believed to be my wishes in thought, word, or deed. He loved God, and delighted in the Salvation of the worst, and was successful all the way thro’ his career in bringing men and women to the Cross. He is gone. I shall miss him. I loved him, and he loved me.

The proximity of Christmas, I fancy, may have something to do with slackness in the crowds and the holding back from the Mercy-Seat; indeed, some of the sinners frankly avowed that they were in for a “Happy Christmas.” Being converted, they thought, would interfere with that.

The Secretary writes in Paris of a meeting with a Russian Prince:

The audience in the afternoon was not as large as was expected. Prince Ouchtomsky with his wife and boy were present. He is a prominent man in Russia, and used to be the Private Secretary of the present Czar when he was Czarevitch. They were both very much impressed, the lady weeping, and the Prince had an interview with the General at the close of the meeting. He goes to Pekin on Monday as the Russian Ambassador of Peace.

And then comes contrast:

I spoke to one or two, amongst whom was Fiddler Joe, who has four businesses at Keighley, and who promised to sell out and to start in a more honourable calling. He is at present a Game Dealer, and has to tell so many lies.

The Secretary writes at Nottingham:

Since the General was last here there have been two or three rather serious scandals. . . At night, however, there was a great smash and 90 souls came to the penitent-form, prominent amongst whom was the General’s surviving sister and a niece, which gave the General great joy.

After giving the name and address of each person with whom the General stayed on his campaigns, the Secretary says, “It all has been perfectly comfortable. The General would not object to being billeted there again,” as a guide in future arrangements.

It is interesting to notice that whereas he billets with royalty or court officials when he is abroad, it is usually with far humbler people — and this by his own choice —that he stays when he is in Great Britain. We frequently hear that his tradesman host is kind, intelligent, or instructive; it is very rarely that the celebrities are treated as anything but nonentities. Because his hostess is a Princess, it does not occur to him to describe her; but if these people appeal to him as interesting on religious grounds he will pay as much attention to them as to the Wesleyan grocer. On one of his continental campaigns, in the summer of 1901, for instance, we read:

My host . . . has a fine large house. I believe the lady is truly religious, although her religion is not of a very distinctive or soul-satisfying type. In a conversation she has been telling me of some of her difficulties, the chief of which is that her elder children are all in the world and she expects the others to follow them. The eldest daughter is married to a worldly man, and she is afraid, I can plainly see, that she will go off from God altogether.

She says that although she herself was converted 20 years ago, she dare not force religion on the young people, lest they should grow up to hate it, which more than one of them has done, and that bitterly.
This seemed a strange confession of the unloveableness of the kind of religion possessed, or the inconsistency of the professors of it, and I am not certain which it was.

She wants my counsel. What can she do? She sees and confesses that it is the worldliness 0f everybody around her that is the ruin of her children as they grow up and become acquainted with it, and yet she does not see her duty to come out from it.

She says, “I pray God will bring my husband out of his connexion with the Court, but I do not see what else I can do. I go to the Court Festivals for his sake, but I don’t take part in them; I go to the Court Ball, but I don’t dance. I did before I was converted.”
Poor thing, I am sorry for her: if she were to act up to her convictions and throw up all and join the Salvation Army everybody would call her mad; but I don’t see any other way of escape.

He remarks with dignity later on:

The daughter of ex-President General Grant was present, they tell me, afternoon and night, and sent her love to me: at least, that is how her n-message was delivered; I suppose she desired to send me her respects. I hope she was benefited.

It was of this campaign that he wrote the following description of his travels, and the human means which helped him to sustain them:

It has been a trying campaign in consequence of the severe heat; still I cannot say that I am conscious of being particularly worn down, although in the 28 1/2 days I have been away I have travelled 150 hours, written five articles for the press, and done a heavy correspondence and delivered 47 long addresses, sometimes talking for an hour and a half at a time, and sometimes longer than that. For an old man of 72, not strong at the strongest, I think this affords matter for thanksgiving, and for satisfaction with the new system of diet I have now been using for the last six months.

Later the Secretary writes of this new diet:

The General had mighty freedom in talking, which he attributes partly to the new dieting he is going in for. He says it leaves his throat and chest and stomach absolutely free, and being free and airy he is able to think and talk with mighty effect.

Every now and then one comes across references to the difficulty of stage management:

The Band could not play as the Bandmaster was so nervous.

The General spoke on “Remember Lot’s Wife,” and had a very powerful time, which would have been much more mighty but for the fact that some women were very frightened owing to the mice that were running about.

At night he carried everything before him, but was badly interrupted by a man going into a fit in the gallery. He had twined his feet and arms round two forms, and although Major Cox and six men tried to move him it was found to be impossible. The General had to struggle all through this ferment of excitement.

Very occasionally the General indulges in sight-seeing, as at Milan:

. . . had a look at the Cathedral, which is said to be one of the seven wonders of the world. A confirmation service with a Cardinal as the chief figure was in progress as we entered. Some 700 boys and girls were the subjects of the ceremony — all dressed in such attire as seemed to become the occasion — the girls especially were clothed in white muslin, laces, ribbons, and the like.

I suppose that to the Catholic mind this ordinance was very imposing; I cannot say that it impressed me very much. Everybody taking part in it from the Cardinal down to the little children appearing so self-conscious or rather so conscious, that they were doing (sic) and posing accordingly. I stood near to the Cardinal as he retired. He had an intelligent and benevolent face, still he looked rather bored by the crush of old ladies to kiss his hand and receive his blessing.

The Cathedral is a wonderful erection of human love and sacrifice and skill.

Occasionally he encounters a famous man whose conversation he thinks it worth while to record. His meeting with Lombroso, of which he makes the following note, must have been to him of a particular interest, for his sympathy with criminals has grown with the years, and he was always seeking some means, all over the world, of getting into gaols in order to minister to prisoners and captives. His interest in criminals was by no means only emotional; he was intellectually curious about their mentality, and believed that however twisted and deformed that mentality might be they had it in them to desire a better life and to respond to genuine affection:

When at Turin some few years ago Professor Lombroso, the Italian Criminalist, sought me out, and I had, through an interpreter, an interesting interview with him. He went to Yasnaia Poliana to study the old philosopher (Tolstoy), arid there seems to have been a veritable tussle between the two, while each was bent on converting the other to his views.

One of their battles royal was fought over an old lady living in the neighbourhood. She was dying of consumption, and the Toula Physicians were now only bent on making her last days easier. But the old lady refused to die, and having heard that her illustrious neighbour, Count Tolstoy, cured himself recently by means of a vegetable diet, she sent away her doctors, took to vegetarianism, and, according to Tolstoy, is now absolutely cured.

Lombroso, on the other hand, holds that her cure is “by hypnotic and religious suggestion”; and despite much eloquence on either side, both disputants “hold their own opinions still,” while the pleasing fact remains that a woman given up by her physicians as dying of tuberculosis is now in excellent health and spirits.

What astonished Professor Lombroso most, he says, was Tolstoy’s marvellous physical vigour. During the morning he played tennis two hours with his daughters, then he jumped on his horse and rode to a lake near by, where his guest rejoined him. The Italian savant is a good swimmer, but when he and his host had been in the water for a quarter of an hour, Lombroso had to confess himself beaten.

Next Tolstoy, in order to show that he was not exhausted, put his strong arms round Lombroso and lifted him up as if he were but a feather-weight. After a vegetarian luncheon, during which he ate enormous quantities of green stuff, the two went for a walk, and filled the rest of the afternoon with scientific discussions.

What a temptation to envy! Of himself he says: “I seem to become more and more sensitive to light and sound”; and constantly there is mention of sleepless, tortured nights, weariness, inability to face the huge task of meetings which must nevertheless be carried through.

Oh my Lord, You must help me or I shall never get through my part of the day’s duties.
I wish I were in better spirits. I must struggle into more faith by some means.

He is struck with the following lines, and copies them out:

Of this nature is the encouragement he gathers on his way:

Dr. Stalker, who is, I suppose, the most influential Presbyterian Minister in Glasgow, spoke at the close in a very flattering way of my performance, and paid dear Mamma some very high compliments, saying among other things that he regarded her as one of the greatest women of the century.

The Officers who came along with me kept us alive by distributing bills at the different Stations. Everybody seemed respectful, civil, and interested, and came in shoals to my carriage window. . . . Their curiosity was not the most agreeable, but being stared at is a part of the cross I have to carry.

Half amused and half disdainful, he quotes the following “silly story,” given him by his host, the Mayor of Congleton, a Methodist:

There was a meeting of Nonconformist ministers in Manchester recently, including “Ian Maclaren” and his assistant at Sefton Park. After the business for which they had been convened was finished, they agreed that each should tell a story. When it came to Dr. Watson’s assistant’s turn he begged off telling his story, as it was about the Doctor.

When Dr. Watson heard it was about himself he insisted, in the best of humour, on its being told. “I had a dream,” began the assistant minister, “that if I wished to go to heaven I must go up a flight of stairs and chalk my sins on each step as I went up. The further I went the more chalk was needed.

Continuing my progress upward, chalking each step as I went, I heard some one coming down. On looking up, much to my surprise, I found it was the Doctor. ‘Doctor,’ said I, ‘you are surely going the wrong way! Why are you going down?’ And the Doctor answered in a most lugubrious voice, ‘More chalk!’”

At the end of one of his journals we find the following entry, significant of his common sense and his aversion from fads, made on a loose sheet:

Four years ago . . . started off on the line of the Second Coming and Spiritual Revelation. They made themselves a uniform with the Inscription Jesus-is near. One of the number had a Revelation that was accepted by the others to the effect that a certain man was to cohabit with a certain woman, and that a son was to be born, who should be the Messiah of a New Age.

Accordingly the two came -together, the woman conceived, and as the result a son was born who was blind and deaf and dumb. Nothing abashed, however, the leader still continued his teaching, and as a sign of the credulity of simple people this split exists to the present day, although in a languishing condition.

And then again:

Let that which is of first importance in the estimation of God, and likely to most effectively promote the highest interests of men, at all costs and consequences, be first in all you think or speak or do. I stand pledged before Heaven and Earth and Hell, to go through with what is right and best for my fellows and my God, and by His grace I will be faithful to my vows.

Chapter 20

Contents

©2003, The Salvation Army, All Rights Reserved