The
Life of General William Booth
Vol.
2 ~ Chapter 6 ~ 1886-1887
Contents
IN
THE CHARACTER
OF PILGRIM FATHER
AT
the age of fifty-seven William Booth made his first visit to foreign countries.
Quite simply and naturally, by the emigration to the United States of
a Salvationist family, in the year 1879, the Army had planted itself on
American soil. Letters from the man arrived at Headquarters in London
describing the conditions of his new environment and pleading for support.
After some persuasion William Booth had agreed to send an experienced
Officer to report upon the situation, and the report being favourable
he had pushed the fortunes of the Army in America with energy and affection.
When, in 1886, he paid his first visit to the United States he found “238
Corps in the Union, under the leadership of 569 Officers, mostly Americans.”
His letters home during this period are chiefly concerned with Army news
— accounts of triumphal processions, large meetings, public receptions,
and extraordinary conversions. But every now and then the General gives
way to the Man, and we find him writing to his wife with the old passionate
love, telling her how deeply he longs for and how sadly he misses her,
or uttering to Bramwell some characteristic complaint about his circumstances
or his wardrobe. The main note of these letters, however, is one of almost
unbounded enthusiasm for the American continent. He writes to Bramwell
from Columbus, Ohio:
Good-bye!
I shall soon love this country. I am not sure that if there were to be
a quarrel between your herdmen and my herdrnen, as with Abraham and Lot,
and you were to have the choice of countries and you chose the Old One
— I am not sure — whether I should not very thankfully take
this, but we must have them both, anyhow we must have this!
I am delighted with the country and with the work and the people.
The New York papers had a report in the day before I landed that Miss
Charlesworth’s fortune was to be squandered to pay the debts of
the Army, etc., etc.
This I rectified, and garbled reports of the rectification have gone all
over the Continent. It is astonishing what an interest is felt in us at
every turn and at every corner of the farthest parts of this vast Continent.
What
a magnificent Continent this Canada is. With territory capable of maintaining,
some say, 500 millions of people, there are only about 5 millions in the
whole land, and yet our poor people are starving at home. I intend to
do something in the way of emigration yet worth naming.
. . . Here is a nation being made. The people are beautiful; so simple,
so thorough, so intelligent, and so full of zeal. We have more uniform
than in the Old Country, amid every way I am much encouraged.
. . . This has been a trying week, having to get into the way of things
and to meet so much expectation.
. . . We must pay attention to this country. We shall get a lot of splendid
Officers out of it. There is, I think, much more simplicity among the
people than in the Old Country, and consequently more steady piety among
the Officers.
Oh
how I did tremble again yesterday on the point that haunts me day and
night: “How to be equal to the opportunity?”
We must have some more Divisional Officers here. Push it on, Bramwell.
Look them up. Let them get here before I leave the States. You are the
General of the Old Country for the time being. Push it on, Railton. Four
good common-sense young fellows should come away at once.
As Boston and New York come nearer, I must say I begin to have some few
fears. I must nurse up my energies a little. My staff is unfortunately
nowhere.
I was mortified no little to get the 30th October Cry to find nothing
in it but a piece of twaddle about Quebec and two silly pictures. What
a ridiculous appearance to the world of a really national tour to which
thousands of all classes flock.
If it had not been too late, and could I possibly have done it, I would
have taken the reporting into my own hands. And then I asked Railton to
read and select. And — not being able to put a descriptive title
under a “cut.” Altogether it shows the value set upon this
work on which I am lavishing every item of strength I possess.
Never was a big undertaking supported by such a staff. Willing enough
— but childish — and the arrangements — well, the less
said the better about a good deal of it.
However, nothing alters my impression of the reality of the work and the
possible future of it.
He writes to Bramwell from Chicago:
My
visit so far has been beyond my most sanguine expectations. It has really
affected the religious mind of the City and much of other sorts of mind
as well. I shall have had in the three days and a quarter nine meetings,
eight of them public —they say 10,000 men turned away the first
meeting.
Moody’s people refused us their place. We had the Rink and Music
Hall.
. . . Moody’s people, some of them (Farwell among them) are very
grieved! to put it mildly, at our going so near them. It is the same Avenue,
a stone’s throw off on the opposite side of the way. But we could
not help it. . .
It is proper! And this is a proper City for us. So intelligent and yet
so devilish, and yet so appreciative of red-hot truth. I never gave them
such red-hot things the same day in my life as Sunday.
Oh what a future there is for us in this country, and oh what a country
it is!
. . . The papers have been awfully down upon our meetings, but very respectful,
as a rule, to me. One of them compares me favourably to Moody and others!
Give my love to R. and all. I have been dreadfully done up for a few days,
but have rallied again. Ma will give you some of her letters to read.
I trust you to care for her — you must forgive if you think I am
unmindful of you. Do remember the whirl I am in.
To-day I had Officers two hours and a half to plan the building of our
Temple with architects. We only bought it at 12.30 yesterday, and we had
stone ready but could not get foundation in till this morning. This afternoon
I had to speak to a great crowd on the laying of it in the open air. To-night,
Tuesday, I have been interviewing people; then big meeting; and at 10.30
same night go off for 500 miles to Kansas City. Meeting there to-morrow,
and come out next morning 675 miles, again travelling till Friday to Dayton,
and Columbus Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
Good-bye. I am well and in good spirits.
. . . Oh for some Officers for this Country.
If these [undecipherable] have done this work what might not be done?
Staff! Staff! Staff! Staff! is wanted!!!
His letters to Mrs. Booth express the same enthusiasm for the people of the country, and at the same time furnish us with some idea of his activity:
You
need not have any anxiety respecting my health and strength. I watch carefully
any indication and am as anxious to come back well and strong as you can
be. I see my value to the work of God and your happiness just now and
shall not knowingly throw myself away. In my humble opinion, it does not
matter how much I do, so that I do not go really beyond my strength. No
doubt the climate at this time of the year, cool and yet not too cold,
and the change, brace and keep me up. Then I am really very careful, get
enough sleep one way and another, and being unable to write in the train
gives my brain a good deal of rest, and altogether I am careful.
In the afternoon it was awfully stiff. Seven ministers sitting in a row
on the platform looking solemn as death, not helping to loosen either
my feelings or those of the meeting. Then there had been no topic advertised,
and so I was driven to a general talk. Hard and cold as I was at the start,
God helped me before I got far in, and I finished in a tornado.
I took the three things God wanted to do with a man. 1. To pardon. 2.
To cleanse and rectify. 3. To employ for the accomplishment of His purposes.
Oh these parsons did look solemn as I closed in with them and all present
on the importance of being consistent with the mighty truths we profess
to believe. I pushed home, as I have done several times the last few days,
the taunts of the infidels that we Christians do not believe our own doctrines,
saying it was the weapon that pierced my soul the deepest, etc.
To a man they shook hands with me at the close, introducing each other,
and thanked me for my words — some of them in the heartiest way.
It is a strange peculiarity of the American people, that they will sit
and stare at you, looking as solemn as death, not letting you see by the
movement of a muscle that they are affected in the slightest degree by
what you are saying, altho’ your own heart is in an agony and your
words are burning and scathing or otherwise affecting them; and then,
when you have done, they will gather round you and in the politest, kindest,
and most genial manner, bid you welcome, and say how glad they are to
see and hear you. To look at that people yesterday afternoon you would
not have thought they cared much, but yet I heard afterwards that they
were much impressed.
One thing against me is these odd, that is single, Services (only one
in a town) and the immense curiosity. I shall learn a good deal on this
tour as to future plans and tours.
. . . I was through Boston yesterday. I go there Monday and Tuesday. It
is considered the most critical and educated city of the Union. I find
that the Evangelical Alliance at their last meeting have invited me to
address them on the “Army” on Monday afternoon at 2. There
were 350 ministers present and the invitation was unanimous. One Congregational
Minister saying that they not only owed it to General Booth but to themselves
that they should hear me.
This will be perhaps the most important meeting I have held, as there
may be some 400 or 500 ministers and big people present. I cannot ask
you to pray for me, because the meeting will be over before you get this.
I may send you a wire to say how I get on at Boston; if I do, you will
better understand it after this.
I want an hour this morning to pull myself together for that meeting.
If it goes off well it will powerfully influence New York.
I am sure we are right. “Practical Godliness” is our theme.
Let us push it with pen and tongue and example.
Ah, how a minister assured me yesterday that he had been blessed by your
Aggressive. The ministers must be a better sort here as it relates to
personal religion. They seem so much more free, and yet the state of much
of the professing world must be very awful.
I have had a good night’s sleep. Am not doing the afternoon meeting at Augusta where we are bound next. Dowdle goes on to do it early this morning, and I go on at noon. Is not that good of me?
I
came here, Washington, Saturday night. It is, as you know, the Capital
City of the States. The seat of Government, a great centre of learning,
wealth, fashion, and influence.
We have only a young Corps here, twelve months old. Still they gave me
a good reception on Saturday night, and we marched through the principal
part of the City. A crowded meeting followed, at which I spoke with only
little liberty; could not get away. How mysterious these hard times are.
I was sorry afterwards, as I learned that influential people were there.
You cannot judge your audiences in this country from appearances. For
instance, you cannot tell which are ministers from their dress. Yesterday
afternoon there sat opposite me three of the leading ministers of the
City, two of them D.D.’s, and but for their close attention and
a certain refinement of feature I should not have supposed them to be
ministers. Indeed, in the Old Country I should have said it was not so.
They dress just as ordinary business men and often very shabby and slouchy.
However, I have since Saturday had good times and wonderful afternoon
meetings. On Sunday we had the penitent-form full each meeting. Last night
the Hall was crowded and they had to go away. . . . I spoke an hour and
a half with unabated interest to the audience. The shaking hands afterwards
was immense.
I like the “South” so far better than the North. They told
me I should, and the farther South I go the warmer-hearted they say the
people are. Any way, I like these Washington people.
Oh what a splendid City this is and is going to be. I have no doubt but
they will make it the finest City in the world.
There
are repeated references to his son Ballington in a letter from Washington,
dated November 30, 1886. He asks Catherine Booth to see Bramwell about
Ballington’s transference to America, saying that it is “the
thing,” and that he has seen it for two years. At the same time
he wishes that he himself could mention it to Ballington, adding: “You
know his danger; I don’t want him to suppose that I am driven up
to this.” Then he says: “The temptation to linger will be
awful . . . it must be an appointment for a time, say five years. . .”
When lie is in Canada he writes of Ballington’s popularity when
passing through:
Ballington made a tremendous impression here: the press men speak of this when they interview me, and the people themselves mention his name with enthusiasm. He must come again next year, if spared, with Maudie. God bless them; tell them of my love for them when you write.
These
references to Ballington Booth, and this conviction that he and Mrs. Ballington
Booth should take command of the Salvation Army in the United States,
are interesting in the light of what followed ten years later.
Such exclamations as the following occur throughout his long letters to
his wife, interrupting his account of meetings, and descriptions of the
people he meets:
Love me as in the days of old. Why not? I am sure my heart feels just the same as when I wrote you from Lincolnshire or came rushing up Brixton Road to hold you in my arms and embrace you with my young love.
Or he asks for domestic gossip:
Send
me love-letters and particulars about yourself. Tell me how you are; how
you get up and go about, and what you do and what time you retire, and
whether you read in bed when you feel sad. Tell me about yourself. To
know what you wear and eat and how you go out, indeed, anything about
yourself, your dear self, will be interesting to me.
. . . You must go on thinking about me; I reckon on this.
He always finds encouraging news to send to his wife. “Oh, what love these girls send to ‘the Mother.’ She is beloved. She would have a welcome here.” And from Toronto:
In
every direction people speak in the highest terms of your books and ask
most affectionately after you. Mr. G—, my host, said last night
that he came back from England thinking forty times as much of the Army
as when he left . . . and that among other things with which his visit
had delighted him had been the delight and profit with which he had heard
Mrs. Booth; that you were the most eloquent speaker he had ever listened
to; that to see you “shake your little fist” and hear you
speak at Exeter Hall was worth going 16,000 miles.
A Wesleyan Minister, the Chairman of the Toronto District, has just been
in to see me, and has been telling me how he has read your books with
profit, that they are the primitive Methodism of John Wesley and John
Fletcher.
An old man from the interior of the City grasped my hand in the carriage
yesterday and bade me tell you what a blessing your books had been to
him and that he read them first himself and then lent them to his neighbours.
Continually these testimonies are coming up.
. . . I had letters from Bramwell and a short note from Railton. Railton
was kind, Bramwell was OFFICIAL, I suppose he had no time for more. But
I have been away from you all for 15 days, and I certainly longed for
a few special words.
With more emotion he writes to her from Halifax:
Before
starting on anything else, and I have plenty before me, I must scribble
a few lines to my beloved. My thoughts have been with you through the
night. When I awake I can safely say my heart comes over to you, and I
embrace you in my arms and clasp you to my heart and bless you with my
lips and pray God to keep you from all harm and bring me safely to meet
you again on earth.
The time is flying. The third week has passed since I gave you that hurried
farewell, for truly there was no time for a deliberate farewell kiss or
time thoughtfully to say “Goodbye.”
That was a remarkable day. How dark things looked at the beginning and
how different at the end. So has it not been with us, my darling, all
the way through life. Go back to the very outset of our acquaintance.
Had we not all manner of difficulties to cloud our first acquaintance
and to damp our earliest joys? Did not the first prospects and controversies
concerning all that was dearest to us outside each other becloud our first
acquaintance and threaten our path with thorns and difficulty—and
yet has not God cleared the way? Has He not led us onwards, and oh what
a position is this!
The most popular Methodist Minister in St. Johns, New Brunswick, greeted
me on Friday night on leaving for Halifax in the most respectful and affectionate
manner, saying that next to John Wesley he hailed me benefactor to the
world! He had relapsed from his simplicity -- given himself up to popularity-hunting,
lecturing, etc. He has come to our Army Meetings, gone out for a new and
full surrender and got a clean heart, brought his people, and is now a
leader in the Christian world of that City and neighbourhood.
. . . The Reception was immense. The Mayor and the City Marshall (the
latter a Catholic, one-third of the population is Catholic) met me at
the station. The Mayor rode with me in my carriage. We had torch lights
and red lights and crowds and music and volleys and a wind up on the parade,
where an electric light had been fixed over where my carriage halted.
Here I addressed for a short time the assembled multitude. There was a
little hubbub at the start, but the police soon settled that, and all
was still and quiet as a church, while I showed them that only righteousness
could exalt their City or themselves personally. I only regret I did not
go on longer.
There are brief references to his spiritual condition, and he encourages his wife to fight against despair:
I
am feeling well in spiritual matters.
Now, my dearest love, do be encouraged. Don’t give way to any single
gloomy thought or fear. Rise to the thought of all the good that is being
done and remember that the Devil may well tempt you and us considering
the inroads being made on his kingdom.
About my own dear children I feel unutterable things. Oh we have none
of us the most remote idea of the extent to which we are blessing the
race. The whole human family are being laid under obligation to us more
and more day by day.
He tells her about his health:
I
am well this morning. The weather has been charming but is a little cooler
this morning. But yesterday I could only wear the same things I wore in
the summer in England. It is so far all a hoax about the cold. They say
there is seldom snow till the middle of December of any account.
I have taken such an extra delight in fresh air and fresh water that I
could, if I had time, bath with pleasure two or three times a day. I surprise
all my hosts by my pertinacious cold-water operations in the morning.
They are all for hot water and hot rooms, etc., etc.
I don’t sleep quite as much perhaps. The climate stimulates me I
think. . . . Altogether I am really well. Never better, and altho’
working hard am looking, I think, quite as well as for months.
Bramwell Booth, the delicate Chief of the Staff, almost killing himself with overwork, comes in for an occasional wigging. The General encounters a Canadian Officer whose accounts have been overlooked:
. . . He makes the remarkable statement that there has never been an audit of his a/c as yet. Now that is abominable. I have been supposing that the D.O.’s accounts were regularly audited every 6 months, and here at least are accounts run on for several years without being overhauled. Do get some systematic attention to these things. Make some one man Auditor-General, and let him be responsible direct to you, and thro’ you to me, for the correctness of the whole accounts. . . . Let him report to me thro’ you. That will save a great deal of trouble, and we can then stop a lot of wasteful extravagance.
Then to the same Chief of the Staff lie writes in a more chastened mood as the day of departure draws near, humbly suggesting that lie would like two days’ rest when he returns:
Have
you any proposal to make with respect to my return? I should like a day
or two’s rest before Christmas with Mamma, and I am afraid I shall
require a week after. Then I must attend to Headquarters and pass through
the Country. Then I reckon a visit to Switzerland, Sweden, and France.
Then home again, and then — we will wait and see.
. . . These dear Montreal Soldiers—you would love them. I think
the Soldiers and Officers here are more simple and devoted than in the
Old Country. And oh the possibilities of this immense Country are practically
limitless!
In his last letter of the tour to Catherine Booth, he comforts her concerning the voyage home, and expresses his longing to be back:
You
must not be anxious about me on the water. I have not a fear. You cannot
judge the weather at sea from what it will be on shore. So do not lie
awake one hour on my account if you hear the wind blow. God will take
care of me.
Good-bye . . . take a little care of yourself so as to be able to sit
at the table and welcome me when I return. I long for your smile and voice
and to lay my head on your bosom once more.
I am just the same, your husband, lover, and friend, as in the earliest
days. My heart can know no change.
This visit of the General to America, although it cannot compare in enthusiasm with the later visits of 1894, 1903, and 1907, gave a valuable impulse to the work, and William Booth returned to England not only convinced of the Salvation Army’s future, but with a new opinion concerning emigration which was to influence his mind two years later towards a fresh and adventurous channel.