Charles Booth

“ 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. ”

“ As calmly as upon the battlefield a veteran stands amidst the hail of ball and shell, and plunging iron, Booth turned at a man's stride, and pushed for the door, carbine in poise, and the last resolve of death, which we name despair, set on his high, bloodless forehead. ”

“ If Booth received no positive instructions, he was at any rate adjudged a man likely to be of use, and therefore introduced to the rebel agencies in and around Washington. Doubtless by direct letter, or verbal instruction, he received a password to the house of Mrs. Surratt.
Half applauded, half rebuffed by the rebel agents in Canada, Booth's impressions of his visit were just those which would whet him soonest for the tragedy. His vanity had been fed by the assurance that success depended upon himself alone, and that as he had the responsibility he would absorb the fame ”

“ Booth's eyes are dark brown, and seem to turn black in moments of excitement, and they are capable of conveying, with electrical effect, the most diverse meanings—the solemnity of lofty thought, the tenderness of affection, the piteousness of forlorn sorrow, the awful sense of spiritual surroundings, the woful weariness of despair, the mocking glee of wicked sarcasm, the vindictive menace of sinister purpose, and the lightning glare of baleful wrath. ”

“ THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM
After many victories at home, William and Catherine Booth began to look abroad. They realised that "the field is the world," and they longed to commence operations on the Continent. In the summer of 1881, with high hopes and some natural fears, they dedicated their eldest daughter to France. In giving her they gave their best. Delicate girl though she was, she had become one of the greatest spiritual forces in England. She swayed vast multitudes by something higher than mere eloquence. Wherever she went revivals broke out and hundreds were converted. ”

“ For some time he worked as sweeper in the market, but two years ago deserted his wife and family, and came to London, settled down to a loafer's life, lived on the streets with Casual Wards for his home. Eventually came to Whitechapel Shelter, and got saved. He is now a trustworthy, reliable lad; has become reconciled to wife, who came to London to see him, and he bids fair to be a useful man.
J. W. S.—Born in Plymouth. His parents are respectable people. He is clever at his business, and has held good situations. Two years ago he came to London, fell into evil courses, and took to drink. ”

“ Such devotion to any other murderer would have earned some poet's tear. But the daisies will not grow a whole rod from his grave.
Of what avail, may we ask, on the impossible supposition that Booth's crime could have been considered heroic, was it that such a record should have dared to die for fame? Victory would have been ashamed of its champion, as England of Nelson, and France of Mirabeau.
I may add to this record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year, on first setting out in life, before getting into a transaction of the kind specified. ”

“ They took a house in Boston, and the next year, in February, 1863, Booth was playing in New York, having left his wife at home because of her delicate health. During a performance at the Winter Garden a despatch was handed him, summoning him to her side. He left at the close of the play, but before he could reach her the dearest thing on earth to him was gone forever. The shock almost unbalanced his mind. His wife had been all that a perfect wife could be to a man of his peculiar temperament and needs. ”

“ In one of his addresses, delivered during his visit to the United States, in February, 1895, General Booth said: "We have, with God's help, been able to carry our banner and hoist our flag in 45 different countries and colonies, and we are reaching out day by day. We have been able to create and bring into harmonious action, with self-supporting and self-guiding officers, something like 4,000 separate societies. We have been able to gather together something like 11,000 men and women, separated from their earthly affiliations, who have gone forth as leaders of this host." ”

“ There was a great shower of meteors on the night of November 13, 1833, and on that night, near Baltimore, Maryland, was born the most famous tragic actor of America in this generation, Edwin Booth. No other American actor of this century has had a rise so rapid or a career so early and continuously brilliant as that of Edwin Booth. His father, the renowned Junius Brutus Booth, had hallowed the family name with distinction and romantic interest. If ever there was a genius upon the stage the elder Booth was a genius. ”

“ Booth does not hoist his shoulders and settle back on his "pastern jints" like a man who is about to set a refractory brake on a coal car, neither does he immerse his right arm in his bosom up to the second joint. ”

“ When Booth began "on his own responsibility," to hunt for accomplices, he found his theory at fault. The bold men he had dreamed of refused to join him in the rash attempt at kidnapping the President, and were too conscientious to meditate murder. All those who presented themselves were military men, unwilling to be subordinate to a civilian, and a mere play-actor, and the mortified bravo found himself therefore compelled to sink to a petty rank in the plot, or to make use of base and despicable assistants. ”

“ Handing them to me he said, "you are riding a splendid horse. He is as tough as a pine knot. Now you ride back to the old Shawnee Indian's, have him feed your horse and get you all you want to eat; you can then ride to your father's by 2 o'clock to-night." He bade me good-by, saying, "I hope your folks will come out of this trouble without harm."
Poor Booth! We learned that the gray matter oozed from his brain the following October, in Johnson county, Missouri, he having been shot in the temple by the Youngers. ”

“ Major Ruggles dismounted and placed Booth on his horse, when the whole party crossed over the Rappahannock, from Port Conway, in King George, to Port Royal, in Caroline County, Virginia, and after an ineffectual effort to find quarters for Booth in the town, they took him three miles on the road to Bowling Green, the county seat of the latter county, where they succeeded in getting a man by the name of Garrett to take him in, with the understanding that he would do all he could for his comfort and safety. ”

“ Booth strove constantly to teach all who were around her to work as she did. ‘You have begun well enough–now carry it through,’ she would say again and again to her children, and whether it was a doll’s frock, or an article for ‘The War Cry,’ or a series of Meetings, it was always the same. Unfinished, half-done work she detested with all her soul. ’If a thing is worth beginning at all, then it is worth finishing,’ she would say ”

“ He well knew that without Cæsar's aid his work would soon come to an end among the penniless unfit, and he was much too wise, and I may say too godly, to give a moment's notice to the vapourings of foolish men whose prime doctrine is a denial of Christ and the elimination of God from the affairs of life.
General Booth was not a visionary, and he was not a social reformer. He was an evangelist of the old-fashioned type, as vigorous as Saint Peter, and as wise as Saint Paul. Woe unto the Salvation Army should one of its leaders become a social reformer! ”

“ Booth, who deservedly stood very high in the esteem of mankind, both on account of the pleasure which he gave them, and the native goodness of heart which he possessed. Whether considered as a private gentleman, a player, a scholar, or a poet, Mr. Booth makes a very great figure, and his extraordinary excellence in his own profession, while it renders his memory dear to all men of taste, will ever secure him applause amongst those happy few, who were born to instruct, to please, and reform their countrymen. ”

“ There is the constraining love that yearns over darkness and cold and empty hearts. Big hearts are scarce.
"In an age of materialism and greed William Booth has stirred the world with a passion for the welfare of men. His trumpet-call has been like the silvery voice of bugles. His spirit will live, not only in lives made better by his presence, but in the temper of all the laws of the future."
We shall see from the welcomes given to him by great official personages, that these remarks do not in the least exaggerate the feeling created all over the country by the activities of The 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. ”

“ Your "First Citizen," who swings a stave for Marc Antony, and drinks hard porter behind the flies is very like the bravo of real life, who murders between his cocktails at the nearest bar. Wilkes Booth had passed the ordeal of a garlicky green-room, and did not shrink from the broader and ranker green-room of real life. He assembled around him, one by one, the cut-throats at whom his soul would have revolted, except that he had become, by resolve, a cut-throat in himself.
About this time certain gentlemen in Canada began to be unenviably known. ”

“ Booth is a bold man and his promises are magnificent.
“If the scheme,” he says, “which I set forth in these pages is not applicable to the Thief, the Harlot, the Drunkard, and the Sluggard, it may as well be dismissed without ceremony.”
We suspect that the Sluggard will be the toughest subject of all. Booth has to solve the insoluble problem of how to put nervous energy into a body in which it is constitutionally lacking. Common sense says the thing cannot be done. You may galvanise the Sluggard for a while, but the effect will not last. Energy is not acquired, it is congenital. ”

“ I know that His way is often in the whirlwind, and He rides upon the storm: I will try to possess my soul in patience, and to wait on Him.’
Sometimes you have heard your Officers talking in a Meeting, and telling the people that, if they will but step out in faith, and do right, God will open up the way for them. The example of our General and Army Mother has taught us this lesson, for few ever took a step of faith into greater darkness and difficulty than they did at this time.
‘My dearest,’ writes Mrs. Booth to her mother, ’is starting for London. Pray for him. He is much harassed. ”

“ The war of independence and the peace having cut Booth off ‘from pursuing the line of business to which’ he ‘had long been habituated,’ he used his leisure in England to make known his system, which he held superior to those in vogue. Booth had humour and reading. In his sample invoices he has large imaginary dealings with Lemuel Gulliver, Peter Pindar, and Tristram Shandy. M'Culloch gives the title of Booth's book in ‘Literature of Political Economy,’ p. ”

“ What could please an actor, and the son of an actor, better than to mingle as a principal in a real conspiracy, the aims of which were pseudo-patriotic, and the end so astounding that at its coming the whole globe would reel. Booth reasoned that the ancient world would not feel more sensitively the death of Julius Cęsar than the new the sudden taking off of Abraham Lincoln.
And so he grew into the idea of murder. It became his business thought. It was his recreation and his study. He had not worked half so hard for histrionic success as for his terrible graduation into an assassin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nor does Booth expect that all will be saved by his scheme, however well supported and successful. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the God he worships will allow men and women to perish whom he might promptly save; yes, allow them to perish in this world, physically, intellectually, and morally, and afterwards torment them for ever and ever in Hell. And it is this God, this incredible monster of wickedness, in whom General Booth trusts, and whom he bids the Freethinker look up to with admiration and love. ”