Feast of Booths

“ The churchman, the bourgeois, the courtier, celebrated the New Year, even as the peasant did. But they put their own temper into the observances; and it is worth while to accord a separate treatment to the shapes which these took in such hands, and to the resulting influence upon the dramatic conditions of the sixteenth century.
The discussion must begin with the somewhat startling New Year revels held by the inferior clergy in mediaeval cathedrals and collegiate churches, which may be known generically as the ‘Feast of Fools.’ Actually, the feast has different names in different localities. ”

“ We all know well enough what these feasts are. First, there is our village feast, a day set [292] apart in every year which is specially the feast day of this parish, and of all who belong to it. Then there are our harvest homes, which are not parish but family festivals; when the farmer and those who have worked with him, rejoice together over the garnering in of the fruits which God has given. Lastly, there is the feast which does not come every year, but at longer intervals, the feast of Scouring the White Horse, which is not the feast of one parish, but of the whole country side. ”

“ The men only partake of the feast, but the women are distant spectators; for they are never suffered to eat with the men, neither at feasts, nor in their own families, when strangers are present. This, however, does not prevent them from decorating themselves for the occasion. After all had assembled, the head chief of the village addressed the company in an impressive speech, in which he informed them, that it had been a practice, time immemorial, to celebrate the return of the spring, by a feast to the Great Spirit. ”

“ On the 10th of August we held a public feast under a bowery in the center of our fort. This was called a harvest feast; we partook freely of a rich variety of bread, beef, butter, cheese, cakes, pastry, green corn, melons, and almost every variety of vegetable. Large sheaves of wheat, rye, barley, oats and other productions were hoisted on poles for public exhibition, and there was prayer and thanksgiving, congratulations, songs, speeches, music, dancing, smiling faces and merry hearts. ”

“ It is obvious, however, that a feast is not a dramatic representation of a ride; and the point requiring elucidation is the intimate relation of the feast at St. Briavels with a story apparently so irrelevant as that of the countess' ride. To explain this, we must suppose that the feast was only part—doubtless the concluding part—of a ceremony, and that the former portion was a procession, of which the central figure was identical with that familiar to us at Coventry. ”

“ Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
II [Bass drum slower and softer.]
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a-flying, air of high command
Unabated in that holy land. ”

“ In 1865 the Booths came to London, and the Salvation Army is generally held to have been founded by the formation of the 'Christian Revival Association' in the tent used for revivalistic services in the quaker burial-ground in Whitechapel. At this time Mrs. Booth began to address meetings in the west end, in the Polytechnic, and the Kensington assembly rooms, and other places, and her power of impressing the rich proved as remarkable as her influence over the masses. ”

“ Those who have once made the feast become the privileged guests at every such feast, occupy the feast tent, and are served first. A prominent feature in the feast is the feeding of these privileged persons, and the girl in whose honor the feast is given, with choke cherries, as the choicest rarity to be had in the winter. The feast can be held at any time. ”

“ The dinner was in the chef's best style, and its cooking, serving, and variety, combined with the beauty and value of the table decorations, evidently completed the effect upon the officer that the cabin had begun, Alie herself was in excellent spirits, and talked with the wit and cleverness of a woman who has perfected an originally liberal education by continual and varied study of the world and its inhabitants. By the time the meal was ended and we had bade her good-night, the lieutenant was in a maze of enchantment. ”

“ The winter feast is spread over all the winter half of the year from All Souls day to Twelfth night. A later chapter will illustrate its destiny more in detail. The ploughing feast is to be sought mainly in Plough Monday, in Candlemas and in Shrovetide or Carnival [380] ; the beginning of summer feast in Palm Sunday, Easter and St. Mark’s day; the early variety of the high summer feast probably also in Easter, and certainly in May-day, St. George’s day, Ascensiontide with its Rogations, Whitsuntide and Trinity Sunday; the later variety of the same feast in Midsummer day and Lammastide ”

“ The honour of escorting our hostess into dinner was given to me, while Rotherhithe gave his arm to Lady Deeceford; the latter's husband took Lady Susan; Wordley, Mrs Van Hoden. To attempt a description of the meal to which we sat down would be impossible; let it suffice that it was unique in every sense of the word. Looking back over a period of more years than I care to think about, I am unable to recall one entertainment that in any way equalled it. The whole thing was original from end to end. The earth seemed to have been ransacked for our delectation. ”

“ From his youth my father had always been a close student of the classic and modern drama, and throughout his life numbered among his friends many of the celebrated actors and actresses of his time. In those early days Booth used to come to rather formal luncheons, and at all such functions Richard and I ate our luncheon in the pantry, and when the great meal was nearly over in the dining-room we were allowed to come in in time for the ice-cream and to sit, figuratively, at the feet of the honored guest and generally, literally, on his or her knees. ”

“ “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”
“The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Booth said that he was acting in New Orleans, and when at the hotel, his wants were enthusiastically attended to by a negro waiter. At every meal the man showed his zeal in a very marked way, particularly by never allowing another waiter to come within hailing distance of his chair. Such attention, the actor thought, should be rewarded, so he asked Caractacus if he would care to have an order for the theatre. The waiter declared that if he only had the chance of seeing Mr. Booth on the stage, he (the waiter) would die happy when his time came. ”

“ The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Booth’s own grandchildren, Mary, the present General’s second daughter, looks back to that scene as the time when God in an unmistakable manner sealed her as His. She was only five years old as she knelt by the coffin, but nevertheless she decided there, in her childish consecration, like Ruth of old, that ’Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God’; and in the spirit of this consecration she lives to-day.
In order that some of the crowds who wished to share in the funeral service might be present, the largest hall in London, the Olympia, was taken. Twenty-six thousand people filled it ”

“ Here was a platform just large enough to give room for a table two feet square. The stairs were shut off from the rest of the house by a stout door. And here, through the summer heats, and in spite of many wasps, I wrote my five-act drama, dreaming of the fine emphasis which Mr. Booth would give to its best passages and of the beautiful appearance he would make [p. 240] in classic costume. He, meanwhile, was growing into great fame and favor with the public, and was called hither and thither by numerous engagements. ”

“ General Booth gathered the unfit into his army, not to poison their minds against the fit, as the godless and cruel self-appointed leaders of the "proletariat" have done, but, on the contrary, to make them fit companions for those whose lot has been cast in pleasanter places. With the example and the sayings of his Master always in his mind, he realized the enormous importance of the command, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." ”

“ On the afternoon of Sunday, January 31st, I was able to see some of the results of William Booth's work in the East of London, by attending his Experience Meeting, held in the East London Theatre. About 2 o'clock some of his helpers and Converts went out from the Mission Hall, where they had been praying together, and held an Open-Air Meeting in front of a large brewery opposite the Hall. The ground was damp and the wind high, but they secured an audience, and then sang hymns along the road, till they came to the theatre, taking in any who chose to follow them. ”

“ In his blindness, William Booth had mourned to his daughter, ‘Oh, the sins, the sins of the people!’ He went into eternity, sighing for the sins and sorrows of the world.
But further back than the human, we can trace this spirit. The Saviour, looking upon a multitude of needy souls, is saying, ’I have compassion on the multitude; I cannot send them away.’ William Booth caught the spirit of Christ; he lived it; breathed it into thousands of his followers, of whom there has not fought and triumphed in life and death a truer saint and soldier than Kate Lee, the Angel Adjutant. ”

“ No bribe, however, could induce him to act one moment before the right time. He bade his brother go back to his books, and refused to entertain any proposal. But when Booth rose in Cheshire for the king, so tempting did the opportunity seem that he was on the point of joining forces with him, and a manifesto was prepared. ”

“ In my schoolgirl [Pg 25] days I saw Booth in his great parts; but none of these master-scenes and fine harmonies have stirred in me so intolerable an emotion of pity or sense of fatality as an old horn, or harp and violin, grouped on a garish pavement, their lives dedicated to cheap music fearfully off the key.
These are people of power, let appearances be what they may. You may patronize them if you like, and look upon them as the downtrodden and the dregs of existence. I am, indeed, not so hardy. I have read a different fate in their groups and constellations. ”

“ In a few minutes into the big dining-room filled with French soldiers and a goodly sprinkling of French officers, marched those two girls, followed by their seven big unshaven soldiers with their white faces and hollow eyes, sat proudly down at a table in the very centre and ordered a big dinner. That is the kind of girls Salvation Army lassies are. Never ashamed to do a big right thing. ”

“ Every household, however poor, managed to raise a "feast-cake" and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast time,—for feast-cake is very solid, and full of huge raisins. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Booth could, after all, perhaps, occasionally be languid without the excuse of illness. He would play his best to a single man in the pit whom he recognised as a playgoer, and a judge of acting; but to an unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost contemptuous disinclination to exert himself. On one occasion of this sort he was made painfully sensible of his mistake, and a note was addressed to him from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know whether he was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the entertainment of the public? ”

“ During the buffalo hunt and just before starting on it the only gens that invited guests to feasts was the Hañga. And whenever any important matters, such as the ceremonies connected with planting corn, required deliberation, it was the duty of the Hañga chief to prepare a feast and invite the chiefs and other guests. (See §§ 18, 130.) On ordinary occasions, any one can have a feast. (See § 246.) Then the principal guest sits at the back of the lodge, opposite the door, on the right of which are the seats of the wag¢a, the host's seat being on the left of the entrance. ”