William Booth

“ 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. ”

“ William Booth's life was one in storm and battle--a great man's life, the life of an unwearied fighter. Now the whole world bows before the great man and the great life which will live through all time, and go on bringing help to the suffering. ”

“ Who can battle against the ten thousand million trees? Who can hope to make headway against the innumerable adverse conditions which doom the dweller in Darkest England to eternal and immutable misery? What wonder is it that many of the warmest hearts and enthusiastic workers feel disposed to repeat the lament of the old English chronicler, who, speaking of the evil days which fell upon our forefathers in the reign of Stephen, said "It seemed to them as if God and his Saints were dead." ”

“ Even if The Salvation Army disappeared from every land where it is now at work--and, though it will not disappear, I anticipate during the next ten years many changes in its organisation--to the end of time the spirit of William Booth will be part of our religious progress. We cannot unthink ourselves out of his realism, out of his boundless pity, out of his consuming earnestness. ”

“ Jonkoping Post
"One of our times, and perhaps all times, greatest and most remarkable personages, The Salvation Army's Founder and General, William Booth, died in London yesterday evening. Behind him lies a path such as few have ever travelled. Before him lies the rest with his Lord, in whose service he laboured almost all his long life."
Swedish Morning Standard
"The world has lost one of its noblest and most remarkable men. A great benefactor of mankind has been called home. Our times' greatest spiritual General has died at his honourable post. ”

“ The particulars which we give elsewhere of his career show how, like Wesley, Whitefield, and Spurgeon, in this country, and like Savonarola, Peter the Hermit, and the Safi mystics abroad, William Booth, the builder's son of Nottingham, was obviously set apart, and summoned by time, temperament, and circumstances for the labours of his life. Like Luther, his answer to all objections--worldly or unworldly--would always have been, 'I can no other'. ”

“ He was the second son of William Booth by Vere, third daughter and coheiress of Sir Thomas Egerton, son of the lord chancellor of England, and was born in August 1622. His father dying in 1636, he became the ward of his grandfather, Sir George Booth of Dunham Massey, who on the outbreak of the civil war was one of the chief supporters of the parliamentary party in Cheshire. The younger Booth therefore, as was to be expected, took an active part in the struggle on behalf of the parliament. ”

“ Plutarch would have put William Booth and John Wesley together in his 'Parallel Lives.' Each man 'thought in continents.' 'The world is my parish,' said Wesley, and Methodism to-day covers the world. So General Booth believed in world conquest for Christ, because he believed in Christ's all-conquering power, and he had the courage of his conviction. He learnt much from Wesley, for he began as a Methodist. He knew what can be done by thorough organisation, and what financial resources there are in the multiplication of small but cheerful givers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But for just that which Spurgeon wanted William Booth would have been another Spurgeon. But to his faith and enthusiasm he joined something not at all common among religious enthusiasts in this country. His heart was a chaos of crude and uncontrolled emotionalism, but he had the head of a ruler. It is a common reproach against English Protestantism that it does not understand how to harness spiritual energy. Of that art William Booth was a master, and in more favouring circumstances he would probably have been included in the list of founders of mighty religious orders. ”

“ There has hardly ever been a General who in an almost unbroken career of victory subdued so many men and conquered so many countries as William Booth. His person gained the high respect of his contemporaries through his long, priestly life, and he will ever remain an example of how much, even in a time of confusion and division, one man can do who knows what he wants, and keeps a clear conscience. ”

“ 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 a matter of fact, William Booth was nothing less than a genius, and towards the end of the nineteenth century the world at large gave very generous recognition, not only to the spirit and temper, but to the results of an extraordinarily effective, and, indeed, epoch-making Movement. ”

“ William Booth was always very wide awake to the discouraging emptiness of mere demonstrations, and never expressed himself more contemptuously with regard to them than when he thought that any of his Officers, in the midst of some grand display, which was attracting unusual attention, seemed to be likely to be satisfied with the show of what had been done, instead of pressing forward to greater things. ”

“ The Army's invariable principle of avoiding even the appearance of attacking any other association of religionists, or their ideas or practices, renders it difficult to explain fully either why William Booth became the regular minister of a church, or why he gave up that position ”

“ And yet all the time, with or without our choice, our own activities, and even our faults and neglects, have been helping other peoples, some of them born on our soil, to become our rivals in everything. Happily the multiplication of plans of intercourse is now merging the whole human race so much into one community that one may hope yet to see the dawn of that fraternity of peoples which may end the present prospects of wars unparalleled in the past. How very much William Booth has contributed to bring that universal brotherhood about this book may suffice to hint. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This living preaching was and is a perfect fit with all the rush of the world outside, and the helplessness of the poor souls around.
William Booth was, as we have seen, only seventeen when he was fully recognised as a preacher of the Gospel according to the custom of the Methodist Churches, and at nineteen his minister urged him to give up his life to the ministry. At that time, however, he felt himself too weak physically for a ministerial career, and in this view his doctor concurred. ”

“ Nothing could have marked more significantly than this single fact the completeness of the change of public feeling; and when, in 1905, William Booth went on a progress through England, he was welcomed in state by the Mayors and Corporations of many towns.
"Is it better to live in this world with no religion at all or with a narrow and violent form of religious belief? People will judge the deceased teacher and chief, in respect of his theological and propagandist work, in accordance with the views which they hold upon this alternative. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Along Water Street are women conspicuously dressed in gaudy colours. Their heavily-painted faces are bloated or pinched; they shiver in the raw night air. Liz speaks to one, who replies that she would like to talk, but dare not, and as she says this an old hag comes to the door and cries: "Get along; don't hinder her work! During the evening a man to whom Em has been talking has told her: —"You ought to join the Salvation Army; they are the only good women who, bother us down here. ”

“ And I believe that it can be done by the Salvation Army, because it has ready to hand an organisation of men and women, numerous enough and zealous enough to grapple with the enormous undertaking. The work may prove beyond our powers. But this is not so manifest as to preclude us from wishing to make the attempt. That in itself is a qualification which is shared by no other organisation—at present. If we can do it we have the field entirely to ourselves. The wealthy churches show no inclination to compete for the onerous privilege of making the experiment in this definite and practical form. ”

“ But William Booth was no revolutionist, and his willingness and submission to carry on the old routine, with little alteration, for four successive years surely proved that no desire for personal exaltation or mastery, but only the conquest of souls, was his guiding influence.
In those four years, spent in Brighouse and Gateshead, he tried to introduce into the churches as much as he could of the life of warfare which he considered necessary. In one year he so far won over the officialdom of Brighouse that they desired his reappointment ”

“ All the bright and happy, as well as the clouded and sorrowful times of our fellowship. Nothing relating to you can time or place erase from my memory. Your words, your looks, your actions, even the most trivial and incidental, come up before me as fresh as life. If I meet a child called William, I am more interested in him than in any other. Bless you. Keep your spirits up, and hope much for the future. God lives and loves us, and we shall be one in Him, loving each other as Christ loved us.’
William Booth and Catherine Mumford were married in London, on June 15, 1855 ”

“ 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. ”