The GOSPEL TRUTH

 LIFE of

WILLIAM BOOTH

FOUNDER and FIRST GENERAL

of the SALVATION ARMY

 by

Harold Begbie

1920

In Two Volumes

Volume 1

Chapter 18

 

WHICH TELLS OF A THORN IN THE FLESH, SECTARIAN DIFFERENCES, AND A BREAK WITH METHODISM

1857-1861

ALTHOUGH William Booth lived to a great age, and up to the very last was full of energy, he was an invalid who suffered from one of the most distressing and exhausting of physical complaints. The seeds of this affliction were no doubt sown in the bitter days of poverty, wretchedness, overwork, and religious excitement, when he served as an apprentice in Nottingham; but he might have been cured, one thinks, had it not been for the restless energy and the continual nervous exhaustion of his life in the early days of his Mission. He may be said to have almost destroyed his digestion before he was six-and-twenty.

In his happy moments he was playful, tender, and considerate. But when dyspepsia manifested itself, when his body, starved of nourishment, was uttering its rebellion, he was often irascible, explosive, and sometimes even censorious. However, as we shall see in the course of this narrative, there was never real harm in these outbursts. There was nothing in his nature that could be called vindictive or radically bad-tempered; but ill health always found the weak spot in his character, the weak spot which in some ways was destined to be the strength of his life--that stubbornness, that sense of dogmatic rightness, that feeling of obstinate dictatorship, which gave offence to many, but which was the rock of safety for so many more.

If we wish to call him a saint we must remind ourselves that the conventional view of saintship is not catholic; there have been real and great saints very different in disposition from St. Francis of Assisi. And without exalting him to the seats of the highest saints, without claiming that he is the peer of those untroubled spirits whose names breathe like cathedral music through the soul of Christendom, we may still urge that if the test of saintship is sacrifice of self, entire dependence on invisible power, and passionate devotion to "the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost," few men have lived, carrying so heavy a burden as this man carried, who more deserved to be enrolled among the saints of Christ.

It is possible, of course, to urge that he brought his ills upon himself; that with reasonable care and a more sensible outlook upon the world, he would have avoided the affliction which made him sometimes irritable and occasionally explosive. This, no doubt, is a just charge; but William Booth would have replied to it that had he been more cautious and more careful of himself, he would have been a thousand times more irritable. For he was a man who could not look calmly upon a distracted world; his temperament was such that he could not behold misery without longing to remove it, could not see sin without rushing to attack it. Other men can survey the sin and suffering of humanity with an infinite indifference, or, at any rate, with that dangerous form of faith common to leisured deism, which sings of God in His Heaven, unconscious of God immanent in humanity; but William Booth felt that he had to work, felt that he had to do something, felt that he was definitely charged by God with the work to which he set his hand. How could such a man be philosophical and detached? How could he take care of himself?

Mrs. Booth, as the reader will remember, was critical of some methods of revivalism in the days of her first encounter with William Booth; but she ultimately accepted her husband's views, and herself became one of the most powerful and persuasive exponents of those views. If one would have a defence of revivalism, she has given it in a few sentences which not only are a veritable defence of such methods, but which help one considerably to see into the minds of these two awakeners.

She says that she would rather have a sudden conversion than a tardy one. "When men are seen to be wrong, it must be very desirable to get them right." Here is a man, she exclaims, who has developed a fixed habit of evil-doing, of falsehood, impurity, drunkenness, or some other sin. "The great end in view is to persuade him to abandon his evil course, and surely the sooner you can persuade him to do so the better."

I have been very much struck (she continues) with the different manner in which people argue about temporal and spiritual things. In regard to the former, supposing a friend is about to adopt some mistaken course, you ply him with the best arguments you can command, and the more quickly these take effect the better you are pleased . . . you do not think any the worse of him because of the readiness with which he has accepted the truth. Nor do you for a moment imagine that he must go through a long preparatory process before he can act upon his convictions. Why, then, in the religious world should the exactly similar phenomenon be doubted, simply on account of its suddenness?

 

William Booth cries out:

"Be patient," do you say? "Wait the Lord's time"? This is the Lord's time; why should I wait? There is a sanctified anger because it is just, and there is a sanctified impatience because it is born of benevolence. How can we wait and see the people die, and see the generations sweep off before our eyes into eternal woe, that might be rescued--that might be saved?

He answers those who say to him, "You go too fast," with the bewildered question, "What do you mean?"

I know no "Flying Dutchman" or "Flying Scotchman," or any other kind of flying railway train that goes fast enough for me. Time is so precious that unless it can be spent in sleeping or working, every minute of it is begrudged, and my feeling whenever I seat myself in a train--be the journey long or short--is "Now, engine-driver, do your best, and fly away."

He argues that if he were head of a money-making business, no investor would complain that he made profits too quickly; or that, if he were general of a killing army, he could not go fast enough in slaughter to please his countrymen. Then he faces the real criticism:

"But there is danger with great speed." Well, perhaps there is, but that is not certain; and if there is I decline to abate the speed to avoid the risk. If this thing is worth doing, let us do it with all our might. "But if you go on the smash will come." Well, perhaps it will.

He was prepared for the risk, the risk which he confronted with his wife again and again, that perhaps they were making an impossible demand which must end in reaction and catastrophe. But the destructive energy of sin dragged him away from this doubt, and he decided that the only forces which could destroy him were the forces of evil, the same forces which "smashed Jesus Christ." He cried out that sin travels faster than salvation; that salvation must press forward at all hazard to overtake and quench that "prairie fire"; that while the soldier of Christ slackens speed death steals a march upon a guilty world. No. "Faster and faster," is his cry; whatever the risk, whatever the end; faster and faster till a catastrophe like the catastrophe of Calvary ends one period and begins another.

His character may be seen very clearly in a charge to his followers where he bids them cultivate whatever disposition they possess. He does not say to the angry man, cease to be angry, or to the jealous man, cease to be jealous; he says to them, make your anger and your jealousy like the anger and the jealousy of God--hate sin, and be jealous for the souls of humanity. He never sought to transform men; he sought to convert them. They were to be the same men, but facing in another direction. The same faculties which they had employed for evil were to be more industriously and passionately employed for good:

Go on hating, night and day, in every place, under all circumstances. Bring this side of your nature well into play. Practise yourself in habits of scorn and contempt and loathing and detestation and revenge; but mind, let your hatred and revenge go in the right direction--the direction of sin--evil--the evil condemned by the Bible, the evil that Jesus Christ was manifested to destroy.

He used to say of himself that he was not a saint but a soldier. His disposition was what it was; he could only direct it towards God. One knows that he could never have written the Fourth Gospel. And yet it is important to observe that while he was a bold and unquestioning follower of St. Paul, he acknowledged in his heart the superior qualities of St. John. Again and again he expresses a burning and a consuming desire for deeper spirituality. He named his first son after William Bramwell, "the apostle of Holiness." He was always seeking for that serenity of the soul which is the saint's reward, a deeper joy than the exhilaration of the soldier, a more lasting and a more permeating strength than ever comes from the exercise of battle. To the end of his life he was haunted, dimly and vaguely perhaps, by something in the spiritual life which he had missed and which he sighed for as one of the rewards of Heaven. He was distressed to his last days by the sins and miseries of the world. He had fought a good fight, but the world was not changed.

Everything faulty in his character had its rise in the impatience of a soul well-nigh maddened by the endless miseries of mankind, and stung to indignation by the sloth and deadness of the Christian Church. He was obsessed by Jehovah, and his thoughts of this terrible and avenging God of Israel had flowed from childhood in channels of a western grooving. And yet the immense achievement of his life rose out of this very conception of God. Because he believed in the everlasting tortures of Hell, he was tortured by the sins of mankind; because he believed in a stern and terrible Jehovah, he spared no moment of his life from shouting his stern and terrible warning to a thoughtless world. He not only won thousands and thousands of men from the degradation and destruction of sin, he roused the whole Church of Christ to activity and definitely influenced the social politics of the world. But if his theology had been more consonant with the theology which we feel is truer, chiefly because it is less dogmatic, his life might have passed with infinitely less benefit for mankind.

His life, indeed, presents many difficult problems. We are puzzled to decide, for instance, whether the intense exertion of impassioned preaching, which certainly helped to impair his health and perhaps tinged a fine heroic character with faults that we could wish away, did not at the same time tend to prolong his life. Instead of nursing himself and playing the dangerous tricks with his body which carry so many valetudinarians to the grave, he threw off his lethargy, his depression, and his intense lassitude, by campaigns which would have exhausted the strength of robust men. He seems to have injured his health and preserved his life by the same means. And it would appear that he resolutely faced the sacrifice of his health, knowing full well the effect it would produce upon him, because he was convinced that his life could benefit the world.

It is no exaggeration to say of him that he thought so much more of the world than of his own personal place in the favour of God, that he never set himself to win the heights of saintship, but deliberately threw himself into the battle of life where qualities other than meekness and gentleness can alone distinguish the hero from the coward.

Until he finally came to London, in 1865, where his career entered upon a new and remarkable phase, he was a struggling minister of a dissenting church which did not pay him very liberally, and which harassed him at every turn. From town to town, dragging his invalid wife and his children with him, he went, preaching his flaming message of God's anger against sin. A more burdened and embarrassed man never set hand to work so exhausting and so heartbreaking. Poor in purse, suffering in body, worried by officialdom, torn by anxiety for his delicate wife and his young children, he was one of the most successful revivalists that ever visited the north and west of England. From the heated excitements of the crowded buildings, refusing invitations to the houses of his admirers, he hurried back to his lodgings to wait upon his wife, to care for his children, often to sit up sleepless through the night racked with pain and spiritual conflict. Is it any wonder, we may ask, that he injured his health and hindered his character?

Some of his letters at this period are charged with the melancholy of a soul suffering the extreme of mental torture. He doubts the sincerity of some conversions. He doubts his own vocation. He fears the future for his wife and children.

In one of these pathetic letters which tells his wife, "I have a constant load at my chest and weight on my head," he speaks of the conversion of a young girl who "wept sorely and appeared in great distress and to have much rejoiced when she got a hope." He continues:

But I hear she was dancing away Thursday and Friday in the Market House, with half the town looking on. I have many thoughts about this kind of converted people, indeed many temptations about the whole affair. I find so few who seem to me to live Christianity. Who is there?

Then he proceeds:

I am sorry to hear you tell of your sickness. I can't help you now. My sympathy comes too late. I have nothing wherewith to comfort you. I have not had a thought or feeling the last 24 hours the description of which would cheer you in the least. And I don't see any ground for expecting anything in the future.

Inside the flap of an envelope, bearing the post-mark of Chester and the date Feb. 24, 1857, William Booth writes to his wife:

MY HEART'S WARMEST FONDEST LOVE--I have pressed this to my lips with as tender emotion as ever I clasped you in my arms. The usual number of kisses for "Sunshine." Does he get them all?

"Sunshine" was the child Bramwell, from whom his father was parted, and whose companionship might have driven away the clouds which pressed upon his mind and darkened his way.

So deep is his dejection that he even contemplates a complete abandonment of his mission:

I wonder whether I could not get something to do in London of some kind, some secretaryship or something respectable that would keep us going. I know how difficult such things are to obtain without friends or influence, as I am fixed. But we must hope against hope, I suppose.

 

The letter concludes, "I think I will take a book and go out and see if I can feel any better with a little fresh air." Acute indigestion was not alone responsible for this fit of despair. Indigestion was there to aggravate his mind, but the real burden pressing upon his soul and sickening his enthusiasm was the hostility of his Church. He found himself harried, criticized, and opposed. The more he succeeded the more bitter became this hostility. The life he desired to live was not an easy life; on the contrary, it was the most laborious and wearying and disheartening life that a man could undertake; but the authorities hampered him and refused his request. It was not as if he alone desired to live this life; the towns he had visited were crying out for his return. We may safely say that since Wesley no such evangelist had appeared in England.

We do not wish to imply that this opposition to William Booth was entirely without reason. His methods were ardent and unusual; he must have shocked or offended a great many pious people; his appearance in a town did, no doubt, lead to certain manifestations of violent emotion. But he was opposed on other grounds as well as these. Certain ministers in the New Connexion were his enemies; many felt that he was too young for such perpetual prominence; others were unquestionably jealous of his powers.

The result of this opposition culminated after wearisome checks and quite heroic efforts on William Booth's part to accommodate himself to authority in a final severance from the Church. In the year 1857 the Annual Conference of the New Connexion met in Nottingham, and decided that William Booth should cease his evangelistic work and be appointed to a regular circuit. He wrote to acquaint Mr. and Mrs. Mumford with this result in the following terms:

You will have been expecting a line from us containing Conference information, and now that our suspense is ended in certainty, or nearly so, I take the first opportunity of sending you a line. For some time I have been aware that a party has been forming against me. Now it has developed itself and its purpose. It has attacked and defeated my friends, and my evangelistic mission is to come to an immediate conclusion. On Saturday, after a debate of five hours, in which I am informed the bitterest spirit was manifested against me, it was decided by 44 to 40 that I be appointed to a circuit. The chief opponents to my continuance in my present course are ministers, the opposition being led on by the Rev. P. J. Wright and Dr. Crofts. I care not so much for myself. A year's rest will be very acceptable. By that time, God will, I trust, make plain my way before me, either to abide as a circuit preacher, or by opening me a door which no man or number of men shall be able to shut. My concern is for the Connexion--my deep regret is for the spirit this makes manifest, and the base ingratitude it displays.

From one of his sympathisers he received a manful and amusing letter of encouragement, which shows how affectionately he was regarded by some of the laity in his communion:

I believe that, as far as the preachers have power, they will close the New Connexion pulpits against you. Human nature is the same in every Conference, whether Episcopalian, Wesleyan, New Connexion, Primitive, or Quaker. And the only way for such men as you and Caughey to escape the mental rack and handcuffs is to take out a licence to hawk salvation from the great Magistrate above, and absolutely refuse to have any other master.

O Brother Booth, if I could preach and floor the sinners like you can, I would not thank Queen Victoria to be my aunt or cousin! When I hear or read of your success, I could wish to be your shoe-black! There is no man of whom I have read, Caughey excepted, who has equalled you for usefulness, considering the short time you have been at it. And for you to allow the decrees of the New Connexion Conference, or of any other conclave of men, to turn you away from following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is what I cannot bear to think of. I know what you feel, and I also have shed the big agonizing tear, when placed in the same circumstances. Glory be to God, I am free, and I will keep so. You know what the wolf said to Towser, "Half a meal with liberty is better than a whole one without it !"

The Booths were sent to Brighouse; "a low smoky town," said Mrs. Booth, "and we are situated in the worst part of it." Their superintendent is described as "a sombre funereal kind of being . . . utterly incapable of co-operating with Mr. Booth in his ardent views and plans for the salvation of the people." It was a sad and very melancholy time, only relieved by the domestic happiness of a second addition to their family in the person of Ballington Booth. "Labour in this circuit," wrote William Booth, "is the most like ploughing on a rock of anything I ever experienced in my life." He cries out that he can only be happy "in a floodtide of salvation," and utters the desire of his heart to be "independent of all conclaves, councils, synods, and conferences."

It was at Brighouse that Mrs. Booth began to help in the work of the Church, and this she did successfully in spite of domestic occupations. Her love for her children, and at the same time her strictness with them, are shown in the following instructive letter to her parents:

The children are well. They are two beauties. Oh, I often feel as though they cannot be mine! It seems too much to be true that they should be so healthy, when I am such a poor thing! But it appears as if the Lord had ordered it so, while many whom I know, who are far healthier and stronger than ourselves, have delicate children. I sometimes think it is a kind of reward to William for his honourable fidelity to me, notwithstanding my delicate health and his many temptations before we were married. I believe in a retributive Providence, and often try to trace domestic misery to its source, which is doubtless frequently to be found in the conduct of men towards their early loves. God visits for such things in a variety of ways. Bless the Lord, we are reaping no such fruits. The curse of no stricken heart rests on our lot, or on our children. But in peace and domestic happiness we "live and love together."

Willie gets every day more lovable and engaging and affectionate. He manifests some very pleasing traits of character. You would love to see him hug Ballington, and offer him a bit of everything he has! He never manifests the slightest jealousy or selfishness towards him, but on the contrary he laughs and dances when he caresses baby, and when it cries he is quite distressed. I have used him to bring me the footstool when I nurse baby, and now he runs with it to me as soon as he sees me take him up, without waiting to be asked, a piece of thoughtfulness I seldom receive from older heads! Bless him. I believe he will be a thoroughly noble lad, if I can preserve him from all evil influences. The Lord help me! I have had to whip him twice lately severely for disobedience, and it has cost me some tears. But it has done him good, and I am reaping the reward already of my self-sacrifice. The Lord help me to be faithful and firm as a rock in the path of duty towards my children

The reader will understand the need for tears on Mrs. Booth's part when he remembers that the disobedient Bramwell was two years of age at the time of his whipping.

It was at Brighouse that Mrs. Booth was threatened with a return of the spinal affliction which had condemned her to bed and sofa in youth. She exclaims that but for the children she would like to escape from her "troublesome, crazy body."

William was talking the other day (she writes home) about the different bodies we shall have after the resurrection. I replied that I hoped so, or I should never want to find mine any more. I would leave it to the worms as an everlasting portion, and prefer to live without one! It is much harder to suffer than to labour, especially when you have so many calls on your attention.

They paid a visit to Sheffield, where they met James Caughey, the American revivalist, who baptized Ballington and wrote an inscription in Mrs. Booth's Bible. "When he took leave of me," she says, "I pressed one fervent kiss on his hand, and felt more gratified than if it had been Queen Victoria."

A brief account of William Booth's ordination is furnished by his son-in-law, Commissioner Booth-Tucker, in his biography of Catherine Booth:

The Conference met in May at Hull. Mr. Booth was unanimously received into what is termed full connection, his four years of probation now having expired. He was accordingly summoned to present himself for ordination. This was a somewhat formidable ceremony. The President for the year, and the ex-Presidents of former years, stood upon the platform for the purpose of "laying hands" on the candidates, who were previously called upon to give an account of their conversion, and of their reasons for seeking ordination.

Mr. Booth had stipulated with some of those in whose piety and devotion he thoroughly believed, that he should be near them and reap whatever advantage might accrue from their faith and prayers, while there were others whom he studiously avoided, feeling that if the laying on of their hands involved the impartation of the character and spirit they possessed, he would rather dispense with it!

The question of his re-appointment to evangelistic work had not as yet come up for the consideration of the Conference. A number of circuits had petitioned in favour of the proposal, and Mr. Booth's friends were prepared to push the matter vigorously when it was brought forward for discussion. The following characteristic letter from him just after he had received his ordination describes the situation:

29th May, 1858. I have just been to Hull to receive the rite of ordination. I understand that my reception into full connection was most cordial and thoroughly unanimous. The service was an interesting one. I was surprised to find so large a number of revival friends at the Conference. John Ridgway, William Mills, William Cooke, Turnock, and many others are anxious on the question of my re-appointment to evangelistic work. Birmingham, Truro, Halifax (my own circuit), Chester, Hawarden, and Macclesfield have presented memorials praying Conference to reinstate me in my former position. The discussion had not come on when the business closed last night.

In 1858 they went to Gateshead, with the half promise of evangelistic work at the end of the year. Gateshead had once been a flourishing centre of the Connexion, but the defection of a minister, who had turned infidel lecturer, had caused a grievous set-back. William Booth came as a deliverer, and soon had a full chapel. "It was not uncommon for the aisles and every available spot to be occupied so that some two thousand people were crowded within the walls." The iron-workers of the town dubbed this chapel the "Converting Shop."

A daughter was born to the Booths in Gateshead, Catherine, who, as the "Maréchale," became the pioneer of the Salvation Army in France. Instead of regarding this addition to their responsibilities as a grievance, the Booths appear to have been extremely grateful and happy about it. For one thing, their work in Gateshead was going with a swing. It was a revival in one place, continuous and well organized. Open-air work, a new thing in the town, was a feature of the campaign, and the opposition of the publicans, who sent out gangs of half-tipsy men to sing and howl the services down, only increased the enthusiasm of the workers.

But the most significant events in this campaign concerned Mrs. Booth. It was here that the idea first occurred to her of speaking to drunken people in their houses and in the streets. At a time when she was extremely delicate, and with three young children to look after, she began this hazardous and nerve-trying work, succeeding so happily that she could go into some of the worst streets quite alone and enter houses where drunkenness had brought family life to a state of savagery... "They used to let me talk to them," she says, "in hovels where there was not a stick of furniture and nothing to sit down upon."

I remember in one case finding a poor woman lying on a heap of rags. She had just given birth to twins, and there was nobody of any sort to wait upon her...By her side was a crust of bread, and a small lump of lard... The babies I washed in a broken pie-dish, the nearest approach to a tub that I could find. And the gratitude of those large eyes, that gazed upon me from that wan and shrunken face, can never fade from my memory.

In 1860, soon after the birth of her daughter, Emma, Mrs. Booth gave her first public address, crowning her long championship of a "Female Ministry" by practical demonstration. Her success, in spite of excessive nervousness, was immediate, and when William Booth fell ill and had to go to Matlock for hydropathic treatment, Mrs. Booth took his place in the chapel.

Trouble succeeded trouble. With William Booth seriously ill, all the children were attacked by whooping cough. And as soon as these dangers were overcome, the Booths found themselves once more confronted by the problem of the Conference. They realized that to drift was no longer possible. They thought that uncertainty had continued long enough. If the Conference could not find a plan for William Booth to do evangelistic work in the various churches of the Connexion, then he was prepared to go out into the wilderness alone.

But he possessed not a penny. His wife was delicate, and they had four young children. With these considerations weighing them down, they set out for the Conference of 1861, which was held in Liverpool. Fortunately for William Booth, Catherine Booth went with him. As will be seen from the following letters addressed by Mrs. Booth to her parents, and by what comes after, it was almost entirely owing to the resolution, courage, and faith of this wonderful woman that William Booth cut himself adrift from the moorings of his Church. Up till the last moment he was afraid, and clung to the hope of a compromise--hating controversy, reverencing authority, and clinging to his Church. It was Catherine Booth who played the good Lady Macbeth in this minor tragedy.

 

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

NEWCASTLE, June, 1861.

We have reason to fear that the Annual Committee will not allow even this arrangement [? to be associated with the Alnwick Circuit and travel, living at Newcastle] to be carried out, and if not, I do not see any honourable course for us but to resign at once and risk all (if trusting in the Lord for our bread in order to do what we believe to be His will ought to be called a risk). If the arrangement is allowed to work it involves all sorts of difficulties. This Circuit is the worst to be managed in the whole Connexion, and William will get nothing by his connection with it but trouble and vexation. This I have seen from the beginning and have opposed his coming so far as I could ....

We don't know what to do. We only want to do right. If I thought it was right to stop here in the ordinary [circuit] work, I would be quite glad to do so, but I cannot believe that it would be right for my husband. And none of our friends would think it right if we only had an income! Then, I ask, does the securing of our bread and cheese make that right which should otherwise be wrong when God has promised to feed and clothe us? I think not, and I am willing to trust Him, and suffer if need be in order to do His will.

William is afraid. He thinks of me and the children and I appreciate his love and care, but I tell him that God will provide if he will only go straight on in the path of duty. It is strange that I who always shrink from the sacrifice should be first in making it, but when I made the surrender I did it whole-heartedly, and ever since I have been like another being. Oh, pray for us yet more and more.

I am much tempted to feel it hard that God has not cleared our path more satisfactorily, but I will not charge God foolishly. 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 for Him.

The children are all well. They do not like the change at all. Bless them! I don't think the Lord will ever allow them to suffer if their parents seek to do His will.

We are very much obliged for your sympathy and kindness and counsel. With reference to upbraiding, I have often told William that if he takes the step and it should bring me to the Union I will never say one upbraiding word. To upbraid any one for taking such a step for God's and conscience' sake would be worse than devilish. No, whatever be the result I shall make up my mind to endure it patiently, looking to the Lord for grace and strength to do so.

We have sold the piano to Mr. Firbank, but it is not to be paid for at present. We have nothing coming in now from any quarter. William has no invitations for work. The time is unfavourable. He has two for the winter, but the preachers will prevent the Circuits asking for him, and Dr. Cooke's resolution makes it worse than it was before, because the consent of the Superintendent is necessary. We already know of Circuits who want him where we have no doubt the preachers stand in the way. Oh, if it were not for God's sake, I feel that I should be ashamed to be a preacher's wife.

 

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

June 24th, 1861.

I hope neither you nor my dear father think that I want to run precipitately into the position we contemplate. I have thought about it long and much. It has cost me many a struggle to bring my mind to it, but having done so, I have never swerved from what I believe to be the right course; neither dare I. But I am quite willing to listen to argument, to receive light, or even to wait for the accomplishment of our desires if I can only see justifiable reasons. But I have no hope that God will ever assure us that we shall lose nothing in seeking to do His will. I don't think this is God's plan. I think He sets before us our duty, and then demands its performance, trusting solely in Him for consequences. If He had promised beforehand to give Abraham his Isaac back again, there would never have been that illustrious display of faith and love which has served to encourage and cheer God's people in all ages. If we could always see our way, we should not ever walk by faith but by sight.

I know God's professing people are generally as anxious to see their way as worldlings are, but they thus dishonour God and greatly injure themselves.

I have only one difficulty in my own mind in making the full venture of all, and that is whether my religious experience warrants me in claiming the fulfilment of the promises in my own individual case. The Lord help us to be found faithful. I don't believe in any religion apart from doing the will of God. Faith is the united link between Christ and the soul. If we don't do the will of our Father, it will soon be broken. If my dear husband can find a sphere where he can preach the Gospel to the masses, I shall want no further evidence of the will of God concerning him. If he cannot find a sphere, I shall conclude that we are mistaken and be willing to wait till one opens. But I cannot believe that we ought to wait till God guarantees us as much salary as we now receive. I think we ought to trust Him to send us the supply of our need.

 

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

NEWCASTLE, JULY 9, 1861.

We have at length decided our course of action for at least this Connexional year, and after careful thought we have come to the conclusion to continue the present arrangement with this Circuit, and thus secure William's perfect freedom to go wherever God may call him, and if there should be no way open he can still take a Circuit and we shall at least have done our best to secure what we deem most for God's glory and the salvation of souls.

. . . William has several invitations, one to St. Ives in Cornwall, but he won't engage there if anything nearer him offers. He had a good beginning at Alnwick, wonderful for the place, but the blindness and infatuation and narrow-mindedness of the preachers is enough to make the stones cry out. Mr.------thought it would be wiser to defer the Services till the winter as one of the leading families was going to the seaside! so that poor convicted sinners and Christ and God must wait their convenience! However, William has delivered his soul to them!

First, we have decided to stop in this house till November because we can live rent free till then, and I have felt much better the last week. Second, William is invited to Nottingham for Anniversary sermons, and he is going to offer for a couple of Services, and if they accept, I purpose going with him, and then when we are so near we intend going on to Derby and making a regular start together. Then if we only get one good work, I have no fear. I have no fear of being able to speak in public for at least some months to come, and we must make the most of our opportunities at first. It appears to me that God MAY have something very glorious in store for us, and when He has tried us, He will bring us forth as gold. My difficulty is in leaving home. In this matter, I am sure you can help us and serve the Lord without hurting yourselves in the least.

 

Mrs. Booth to her Parents.

July 11, 1861.

We have settled the matter, and we are not going to leave a stone unturned that is right and honourable to attain our object, and if we cannot why then we shall but be where we were before, but we intend with God's blessing to succeed. I do not fear but we shall, and if we do, every one will then see cause to honour us, and I shall get my share of honour, for hosts of people say, and others think, that if it were not for me William would have taken the Circuit.

Well, I know my own motives, and they are such as I shall not blush to own at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It won't be the first time I have taken a leap in the dark humanly speaking, for conscience' sake.

I am aware, on the other hand, that if we fail nearly everybody will censure us and set us down as fanatics, but I am prepared to endure the cross and despise the shame if God sees fit to permit it to come. The same integrity of purpose which would enable me to enjoy honour will likewise sustain me under reproach.

The Conference is not likely to interest posterity, and those who desire a full account of what happened there will find it described in Commissioner Booth-Tucker's Life of Catherine Booth (chapter xxxix.). For our purpose it is sufficient to say that this Conference was held in a chapel, and that Mrs. Booth, who was seated with other members of the public in the gallery, when questioned by a glance from her husband in the pews below as to whether he should accept a miserable compromise, rose in her place and exclaimed in a determined voice, which startled the business-like gentlemen below, "Never!" At that resolute exclamation Mr. Booth, we are told, sprang to his feet, and bowing to the chair "waved his hat in the direction of the door." Amidst shouts of "Order, order," he passed down the chapel, met his wife at the foot of the gallery stairs, embraced her, and went out to face the consequences of his act.

Efforts were made to induce the young minister to reconsider his decision, but the Booths were determined to compromise no longer. Rightly or wrongly the officials of the New Connexion were dead against the evangelistic ideas of William Booth; he was a nuisance to the powers; they wanted the machine to run smoothly; and every compromise suggested by those who knew his value was eventually coloured by this spirit of traditional respectability. In his letter of resignation William Booth said, "Looking at the past, God is my witness how earnestly and disinterestedly I have endeavoured to serve the Connexion, and knowing that the future will most convincingly and emphatically either vindicate or condemn my present action, I am content to await its verdict." But although he could write so confidently, and although with a stout heart he had announced to the Conference that he would do the work to which he felt that God had called him, even if he went forth "without a friend and without a farthing," it was a black day indeed for him when he found himself actually cut adrift from his Church. After seven years of devoted service, he was penniless; and this time he had a wife and children for whose care he and no other could provide.

 

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