LIFE of
The GOSPEL TRUTH WILLIAM BOOTH
FOUNDER and FIRST GENERAL
of the SALVATION ARMY
by
Harold Begbie
1920
In Two Volumes
Volume 1
Chapter 25
WHICH GIVES SOME ACCOUNT OF THE HAPPINESS AND EXCITEMENT OF THE MISSION AND DESCRIPTIONS OF "HOLINESS MEETINGS" 1877-1878
To the Conference of the Christian Mission in 1877 William Booth not only announced his dictatorship, but employed in his Opening Address phrases and metaphors which reveal a subconscious movement on his part towards a military discipline.
It must be borne in mind that the Christian Mission had now extended its influence beyond London. Mrs. Booth, addressing large audiences all over the country, set up wherever it was feasible a "station" of the Christian Mission. Evangelists were sent to these places, an organization under the jurisdiction of London Headquarters was set in motion, and the followers of Mr. and Mrs. Booth all over the country were kept in touch with the general movement by means of a periodical known as The Christian Mission Magazine.
Later in the present chapter we shall refer to the opposition of the Churches to this energetic attempt of the Booths to break through formalism and apathy; but it must be told here that one of the taunts constantly levelled at William Booth during these years was the unpleasant charge that he "lived upon his wife's petticoats." I cannot find in his papers any reference to this gibe, but Bramwell Booth remembers how sharply his father suffered from this particular accusation. It was not true; it was venomously conceived, and it had for its evil object the destruction of the Christian Mission; but there was just so much truth in the calumny as to wound the heart of the man at whom it was aimed. Mrs. Booth at this time was "missioning" in various parts of London; William Booth was mainly in the shadows of East London working like a Trojan. Invitations for Mrs. Booth to preach were received from many quarters; the novelty of a preaching woman attracted considerable attention; crowds flocked to hear her; fashionable ladies entreated her to hold drawing-room meetings in their houses. It is possible to say that nine people out of ten who knew the name of Catherine Booth had never heard of William Booth's work in Whitechapel.
But while Mrs. Booth was preaching in the country, and addressing remarkable audiences in the more fashionable quarters of London, William Booth was preaching and praying for the most part in Whitechapel, perfecting the organization he had brought into existence, and shaping the characters of men and women who were to become the first disciples of a very earnest advance in personal religion. If he suffered from these taunts, they did not draw from him, so far as I can discover, a single reply. He allowed the ministers of dissenting Churches to believe that he lived in idleness while his wife went to and fro collecting guineas for the domestic expenses of his home. He was twice very ill, so ill during 1876 that his life was despaired of, and on several other occasions he was obliged to leave London for spells of rest in the country; but he never defended himself, never argued or remonstrated with his accusers, and only when the time was ripe did he take the hazardous step which made him absolute master of the Christian Mission, and begin that extraordinary work which showed his real power.
What must strike every one who reads the history of this man is, above all other things, the quality of his self-security, his unflinching and unchanging honesty. That he should ever have been arraigned, and by ministers of religion, bitterly and mockingly, as a self-seeking hypocrite, as one who lived upon his wife, not only astonishes the writer of this book, but reveals to him a condition in the Churches of that time which wholly justifies the most extraordinary and bizarre of all William Booth's dispositions to make men honestly and powerfully conscious of God.
In the momentous Address of 1877 this ringing honesty, intense reality, and clear-headed thinking of William Booth, are visible to every unprejudiced eye. We see him risen from sickness, bent by troubles, and assailed on every hand by sectarian hatreds, taking at last a sovran command of the Christian Mission, and making his plans for a struggle which he must have thought would last to his life's end.
I have looked forward to the present Conference with unusual interest, because we have to a great extent abandoned the plans of previous gatherings. Much dissatisfaction has been felt, and in many instances expressed, at the controversial aspect they assumed, so large a portion of time being consumed in discussion on comparatively trifling matters, while the mightier and practical questions, which intimately concern the work of God and the souls of our people, were left partially neglected. It became evident to me that we were drifting in a wrong direction. I confess I have been much to blame in this matter. Under the idea that teaching my brethren management and law-making would increase their sense of responsibility and unite us more fully together, I launched the Conference on a sea of legislation which all came to nothing. It was no help to me and it came to nothing with others. If anything was done that did not satisfy any one, whether evangelists or societies, they invariably blamed me and insisted on the exercise of my power to alter it. And yet here we were, with new men coming in thick and fast, leaving the most essential principles and practices to be wrangled about and decided by mere majorities.
Seeing all this we asked, What shall we do? There seemed only one course--to return to the practice of our earliest gatherings. Most of you were present at the Conference held in January, when I frankly and fully expressed the feeling of my heart and my intentions as to the future, and my explanations seemed to be as frankly and cordially received. I recalled the fact that at the first I had associated brethren with myself upon the distinct understanding that they should labour under my superintendence. This was the full understanding. No one asked then, as no one asks now, or expects anything else than this--each man to manage his station according to our wishes, and fall back upon us for counsel and direction as may be needed. All who come into the work now understand this. They come to me and say, "Let me work," with the fullest understanding that I should direct them. And in this understanding, which is thus both "Ancient and Modern," we shall work in the future.
But it will be asked, perhaps, what then is the advantage of a Conference? Much, I answer, every way. What is the good of a council of war? The commander in chief calls the principal officers around him to receive information and counsel from all. Each brings his facts and expresses his judgment as to what is necessary and important to do, and then in view of all this he resolves upon a programme of operation. This is our Council of War. We are here to consider practical questions and how we can best deal with them: to receive reinforcements and restation our Army; and, above all, we are here to help each other's souls, to cry together to the Living God for the rebaptism of the Holy Ghost.
Now how does this altered plan affect the present Conference?
We hereby give up the Conference Committee. It seems almost useless to go into the reasons fully, but I may point out one or two. It seemed impossible to get a truly representative comnittee. Some of our oldest and most experienced brethren go into the country, perhaps three hundred miles away. London is, and must continue to be, largely a training-school, many of the stations being occupied by raw and new preachers, so that the men who could usefully advise us and to whom we could safely confide our secrets are not there as a rule.
If you are in any trouble you don't want to go to a committee. You come to me and say, "I want to see you alone." If any great question involving the happiness of us all were to arise, the only plan would be, it seems to me, to call together the most experienced of our brethren, and, if need be, all the others; but for all ordinary purposes it seems by far the simplest way, the only mutually satisfactory plan, for me to deal with the brethren personally and, when possible, face to face. Then a committee is far too slow for us! A brother writes, "I can have such and such a building for so much a week, and the man wants an answer immediately. What shall I say? Please send us a telegram." There is no time to call any committee together. We have to act at once. Fancy the Russians having a committee to carry on their war!
No superintendent is hampered with a committee at his station, and why should I be hampered with one? If I am to be, I shall see that you each have one to deal with as well!
This is a question of confidence as between you and me, and if you can't trust me it is no use for us to attempt to work together. Confidence in God and in me are absolutely indispensable both now and ever afterwards.
The step was taken, then, which made William Booth a real master of the Christian Mission, but the step which was to make him the General of a world-wide Army was delayed for a year by many and great difficulties which immediately presented themselves in the sphere of doctrine.
Although William Booth had decided that the Christian Mission should set before itself the task of rousing the indifference of the apathetic, and of converting the sunken and depraved sinner, he was still immensely conscious of the need for spiritual growth in holiness. His one tendency towards mysticism lay in this direction, and unless we perfectly acquaint ourselves with the character of this tendency we shall miss the secret of his inner life.
He believed and taught that every man is born in sin, and because of sin cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. He believed and taught that an absolute and conscious change of nature must take place in every individual before he can inherit eternal life. The Church teaches that an infant is cleansed from original sin by the sprinkling of water in baptism. To William Booth, as to the majority of philosophers and men of science, the sprinkling of water in baptism could not by any possible means be anything more than a symbol; it could not make the smallest difference to the character and temperament of the child. John Stuart Mill had painfully learned from experience "that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habit of mind of which false opinions are the result." Human personality is neither to be regenerated by a ceremony nor to be transformed by logic. But Booth declared, and philosophers like William James--Henri Bergson, too, we may even say--are certainly of his opinion, that a radical, intelligent, and fully conscious change of nature is possible to man; and this radical, intelligent, and fully conscious change of nature, he held to be that "conversion," without which, according to the teaching of Christ, man cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Baptism, therefore, was for William Booth a detail of symbolism, and he left it freely to his followers to decide whether they would be baptized or not; he felt no vital concern in the matter. His emphasis wxas on Conversion, the conversion of the adult and intelligent individual, and this was the first and greatest of his preachings. But beyond the arrest of the sinner, and the awakening of the soul to the living fact of a Living God, lay the path of Holiness; and here William Booth could not stop and leave conversion to follow its own evolution.
The doctrine he held on this subject was a variant of the doctrine known as Entire Sanctification. This doctrine, as the extremists hold it, teaches that a converted man can so grow in grace, can so open the doors of his volition to the will of God, that sin ceases to have the least power over him; that he is cleansed of all evil, and becomes perfectly pure, perfectly holy, even in the sight of God. William Booth never held this doctrine, but he did seek perfection in love after conversion, and taught men to aspire after entire sanctification of the will.
To reach this condition was, with him, if not the supreme object of each converted man and woman in the Christian Mission, at least the first of all their personal objects. First they must preach the repentance of sins; first they must labour to rouse the whole world to the truth of Christ; but after this, if possible simultaneously with this, they must wrestle with God for the entire sanctification of their own souls.
In this way he came to encourage what were called "Holiness Meetings." The character of these meetings eventually provoked the fiercest attacks ever made upon him by religious people, and many religious people thought that they were something extravagant and something unhealthy. Nevertheless, by a careful and sympathetic consideration of these remarkable attempts to deepen spiritual consciousness we approach a rightful understanding of William Booth's religiousness, and perceive with some degree of clearness the character of the struggle which was taking place in his own soul.
Mrs. Booth, as we have said, was on the side of Holiness. She had a young but powerful ally in the person of her eldest son, Bramwell. But while Bramwell Booth was an enthusiast for these Holiness Meetings, almost a leader among the evangelists of the Mission who taught Entire Sanctification, he was more inclined for challenging the world than his mother, more disposed to startle the conscience of the age. Bramwell Booth, who had shivered for a long while on the banks of doubt concerning his fitness for the work of an evangelist, and who had shrunk in timid dread for some considerable time from the very thought of preaching, was now, with George Railton, among the most enthusiastic and aggressive of the Mission workers.
The following descriptions of Holiness Meetings, taken from The Christian Mission Magazine, afford no real picture of the extraordinary sights which were witnessed, nor do they give an adequate account of the effects produced upon the souls of those who took part in them. Bramwell Booth tells me that, after many years of reflection, and disposed as he now is to think that in some degree the atmosphere of those meetings was calculated to affect hysterically certain unbalanced or excitable temperaments, he is nevertheless convinced, entirely convinced, that something of the same force which manifested itself on the day of Pentecost manifested itself at those meetings in London. He describes how men and women would suddenly fall flat upon the ground, and remain in a swoon or trance for many hours, rising at last so transformed by joy that they could do nothing but shout and sing in an ecstasy of bliss. He tells me that beyond all question he saw instances of levitation--people lifted from their feet and moving forward through the air. He saw bad men and women stricken suddenly with an overmastering despair, flinging up their arms, uttering the most terrible cries, and falling backward, as if dead--supernaturally convinced of their sinful condition. The floor would sometimes be crowded with men and women smitten down by a sense of overwhelming spiritual reality, and the workers of the Mission would lift their fallen bodies and carry them to other rooms, so that the Meetings might continue without distraction. Doctors were often present at these gatherings. Conversions took place in great numbers; the evangelists of the Mission derived strength and inspiration for their difficult work; and the opposition of the world only deepened the feeling of the more enthusiastic that God was powerfully working in their midst.
The following article from The Christian Mission Magazine for September, 1878, gives an account of "A Night of Prayer," lasting from the 8th to the 9th of August:
Compelled from want of space to omit a full report in detail, we must endeavour, as briefly as possible, to describe what was undoubtedly the most wonderful meeting ever held in the history of the Mission.
The whole company, amounting to three or four hundred, settled down for the whole night--a very great advantage over meetings from which many have had to retire at midnight or early morning-and from the beginning to the end, weary as almost every one was, after four days of almost ceaseless Iprevious] services, the interest and life of the meeting never diminished.
Scarcely had the first hymn been commenced, when a company of butchers assembled in a yard next door, with the avowed intention of disturbing us, commenced a hullabaloo with blowing a horn, rattling of cans, and other articles, so as to keep up a ceaseless din, which was heard even whilst the whole company sang aloud. But nobody was disturbed. We felt we were fighting, that was all, and every one seemed to sing all the more gladly and confidently,
Glory, glory, Jesus saves me,Glory, glory to the Lamb.
But the enemy had a new device. By burning something placed near open ventilators, and in a stove-pipe which passed through that wall, they filled the air all through the building with an effluvium which set every one coughing. Two or three sisters in delicate health had to go out for a few minutes. Singing and praying became for a while all but impossible. There was a rush of strong men to close up every aperture. The stovepipe was not only stopped but pulled down in a few seconds, and a watchman was soon at a top window with a bull's-eye ready for identification and defence, should they again come up to the attack. Throughout, we saw no ruffled countenance, no clouded brow, heard no harsh word. The disturbance was met even more promptly within the minds and hearts of the company than in its outward forms, and then, with a relieved atmosphere and an increased joy, we betook ourselves again to the business of the night.
We give up all attempt to even sum up the addresses delivered by Mr. Booth, Mr. Bramwell and Miss Booth, Bros. Robinson, Dowdle, Corbridge, and Sister Dowdle. The great object of the meeting was to address God, and it was in prayer and in receiving answers that the meeting was above all distinguished.
Round the table in the great central square Satan was fonght and conquered, as it were, visibly by scores of persons whose names and number no one attempted to take. Evangelists came there burdened with the consciousness of past failings and unfaithfulness, and were so filled with the power of God that they literally danced for joy. Brethren and sisters who had hesitated as to yielding themselves to go forth anywhere to preach Jesus, came and were set free from every doubt and fear, and numbers whose peculiar besetments and difficulties God alone can read came and washed and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.
That scene of wrestling prayer and triumphing faith no one who saw it can ever forget. We saw one collier labouring with his fists upon the floor and in the air, just as he was accustomed to struggle with the rock in his daily toil, until at length he gained the diamond he was seeking--perfect deliverance from the carnal mind--and rose up shouting and almost leaping for joy. Big men, as well as women, fell to the ground, lay there for some time as if dead, overwhelmed with the Power from on High. When the gladness of all God's mighty deliverance burst upon some, they laughed as well as cried for joy, and some of the younger evangelists might have been seen, like lads at play, locked in one another's arms and rolling each other over on the floor.
Well, perhaps there was something besides the genuine work of the Holy Ghost there, perhaps there were cases of self-deception and presumption, perhaps there were some carried away by the contagion of the general feeling. How could it ever be otherwise while Satan comes up with the people of the Lord? But, at any rate, God wrought there with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, so as to confound the wicked one and to raise many of His people into such righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost as they never had before, and thousands, if not millions, of souls will have to rejoice for ever over blessings received by them through the instrumentality of those who were sanctified or quickened between the 8th and 9th of August, 1878.
The usual unintoxicating wine not having been prepared for sacrament, we managed uncommonly well with water, and in fact everybody seemed to have got into a condition in which outward circumstances are scarcely noticed, and the soul feasts on God, no matter what passes outside. We had been drinking the best wine for hours.
After sacrament only a quarter of an hour remained for the love-feast, if we were to conclude, as intended, at six; but under Captain Cadman's energetic leading eighty-one bore their clear simple testimony to the Blood that cleanses from all sin in a very few minutes over that time, and after a little prayer we parted. Of course some felt sleepy when all was over; but so little exhausted were most of the evangelists, that a business meeting, commenced at 7 o'clock, was kept up with energy for nearly two hours, while many remained and transacted business with Mr. Booth until one o'clock.
Another account, this time of a "Musical Service," shows how the enthusiasm of the people was welcomed as a return to the religion of the first century:
August, 1878.
. . . The sight of the faces on the platform was one never to be forgotten~it was more than joy that lit them all up--it was the rapture of spiritual drunkards. When we saw one brother, advanced in years and stiflened by the long habit of solemn religious "ordinances," dancing, yes, fairly dancing to the music, whilst others, less constrained, were tossing bare arms about and rolling hither and thither as they sang, we realized as never before how free and easy the grace of God can make the people. Here is once more the old religion, reckless of public opinion and full of glory and God which made it necessary for the apostles to recommend sobriety.
Mr. Ballington Booth, a month later, gives a brief description of a "Holiness Meeting," which is interesting:
On September 13 was a wonderful time. Never shall I forget it. Oh, God did search all hearts that night. After speaking about giving up all and being kept by the power of God, and singing "I am trusting, Lord, in Thee," we fell on our faces for silent prayer. Then God Almighty began to convict and strive. Some began to weep, some groaned, some cried out aloud to God. One man said, "If I cannot get this blessing I cannot live"; another said, "There's something, there's something. Oh, my God, my God, help me. Set me straight; put my heart straight "; and while we sang
Saves me now, saves me now,My Jesus saves me now,
a dear young sister stepped up to the table, then two more followed; and now we sang again,
Saves me now, saves me now.Yes, Jesus saves me now.
Many more were smitten. We dropped on our knees again. Five or six more came forward. One dear man took his pipe from his pocket and laid it on the table, resolved that it should stand between his soul and God no longer. Then six or seven more came forward. We could scarce then sing or pray. Every one was overpowered by the Spirit. One young man, after struggling and wrestling for nearly an hour, shouted "Glory! glory! glory! I've got it. Oh! Bless God!" One young woman shook her head, saying, "No, not to-night," but soon was seen on the ground pleading mightily with God. Every unsanctified man or woman felt indescribably. Three or four times we cleared the tables and forms, and again and again they were filled. And all joined in singing the words,
I have thee, oh! I have thee,Every hour I have thee;
and one brother said, "Oh, oh! if this ain't heaven, what'll heaven be?" Another brother said, "I must jump." I said, "Then jump," and he jumped all round. So we sang, cried, laughed, shouted, and after twenty-three had given their all to the Master, trusting Him to keep them from sinning, as He had pardoned their sins, we closed, singing
Glory, glory, Jesus saves me,Glory, glory to the Lamb.
William Booth declared his conviction that "the work was of God"; he met the opposition of those among his followers who criticized the excitement of these meetings by the assertion of a practical man, that if of God nothing could stop this movement, and that if not of God it would come to an end of itself. He was not perhaps so deeply interested in this development as Catherine and Bramwell Booth, but he was by no means opposed to it.
Here and there in the letters of William Booth at this period we find approving references to the excitement, the testing nature of this new movement in the Mission:
Our Stockton and Middlesboro' branches are not likely to be much troubled with half-hearted converts, for the ordeal through which any one has to pass, in coming out for Christ at either of the theatres, is too severe to be popular.
At Stockton a sort of gangway has been made, leading from the pit to the stage. Penitents have to face this narrow way, and cross what looks like the captain's bridge of a river-steamboat, ere they can reach the stage, where prayer is wont to be made for them.
At Middlesboro' they have to be led round by various passages and staircases, and then suddenly come out on to the stage, which, being lit from the top, displays them to the whole house as they kneel before the Lord.
We had the most wonderful meeting of late. At the finish two brethren swooned. Have just heard of a meeting held in somebody's house, and a brother who had sneered and disbelieved in prostration being knocked down, etc.
But we cannot find any out-and-out declaration in favour of the new development among William Booth's letters or addresses, his mind being evidently preoccupied with the master-puzzle of his difficulties--" How to Reach the Masses."
This period was a period of disintegration. Many of the workers in the Mission, between 1875 and 1878, left William Booth, and some of them none too fairly. He was criticized for setting women over men; the demands he made were felt to be exacting; the open-air work tried the courage of the more nervous or fastidious; the Holiness Meetings were disapproved of by those who objected to excitement, and the teaching ot Holiness by others. Catherine Booth stood more and more for Holiness. She had one definite prescription, looking beyond conversion and preaching the "making of character." Bramwell Booth remembers the repetition of that phrase upon her lips; in her teaching and in her conversation she was for ever saying, "make character--make character." William Booth, who was troubled by the slowness of so wonderful a movement to convert the world, was puzzled why more progress was not made. Catherine Booth challenged him to think ahead, demanding, "Where is it all leading? Are we a religious body or are we an appendix to the Churches?" And William Booth's only answer at this time was, "I don't want to found a new sect."
The following address, delivered before the Annual Conference of the Mission in June, 1876, shows pretty clearly in which way the thoughts of William Booth were moving, and manifests as clearly as anything we have yet found among his public utterances the spirit which in little more than a year was to call the Salvation Army into being. This most characteristic address, ringing with honesty, aflame with energy, and passionate with love, is, moreover, one of the most valuable biographical documents left behind him by the founder of the Army:
In introducing the subject selected for consideration and discussion this evening, the first inquiry which naturally suggests itself is:
WHAT IS A MISSION STATION?
To this I reply that, as I understand it, it is not a building, or a chapel, or a hall; it is not even a society, but a band of people united together to mission, to attack, to christianize an entire town or neighbourhood. When an Evangelist receives an appointment from this Conference it is not contemplated that he shall deal merely with those who are already within the walls of certain buildings, or with those who may be induced to come inside them; but it is intended that he shall be an apostle of the Gospel to all those who live around. When you reach the station assigned you, if it has not been done already, you should take your stand in that hall, or theatre, or tent, and draw a line around the breadth of population you can hope to reach, and make that your parish, and aim, with tears and prayers, and the trumpet-blast of the Gospel, to christianize every soul within it.
Before you manage a Mission station you must
GET ONE.
What a high and holy privilege it is to be a soul-winner. "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Who believes this? Earnest, determined, sympathetic men, baptized with the Holy Ghost, may go forth and save multitudes from going down to the pit. Common men--men of quite ordinary ability--can do this; but where are they? How is it we are not besieged with men crying--Here am I, send me? We want a holy ambition for this work--men who see the privilege and desire the honour of bearing the tidings of life and liberty to the ignorant, dying, uncared-for masses going down to Hell from our very doors in this boasted Christian land.
Any one can go into training for this work. There are plenty of street-corners available in any part of this great city and throughout the land, where any brother or sister may find an audience and get a band of converts together, and in this amateur way speedily gather all the education and qualifications necessary. The best qualification for managing a station must be to make one; the next best plan to this is to help to work one that is made. If it be there, this will soon develop the ability to do that work altogether.
Now I am not going to give a list of the qualifications for efficiently managing a station, but simply to state how it can be done. The man who accomplishes it proves it thereby--and he can prove satisfactorily in no other way--that he has the necessary ability for the work. You have doubtless heard of the two men who met in prison, one of whom said to the other, "What have they sent you here for? .... Oh, for so and so." "But," said the other, "they can't lock you up for that." "Oh, yes they can." "But I tell you they can't." "Well, but here I am." Just so; I care not what the preaching abilities or other qualifications of a man or woman may be, if he does not succeed --if he does not get the people saved, and keep them--he proves incontestably thereby that he has missed his vocation, and he ought at once to turn over a new leaf and alter his plans and labours, or inquire for some other walk in life in which he can succeed; and if, on the other hand, however inferior and unlikely, humanly considered, the worker's qualifications may appear, if at the end of the year, when he counts up his losses and gains, he brings us a schedule that tells of increased numbers, spirituality, and power, he proves incontestably that he has the gifts and the graces which qualify him to manage a Christian Mission station.
HOW TO MANAGE A STATION.
Our first counsel is:
(I) MAGNIFY IT.
Get to know definitely what it is you have to do. Think what it is to be an ambassador of Christ--to stand between the living and the dead, and to be the savour of life unto life, or death unto death. Consider what will be the outcome of the faithful discharge of your duty on the one hand, and what will follow the neglect of it on the other. Read the 23rd chapter of Ezekiel, and the Acts of the Apostles; call up the memories of the holy, successful soul-winners who have gone through oceans of difficulties and led thousands to the Cross: lay aside every weight in the shape of worldly idolatry and self-indulgence, and then lay on the altar every power of body and soul, consecrating all you have, or ever hope to have, to the successful accomplishment of the greatest undertaking to which God could possibly have called you here.
To successfully manage a station you must
(2) LOVE IT
with a love that never falters, never swerves, never dies. You must have the same burning, unquenchable flame that Jesus had, or you cannot--will not--succeed; and your success will be just according to the measure of your affection for your people and for the perishing people around you. This love--this passion for souls--is the main-spring of religious activity and the principle which governs all real and lasting work for God. Love, rightly directed, makes a good parent, a good husband, a good workman; and nothing short of love, and a great deal of it, will make a good evangelist. The secret of success is often inquired for; here it is: It is not in natural gifts, or human bearing, or exceptional opportunities, or earthly advantages, but in a heart consumed with the flame of ardent, holy, heavenly love.
Love will make a man study. He wants to save his people; his aim is to bless them, not to amuse them. He wants to lead them on to know God, to imitate Christ, to be meet for Heaven. This he sees is to be done through the truth. He has now one absorbing anxiety to persuade them to hear, to think, to feel, to yield, to be saved, to be holy. Here is work for him. He must have arguments that will convince, facts that will affirm, illustrations that will explain, and truths that will both awaken and interest, and convert. He must range through earth, and Heaven, and Hell, for matter to make men flee to Christ, save their souls and bathe in the ocean of redeeming love. He has set his heart on this--not on studying, but on saving souls; but as souls are saved by preaching, and as he cannot preach unless he has something to say likely to accomplish his end, he becomes a real student, a thinker, and it is love that makes him one.
Love will make you pray. Love wants all the help it can command: and as it realizes that the great God is in sympathy, and willing to be a co-worker with any and every heart set on this mission of mercy, it will ever be knocking at the door of Heaven for countenance and co-operation. The love of souls will lead you into the spirit of ceaseless intercession with Him whose love for them was stronger than death.
Love will make you feel. A stony-hearted preacher makes a stony-hearted people. Perhaps there is no such monstrosity in the universe as a professed representative and resemblance of Jesus Christ who goes about his business in a cold, emotionless spirit. There is a great cry in some directions for more intellect in the pulpit; it seems to me that there is a far greater need for more heart.
If there be one character which above another God must abominate, angels weep over, and devils despise, it must be the automatical preachers who can discourse by the hour about the love of Christ, the worth of souls, the terrors of judgment, and the sorrows of the lost, with a flinty indifference or a ranting fervour which hardly lasts the service over, and which all can see is put on for the occasion. Oh, these ministerial machines, these mechanical preachers who are quite content if their salaries are paid and a round of meetings gone through, are the curse of Christendom and the wholesale manufacturers of backsliders and infidels. May God deliver us from them. Brethren, whatever other gifts you have, if you are to succeed, you must have hearts, and hearts that can feel.
Love will make you preach. A man cannot help but be an interesting talker on any theme on which his nature is powerfully stirred, and on which he has any measure of information. It is the stolid, indifferent, professional spouters of sermons that can get neither hearers nor souls. Again and again in his autobiography, Finhey, the great American Evangelist, says, "I let out my heart to my people"; and they wept and fell under the power of God. Of how many preachers can this be said? How often, alas! is it not just a got-off piece of intellectual stuff--and not much intellect either--that is let out. The last thing the preacher thinks of or desires is the letting out of his heart, and consequently the heartless performance is met with a heartless response from those who listen, and who, after a few minutes' wonderment, or, as it may be, admiration, forget the whole affair. Oh, if you love, you will pour out your souls before the people, and they will weep and feel in return.
Love will make you beloved. If you love your people they cannot help but love you in return. There are exceptions to all rules. There is a November time, perhaps, in every man's history, when everything is gloomy, and nothing seems to bring sunshine to the people's hearts so twisted and perverted may they have become. Cross-currents will sometimes run so strongly that, try as you will, you cannot reach the desired haven of the people's affections. But, as a rule, love will prove an invincible conqueror, and will bring the people to your feet. You can love your way through every difficulty. Hold on, then, even though the more you love the less you are beloved ....
To manage a station effectively you must
(3) NURSE YOUR PEOPLE.
I don't mean that you should cozen, and comfort, and encourage the old do-nothing members, if there are any, who come with their mouths open three times every Sabbath to be fed in idleness. No! Tip up their cradle. Make them question the ground of their religious hopes. Make them understand that true godliness is practical benevolence, and that they must at once become followers of Jesus, and go in for a life of self-sacrifice in order to do good and save souls, or else give up all hope and title to being Christians. Make the people see this, and keep on at it until they do. They will rub their eyes, and wake up, depend upon it, when they do see it; and though some may go off to other places where they can be edified without being constantly faced with their neglected responsibilities, others will go to work with a will, and you will soon see things move. But I was saying that you must nurse your people, and there are two classes that seem to me to want specially your tender care.
There are the wanderers. England is full of backsliders. These should be hunted up, and brought back ....
Nurse the converts .... My experience has taught me that the use of appropriate means is as indispensable to preserve the converts as it is to secure them ....
I leave the theology of this question to the doctors of divinity. I simply state the fact. If you fathers and mothers want to rear your children up to strong man- and womanhood, you feed and watch over them with all tender, loving care; and if you evangelists, and brethren, and sisters, in charge of God's great family want to rear up for Him and for humanity the babes with whom you are entrusted, to perfect men and women in Jesus Christ, you must care for them: you must nurse them. If you keep them, brethren, and if your returns from time to time show increases, you will prove in the most incontestable manner that you do wisely and lovingly watch them. But if, on the contrary, you do not--if you bring statements of large numbers of converts, and small or no increases in membership, you will leave it open for people to infer either that the conversions are not real, or that, being real, they are not properly looked after.
It is interesting to observe that the question of dress was at this period of transition (1877) occupying the thoughts of William Booth:
Some time ago, when supping, with a few evangelistic friends, with the Earl of Shaftesbury, his lordship said to us that in going over a London prison the chaplain had remarked the rapid increase of female prisoners, especially young people. And in reply to a question from the Earl as to the reason, the chaplain said he attributed it to three causes--drink, trashy literature, and flashy dress. He said any one would be surprised to see the tawdry feathers, and flounces, and flowers decked out in which prisoners came in, and to gain which they had doubtless been tempted to commit crime. Nothing can be more influential on this important question than the example of evangelists' wives. Our young men, I suppose, will have wives; but I say to you if you meet with young women wearing showy dresses don't look at them, and if you are now engaged to somebody you met by moonlight alone long ago, before you saw the Christian Mission, make a bargain before you marry them that they shall dress neatly and scripturally, as becometh godliness, and so appear as fit helpmates for men who preach the gospel of Christ.
The reference in this letter to the good Lord Shaftesbury raises the question of how far William Booth was assisted at this time by the sympathy and patronage of powerful people. With the exception of Mr. Samuel Morley it may be safely said that the Christian Mission had few friends among the influential classes. The Booths were helped by such of their private friends as Mr. and Mrs. Billups, by the brothers John and Richard Cory, by Mr. Henry Reed of Tunbridge Wells, and by other rich people whose acquaintance they had made in the provinces. But the governing classes knew little, if anything, of this strange work; and the religious papers took every care to prevent any knowledge of the Christian Mission from reaching their particular constituencies. In spite of the success of the Mission in East London, reports rarely appeared in the religious papers of this extraordinary portent in the religious world. The Booths were isolated. The great world knew nothing of the Mission. Mrs. Booth was talked about by many fashionable and thoughtful people, and when she held meetings in their own quarter of the town they were willing, even anxious, to go and hear her; but the real work of the Booths, the great work of William Booth, in particular, had so far only earned among powerful people the encouragement and support of Samuel Morley.
Of the shifts to which William Booth was often put, let the following extract speak, an extract from one of his letters, written in 1878:
. . . I severely sprained my ankle, and then a snowstorm, such as had not occurred for years, rendered travelling difficult. Through that storm I had to go to Sunderland. No cab nor conveyance could be had, and so I used such carriage as came to hand. I commenced the journey on the stalwart shoulders of a brother, then was glad to rest on some straw in the bottom of a milk cart, and before I reached my quarters at Middlesboro' that night, I was thankful to accept the service of a wheel-barrow.
The opposition from the lower orders was increasing rather than decreasing at this time; indeed it was only beginning to show the intensity of its hatred for such methods as the Booths employed. From Chatham, in 1877, comes the following report:
. . . We had a little opposition on the Brook--a big burly fellow holding his fist within an inch or two of Bro. Ridsdel's face while he was speaking, and threatening to do all sorts of things; but God restrained him. As he turned away he fairly gnashed his teeth with rage; but we sang on through the mud--and there was some mud too! . . . Monday, the 29th, was the anniversary tea-meeting. At eight o'clock we left the second sitting down at the hall, and sang in procession to the Military Road. After one or two had spoken, the publican on the left opened his window and pitched a pail of water on to the crowd below. Immediately the people moved; but though the sisters were principally upon that side, and the water fell upon their Sunday hats plentifully, the ring was not broken for a moment, and every one heard the hearty Amen that burst from all as the dear sister who was speaking wiped the water from her face, and cried, "May the Lord save that dear man." In the meantime the crowd had tremendously increased, and God came into our midst. Then the publican gave us another pail of water; but still we kept believing and the ring was unbroken. There was a solemn influence; no one spoke a word while we sang--
But till washed in the Blood of a crucified LordWe can never be ready to die.
And just then a fine sailor, apparently a man-of-war's man, stepped into the ring, and grasping my hand with tears in his eyes, said, "Oh, sir, can I speak to you?" The arrow of conviction had smitten home. Then I spoke a word or two, and then a third pail of water from a publican, seemingly aimed at me, but missing the mark, fell principally upon his own customers.
Worse was the condition in London, as is shown by a report from mission work in Hackney at the end of 1878:
. . . Whilst missioning the streets I came through the court where this affair happened [two policemen knocked down by a gang], and a big ruffian came running at me, knocking me about till he, with others, jostled me into the main street. Two policemen standing there, I at once asked for protection, which they refused. I then went on singing "My soul is now united," when these two policemen caught hold of me and demanded my name and address, which I at once gave; and on again we went singing, when the policemen followed, kicking me upon the legs and trying to push me over. I then walked backwards before my band, the police still jumping upon my feet and kicking my shins, till we arrived at the hall, where the gate-keeper, keeping the rough boys out, was pushed down the steps by these policemen, and one of the teachers coming up at the time was served in the same manner.
On Sunday, Dec. 24th . . . while in the open air in the afternoon, passing "The Green Dragon," the publican came out and blackguarded us. He then sent out half a dozen drunken fellows, some of them six feet high, who commenced knocking me about; and one of them, laying hold of me, ripped my trousers nearly in two; another one knocking my hat off and kicking it in double. Thank God my head was not in it .... We are often pelted with dead cats and rats whilst processioning in the streets. . . . On Sunday, Dec. 31st, our open-air services were well attended. Whilst in a back street a butcher ran out at me, and, with clenched fist, drew his arm back as if he would have knocked me to the ground, but, with the assistance of his neighbours and friends, he was taken back again, while at the same time, Bro. King received a blow on the back of the head from a youth who was the worse for liquor. But in the midst of all this we can say that none of these things move us.
But in spite of coldness and neglect on the part of the Churches, and in spite of brutal opposition from the mob, the Christian Mission grew in numbers and increased in enthusiasm during those hard and difficult years of 1877 and 1878.
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