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 26
LETTERS OF THE PERIOD IN VARIOUS MOODS 1876-1878
In the midst of his tempestuous life William Booth found time to write to his children, to his friends, and to his wife whenever she was absent from him. Some of these letters are unfortunately dull with the local dulness of a small chronicle; but here and there we find a phrase, an exclamation, or a vigorous piece of sermonizing which helps one to understand something of the man's nature. Before proceeding, then, to an account of the transition from the Christian Mission to the Salvation Army we shall make a few extracts from these letters, whenever they seem to assist our history.
We find in one of his letters to Mrs. Billups a complaint that his wife is "moiled and muddled with some dressmaking business "--a domestic labour for which he had no sympathy. He writes on another occasion to his wife, and refers to this same troublesome question of millinery:
Katie says you are gone shopping. I dread the sound of the word shop. Mind! Do set an example. I still incline to the thought that a cloth would have been nice for Katie's jacket.
Ill, and away from home in Gloucestershire, he writes the following testy letter to the boy who is struggling with many problems in London:
MY DEAR BRAMWELL--I cannot see what you want to bother me perpetually about Soho and Ridsdel and Cooper. Let me for mercy's sake have a day's rest. I won't serve you and Railton so when you go away! Every day you have bothered me with Ridsdel. Do the best you can with Soho and all else. What good could it do any one to tell me Gipsies were a failure, I might as well have been left to imagine that all was going well as have my evening clouded with the information. Please do, Do let me alone. Railton says you have toothache, I am very sorry, but I cannot help it. Go to Ross! I say this as much to hinder you having the trouble to write. I have written about Cardiff. If you think Leeds (30 miles further away than this), Birmingham or Norwich better openings than Cardiff, the two latter not big openings at all, I pity you. However, for once I have decided. I do not see what you mean about Dowdle ought to be moved. However, if you can move him here to Cardiff all will be well. (As to vexing Cory I do not know what you mean except to raise a dust in your own eyes. He is most anxious of all.)
But these growls and gruntings are only occasional. He is obsessed by the thought of his work, and again and again throughout his correspondence at this time exclamations burst from his heart full of a rough passionate desire for the conversion of the world.
He writes to Mrs. Billups: "Let others look after sick and children; you follow Jesus, and go out and win thousands of souls for Him." To the same correspondent, a little later, he addresses the following quaint adjuration: "Jesus has paid for you to travel first-class to Heaven, and have a first-class mansion. Take it; don't be put off with second-class!" Then he breaks out, concerning a reported scandal in the religious world:
The Baptist papers are the most furious---one of them has a paper headed "Collapse of the Higher Life Movement." Cruel. Cruel. God will be level with them. I will never forgive the Baptists, neither in this world nor the world to come !
Vigorous phrases of this kind, abundantly justified in most cases by the particular circumstance, appear throughout his correspondence; but his "never, never" seldom lasted for a whole day; the more tremendous the explosion the quicker was his return to normal business.
Much more frequent are his spiritual exclamations, torn from the inward struggles of his soul, and seeking expression in language sometimes of a violent and sometimes of a very crude, almost childish character:
God! oh to compass the word--who tries? God, Omnipotent Almighty--Omniscient--Everywhere. And oh, wonder of wonders, my Lord, and my God--say it--venture out on to the deep trackless ocean and find the waves as firm to tread upon as the rocks of Galilee. Heed not storms nor boisterous billows. Jesus is just on before. SING!
Satan rages. Russel was locked up on Saturday night--he had permission to stand on a parson's door-step, the police pulled him off and took him to the Police-Station. This morning he was fined 1s. and costs 8s. 6d. which with a guinea to Solicitor is nothing to the encouragement to our enemies; however, we shall go forward.
A little later he writes to Mrs. Billups of the sickness in his home, and suddenly breaks away from his news to preach a sermon on the text of domestic calamities:
. . . Lucy thrives and only wants to get away for her sake and ours, and then in due course and after due cleansing and disinfection we hope once more to get home again.
Oh to get HOME. Home, our real abiding home. But we must be cured and disinfected. there must be no seeds of contagion about us. We cannot be allowed to go in there until there is no possibility of polluting that holy place. I told the sinners yesterday that God would not allow them to go into Paradise as they were--they had spoiled earth. He would not allow them to spoil Paradise. And you and I have no desire--I have not, I am sure, my yearnings are far stronger for the meetness than for the place itself--I love holiness more than I love Heaven. Do you, dear friend? The inward heaven is the more precious of the two--must be. And the inward will ensure the outward. Blessed are the pure in heart; they shall see God.
I preached my first sermon from "I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness." Oh how true. Never till then--never till then. But I shall be then.
In May, 1876, he writes to Mrs. Billups and makes a very interesting announcement, showing that even in those days the idea of an army was in his mind:
We are thinking of getting a "Flag" and have thought of crimson ground and blue border. What do you think? The crimson signifying the atonement and the blue purity.
Later, to the same correspondent, he discusses his plan for making preachers of converted sinners:
I don't want anybody to be Mission people but poor sinners. We can make "dare devils" of them, people who "dare" public opinion, but of no one else.
Occasionally he indulges himself in a rather clumsy humour:
Why not always put the day of the week on your letters--as you never know the day of the month. It is true a penny almanac would tell you the date, but---Well. Stick on the day of the week and I shall know when your letters are written.
Mrs.--- would not do at all, at all. You do not understand our "sect." Your material plan of things does not determine the action of men. It is a wife he wants and not a motherly body to take care of his house and family.
When one of the family is stricken down with smallpox, in 1876, he writes to Mrs. Billups releasing that good lady from her promise to visit him on his death-bed if he should contract the disfiguring disease. He says suddenly in one of his letters, "After all the line to Heaven is the best railway of all. I am on it. Express all the way." He is rather amused than otherwise by the effect of his methods on those in the Mission who came to him from the well-drilled legions of orthodoxy. "We have, I fancy, disgusted a goodly number of our respectable people with the 'vulgarity' of our announcements and efforts." To the end of his life a somewhat dissonant humour sounds through many of his utterances, as if he were ever eager to find relief from the tremendous tension of his serious undertaking in a spirit which sprang, apparently, half from the joy of his own security and half from contempt for opposing orthodoxy or foolish worldliness.
The letters to his wife at this time are full of the same tenderness and warm-hearted affection as marked his earliest correspondence with Catherine Mumford:
I get your letters, and I take care of them. I know where I am and will not leave a line of yours "out."
Katie is better and will soon be all right. I am as tender of her as you could wish. She eats and sleeps and seems very happy. Of course Mrs. -- is awfully sour, but we take no notice of her. All else are very pleasant ....
Tell Bramwell I won't have you made miserable by him [this apparently refers to the son's health]. He must have a holiday. Railton will be up on Tuesday, he must go away at once. Where? With you too! You must come to me or me to you. I should arrange to visit the other stations here and come off to you at once and let him come and finish up the North with K. but for my promise to take her to Edinburgh. But it will come to that. He can do with her as well as I can. Indeed I think better. He would have plenty of preaching ....
He is a dear darling boy, writes me beautiful business letters. What am I to do? I love him and all of you dearly. I love God and God loves me. I do wish he would alter in these little things, do you talk to him ever? . . .
Send -- to Barnet. We shall get through. It may do him good. I am not near so ready to spend money on him as I should have been 3 months ago. He must alter or he will lose my love. I hate selfish lazy people.
I am in a corner, having had all sorts of interruptions. I have your affectionate letter. I do indeed reciprocate all you say. I love you BETTER, more as a woman would wish in her soul to be loved than I did when at Matlock. I have more sense, more heart, and more religion than I had then, and all I have I lay at your feet and as much on your shrine as ever I did in my life.
I have been during our late separation in much uncertainty as to where you were, and Willie opens my letters, and I can't write as freely, and many things have been on my heart and held me down, but when I get free my heart comes bounding off to my first love as much and far more than when it seemed miles between Newington Gate and Russell Street.
I write advisedly and with deliberation. . .When can you come? Can you come before Monday when you would see Emma and the chicks? It seems a long long time to wait till next week .... Come you must and shall if you are willing.
... Katie too is much better than for 18 months. She says if she had been cared for like this she would have been strong to-day, but Willie worked her without rhyme or reason! I just show her and do the brunt myself. She is a good fine girl. Bless her.
I think of you all alone, and when a gleam of sunshine comes into my heart or through my window my soul turns to you at once. If I only thought you would be happy with me it would make me glad beyond description; but, unfortunately, you get so anxious about me when there really is no occasion. I am wonderfully better again. I do MORE work, and do it far more easily, than I did when an Evangelist in these parts 22 years ago.
In the following letter to Mr. Railton he shows the spirit in which he is meeting opposition:
MY DEAR LIEUT.---Much more cheery about things here. Of course I am the personification and centre of all that which for months has been regarded as to be deplored and put down. Personal Power. The town, too, including Mr. Whitwell and Co., assisted by Mr. Lamb, and "not hindered" by Messrs. Allen & Clan, have found us out. "No popery" has been the cry, and lo and behold the pope is here, all unabashed, nay carrying at the outset all before him. Hold, not so fast, the tide abated, but the flood is on again and seems likely to flow. Amen, so be it--so it is!
. . . reported 700 saved there. Our Wood says there were but "3 persons." Cheer up, Brother! you can report as much as that any day of your darkest days. You raised that even in the wilderness--I mean your holidays!
His care for his children is exemplified in the letter which follows, addressed to the daughter who acted as the Little Mother to the family, and who was to meet a tragic death in America twenty-six years later:
MY DEAR EMMA--I saw your letter to Mamma last week and was very sorry to find you had been so low-spirited. I am aware that your task is tedious and sometimes doubtless very trying; but, dear, you must hold, remembering how many there are who would give all they have to possess the mercies and comforts you enjoy. You have had a nice change at Southend, and now you must go through the term, and then, God willing, at Xmas you shall have another holiday, and this time, if possible, you shall go away from the children.
Life is a great and solemn trust, and we must do all the good we can and so earn the welcome from the Saviour, "Well done!" Bless you, I know you try to do well, and He knows it too, and He notes it and He will reward it.
Never forget that, although I don't say much about it, I love and appreciate all your care for the dear children and all your anxiety for dear Mamma.
Domestic matters monopolize the following letter to Mrs. Booth:
Spent the night at Croydon. Tea'd with children and took Emma with me. Mrs. F. very kind. She gave me the enclosed envelope, which I dared to open and to extract a cheque for £25 from it; this I will, unless you instruct to the contrary, put in the bank. It will keep us on our feet. Praise God. I did not think it was to be expected just yet. She said, When you are short for the Mission come to me ....
I have your two letters by this morning's post. They perplex me much. I am distressed that you are not more settled and happy .... You evidently can't settle where you are without me. Why not? . . . If you want to come home you must. I don't care what I do or where I go or what happens now, if I can but feel that you are happy .... I want you ten thousand times to be at home to-morrow and only counsel your staying away for your own DEAR SAKE.
My life is a drag without you, But I want you to get better. Don't be anxious. Bramwell is permanently better. He has given up heavy suppers. Sleeps and is every way improved. . . . It is simple folly to talk about Emma coming--she has only had a month or 6 weeks with the children, and to go--I am amazed at you--and the expense too--pray what next?
There is a tragic note, spoilt perhaps by a morbid irony scarcely to be justified, in a letter addressed to Mrs. Booth in March, 1878:
Bramwell started a letter the other day by saying, "I do miss you so much. I hope I don't love you too much." Those words follow me up and down like heavenly music. I seldom hear of anybody loving me. I don't think my people do, and that my family do I have to take very much on trust. So to hear him go out of his reticent course to tell me so, comforted me much.
Next month he is fighting a fierce battle in Wiltshire and writes to his wife:
Salisbury: we are mobbed and hunted almost out of the town. At present every hall and room is closed against us. The only promise is an old coach house, 4s. per week, and that not certain! Outdoors the Evangelists have to get into houses to escape the mob, and on Sunday they had to close the meetings --could not go on. Police refuse protection. Nevertheless there is a good Society. A lot saved. We must not give up; we will not.
Such was the enthusiasm of his followers at this time, 1878, that he was obliged to issue a command of the following character:
GENERAL ORDER AGAINST STARVATION.
"The General has learned with great concern that several of the bravest Officers who have gone to the towns recently entered, have endured the greatest privations, going, in fact, to the very brink of starvation without informing him, and this, even in cases where they had actually money in their possession, which they intended to use for the payment of rent or other debts.
"He wishes every one to understand that such devotion, however noble, is to be avoided and condemned, especially because it not merely exposes the strength and life of the Officers, which are of unspeakable value, to great risk, but is likely to bring great discredit upon the army.
"It was never intended that those who are faithfully and zealously labouring amidst difficulties, should suffer want; but only that full salary should not be drawn and unnecessary expenses incurred, and that no station incur liability beyond the amount of its ordinary income without the General's consent.
"Henceforth let it be as clearly understood that no Officer is to allow himself to suffer from want of food, clothing, or fire, without giving information to Headquarters in time for it to be prevented if possible, and that any one who knows of an Officer being in destitute circumstances will be held responsible for informing Headquarters on the subject; and every Officer is hereby authorised to use, in case of need, any money that may be in his possession, rather than undergo such sufferings, obtaining the sanction of Headquarters for such use of rent, or other money in hand afterwards."
He seeks recruits for his great army from among his own children, and presents the choice to one of his daughters, then absent from home, in a letter which reveals a tenderness and a reverence in his attitude to the maturing family:
Sept. 3rd, '78.
MY DEAR EMMA--I have thought much about you ever since you left, and hope to have a look in at you next week.
I hope you are looking out for rooms for Mamma and Kate, who are expecting to come to-morrow or next day or the day after that.
I do hope you are enjoying yourselves and getting good every way. H---- does not write me as I wished. I commenced one letter to him but did not finish it, as I thought perhaps it would spoil his enjoyment at the start. He ought always to put a letter in yours if only as an educational process for him ....
However, Ma will look him up. Ma got a letter from you last night which I was not allowed to see even, much less know what was inside it; except a hint that the money was going, or gone, I forget which, for I was awfully sleepy and in bed when she read it. Well, that is the use of Papa--money, and I must be content!
K. seems better, she and Ma are gone to the doctor to-day. K. has toothache. And now, my dear Emma, I have often thought I ought to write seriously or talk to you some of my thoughts, but I have so little time, and I hardly know how to enter upon the subject. I may say, however, that I do think you ought now to make up your mind about the Mission, as to whether you think it is God's plan for furthering His Kingdom--whether there is any other plan which more fully is calculated to do this. And if so, whether you will or will not give yourself to it, saying this people shall be my people, and this work shall be my work. It seems to me that it is for you to settle not what you will be, not what you would wish to be, but to settle in your soul what system seems most in harmony with the will of God and most likely to advance the interests of the Kingdom of God; and then having settled that, the next step seems a necessity, which is to give yourself to that system with all the powers and influence you have.
Never mind what kind of a position you occupy in it, whether it is a despised and hated system and people, or not. If to you it is the Kingdom of God then its people should and must be your people.
Now I don't say choose your father's people. You have judgment and the Bible, and I believe you have the Holy Ghost. Judge yourself. But I do say that if you believe that there is no method of teaching and labour and doctrine that seems so well and so much calculated to advance Christ's Kingdom, that the time has come in which you ought to cast in your lot with us, for better or for worse, and to make us feel that you are with us for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for ever and ever.
If so, then this it seems to me meets all or at least a large part of the controversies that trouble you. If the Mission is embraced as the Kingdom of God, if you voluntarily choose and enlist in this army, then you must subject yourself to it and live or die or marry or be single or be poor or rich or high or low for its advancement.
That is the way, as I understand it, that the early Christians acted, and in that way Christianity was spread over the globe.
At present I feel as though you were outside us, looking on, uncertain how to bestow yourself, and looking about how next to settle and promote your own happiness and well-being. My dear Emma, give yourself to Christ; that is, give yourself to the kind of self-sacrificing soul-saving life He lived. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though He was rich yet for our sake He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.
Let us do the same thing.
I believe you have God, and I believe you do indeed want to be right and to please Him. Amen! let it be so. I don't want you to bother to answer this. We will talk it over when we meet. May you have health and peace and all needed blessing.
Love to all my darlings. I will send you a hamper of good things when Ma comes.--Your affecte. father,
WILLIAM BOOTH.
But in November of the same year, from the town of Sheffield, he administers a sharp reproof to his two dutiful SONS:
MY DEAR BOYS--I have your wire. I am obliged by your counsel and I am never above being advised; but indeed what is the good of saying what would be patent to a child, for really I am able or ought to be able to form some sort of a judgment on matters when I have the facts. I am hardly likely to take a course unless inevitable that will upset Leicester, and I must say that I cannot think the letter of ---- and ---- justified the alarming telegrams sent to Middlesbro' last night .... Do let us take things a bit calmly. We are not in such a dreadful hurry alter all. If I were to come here with a sprained ankle with which any sensible person would be in bed and have a doctor, only to see these girls who simply wrote what and all they felt, it would have been a waste of time.
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