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 29

 

HOSTILITY, SUSPICION, AND OPPOSITION

1877--1881

 

IN the year 1880 General Booth described the Salvation Army in these words: "We are moral scavengers, netting the very sewers."

This impulse was purely evangelical; it did not become what is called humanitarian or economic till ten years later. At its beginning, the Salvation Army was a society of men and women which existed only to preach the repentance of sins. William Booth did not ask himself why moral scavengers were necessary; he did not ask of the State and of Society why humanity got itself into sewers; he saw multitudes of people perishing in a great darkness, and he set himself by every means in his power to rescue these myriad sinners from the destructive consequences of sin. "We want all we can get," was his cry in 1880, "but we want the lowest of the low."

In order to reach the bottommost multitude, as we have already seen, he adopted methods which were entirely foreign to the religious sphere. These methods, while they created for him an almost instantaneous popularity among people whose hearts were breaking for passion and intensity, brought him into immediate collision with the orthodox and the mob.

It can very easily be imagined that the methods of the Salvation Army would shock public taste; but no charge can be laid against William Booth on the score of failing to foresee this antagonism, since his first purpose was to shock, to startle, and arouse.

To a letter of criticism from Lady Cairns,[Wife of Earl Cairns, the then Lord Chancellor.] General Booth could rightfully base his reply on the success of his methods. "Why do not those," he asked, "whose criticisms, I fear, influence you, and hold back the heart and co-operation of other friends--why do not these who evidently understand so much better than we do how the work should be done, set to work and do it in their improved fashion? . . . Let them enter the great manufacturing towns or grapple with the rowdy classes of the cities or attack the godless crowds of poor Ireland .... Till they do this, and do it more successfully than does the Salvation Army, I do hope they will cease their efforts to draw off by their fears and suggestions the hearts and sympathies and co-operation of the few friends the Salvation Army possesses."

But General Booth failed to realize that his methods, however successful with the poor and depressed, must certainly create an almost justifiable suspicion in the minds of those who knew nothing of his personal history. To thousands of people the man William Booth was only a name, and helped by rumour and slander that name very soon stood for those things that were hateful and noxious in their idea of religion--for quackery, imposture, and cant.

To those acquainted with his history, and of course to those who knew him personally, this hatred of the public was both cruel and inexplicable. But the public knew nothing of his early preaching in the streets of Nottingham, knew nothing of his revival services as a Wesleyan, knew nothing of his long struggle to work loyally with a regular Church; and they knew nothing of his superb honesty, his heroic courage under physical suffering, his noble devotion to his wife and children, his burning sympathy with the poor and depressed. To them the man had sprung up suddenly, without background and without roots; there he was, for the world's coarse thumb and finger--a middleaged tub-thumper, a brazen-faced charlatan, a pious rogue, a masquerading hypocrite, a cunning scoundrel. What was his object? Money--the object of every man. Why did he dress up in a uniform and order a band to play in front of him? To attract fools--like a clever cheap Jack. What happened in those precious prayer-meetings and holiness meetings? Better not ask; hysterical religion drags the soul into a veritable pit of iniquity.

It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the gross slanders that were circulated concerning General Booth in the early days of the Salvation Army; when the history of the Salvation Army comes to be written and the story of those early days is told in full, men will be amazed by the dreadful nature of these calumnies. But we are inclined to insist, in writing the narrative of General Booth's life, that there was some excuse for the world's antagonism, some justification for the mob's suspicion of his honesty. We do not take the view, even when we assert that his purpose was to startle and shock, even when we emphasize his determination to reach the masses at all costs, that William Booth possessed those qualities which immediately disarm suspicion and immediately create a feeling of devoted confidence. Those qualities he did possess, we think, in his early days, and they existed for all those who knew him intimately to the end of his life; but in the 'eighties he was a public man conscious of difficulties, a Pope Frankenstein bewildered by the Monster Church of his creation, an elderly statesman who looked ahead and who knew the danger, without appreciating the enormous value, of his headstrong and impulsive nature.

He was not by any means an entirely confident and always rejoicing General. Much of the confidence of those early days seems to have sprung from Bramwell Booth and Railton --younger men, who had caught the passion of his idea with the souls of youth and the almost laughing gallantry of adventure. When the General was disturbed by criticism, they rubbed their hands and rejoiced at "a good advertisement." Where the General appeared to lead and to thunder challenges, one finds these men at his back, urging him forward, sometimes putting the very words into his mouth. It is not too much to say that the Salvation Army would never have spread so immediately over the world, and never so violently have aroused the animosity of the Churches and the mob, if William Booth had relied solely upon his own judgment. There was a strange and often really charming diffidence about the man, a shrinking from anything in the nature of self-aggrandizement, a real loathing of public parades, and as real a love of quiet, privacy, and repose. He objected to the title of "General," for example, and had to be persuaded by others to use it publicly for the good of the Army. The first printed note-paper of the Salvation Army bore the words, "General William Booth," and on receiving a sheet of it he drew a circle round the word "General," placing it after his name, and writing above it, to Bramwell Booth, "Can't this form be altered? It looks pretentious." He was a man carried along on wheels which he himself had set in motion, but whose momentum he had not clearly foreseen.

While it is important to realize this element of caution in his character, it is also important to bear in mind that he exercised despotic powers and was jealous of any encroachment on them. Even the well-beloved son, who was perhaps the only man in the Army able to confront the wrath of the General, frequently found himself called over the coals. Unwilling to announce himself publicly as "The General," William Booth was in no doubt as to his generalship. He ruled, and he ruled like an autocrat, suffering no one to neglect his decisions; but in looking ahead, in legislating for the future, in meeting a crisis, he was more than ready to confer with his wife, his son, and his first Commissioner.

Bramwell Booth describes his father at this period as watching the movement. William Booth was convinced of one thing, that the movement was not a mission, but an army. He said frequently at this time: "We have not set up a new sect; we have raised an army, we are making a force"; and his anxiety was so great for this new thing in religious life that he felt the necessity of watching it. Quite by an accident the Salvation Army was established first in America and then in Australia. Commissioner Railton was enthusiastic about these developments, but it was some time before the General ventured to send Officers out of England to claim and unify his foreign detachments. He was quite as headlong and courageous as the others when a step was once taken, but it was in no headlong spirit that he arrived at any decision which involved fresh action.

Public antagonism troubled Mrs. Booth deeply, but chiefly because it came from religious people. General Booth himself was not greatly disturbed by these attacks; but, on the other hand, he was not inclined to treat them so light-heartedly as his son treated them. In the letters which follow it will be seen that here and there practices of the Salvation Army annoyed him, and that he set his face against tactics which gave the enemy a handle for criticism. He was watching the movement, and he saw difficulties and dangers. To challenge the world was right and necessary, but to annoy the world was foolish and hazardous.

We are disposed, on the whole, to think that the public of that period might be forgiven for their suspicion and dislike of the Salvation Army. The thing was not only new, but violently new; and the history of the man who had brought this violently new thing into being was quite unknown. It was never understood by the public that the Salvation Army was the work of a man who from his very youth had hungered and thirsted to reach the masses with the Message of the Cross. To half the public he was a seeker of notoriety; to the other half, an impostor lining his own purse. And it may be said at once that some of the devices adopted by his first converts--devices of which he disapproved when he came to hear of them--were such as to scandalize judicious opinion.

The main fault of the public, as we see the matter, lay first in the eagerness with which it listened to slander; second, in its stupid unwillingness to understand the cause and significance of a movement which, with all its faults, was at least making for righteousness. But whether the public was to blame, or whether General Booth might have done something more effective to explain his purpose to the world, certain is it that the Army came into sharp and dangerous collision with public opinion, and it is this historical fact which the reader must bear in mind when following the story of these years. The Salvation Army discovered a devil in England, and the brutality with which it was assailed by the mob, and the venomous attacks which it encountered from many orthodox religious people, are phenomena of the times which seem to justify William Booth in his effort to Christianize the country at almost any cost.

The first letters are addressed to his son, Bramwell Booth, and begin with the year 1877:

 

272 WHITECHAPEL RD.,

7/3/77.

. . I spent most of my time trying to take the conceit out of ----, and succeeded a little, I hope. He is a dear good fellow, but capable of doing six times as much good as he is doing. Of course I can't forget that I have changed myself very much the last few months and look on things quite differently; indeed, I have gone back to where I started.

I worked hard on Sunday and did it with ease, and I am persuaded did ten times the good I should have done if I had simply preached and done all the business myself.

Ours is the co-operative plan, and the main idea should be to make the most we can of every man. People have Ioo times the interest in a meeting in which they do something themselves. Now at Portsmouth I saw clearly that the talking outside and in was done by some six or nine persons over and over again. I got a Soldier baptized and blessed and he spoke with more influence than any of them, and he will make a fine intelligent fellow. There is a Mrs. C---- there who got very much blessed; she is a magnificent woman, capable of doing any amount of work and doing it far more effectually than either ---- or ----, only wants leading. The lot speak too long, five minutes is plenty; this, with sharp singing and remarks of faith, etc., thrown in from a spirited leader who moves and lifts, will set any Mission Congregation on a flame. Then by dropping sharp into a P.M. [prayermeeting] you will catch something, and you, the leader, are comparatively fresh for talking as needed through the night ....

I don't say give up preaching; no! no! no! I preached all the time .... But you must have a leader and you must have a band of men who are "alive." Of course a sentimental, dead affair like Hastings came to be contemptible.

The philosophy of success is "live" meetings.--Let us have them. Give up the Shopkeepers and Methodists and trust the VULGAR CROWD. Let us pour contempt on our "ministerial helpers" and mend or end them.

I enclose ----'s letters. I wrote him very plainly indeed, and told him the only way in which he could walk in harmony with me was in carrying out my wishes, and I told him I doubted him, because I had heard of his magic-lantern entertainment, and that was being off my lines .... Of course I have, as I said before, winked at and admitted a lot of this Chapel business, and now all at once I pour contempt on it and insist on its stopping; the men are a little amazed ....

 

19/3/77.

. . . I did not go out afternoon. R. did and got a nasty crack on his bare head with a heavy stone ....

. . . You can announce him with confidence. Dog-trainer, not fighter: has kept a brothel and public.

. . . I am inquiring for an American watch. The American meat is so first-rate I want to try the watches.

. . . But alas we have all our men to make over again, aye, and women too .... I never saw in any place such a congregation as we have had at Whitechapel--except when drawn in by loaves and fishes.

 

In 1878 he writes to the same son:

 

. . . Take care of yourself for my sake and my love for you. I can understand how that king never smiled again when he lost his son. What should I do if I lost my prince?

 

May 13, 1878.

. . . I am pleased with Merthyr. But the Hall-Keeper was full of the devil yesterday, would not let us have enough forms for the afternoon, and the confusion knocked me clean off--I could not preach. If it had been you, you would have concluded you were not called, and given up; but I spat on my hands and went at it again at night. It is a wonderful work and has stirred the whole town.

. . . Hold on, my boy. Wherever I follow you I find you have left blessing behind you, and people's eyes glisten at the hope of seeing and hearing you again.

 

Mar. 16, 1877.

I wish we did not do so many silly things. I think I see a great difference between manly, natural, bold, daring action and WEAK, frivolous, childish COMICALITY.

.

This is perhaps as valuable an extract as can be found in all his letters of that period. He was then full of energy and courage and direction; he was not yet overawed by the immense popularity of the Army; he had not yet come face to face with the bitter and brutal opposition of the mob; he was not watching--he was leading. And here, at the threshold of his crusade, the vigorous common sense of the man declares against "silly things," against anything which is merely "weak, frivolous, childish comicality," while he insists upon the rightness of "manly, natural, bold, daring action."

A letter from Commissioner Railton to the Chief of the Staff, dated March, 1879, shows rather amusingly that the Army has not yet by any means perfected its organization. He speaks of some one whose accounts ought to be seen into, and speaks of another Officer who wishes to hand over money and settle accounts, but who cannot get attention from Headquarters. "Says he, 'It's a temptation to a fellow when he wants trousers.'"

Many of the Officers, we may say, were working for a wage of sixteen shillings a week, enduring with the utmost cheerfulness very great privations, and conducting campaigns in the worst quarters of crowded cities with a courage difficult to overpraise. There is no doubt that General Booth's appreciation of this wonderful devotion helped him to take an indulgent view of extravagances which, while they gained attention, undoubtedly made enemies for the Salvation Army.

In 1879 trouble began seriously to manifest itself from the mob. In June of that year the General writes to Railton and his son:

Things came to a crisis yesterday. Roughs climbed backwalls, opened doors, filled up and took possession. Tucker closed after he lost command, but they would not go--shook the gallery front, shied the hat-rails, top of pews, and book-boards, etc., about. Police refused to come in. Tucker & Co. cleared the centre of bottom themselves, by which time a Superintendent with a force arrived and the rest cleared out. It was awful. Brydel was struck--one man in custody for this and another for a drunken pitch in our Saturday. Tucker hurried back to appear. Our lot are thoroughly cowed, lay and cleric. Lasses are afraid of open air, our lads want to be removed--machine no use--Tucker feels himself alone.

A lot of filthy half-drunk fellows come on purpose to make a row .... We ought to try and make Paton help us. Two constables inside would do it; as it is, the constables openly encourage the roughs to resist .... Who could help us? Our friends, unfortunately for this job, are all LIBERALS.

 

But he has glimpses of patronage and popularity. From Wick Hall, Brighton, he writes to his boys in October, 1879:

We got here. A mansion. First-class style. For the sake of the Army and the souls of the people I sat fully one hour and a half over 12 courses of dinner with half a dozen worldly, godless people! The major did not dine with us, and hoped we should be useful to his poor relatives, one a captain and the other a "Vicar" over 70 with a young wife not more than 27. I tried to talk--but, oh!---- The two gents are out hunting this morning.

. . . The major gave me £30 this morning to go on with. He said we can't carry on without plenty of powder. I had already informed him of that fact.

Trouble arose over the printing of the first issue of The War Cry, and the General was by no means enamoured of his first efforts as a printer. He writes to Mr. Railton in December, 1879:

. . . We have had a lot of perplexities. Last night, nearly 11, after varied attempts to print we condemned engine as being utterly useless and machine's only value old iron. After frantic efforts all day had not got over 200 readable papers off her. Bramwell wrote Cooke to say she would not print and recommended them at once to send their man to see her, and everybody gave her up. I could not see this myself. On Saturday morning I felt bad enough about her, but now it simply seemed to me a question of power in the engine and detail in the machine, and I think it will prove so. She is now printing 1,400 per hour very fairly I hear--last night she did two and tore up 3, and 2 more and then stopped!

 

Six days later he writes to the same correspondent:

. . . I can do little here but see people and advise and get snatches of time for The War Cry. You can form no idea of the endless difficulties of this paper--that is, of the first issue. I never want to see such a week again as last over such a subordinate matter. It may not prove a subordinate matter, but I hear little about it at present to make me think any one else attaches much importance to it.

But real trouble for the Salvation Army began next year, and sprang from the opposition of certain leaders of the Church as well as the enmity of the mob. The first note of definite oppugnance was sounded by the Bishop of Carlisle (Dr. Goodwin), who preached, in October, 1880, a powerful but somewhat ill-natured sermon of uncompromising condemnation on the subject of Army tactics. In a letter to Mr. Henry Reed, written from Keswick, the General refers to this attack:

I have been very poorly since we came, my old enemy, the slow ague-fever, having been on me for a fortnight. All through the meetings I spoke with a mouth so ulcerated that every movement of the tongue gave pain, and the last three days I have hardly stood on my feet. I am however a little better to-day and hope soon to be myself again.

The Lord Bishop of Carlisle preached against us on Sunday morning last, in the Cathedral there, from I Cor. xiv. 33 and 34. He founded on the newspaper reports of our proceedings during the last week and pitched into us pretty straight. I propose that Mrs. Booth answers the Sermon next week. Not to scold him, but to defend and explain. It will make us friends.

[Mrs. Booth's answer was a very clever and even brilliant effort, full of good humour, and only occasionally marred by inappropriate satire. She lectured to an immense audience in Carlisle, and her address was printed and circulated far and wide, making many new friends for the Army.]

But these attacks do not hurt us. They do not affect us even where it might be expected. I have just met in the street the Curate of this place, who knew me, having been at our Holiness Meetings at Whitechapel; in conversation he said how much the Rector here, Canon Battersby, would like to see me, for he had heard him the other night defending us to some clergymen who had taken up the attack of the Bishop.

More serious than episcopal condemnations was the disposition of the mob; and more serious than the disposition of the mob was the attitude of the police towards these law-breakers. Towards the end of 1880 disturbances were a common occurrence, and early in 1881 the General was obliged to make a vigorous protest to the Metropolitan police authorities:

 

March 16, 1881.

SIR--Mr. Morley has shown us your letter of the 26th January, and we had already discontinued the use of instruments in the open-air meetings in London, according to your previous request sent direct to me. [Lord Morley, then editor of The Pall Mail Gazette.]

I very much regret to say that although there has been considerable improvement in nearly all our stations since Christmas on account of the changed attitude of the police, now matters are getting worse again.

The gangs of roughs referred to in my memorandum dated December the 22nd are now again allowed to congregate. Here, for instance, the last two evenings there have been the most disgraceful scenes, windows have been broken and the meetings upset.

P.C. 127 H. used the most disgusting language here on Wednesday night, and of this I complained to the superintendent, Arnold; as however he did not take any steps to prevent a repetition of the same thing last night, I am compelled to write you.

In view of the communications which have already passed both directly and indirectly between us, I suggest that you make an appointment to see me. I think that an interview might result in arranging for a course which would be mutually satisfactory, as I feel quite sure that we both have in a great measure the same end in view. Could you see me to-day?--Yours faithfully, WILLIAM BOOTH.

Colonel Sir E. Henderson, Whitehall.

 

Later in the year, the General telegraphs to Mr. Gladstone and addresses an indignant letter to the Home Secretary:

12/10/1881

From William Booth,

101 Queen Victoria Street,

London, E.C.

To Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone,

Downing Street,

London.

Unless something is done immediately to neutralize the effect of the Home Secretary's letter to Stamford, which is already the war-cry of the roughs everywhere, there will be riot and bloodshed all over the land. I am sure you would not willingly assist in inflicting suffering on men and women who will not defend themselves. Beg you read letter which I send by hand or command me to an interview.

 

To the Home Secretary he wrote as follows on the 10th October, 1881:

Sir--I observe with some surprise that you have written to the Mayor of Stamford in reply to some communication from him with reference to the Salvation Army in that town.

I beg to inform you that no one connected with this Army has ever yet been sent to Stamford. The Salvation Army is not in Stamford.

But this incident affords me a sufficient opportunity to point out to you the real cause of all the disturbances that are complained of. There is no town in this country where any considerable number of ratepayers would approve of any interference with our processions were it not for the violence used against us and consequent breach of the public peace.

And from whom comes that violence? Very rarely indeed from any but roughs or corner-men who would not dare to touch us were there not conveyed to them first of all an assurance that they may do as they like to us with impunity. There has never been a breach of the peace where the authorities have made it plainly understood that assault upon us will be treated as assaults upon any other people.

Those who are on the watch for an opportunity to gratify their tastes for violence are never slow to observe the attitude of authorities, even of individual policemen, and such proclamations as we suggest or any intimations of opposition to our movements which come from the Bench, the Police-station, or even the lips of any Constable, are sure to be followed by breaches of the peace no matter whether we march in procession or not.

But it is upon the lives and property and persons in no way connected with the Army that the full force of mobs thus encouraged will sooner or later vent itself. Let the story of Basingstoke indicate what may be expected within a few weeks of the authorities' interference with our liberties; convicts are brought home from Winchester in a carriage, feasted in the Corn Exchange, and Magistrates' houses attacked ....

Who will be most affected by all this? Certainly not the Salvation Army, which I am happy to say has only gained more wherever this lawless spirit has been encouraged against them.

Our women as well as our men are able and willing to bear without retaliation all the stoning, pushing, beating, kicking, or other force that may be used against them with or without your advice. We have a stronger force than the authorities of any town can ever be able to bring against us, and sooner or later the force of public opinion will visit well-merited chastisement, a notorious fact, admitted by the Police in many localities as well as by Clergymen of all denominations that we are gathering together great congregations of such persons, and that the lives of very many are consequently being reformed. It is not against a Society which is labouring, and labouring successfully and self-sacrificingly, to benefit the criminal classes that local authorities should be directed how best to employ "force."--Yours faithfully, (Signed) WILLIAM BOOTH.

The Mayor of Basingstoke, a brewer, professed himself unable to protect the Salvation Army in that town from the attacks of a mob organized and intoxicated, it is alleged, by the local publicans. It needed a reprimand from the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, to bring the authorities to their senses.

"Skeleton Armies," as they were called, sprang up in various towns and set themselves to break up the processions of the Salvation Army. Disturbances of this kind became frequent and serious, and in Weston-super-Mare a Salvationist was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for causing a riot--a sentence subsequently quashed in the Court of Queen's Bench.

But the country was stirred, and the Salvation Army--attacking the Drink Question and rescuing men and women from the ruin of the tavern--incurred everywhere the wrath of the brewing industry. Riots and disturbances of a violent kind were inevitable.

Such was the state of affairs in 1881. On the one side was a cold and critical condemnation by certain religious people; on the other, a brutal disposition of something more than horse-play in the degenerate mob of cities and towns. But more trying things than these were to befall the Salvation Army in the coming years.

 

END OF VOL. 1

 

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