LIFE of
The GOSPEL TRUTH WILLIAM BOOTH
FOUNDER and FIRST GENERAL
of the SALVATION ARMY
by
Harold Begbie
1920
In Two Volumes
Volume 2
Chapter 30
WHEREIN THE GENERAL WEEPS OVER THE SUFFERINGS OF CHILDREN, TELLS MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL HE IS NOT CONVERTED, THANKS GOD FOR A YEAR OF UNINTERRUPTED MERCY, AND MAKES PLANS TO HELP PRISONERS 1910
IN spite of his partial blindness, his increasing weakness, and his bouts of very considerable discomfort, this wonderful man continued to stagger along the path of duty under his enormous burdens.
The fragmentary journal for 1910 is pathetic reading. When the entry is not dictated, one finds the writing extravagantly large and uncertain, the sentences very often incomplete. There are references to sleepless nights, dizziness, physical exhaustion, and pain. Other shadows than those of blindness were beginning to close about him. He feels the inhibitions of age, contemplates retirement, fears that the consequence of retirement may be death, and once more urges his frail and suffering body to obey the beck of his insatiable spirit.
In the early part of the year he went to Holland, Germany, and Scandinavia, drawing huge crowds to hear him. On his return to England he was too ill to take the Good Friday Meeting at the Congress Hall; but the meeting was a success, and seventy people came to the penitent-form ....
He says: "Praise the Lord. He can do without me. That's a mercy." But one knows very well that he was pawing the ground to be there. Booth blood, with all its virtues, is not quiet in retirement, and never descended, we suspect, from the veins of mystic or quietist. He made a bad invalid.
At the same time there were spells in his life at this time when he rested at Hadley Wood, dreaming his dream of a world conquest, and harassing his mind with conjectures as to the future. When Bramwell left him at night the old man would sometimes lift his son's hand to his lips, kissing it, and saying, "That is for Eva," "that is for Lucy"; then, after a pause, "that is for Ballington," "that is for Herbert," "that is for Katie"; but for the most part his mind was far away from even his most loyal and devoted children, dreaming his dreams of a world converted from sin. He longed "to save the whole world."
The reader must not think that he meant by this phrase about "saving the world" salvation from Hell only. He became in his old age much more tender, much more gentle, much more tolerant. He still believed in Hell; it was still a cardinal dogma of his faith that a wilful sinner is eternally on the side of everlasting evil; but he did not confine himself to visions of damnation. By that phrase "save the whole world," he meant the salvation of men and women and little children, particularly little children, from the earthly punishments of wrong living, from unrest as well as from poverty, from torpor and lethargy and disquiet, as well as from squalor and pain. He hated suffering. He yearned after an erring humanity. He longed for a heaven on earth.
During his last visit to America, his daughter Eva persuaded him one afternoon in Chicago to lie down on the sofa, and exacted from him a promise that he would not move till she came to call him with a cup of tea. "Now you won't move, will you, darling?" she pleaded at the door. And the old man said, "No, I won't move; I promise you." But a very short time after leaving him she heard movements in the room. She opened the door and found him walking to and fro, his eyes and cheeks wet with tears. "Darling!" she exclaimed, reproachfully; "you faithfully promised me that you wouldn't move!" "Oh, I know, I know!" he broke out; "but I've been thinking of all the sufferings of little children, the children of the great cities, and I can't rest, I can't rest."
It is not easy, I think, to exaggerate his tenderness during these last years of his life. Still something of a Boanerges on the platform, always in conference shrewd, humorous, and astute, he was, nevertheless, in the company of those to whom he could open his heart, a man almost feminine in the quality of his gentleness. It was a touching thing to sit with him in those last years and to hear him express his desire for the salvation of the world. He would draw his chair so close to his friend that their knees touched; he would bring his face so near that the breath--which had some wonderfully pure aroma, like that of new milk--could be felt warm on the face; and his eyes would peer into the eyes of that other as though straining to see sympathy, as though forcing the last dwindling rays of his vision into the depths of a soul that could understand him. He wanted to end suffering, to get rid of misery, to wipe out the disfiguring stain of sin. "And they won't even let us go into the prisons!" he would groan," not even into the prisons!"
From the entries made in his journal during March, 1910, the reader will see how he was suffering at this time from considerable weakness of body. How honest is the sentence, speaking of the goodness of God, where he says, "I believe He loves me, and I am sure I love Him":
I have not had as much sleep as usual, or as much as I require, but have had no sign of the giddiness for eleven or twelve hours now, for which I am unutterably thankful. Perhaps it has gone altogether. What a blessing that would be.
Later. Alas! alas! the vertigo has returned on me with some force, so my hopes are dashed once more. Still, I must hope on. I cast anchor in my old trust--that is, the goodness of God. I believe He loves me, and I am sure I love Him.
Have had a good night's sleep--excellent for me, but during the night and early in the morning I had several bad swimming bouts, making me feel really discouraged, if not hopeless. It is the terrible notion that has been lodged in my mind that I may fall at any moment, and that without notice. I am not afraid, but I cannot help feeling that it would be very unpleasant to those about me, and very serious to the many interests that I represent. But I am in the hands of my Heavenly Father, and He must do whatsoever He considers the best--God's will be done.
I am very thankful I have no public duties to-day. I don't know how I should face them if I had. I suppose strength and ability would be given me according to the requirements of the hour, as has been my experience for so many years. I am much divided as to whether I ought not to give up all public work for a time. I certainly should do it if it was not for the discouraging effect it would have upon my comrades and friends.
Whether an exaggeration or otherwise, there is a great notion abroad, both inside and outside our ranks, as to the value of my life, and as to the unfortunate consequences that my death would bring to the Army. So I must go on as long as ever I possibly can, if for no other reason than to keep other people fighting and to keep up their spirits while they are doing it.
. . . I am really and truly anxious about myself. I can see pretty plainly that I shall have to give up for a time, and giving up for a time at my age usually means giving up for good. The thought is very unwelcome to me .... The possibilities of a sudden call are right before. They cannot be explained away.
To the young daughter of an Officer on his Staff--then near death--he writes as follows during March of this year:
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND--I have heard through your dear father, again and again, of your illness. His last letter raised hopes in my heart that the pain was less and the prospects of recovery brighter, but the Chief of the Staff, my son Bramwell, now tells me in a letter just received that you are not so well and that your pain is greater than it was.
I am sorry for this. I had hoped for the pleasure of hearing of your speedy recovery. I must again ask my Heavenly Father to stretch forth His healing hand for your assistance and plead with Him for the bestowal of that comforting and sustaining grace that He delights to impart.
From what your dear father has said about your faith and patience, I am sure you are very dear to your Heavenly Father--I am sure that you are under His wings. You are dear to Him, and it delights me to think that He is so dear to you.
It may be that you will soon be in His very presence. What a joy that will be! How delighted your dear Mother will be to clasp you in her arms once more.
It cannot be very long before the General will join you in that blessed abode. I am looking forward to that time, and father and all, all, all whom you love here, will follow you.
I am writing in great haste, as I have only a few moments.
Good-bye for the present. --All will be well.--Your affectionate General, WILLIAM BOOTH.
This letter, perhaps, is too stereotyped in its phrases to convey the impression it ought to make on the reader's mind; but the sympathetic reader, at least, will be touched by the tenderness which moved this very old, suffering, and near-blinded man to write at all. The thought of a child's pain tortured him; the dying of a child moved him profoundly.
On April 10 he writes in his journal:
I am 81 to-day. Reckoned on a quiet Sabbath with time for some profitable reflections, but alas! how differently it has turned out. I suppose it has been one of the most harassing days I have experienced for some time. My head was swimming, off and on, from morning to night; but swimming or not, I was persuaded into doing seven more messages (birthday reflections for the various papers), finishing up with The Times at nearly 10.0 on my bed worn out.
Some things may be said against the course pursued, but I endeavoured to put into every message I sent some real Salvation Army Doctrine, and to urge the responsibility resting on every one for their own salvation and the salvation of their neighbours. If there is anything in preaching, surely the words I sent, which must have passed before the eyes of millions of people, must do some good. Anyway, they are intended to do so.
But not long after he is again brighter, and sets out on another important and exacting Continental campaign.
In Zurich he received news of King Edward's last illness:
Outside one or two occasions, I do not know that any sudden news seemed to affect me so much .... I need not say that the Officers joined me most heartily in praying for God's interposition and sparing mercy.
All through the wakeful hours of the night, indeed every time I came to consciousness, prayers for the King came to my lips; but alas! almost the first information I received revealed the tragic fact that . . . His Majesty expired... the night before.
He telegraphed to King George:
I pledge the loyalty of my British Soldiers to a man to your Majesty°s person and throne, and promise their continued efforts for the temporal and spiritual interests of the Nation. My people the world over are one with me in sympathy in your Majesty's loss, and in hope and confidence for a noble outcome of your reign.
On the day before King Edward's funeral he writes:
To-morrow I have the Memorial Meeting at the Congress Hall for the late King. I suppose that is how it would be described. I have simply regarded it as a preaching service myself, and I have not changed my mind.
I propose to introduce it with a few remarks on its being a day of mourning by the Nation, and that the Nation has reason to mourn, and that we all have reason to regret the event, and then turn the attention of the audience to themselves and proceed to deal with them as though the King never lived or never died, only draw an occasional illustration from the event.
Such is the essence of the Salvation Army method. Later in the journal there is a reference to administrative labours which still occupied a great part of his time, the growth of the Salvation Army all over the world, particularly in India and the Americas, calling for his constant attention:
Bramwell walked down to the station with me, talking business to the last--indeed, until after the train was in motion. How crowded our lives are with perplexing problems and hard work no one outside our circle can form any conception, and all continually made more difficult by the feeling that we are so far behind the requirement of the hour.
In October he threw himself with renewed energy into the hope of establishing a permanent branch of Salvation Army work in the prisons of Great Britain:
I went to Whitehall for an interview with Mr. Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, with respect to proposed plan of working for the Criminal in prisons in conjunction with the Government.
I expected to find Mr. Churchill alone .... With Mr. Churchill I found, however, Mr. Masterman, the Under Secretary, and Sir E. Troupe, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office.
The interview lasted an hour and a quarter, and might, so far as I could judge, an hour and a quarter longer, judging from the interest manifested by Mr. Churchill and the other parties present.
Nothing could very wen be more frank and anxious than all appeared to be.
I talked on the principles, methods, and success of our work among these classes, and in general terms, and each acknowledged their agreement, with trifling exceptions, with all I argued for.
That was satisfactory, but it was more satisfactory still to get a definite promise, or what amounted to one, for the following methods of operation by the Army in the prisons:
1. To be allowed to hold a Mission at least once per annum in every Convict Prison in the country.
2. Liberty to hold a quarterly religious musical meeting in each prison.
3. To hold a private meeting for the prisoners who enrolled themselves under Salvationist direction once a week.
This was all rather vague, but Mr. Churchill proposed to write me. In the first place, he suggested I should write him as to the results of our conference, but as I thought he had better [write] me, I agreed, and there the matter was left.
We parted in the most genial manner--Mr. Churchill saying with a smile, "Am I converted?" We had talked much about conversion from our standpoint. "No," I said, "I am afraid you are not converted, but I think you are convicted."
He added something about my seeing what was in him. To which I replied, "What I am most concerned about is not what is in you at the present, but (what) I can see of the possibilities of the future."
It was one of the most interesting interviews of my life, it may turn out to be one of the most important.
The day after he writes in his journal:
A wretched, toss-about night.
Of his grandsoWs birthday, Bernard, son of BramwelI, he says:
I gave him a watch which cost me £5. I hope he may live long to use it, and to regulate some useful work for God and man by its dial-plate.
Then he goes to Scotland, still taken up with his idea of a mission to prisoners:
Barlinnie Prison. . . The Governor and other Officials, with whom was Lord Polwarth, the Chairman of the Scotch Prison Commissioners, met us at the door and gave us a hearty welcome. I was at once ushered into the Prison Chapel, face to face with six or seven hundred Criminals. They were dressed in light khaki and Iooked like so many ghosts to my poor, imperfect vision .... I reckoned I had prepared myself a little for the occasion, but, strange to say, I lost myself almost directly I began to speak. [It is worth noticing that on every occasion when he visited a prison William Booth was overtaken by this feeling of nervousness.] It was with difficulty I talked for half an hour ....
I strove anyway to make what I had to say of benefit, and I believe it was so. Went to tea with the Governor .... Occupied chiefly with a discussion on prison affairs with Lord Polwarth, who has just returned from the Prison Convention in the United States. He agrees with nearly everything I say, and is prepared to support us in every effort we make in Scotland.
But still the mortification in all these discussions I am having with Prison Officials and others is, that while assenting to the necessity for some great alteration and willing for almost every move we propose, no one seems to grasp the necessity for ReIigion, anyway for a Religion of Regeneration. They think that with greater kindness some improvement will be effected. I think that (by) greater kindness, without some definite effort at conversion, more evil will be done than good.
At parting Lord Polwarth said, "Anyway I am opposed to putting these fellows into prison for three, four, five, and seven days." I replied, "Well, I am not so much opposed to putting them in for such short periods; I am for not letting them out again until there is some satisfactory evidence given that the prisoners are not going to repeat the offence for which they were in the first instance incarcerated."
On December 18 he writes in his journal:
Poor night. Turning and twisting for hours with a strange weight at my heart. It is strange how the world's sin and miseries are allowed to pile themselves up in the chambers of the soul at such times--but alas! they manage to do so. At three 0'clock this morning it seemed something made me feel as though my struggle with the powers of darkness and the effects they produce must come to a speedy end. Indeed, I could not see how I was going to battle through the day before me with any success, if I battled through at all.
But on December 31:
The last day of the Old Year. It has been a twelve months of uninterrupted mercy. I fear that my gratitude lags behind the overflowing goodness of my Heavenly Father. Could I very well ask for an experience more desirable than that to which I am exhorted by Paul when he urges me "In everything to give thanks"--there is a motto for the year.
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