The Authoritative Life Of General William Booth, Founder Of The Salvation Army - free ebook by George S. (George Scott) Railton

Founder of The Salvation Army

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G. S. Railton

Copyright, 1912, By George H. Doran Company...

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Preface

I have no hesitation in commending this small volume as containing so far as its space permits, a good picture of my beloved Father and a record of much that made his life of interest and importance to the world. It does not, of course, profess to cover anything like the whole story of his many years of world-wide service. It could not do so. For any such complete history we must wait for that later production which may, I hope, be possible before very long when there has been time to go fully t

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Chapter I

William Booth was born in Nottingham, England, on April 10, 1829, and was left, at thirteen, the only son of a widowed and impoverished mother. His father had been one of those builders of houses who so rapidly rose in those days to wealth, but who, largely employing borrowed capital, often found themselves in any time of general scarcity reduced to poverty. I glory in the fact that The General's ancestry has never been traced, so far as I know, beyond his grandfather. I will venture to say, how

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Chapter II

In convincing him that goodness was the only safe passport to peace and prosperity of any lasting kind, William Booth's mother had happily laid in the heart of her boy the best foundation for a happy life, "Be good, William, and then all will be well," she had said to him over and over again. But how was he to "be good"? The English National Church, eighty years ago, had reached a depth of cold formality and uselessness which can hardly be imagined now. Nowhere was this more manifest than in the

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Chapter III

Convictions such as we have just been reading of were bound to lead to immediate action. But it is most interesting to find that William Booth's first regular service for Christ was not called forth by any church, but simply by the spontaneous efforts of one or two young Converts like himself. No one could be more inclined towards the use of organisation and system than he always was, and yet he always advocated an organisation so open to all, and a system so elastic, that zeal might never be re

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Chapter IV

We cannot wonder that God Himself rarely seems to find it wise, even if it be possible, to fit men for His most important enterprises in a few years, or by means of one simple process of instruction. Consider the diversity of men's minds and lives, and the varying currents of thought and opinion which are found in the various parts of the world at different periods of even one century, and it will at once be seen how impossible we should all immediately pronounce it to fit one man by means of on

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Chapter V

The Army's invariable principle of avoiding even the appearance of attacking any other association of religionists, or their ideas or practices, renders it difficult to explain fully either why William Booth became the regular minister of a church, or why he gave up that position; and yet he has himself told us sufficient to demonstrate at one stroke not only the entire absence of hostility in his mind, but the absolute separateness of his way of thinking from that which so generally prevails. T

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Chapter VI

Not many days passed after William Booth's retirement from the ministry of the Methodist New Connexion before his faith was rewarded by a warm invitation to a small place at the other end of the country. One of his former Converts was a minister in the little seaport Hayle, in Cornwall, and he sent the call, "Come over and help us." The Church had got into the stagnant condition which is so commonly experienced wherever contentment with routine long holds sway. Mr. and Mrs. Booth were not only w

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Chapter VII

What were Mr. and Mrs. Booth to do? They were excluded from most of the Churches in which during the last twenty years they had led so many souls to Christ. They found themselves out of harmony with most of the undenominational evangelists of the day, and, moreover, they had experienced throughout even the brightest of their past years a gnawing dissatisfaction with much of their work, which The General thus described in the preface to his book, In Darkest England, and the Way Out :-- "All the w

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Chapter VIII

What a place for a Christian Mission centre was Whitechapel Road! "Just look here," said The General to his eldest son, then a boy of thirteen, as he led him late one Sunday evening through the great swing-doors of a public-house into the crowded bar. "These are the people I want you to live and labour for." The mere appearance of many a thousand in the neighbourhood, whether inside or outside such houses, was enough to give some idea of the misery of their lives. The language and the laughter w

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Chapter IX

We have seen Mr. Booth beginning on the spot, now marked with a stone, near the site of "The Vine" public-house (since happily pulled down, the site being turned into a public garden) on July 5, 1865, scrambling through the first six years' difficulties until he marched the beginnings of an Army of saved drunkards, infidels, and sinners into a People's Market, transformed into a public Hall and Headquarters. He called all that "The Christian Mission," with only a slowly dawning consciousness tha

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Chapter X

One might have supposed that a man who thus raised a force of working people to do good to others, would in a Christian country have been honoured and encouraged by all the better elements, and defended with vigour by the press, the pulpit, and the police against any of the lower sort who might oppose him or his followers. To the shame of his fellow-countrymen, alas! it must be told that, so far from this being the case, The General was generally treated for the first few years of The Army's wor

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Chapter XI

So far we have traced the beginnings of The Army in the United Kingdom. But would The General desire or be able to extend it to other countries? With regard to the need for it there is now, at any rate, no dispute in any "Christian country," for almost all intelligent persons, whatever may be their own creed, or want of creed, admit the presence in their great cities, if not elsewhere, of only too many of the sort of persons to whom The Army has proved useful. But there has been no country in wh

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Chapter XII

The entire programme of every tour The General made emphasises so strongly his advocacy of hard work that one really hesitates to pick out any one Campaign as more remarkable than another. What is, however, extraordinary in connexion with one of his far-away Australian journeys is our having letters which so much more than any others give particulars of his doings. "I am resting to-night, and well I think my poor body has earned some kind of respite. Such a ten days' work I never did before of s

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Chapter XIII

For a number of years it was The General's custom to conduct the annual review of our Swedish troops at Sodertelge, a beautiful seaside spot, near enough to Stockholm to make it easily accessible, and yet far enough down the Fjord to make the journey thither a very delightful excursion. The sight of from fifteen to twenty steamers crowded with Salvationists making their way, with streaming banners, music and song, to the camp ground, was almost like a glimpse of the coming glory when the whole e

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Chapter XIV

The General's own personal experience, as well as numberless instances that came under his observation in his own and other families, gave him the same assurance as to the need and possibility of the Salvation of children as he had with regard to adults. If human beings cannot hope to please God until they are born again of His Spirit, what folly it would be to give up the best years of life to mere outside instruction, instead of aiming first of all at this first and greatest need. This law he

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Chapter XV

Nowhere has The Army shown its marvellous power to unite men of all races and classes so rapidly and completely as in India. With its Headquarters in Simla, and its leader, formerly a magistrate under the Indian Government, looked upon almost as a felon, and imprisoned when he first began leading Open-Air Meetings in Bombay, but now honoured by the highest both of British and Indian rulers and by the lowest of its outcasts equally, The Army has become the fully-recognised friend of Governors and

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Chapter XVI

The General visited South Africa three times--in 1891, 1895, and 1908. His visits were very largely dominated, as will be seen, by the idea that in South Africa good and abundant space could be found for Over-Sea Colonies; enough space, in fact, to accommodate all the surplus population of England. The following extract from the record of his first journey is taken, in the main, from one of his "letters to my children," dated from Kimberley:-- "The afternoon Meeting was a select gathering, with

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Chapter XVII

Japan, amidst all the records of its modern progress, must certainly count the honour of having properly recognised the value of The General and his Army before the old "Christian" countries of Europe did so. The Army's beginning in Japan was almost laughable in its feebleness. The little company of Officers sent out by The General, in 1895, were indeed truly devoted, and in their anxiety to be from the first "as Japanese to the Japanese," were so taken in whilst halting in Hong Kong that they l

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Chapter XVIII

The Government of the Dutch East Indies, which was in the hands, at the time, of a military man, has won for ever the honour of appreciating and utilising The Army of The General they had never seen, before any of those who had seen him. Certainly, The General never ran after earthly rulers, or showed any disposition to court their favour; but he said constantly, "Here we are; if any Government, municipal or national, likes to use us, we can save them more than half of what they now spend upon t

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Chapter XIX

Only those who have had some experience of a perfect life-partnership--such as existed for thirty-five years between The General and his wife--can form any conception of the sufferings he had to pass through, in connexion with her prolonged illness and death. She had always been more or less delicate in health, yet had, through nearly all those years, triumphed so completely over weakness and suffering as to be at once one of the happiest of wives and mothers, and the most daring of comrades in

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Chapter XX

Most erroneously and unfairly it has been widely assumed that the great work of The General was the establishment in the world of some Social Institutions. Happily, we have got a verbatim report of an address to his Social Officers gathered around him a year before his death in which we have a complete statement as to the beginnings and principles of the work, so that we can see exactly how he wished it to be regarded. 1. By the Social Work, I mean those operations of The Salvation Army which ha

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Chapter XXI

During one of his Motor Tours The General remarked:-- "It was here (Banbury) that the idea of a Motor Campaign was conceived. Seven or eight years ago (1900) I held an afternoon Meeting in this place. On that occasion a crowd of my own people and friends came to the station to give me a send-off. Such was the affection shown, and so manifest was the pleasure derived from my visit, that I said to myself:-- "'Why should I not impart this satisfaction to those comrades and friends throughout the co

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Chapter XXII

The continued strain to raise the money needed for the work was, undoubtedly, to William Booth the greatest part of his burden all the way through life. And it is to this day the puzzle which makes it most difficult to write as to The Army's finances. On the one hand, we have to praise God for having helped him so cheerily to shoulder his cross that he did not seem many times to feel the burden that was almost crushing him to the ground, and hindering all sorts of projects he would gladly have c

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Chapter XXIII

Though we have had occasion to mention Germany repeatedly, there has been no opportunity to call attention to the great importance which The General attached to our Work in that country. It seemed almost as though we had been premature in our attack upon the country, so little were either Governments or people prepared for our violent urgency, when we began in Stuttgart, in 1886. But The General lived to see his annual visits to Berlin looked forward to by the Press and public as a natural provi

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Chapter XXIV

It seems almost impossible to describe the ending of The General's life, because there was not even the semblance of an end within a week of his death. The last time I talked with him, just as I was leaving for Canada in January, he for the first time made a remark that indicated a doubt of his continuance in office. He hardly hinted at death; but, referring to the sensations of exhaustion he had felt a few days previously, he said: "I sometimes fancy, you know, that I may be getting to a halt,

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Chapter XXV

The great tribute The General received by the vast assemblies in every country at his Funeral and Memorial services, said far more than any words could have expressed of the extent to which he had become recognised everywhere as a true friend of all who were in need, and of the degree to which he had succeeded in prompting all his Officers and people to act up to that ideal. The following, a small selection of the most prominent testimonies borne to his life by the Press of various countries, wi

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Chapter XXVI

The high reputation which The General gained as an Organiser seems to make it desirable to explain, as fully as we can, what he aimed at, and by what means he made The Army the remarkable combination it has become. We have, happily, in several of our books his own dissertations on the subject, for he always sought to make clear to all who should follow him, especially in this respect, the reasons for his plans. In his introduction to Orders and Regulations for Staff Officers , he writes as follo

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Chapter XXVIII

As pointed out in the foregoing chapter, The General was always anxious to make clear to all, and to avoid, the possibility of a continuance of organisation and a routine of effort without the spirit in which the work has been begun. We could not better describe that spirit than he did in the following address to his Officers gathered around him in London, in 1904. He pictured to them the idea of Seven Spirits sent out from Heaven to possess the soul of every Officer, and thus described the acti

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Chapter XXVIII

None of us have yet any idea how voluminous a writer The General was, because so much of his writing was in the form of contributions to our many publications, or of letters to Officers. We can only insert here a few, specimens of what he wrote at various dates, and remark that in private letters there was always the very same flow of happy earnest life, the same high ideal as finds expression in the following extracts. In his Orders and Regulations for Field Officers he says:-- "It must always

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