The Authoritative Life of General William Booth Part 27

"We are still rushing on. I had five Meetings yesterday, Friday, and an hour's ride through the most blinding storm I ever encountered. Two of our cars broke down, gave up, and retreated to the nearest town for the night; another got through in a damaged condition, and three with difficulty arrived at our destination.

However, we who did get in, were rewarded with a big audience and a big reception. It was very wonderful. I am now reckoning on the closing Meeting which takes place on Wednesday afternoon.

"Everybody continues to bless me and speak well of me. Is it not a little surprising, and, viewed from the Master's Standpoint, a little dangerous? You must keep on praying that my faith fail not.

Abundance of trying things await me. I must wait for my rest 'until the Morning.' G.o.d bless you!"

Well may a man sometimes long for rest who has experiences like the following:--

"I nearly killed myself on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday at Birmingham. For some cause or other both throat and head got wrong, and it was with difficulty I could frame my sentences or p.r.o.nounce my words, and yet I had to meet the great opportunity that was presented. I am paying the price to-day in weariness extreme. There is hardly a bone in my body that does not ache, or a nerve that does not seem overstrung.

"But I shall rally and be myself again; indeed, I must, for things of vast importance have to be attended to before the day is out.

Our exchequer is empty, and I have to prepare for my autumn Campaign in Holland, Germany, Italy, etc."

"A mile or two after Penzance, the chauffeur turned to General Booth, and 'Now she's waking up!' he said, with a satisfied sigh, as the great car began to hurry through the open lanes.

"The General nodded his head meditatively. 'Yes,' he said, in his beard, 'people have to wake up before they begin to move. England wants waking up; I'm trying to wake her up myself, just a little, and then we shall move.'

"I asked him what he made of our national apathy.

"He shook his head. 'I don't know how it is," he said, 'but people are somehow afraid to examine themselves, afraid to see facts as facts. There is a spirit in England which is worse than opposition to religion; it's a spirit of--of--of detachment, of separation, a spirit which says, "I don't want you, I can do without you; and so long as you leave me alone I shan't interfere with you." It's a kind of slackness. They want waking up. They want rousing. They want a good shaking. It seems as if they have fallen into a deep slumber--opium-eaters!'

"He is setting out to rouse England once again, make one great final effort for the future of humanity. The future of humanity, he believes, can only be secured by 'conversion.'

"Look at him in his car! There he sits, with a light-coloured overcoat b.u.t.toned round his neck, a grey forage cap pressed over his ears, his hands in his pockets, his eyes looking straight ahead, and his lips biting at his beard--an old, old man in the newest of motor-cars.

"Through lanes where Wesley rode his horse, poring over a book as he went, General Booth flies in his beflagged car--on the same errand. These two men, so dissimilar in nature, so opposed in temperament, and separated by nearly two hundred years, the one on horseback, the other in a motor-car, sought and are seeking the same elusive end--the betterment of humanity.

"One feels as one rides along our country roads with General Booth the enormous force of simple Christianity in this work of evolution. One sees why Wesley succeeded, and why The Salvation Army is succeeding.

"'We make too much of sin,' says evolution. 'We don't make half enough of sin!' cries The General. Politicians and men of science seem like scene-shifters in the drama of life, and religion stands out clear and distinct as the only actor.

"'People have taken to The Salvation Army because it's so kind to poor people,' General Booth tells me; 'they know I love the poor, they know I weep bitterly for all the hunger and nakedness and sorrow in the world. People know I'm sincere. That's it! They know The Salvation Army is sincere, that it's doing kind actions, and helping those whom n.o.body else will help or can help. That's what makes us popular. Sympathy.'

"But the secret of The General is not humaneness. His secret is the reality with which he invests sin. Hear him talk about sin, and you realise the man's spell.

"At one moment he is full of humour and robust talk, a genial, merry, shrewd-eyed old gentleman; at the next--at the mention of real sin--his brows contract, his eyes flash, and his tongue hisses out such hatred and contempt and detestation as no sybarite could find on the tip of his tongue for anything superlatively coa.r.s.e or ill-flavoured.

"'Sin!' he cries to me. 'Sin is a real thing--a d.a.m.nable thing! I don't care what science calls it, or what some of the pulpits are calling it. I know what it is. Sin is devilish. It is sin and only sin which is stopping progress. It is sin and only sin which prevents the world from being happy. Sin! Go into the slums of the great cities--pick up little girls of six years of age sold into infamy by their parents; look at the drunken mother murdering her child, the father strapping his cripple son--sin!--that's what I call sin; something beastly and filthy and devilish and nasty--nasty, dreadfully nasty.'

"As you listen and as you realise that The Salvation Army contains numberless men changed in the twinkling of an eye from lives of such sin as this to lives of beneficent activity, you begin to feel that General Booth, right or wrong, has at least hit upon one of the most effective ways for helping evolution.

"He makes sin as real to the individual as only the mystics can imagine for themselves. Perhaps humanity likes to be told how black it is, how far it is from the perfectness after which Nature is blundering and staggering. I know not; but it is manifest that when this grim old man, with the ivory face, the black, flashing eyes, the tangle of white hair and the tangle of beard, leans over the rostrum and calls sin 'beastly' and 'devilish' and 'nasty' the people sit as white and spellbound as the patient of the hypnotist.

"It is a different General Booth whom the villagers flock to see as he drives, smiling and genial, through Cornish villages, whom the band plays into towns, and whom mayors and councillors receive with honour. But the reason of this honour and this popularity is the fact that he is a force, a living, breathing power who has made sin real to the world and has awakened the religious consciousness in thousands of human beings."

William Booth was always very wide awake to the discouraging emptiness of mere demonstrations, and never expressed himself more contemptuously with regard to them than when he thought that any of his Officers, in the midst of some grand display, which was attracting unusual attention, seemed to be likely to be satisfied with the show of what had been done, instead of pressing forward to greater things.

Yet he saw that, in presence of the continual and enthralling exhibitions of the world, there was absolute need for such manifestations of united force as might encourage every little handful, usually toiling out of sight, and convince the world that we were determined fully to overcome all its attractions.

There had been before his time large demonstrations in favour of teetotalism, and in some parts of the country the Sunday Schools were accustomed annually to make displays of more or less fashionably-dressed children and teachers. But The General was alone in his own country and time in organising any such public demonstrations in honour of Christ, and of total abstinence from sin and from worldly-mindedness.

How perfectly The General could always distinguish between the enjoyment of demonstration and of real fighting, was strikingly manifested on one of our great Crystal Palace days. Looking down from the balcony upon the vast display, when some 50,000 Salvationists were taking part in various celebrations, he noticed a comparatively small ring of our converted military and naval men kneeling together on the gra.s.s, evidently within hearing of one of the band-stands upon which one Band after another was playing, according to programme.

"Go and stop that Band," said he to one of his A.D.C.'s. "We must not have those praying men hindered in their fight for souls by the music."

And this was only one example of his frequent abandonment of any programme, or practice, or arrangement which seemed to him only to have demonstrative effect, when any more enduring benefit could be otherwise secured.

In short, demonstration in his eyes was only valued at its military worth, and he never wished any one to become so occupied with appearance as to miss enduring victory.

The following description, by a writer in a big London daily, of one of The General's tours might be fairly accepted as a sample of them all, and as giving some idea of the way in which they manifested his care for all that concerned men:--

"'An easy day' was The General's description of that on which we fared to mediaeval G.o.dalming, through the beautiful Hindhead region to Petersfield, and thence in the evening to antiquity and Winchester. He meant that he had only to address three great gatherings (the day's course admitted of scarcely any of the customary wayside and hamlet musters), so his oratory would be merely a matter of five hours or thereabouts. There were solid fact in The General's airy designation; it _was_ an easier day than most of those of the tour; but it had sundry distinctions of its own, apart from the great, welcoming Meetings.

"It was curious and pleasant to see gipsies salute The General from their wayside Bohemia on the road to Hindhead; it was delightful to see The General himself as he descended and spoke to the church school-children who hailed him by the wayside at Roke, in one of the most charming wayside spots on the journey. They stood with their teachers under the trees in the sunshine, little pictures of bloom and happiness. 'Now wouldn't you like to be running round the country on a motor?' he asked them straight away, and their answer come with hearty directness. In a nave and tender little speech, that had a touch of airiness, he told them of the joy of motoring, turning anon to the many glad and beautiful things within the reach of little people who yet might not go a-motoring, and so in simple little touches appealing to the joy of life and soul that the child-sense could understand.

"'Isn't he like Father Christmas?' a little girl was heard to whisper. Here he charmed those in the morning of life; away at Petersfield in the afternoon the sight of him consoled some in life's evening. One poor old lady, who had lost the use of both limbs, was carried to her door and set in a bath-chair, and there she remained till The General had pa.s.sed. We noticed the light on her face, and how vehemently she waved her handkerchief. An Army Officer chatted with her before we left the town in the evening. 'I can now die happy,' she said; 'I have seen The General. And when the call comes I know that G.o.d will send down the hallelujah motor for me, and the loss of my old limbs won't matter in the least.'

"I have mentioned 'an easy day.' Having now described in a broad way the typical early stages, it may be well, in a somewhat more intimate and personal way, to give an idea of the work, moods, and trend of the average day of the whole tour. The stress and excitement it meant in the long stretch of country from the first town to the last were extraordinary. We mustered, as a rule, at nine in the morning for the day's work and travel, most of the folk of the town where the night had been spent turning out for the send-off.

"The General was on the scene almost invariably to the minute.

Nearly always at those starts he looked grave, resigned, and calm, but unexpectedly careworn. It was as if he had wrestled with all his problems, with a hundred world-issues in the watches of the night, and was still in the throes of them, and unable for the moment to concentrate his attention on the immediate town and crowd that hurrah'd around him. But, of course, he stood up and acknowledged the plaudits--though often as one in a dream. But the picturesqueness of his appearance in the morning sunshine--with his white hair, grave face, and green motor garb--took the imagination of the ma.s.s, and without a word from him the people were left happy.

"He looked a new personality at the first important stopping-place, reached usually about an hour before noon. His air and mood when he stepped to the platform for the public Meeting had undergone a radiant change; all the more radiant, we noticed, if the children who had hailed him from the waysides had been many and strenuous.

There was something of the child in his own face as he stepped to the platform's edge, and replied to the enthusiasm of the house by clapping his own hands to the people. There was always something nave and delightful in The General's preliminary task of applauding the audience.

"Here came his first important address of the day, lasting an hour and a half, or even longer. It had many 'notes,' and displayed The General in many moods. He was apt to be facetious and drily humorous at first. He had racy stories to tell--and none can tell a story for the hundredth time with fresh zest than he--in ill.u.s.tration of the old and bitter prejudices against The Army. A typical one was that of an old woman, arrested for the hundredth time for being drunk and disorderly, who was given the option of going to prison or being pa.s.sed over to The Salvation Army. Too drunk to realise what she did, she decided for the latter. She was kindly tended, set in a clean cosy bed, and watched over by a sister till the morning. When she woke the sunlight streamed through the window, and the happy, unaccustomed surroundings surprised her. 'Where am I?' she exclaimed in bewilderment. 'You are with The Salvation Army,' said the sister kindly and softly.

'Oh, goodness gracious,' roared the old woman, 'take me away, or I'll lose my reputation!'

"Often in these long and comprehensive addresses The General told how he found the work of his life. He was never so impressive as at this stage. And the tale in its intensity was ever new. His language was nervous, intense, almost Biblical, his figure suggestive of a patriarch's in a tragedy. 'Sixty years ago--sixty years ago--sixty years ago,' each time with a different and a grimmer intonation--'the Spirit of the Living G.o.d met me.... I was going down the steep incline when the great G.o.d stopped me, and made me think.'

"In the last stage of his address he was the coloniser, the statesman, the social wizard who would recast character and rearrange humanity. He gave an epic sense to the story of emigration and colonisation. But he was invariably clear and lucid in his detail, so that the immediate and practical meaning of it all was never lost on the mayors, and corporation and council worthies, who heard him. Then miles and miles away at the second important stopping-place in the early afternoon, after incidental wayside speeches and idylls, he went over the same ground in a further address of an hour or more. Somehow in the afternoon he appeared to speak with added individuality and pa.s.sion, as if the wants and woes of the world had been growing upon him since the morning.

"A needed rest, perhaps a little sleep, then away once more by the waysides and through the welcoming hamlets. The third and last great stopping-stage was reached, as a rule, about eight o'clock.

He typified serene old age as he stood up in the white car, pa.s.sing the long lines of cheering humanity. Here in the evening light it was not easy to regard him as a propagandist. He might be a study for Father Christmas, or a philosopher who dealt much in abstractions and knew little of men. The General who, twenty minutes later, proclaimed his spiritual truths and his social ideals to a new audience, seemed, once more, an absolutely different personality. Often at these evening meetings he spoke for the better part of two hours."

Chapter XXII

Our Financial System

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 G.o.d 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 carried out. Yet, on the other hand, we must guard against saying anything that could lead to the impression that The Army has now got to the top of its hill of difficulty, and needs no more of the help, in small sums as well as in big ones, that has been so generously sent to it.

It would be hopeless to attempt to estimate the numbers of appeals The General sent out in any one year, for he not only tried at fixed periods to get for his various funds truly interested subscribers, but was always seeking to link the hearty giver with the deserving receivers.

But perhaps the very extremity of his one need helped him with the most practical wisdom to avoid all unnecessary expenditure, and to cultivate all those habits of economy and systematic effort which alone made it possible to keep up so vast a work mainly by the gifts of the poor. To this very day it is the same old struggle to get each 5 that is wanted together. Yet all of it is precious to us because it so guarantees exemption from indifference, and the pervasion of all our ranks everywhere with the principles of self-help which The General always so inculcated as to make The Army everywhere independent of the wealthy, yet their trusted and skilful almoners.