The Authoritative Life of General William Booth Part 5

"I continued my public efforts in line with my new experience."

Happily and freely as William Booth had been allowed to lead his people, however, he and his intended wife both saw that there could be no permanent prospect of victory amongst these "Reformers." The very popularity of a preacher was sure to lead to contention about the sphere of his labours.

"The people," he writes, "with whom I had come into union were sorely unorganised, and I could not approve of the ultra-radicalism that prevailed. Consequently, I looked about for a Church nearer my notions of system and order, and in the one I chose, the Methodist New Connexion, I found a people who were, in those days, all I could desire, and who received me with as much heartiness as my Lincolnshire friends had done.

"Ignorance has different effects on different people. Some it puffs up with self-satisfaction. To others it is a source of mortifying regret. I belonged to the latter cla.s.s. I was continually crying out, 'O G.o.d, how little I am, and how little I know! Give me a chance of acquiring information, and of learning how more successfully to conduct this all-important business of saving men to which Thou hast called me, and which lies so near my heart.'

"To gratify this yearning for improvement, the Church with which I had come into union gave me, at my request, an opportunity of studying under a then rather celebrated theologian. But instead of better qualifying me for the work of saving men, by imparting to me the knowledge necessary for the task, and showing me in every-day practice how to put it to practical use, I was set to study Latin, Greek, various Sciences, and other subjects, which, as I saw at a glance, could little help me in the all-important work that lay before me. However, I set to work, and, with all the powers I had, commenced to wrestle with my studies.

"My Professor was a man of beautiful disposition, and had an imposing presence. The books he wrote on abstract and difficult theological problems were highly prized in those days. Moreover, he belonged to a cla.s.s of preachers, not altogether unknown to-day, who have a real love for that order of preaching which convicts and converts the soul, although unable to practise it themselves. _He knew a good thing when he saw it_.

"The first time he heard me preach was on a Sunday evening. I saw him seated before me, at the end of the church. I knew he was going to judge me, and I realised that my future standing in his estimation, as well as my position in the Society I had now made my home, would probably very much depend on the judgment he formed of me on that occasion.

"I am not ashamed to say that I wanted to stand well with him. I knew also that my simple, practical style was altogether different from his own, and from that of the overwhelming majority of the preachers he was accustomed to approve. But my mind was made up. I had no idea of altering my aim or style to please him, the world, or the Devil.

"I saw dying souls before me, the gates of Heaven wide open on the one hand, and the gates of h.e.l.l open on the other, while I saw Jesus Christ with His arms open between the two, crying out to all to come and be saved. My whole soul was in favour of doing what it could to second the invitation of my Lord, and doing it that very night.

"I cannot now remember much about the service, except the sight of my Professor, with his family around him, a proud, worldly daughter sitting at his side. I can remember, however, that in my desire to impress the people with the fact that they could have Salvation there and then, if they would seek it, and, to ill.u.s.trate their condition, I described a wreck on the ocean, with the affrighted people clinging to the masts between life and death, waving a flag of distress to those on sh.o.r.e, and, in response, the life-boat going off to the rescue. And then I can remember how I reminded my hearers that they had suffered shipwreck on the ocean of time through their sins and rebellion; that they were sinking down to destruction, but that if they would only hoist the signal of distress Jesus Christ would send off the life-boat to their rescue.

Then, jumping on the seat at the back of the pulpit, I waved my pocket-handkerchief round and round my head to represent the signal of distress I wanted them to hoist, and closed with an appeal to those who wanted to be rescued to come at once, and in the presence of the audience, to the front of the auditorium. That night twenty-four knelt at the Saviour's feet, and one of them was the proud daughter of my Professor.

"The next morning was the time for examination and criticism of the previous day's work, and I had to appear before this Doctor of Divinity. I entered the room with a fellow-student. He was put through first. After listening to the Doctor's judgment on his performance my turn came. I was not a little curious as to what his opinion would be.

"'Well, Doctor,' I said, 'what have you to say to me? You heard me last night. What is your judgment on my poor performance?'

"'My dear Sir,' he answered, 'I have only one thing to say to you, and that is, go on in the way you have begun, and G.o.d will bless you.'

"But other difficulties were not far away, for I had hardly settled down to my studies before I got into a red-hot Revival in a small London church where a remarkable work was done. In an account of this effort my name appeared in the church's Magazine, and I was invited to conduct special efforts in other parts of the country.

This, I must confess, completely upset my plans once more, and I have not been able to find heart or time for either Greek or Latin from that day to this."

How sincerely this curious student longed for improvement is manifested in the following entry in his Journal, written, I presume, on a Monday morning when it was thought that some relaxation of his studies following a Sunday's services would be advantageous:--

"Monday.--Visited the British Museum. Walked up and down there praying that G.o.d would enable me to acquire knowledge to increase my power of usefulness."

Who will doubt that that Museum prayer was heard and answered?

The Church he had joined was governed by an annual a.s.sembly, called the Conference, at which candidates for the ministry were accepted into it, and were appointed to some sphere of labour called a Circuit. Just before the Conference met he was astonished to hear that it was proposed to appoint him as Superintendent of a London Circuit. He was able to persuade the authorities concerned to alter this intention on the ground of his comparative lack of experience, although he expressed his willingness to take the post of a.s.sistant minister under whomsoever the Conference might appoint as Superintendent.

In due course, the appointment was made, and he found himself a.s.sistant to a Superintendent who, he tells us, was "stiff, hard, and cold, making up, in part, for the want of heart and thought in his public performances by what sounded like a sanctimonious wail."

This gentleman strongly objected when, as a result of the reports of Mr.

Booth's services appearing in the Press, he was urgently invited to visit other places, as he had visited Guernsey. The Conference authorities, however, prevailed, and insisted, in the general interest, upon his place in London being taken by another preacher, and his services being utilised wherever called for.

It was thus by no choice of his own, but by the arrangement of his Church, that Mr. Booth, instead of remaining tied down to the ordinary routine of pastoral life, was sent for some time from place to place to conduct such evangelising Campaigns as his soul delighted in. Who can doubt that G.o.d's hand was in this disposal of his time? He was allowed to marry, though his young wife had to content herself with but occasional brief spells of a.s.sociation with him.

His Campaigns were really wonderful in their success. He would go for a fortnight, or even less, to some city where the congregation had dwindled almost to nothing, and where one or two services a week, conducted in a very quiet and formal way, were maintained with difficulty, owing to the indifference or hopelessness of both minister and people. For the period of his stay all the usual programme would be laid aside, however, and he would be left free to carry out his own plans of daily service.

How remarkable to find him so completely carrying with him all who had been accustomed to the old forms, and introducing, with the evident sanction of the president and authorities of his Church, such re-arrangements, records, and reorganisation as he desired.

But the strange, the almost inexplicable thing is that, without his even remarking upon it, all should go back to the old forms the moment his Campaign ended!

What is not at all strange is that there should have grown up within the Church a strong opposition to him, so that, at the end of two and a half years, a majority of the Conference voted against his continuing these Campaigns, and required him to resume the ordinary routine of the ministry. Surely, any one might have foreseen that unless the old forms could be altered in favour of the new regime, the leader of this warfare must submit to the old routine. True, he might try to carry out in his Circuit, to the utmost of his power, his ideas of free and daily warfare; but, unless all who were under him in the various places which const.i.tuted a Methodist Circuit would constantly agree and co-operate, no one man could prevent the old forms from prevailing.

But William Booth was no revolutionist, and his willingness and submission to carry on the old routine, with little alteration, for four successive years surely proved that no desire for personal exaltation or mastery, but only the conquest of souls, was his guiding influence.

In those four years, spent in Brighouse and Gateshead, he tried to introduce into the churches as much as he could of the life of warfare which he considered necessary. In one year he so far won over the officialdom of Brighouse that they desired his reappointment; whilst in Gateshead he so transformed the Circuit that before many weeks had pa.s.sed the Central Chapel, which had hitherto borne the dignified but cool-sounding name of "Bethesda," was dubbed by the mechanics, who formed the bulk of the surrounding population, "The Converting Shop."

To those iron workers, accustomed daily to see ma.s.ses of metal suddenly changed, whilst in a red-hot state, into any desired form by the action of powerful machinery, set up for the purpose, such a name was both intelligible and expressive.

It, moreover, accorded with the new pastor's idea of the proper utilisation of any building devoted to the worship of Jesus Christ.

There ought to be felt there, he thought, that marvellous heat of Divine Love which was implied in Christ's engagement to "baptise" all His followers "with fire," and the services should above all else, be such as would ensure the immediate conversion to G.o.d of all who came under their influence.

But in Gateshead The General was to discover the most potent force that could be brought to bear upon all these questions, in the liberation of Mrs. Booth from the customary silence which Church system has almost universally imposed upon woman. It might almost be said that the whole problem of cold formality, as against loving warmth, can be solved by woman's liberation. True, in the ordinary state of things, the most excellent ladies of any church become its most conservative bulwarks; and, fortified, as they imagine, by a few words in one of St. Paul's Epistles, such ladies can oppose every new spiritual force as powerfully as some of them opposed him in Antioch, nineteen hundred years ago. But "daughters" of G.o.d who have been liberated by His Spirit generally make short work of any continued opposition.

Mrs. Booth, herself trained and hitherto fettered by this old school of silence, to the astonishment of every one prayed in the church on the first Sunday evening in Gateshead. The opposition of an influential pastor, in a neighbouring city, to the public ministrations of a Mrs.

Palmer, a visitor from the United States, very soon afterwards led Mrs.

Booth to defend her sister's action in the Press, and thus to see more clearly than before what G.o.d could do through her, if she was willing.

The General had not yet seen the importance of this advance, and, in view of his wife's delicate health, had not pressed her into any sort of activity, much as he had valued her perfect fellowship with him in private. But he rejoiced, of course, in her every forward step, and when she not only visited a street of the most G.o.dless and drunken people in the neighbourhood, but began to speak in the services, he gave her all the weight of his official as well as his personal sanction, little imagining at the time what a mighty force for the spread of the truth he was thus enlisting.

After faithfully serving the Church in Gateshead for three years, he found the Conference no more willing than before to release him for the evangelistic work which now both he and his wife more and more longed for.

The final scene, when, in a Conference at Liverpool, Mrs. Booth confirmed The General's resolution to refuse to continue even for one more year his submission to form, by calling out "Never!" marked a stage in his career which was decisive in a startling way as to the whole of his future.

"It is true that I had a wonderful sphere of usefulness and happiness," says The General; "but I was not contented. I had many reasons for dissatisfaction. I was cribbed, cabined, and confined by a body of cold, hard usages, and still colder and harder people.

I desired freedom! I felt I was called to a different sphere of labour. I wanted liberty to move forward in it. So when the Conference definitely declined my request to set me free for evangelistic work I bade them farewell.

"It was a heart-breaking business. Here was a great crowd of people all over the land who loved me and my dear wife. I felt a deep regard for them, and to leave them was a sorrow beyond description.

But I felt I must follow what appeared to be the beckoning finger of my Lord. So, with my wife and four little children, I left my quarters and went out into the world once more, trusting in G.o.d, literally not knowing who would give me a shilling, or what to do or where to go.

"All my earthly friends thought I was mistaken in this action; some of them deemed me mad. I confess that it was one of the most perplexing steps of my life. When I took it every avenue seemed closed against me. There was one thing I could do, however, and that was to trust in G.o.d, and wait for His Salvation."

The difficulty of the Church was really insurmountable at that time.

Since those days most of the Protestant Churches have learnt that evangelistic work is just as essential as the ordinary pastoral ministrations.

The fact is, that neither the Booths nor the Church were then aware that G.o.d, behind all their perplexities, was working out a plan of His own.

Who laments that separation to-day? As the evangelists of any Church they could not possibly have become to so large an extent the evangelists of all.

Chapter VI

Revivalism

Not many days pa.s.sed 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."