The GOSPEL TRUTH
LIFE of

WILLIAM BOOTH

FOUNDER and FIRST GENERAL

of the SALVATION ARMY

 by

Harold Begbie

1920

In Two Volumes

Volume 2

Chapter 16

 

THE LION IS INTERVIEWED BY THE LAMB

1894

 

NEVER before in its troublous history had the Salvation Army been so busy as during these years. It had now penetrated into the social field of human progress, spreading itself into many of the occupations of mankind, associating itself with the total effort of humanity, itself a part of civilization. But the soul of the old General was now concerned mainly with the one and ultimate activity which had fired his youth; he was glad to hear of victories on this wing and that, was watchful and critical of the strategy all along the Army's extended battle-front; but his attention was directed always to the centre, his determination was now set with something of a new impulse upon the conquest of sin and the conversion of mankind.

Evidence of this concentration of his soul on its original line of march is seen in the report of an interview which he gave to one of his own journalists in the year 1894, the printer's proof of which we may be perfectly certain was subjected to his improving pencil. This simple newspaper article, autobiographical in its character, is one of the most valuable documents of that period; its total omission of any reference to social reform, its ardent insistence upon the centre of Salvation Army experience, its fiery promulgation of Salvation Army teaching, not only reveal the contemporary mind of William Booth with authentic force, but help one to realize how complete at this time was his reaction from the obsessions of social reformation. It will be seen later on that the year I894, besides being a very busy one, was a year of some anxiety for the Army's social organization, but the piece of journalism which we now present to the reader with but few omissions, and those only for the sake of brevity, shows with unmistakable emphasis that his social adventure had now lost its obsessing power and that he was back again at the Penitent-Form, with powers undimmed, and his natural force unabated.

The interviewer, who we feel was of a somewhat lamblike nature and certainly of an accommodating turn of mind, begins with an account of the General's room, which is unfortunately not so intimate or informing a record as we could desire.

"On mantel, shelf, and table," he tells us, "were dispatches, documents, papers and letters relating to up-to-date engagements in the great Salvation Army campaign. Here lay a pile of statistics of miseries and woes which the Social Scheme is devised to assuage; there was a plan of campaign for Reconciliation Week; and yonder a synopsis of some book or pamphlet ready for the press. Whether at home or abroad, among princes or peasants, no one can fail to be impressed with the intense fixity of the General's purpose and the continuity of his plans and schemes to realize it. There is no swerving from the highway on which he is travelling towards his goal. There was not a vestige of a paper, a book, nor, I might add, an ornamentation which did not in some way or other point to activities present or prospective. The General lives, moves, and has his being in the smoke of this holy crusade.

"My entry on the occasion being in the nature of a surprise, I was prepared for the question: 'What brings you here?'"

"... I would like to hear," said the interviewer, "a statement from your own lips as to some of the main principles which have come now to find an embodiment in the government, practice, and operations of the Army."

We then read:

Disconnecting himself from every other topic, the General, with that vivacity which never seems to desert him, dived at once into the subject. Standing for a moment near the fireplace, with a programme of some Yorkshire meetings in his hand, he observed:

"The Salvation Army has been, is, and will be for some time to come, at least to a very great extent, the expression of my own religious convictions, experiences, and practices; it must be so of necessity.

"I stand," the General continued, "in the relation of father to my people; the children will resemble their parents. My position and my duty have made me their instructor; my teaching has been, and still is, accepted, followed, and repeated until it reaches every Soldier in the most distant Corps; I have walked before my people for the twenty-nine years the Organization has been in existence; and, loving me as they have done, and as, I am thankful to be able to say, they still do, it is natural that they should have imitated me. Therefore, if, instead of willing that it should be so, I had willed the opposite, I could not have made it otherwise. The all but universal feeling that runs through the eleven thousand of its Officers, and of the tens of thousands of its Soldiers and Recruits, is 'What does the General believe, and what does the General do?'--that will we accept, if it be consistent with the great principles laid down in the Word of God; and that will we do, if it be possible."

"That suggests what some of your critics say," I interjected "that you are creating a new order of popes."

"Yes; but the new is as different from the old as freedom from slavery. The loyalty of my Soldiers implies no mental servility, no soul-bondage. They believe in being influenced by the same Holy Spirit that influences their General, and in being led by the leader whom God shall raise up for them; and believing that God 'has raised me up to be their leader, it is their joy to accept my direction. And more still, their own experience has given them confidence in my integrity, discrimination, and judgment ....

"I do not claim, in saying this, any particular originality for all that there is of faith, organization, and activity in the Army. Far from it. My indebtedness to the glorious men and women who have gone before me is limitless, and to many of my compeers also. Others have impressed, instructed, and influenced me. The obligation under which I have been laid by my dear wife in this respect is well known. Although at the commencement of the Salvation Army, and during its early years, she was much occupied in her particular path of labour, she was my constant adviser, counsellor, and friend. I thought and felt little about the Army, and did far less respecting it, concerning which I did not first confer with her."

Pausing for a moment, and pacing the room as if he wanted to compass the whole range of some important point, special emphasis was given to what followed:

"I have learned much from my comrades, many of whom have been men and women of great ability, while others have had the advantage of more intimate and practical acquaintance with the class to which they belonged and still belong ....

"The principle of adaptation on which I have acted has led me to acquire information from every possible source as to the character and customs of the people whom I have wished to impress, and the best means of doing so. This must be so, from the composition of my own mind."

"In what particular, General?"

"My natural yearning for success is, perhaps, almost a weakness, and, together with my impatience as to the feeble progress that the Kingdom of Heaven makes in its extension in the world, notwithstanding the efforts put forth, compels me to be not only willing but delighted to discover an improved plan for accelerating the pace. I readily recognize the Mosaic character of these influences. While teaching others, others have taught me."

"But while this applies principally to your methods and the growth of the organization--does it also apply to your principles?"

"Certainly not; while we know of no finality as to method, our principles are unchangeable. And here again the Army to-day is largely an exhibition of those principles implanted in my own soul almost from the very beginning, and which have grown and strengthened up to the present hour."

"Will you kindly name some of these principles?" "Generally they may be described as few in number, simple in character, and are more or less entertained and cherished by every Soldier in the Army. Wherever that Soldier may be found, or to whatever tribe or nationality he may belong, the Salvationist is substantially the same sort of person all over the world. There are, in the Salvation framework, as it were, all those leading truths which are the common property of all orthodox Christian Communities. There is no necessity for occupying your time in enumerating them, seeing they are too well known and believed to need it."

"But you attach more importance to some than to others?" "True: the subtleties and intricacies of theological creeds we leave to those who have the time, learning, and ability to deal with them."

"And what are the main features on which you insist?" "Man must believe in the great God--the great common Father--and Jesus Christ, His Son, who died on the cross to save all men; in the Holy Ghost, who opens people's eyes to see themselves sinners, and shows them how to believe, helps them to master their selfishness in general and fight the Devil and sin. Then to these elementary truths I must add three others, on which great and constant stress is laid in almost every public meeting, namely, the Day of Judgment, a Real Place of Punishment, and a Glorious Heaven where all faithful and victorious Soldiers will enjoy unspeakable happiness in companionship with saints, angels, and God."

"But what beliefs, after these main doctrines, do you consider have had the most powerful place in your mind, and consequently had the most direct influence on the Army?"

"Well, they have many--too numerous to be dwelt upon here. But I may enumerate several which at the moment strike me as having had much to do with fashioning the form and inspiring the spirit of the Army of to-day; and I will begin with one which lies at the root of almost all our aggressive measures, namely, the division of all men into two distinct classes in their relations to God and eternity--the righteous and the wicked. I saw, or I thought I saw, this clearly enough, and that these characters answered to the two destinies of Heaven and Hell which awaited men in the next world. Nay, that the characters of men, while having much variety about them--that is, degrees of goodness or badness--were in the main as distinct here as their destinies would be there, and that one would determine the other --that is, if they would not let God save them and make them holy and good here, they must be lost hereafter; and if, on the other hand, they accepted the Salvation of God and were washed in the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, and were renewed and kept by the power of the Holy Ghost, they would be blessed for ever.

"Meanwhile, there they were, the distinctions of earth being more or less lost sight of in view of what they appeared to be in their standing before the great God Himself, and my business was clearly to persuade those who were on the wrong side to come over to God.

"I got this truth out of my own experience. I knew what I was before conversion and what I was after, and I knew also how different the one character was from the other.

"I got this truth out of my Bible. I saw it clearly stated there, and repeated over and over again, from the beginning to the end. Two classes are only recognized in the old Book--the friends and the enemies of God.

"I got this truth from observation. In relation to God I found two distinct classes or people everywhere I turned. One set did not understand me. After my conversion they could not make me out; thought me a fool. I talked a foreign language in their ears. They did not sympathize with me. Their tastes were different. My Bible, and my Meetings, and my Saviour, and my Songs had no charm for them. They hated what I loved; they loved what I hated. Men and women have appeared to me in this two-fold aspect ever since. They do to-day."

"And how far, may I ask, are these convictions shared by your followers?"

"My people universally share them," replied the General. "In fact, it determines their treatment of men. When they come up to a man they say in their hearts, 'Is this man for God or against Him?' They won't believe he is for God except he says so. They echo the words of their Master, 'He that is not for Me is against Me.'

"Another truth which took strong hold of my young heart, and which has influenced me very largely, and, through me, Salvationists everywhere, expresses itself in this wise--a change of character requires a change of nature. I saw that goodness was desirable, that it was necessary to please God, was the condition of happiness, and that without it Heaven was impossible at last. But I saw that men left to themselves could not be good. Nothing to me was plainer than this. No resolutions or religious ceremonials or pious feelings alone could make them good. They were in bondage to their lusts and appetites, to the fashions of the world and the influences of men, and no matter how they withstood them, they could not, by their own strivings, master or get away from them. I saw that like could only produce like, that the effect could not be better than the cause, that if you wanted to improve the nature of the effect you must change the character of the cause. To have sweet waters you must have the fountain sweet; in other words, that there was no hope for amendment in the man without the change of heart.

"My Bible insisted on this. I heard my Saviour say, 'Marvel not, ye must be born again'; and again, 'Except a man be converted, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.' My own experience confirmed the same. I knew that the great change which had come over me had all come at once and had been produced by a power outside me.

"I saw it in the experience of my Converts. I was satisfied that there could be no real religious life or feeling without this internal revolution, and I have taught the same ever since."

"And what was the outside power to which you ascribed the change?"

"I saw very clearly that God was the Author of this change, and that, consequently, it was possible in the case of the very worst characters. While I knew from my own experience and observation that no human resolutions or ceremonials could effect this change, I was conscious that it was a perfectly easy task for God. Hence, I knew that all things were possible with Him. I felt no difficulty when a boy, and I have felt no difficulty since I became a man, in assuring the greatest of sinners that they can be saved from the power of their sinful habits and the condemnation of their past evil doings, and that this can be realized wherever and whatever they may be, seeing that it is God who saves."

"This accounts, perhaps, General, for your Soldiers and Officers having such confidence in offering Salvation to everybody --without knowing anything at all about their circumstances?"

"It does. Nothing is more vividly realized than this truth, and more emphatically taught by the humblest Soldier in our ranks. People wonder when they hear our ignorant Soldiers say to the vilest and worst of transgressors, 'Only come down to this Penitent-Form and you can have Salvation here and now.' This confidence is inspired, not by any virtue existing in the Penitent-Form, but by the belief in the almightiness of their Saviour, and the greater the sinner the more glory they think will be brought to His name. They know they are weak and ignorant and helpless, but their confidence rests in no wise upon any ability, goodness, experience, or knowledge they may possess. Their faith is in an Omnipotent God.

"Then the responsibility for every man for his own Salvation was in the beginning powerfully borne in upon my own mind. . . . While I saw, as I have said, the helplessness of men to save themselves, I saw at the same time that God had placed within their reach all the grace and power they needed to enable them to live a holy, useful, and happy life, and that the condemnation of those who remained unsaved, now and hereafter, would be having refused to accept that Salvation. For years I had seen the right way myself, and felt that, by God's grace, it was possible for me to walk in it, but I had refused, and was condemned for so doing. I had tried to excuse myself on the ground of my natural inclinations, peculiar circumstances, and that kind of thing, but had never succeeded in quieting my troubled conscience. When but a child I felt that I was wicked and deserved to be sent to Hell, not because I was wicked, but because I would not seek God; and, directly I did seek Him, there came upon me this wonderful power which enabled me to please Him."

"Was your experience, then, the sole ground of your belief in the responsibility of man for his own Salvation?"

"No; after my conversion I soon learned that other boys, and then men and women as well, felt the same sense of responsibility and the same condemnation for not acting upon it. My reading of the Bible, the sermons I heard, and the books I read confirmed me in this truth, and my experience of the years since then has gone to show me that I was right."

"In your early days, General, did you come into any doctrinal controversy on this subject?"

"I did, alas! I was thrown, almost at the onset of my religious career, over head and ears as it were, into the Calvinistic Controversy; but I was strengthened, perhaps, in my views of Human Responsibility as the outcome. Oh, the agony I went through in those times, over the pros and cons of the worn-out theme--worn out so far as this country is concerned anyway--of Election and Reprobation! Was God or man responsible for the sinner's damnation?--that was for a long period of my early life an absorbing question."

"But you found a way out?" was an interjection that naturally arose there.

"Yes, I got early on into the half-way house," replied the General, "maintaining that the sinner's salvation was of God, and his damnation of himself. And then ... I landed safe and sound in the simple truth, that a man must have power to accept or reject mercy. If he accepted it he would be saved, though all the devils in Hell and all the men on earth opposed; while if he rejected it, he would perish, whoever should strive to prevent it; and whether saved or lost, his destiny will be made to work out the glory of God and the good of the universe. I rested there. I was satisfied."

"And you have made this a cardinal plan of your public utterances since?"

"Most certainly--I have preached it to my people in all lands, and they have received it. They believe it, and it has gone out into the heart and life of every true Salvationist, serving as a sharp stimulus to his warfare, making him feel that not only is every man responsible for his own salvation, but that, somehow or other, he, the Salvationist, is very nearly responsible for the salvation of every man that comes within the range of his influence, and if not actually responsible for it, he has something to do with it."

"Is there not, in the Army, a remarkable and definite notion, everywhere prevalent, that salvation comes directly and immediately from God?"

"Yes; it is a truth which has had a powerful influence upon moulding the Army. Reconciliation with God is a definite transaction, occurring at a given time between the soul and God, on the simple conditions of repentance and faith. That is how I looked at it in my own first experience of divine things. I felt that I was a sinner, deserving only the displeasure of my Lord. I went to Him and asked Him to forgive me. He made me understand clearly that I must heartily repent, renounce my sinful ways, and make restitution wherein I had wronged others; and that on my doing this He would accept me.

"I fought against these terms for a time; tried to make a compromise; failed, and grew more miserable every day. I then gave in, went down flat before Him, and did what He insisted upon. He forgave me, and fired my heart with joy. I went to God--not to the Church, nor to the Bible, nor to my feelings, but to Himself--and I have ever since been sending people who have desired mercy to the same Source ....

"The whole plan is scriptural. The Bible is full of it. It is rational; we have sinned against Him, and what is more likely than that we should ask forgiveness at His hands? It is feasible, possible to any poor sinner, however ignorant, if it is rightly apprehended. The children can understand it, it is the children's way, and all who walk in it go into the Kingdom of Heaven.

"Here you have one of the many justifications for the Penitent-Form. When a Salvationist says, 'Come this way, kneel at the Mercy-Seat,' he means, ' Get down before your offended Father, and ask Him to forgive you. We will go with you. We will advise, encourage, and counsel you. But it is God that must save you if ever you are saved; so, come to God.'

"Nearly akin to the last-named principle I saw also that there was sufficient divine grace flowing, through the sacrifices of Jesus Christ, to enable every man who seeks it to find Salvation. In other words, there is Salvation for every man. This was from the beginning, and has been to the present moment, one of the most precious features of redeeming love in my eyes. Oh, how wonderful, how glorious, how like the God of love is the fulness, boundlesshess of His mercy--Salvation for every man, from every sin, and Salvation just now. It was illustrated in the mercy that had been shown to me. I used to sing over and over again the couplet,

 

'Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me!

 

"Then," proceeded the General . . . "there came another truth which had much to do with the experience of those early days. The willingness and ability of the Holy Ghost to make men entirely holy in thought, feeling, and actions in this life. This truth laid hold of the very vitals of my new religious existence. It interested me, it stirred me up. It was a fascinating attraction, ever drawing me forwards. I saw that entire Holiness was insisted upon in my Bible; while my Hymn Book, composed chiefly of the precious hymns of Charles Wesley, was all aflame with the beauty and value of it. Soon after my conversion, I was thrown into the midst of a red-hot revival that was thoroughly permeated with this truth. The spiritual interests of my newborn soul yearned after it, giving-me no rest until I believed for it. I saw thousands seek and testify to having found it. It appeared to me in those days--and has appeared to me ever since--as a condition of happiness, a qualification for usefulness, and a preparation for Heaven.

"How could I doubt," went on the General, with his soul evidently stirred, "that God was willing and able to sanctify any and every man, body, soul, and spirit, who trusted Him to do so? Through life the theme has been a favourite one. Some of the most beautiful souls I have known during my fifty years' Salvation service on the earth have walked in light and joy of the experience, glorifying in the fact that Jesus Christ was manifested in suffering and shame, in power and in sacrifice, to utterly destroy out of the hearts of His people the works of the Devil."

"I have heard you again and again hoist an even higher standard?"

"You have. It is the duty of every child of God, I maintain, to serve Him as his King and Father, consecrating all he has of ability, influence, and possession to this task. Perhaps nothing that loomed up within the bounds of my religious horizon, within a very short period of my conversion, was more distinctly realized than that truth. This yearning to be a true and devoted servant of Jesus Christ was born in me. I entered the spiritual world with a soldier's nature. I remember well how puzzled I used to be in my early Christian days, and I have been perplexed more than a little all my life through, with the apparent heartlessness of so many who profess to be the sons and daughters of God and are quite sure of Heaven, as to the interests of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom on the earth. These do not seem either to know or care about the Salvation of souis, or to do any mourning on account of the bedraggled, wrecked condition of His interests in the world. All that appears to concern them is that they may have a good time in this life and a better time still in the life that is to come. They have neither opportunity nor heart for these things. They are Christian Gallios."

"How do you explain this?"

"I do not believe that the ministers who preached to me (when I could find time to hear them, which was seldom, for I was generally at the same business myself in some back court or alley), or that the leading men who directed the affairs of the Church, carried the burden of souls or a concern for its interests more heavily on their hearts than I, a boy of sixteen, did on mine.

"I have heard a great deal about the 'call to the ministry' since those days, but my call to follow my Saviour and save as many sinners from the pains of Hell as I possibly could, came to me at the beginning of my career. It came as loud and as distinct as it has ever done since. While it might seem possible to be a servant without being a son, it appeared to me utterly impossible to be a son without being a servant. I never needed either my Bible or my minister, or any special movement of the Holy Spirit on my heart to press this truth home upon me. It appeared to me then, and has ever since, and will I think for evermore, self-evident that the religion of Jesus Christ could not be possessed without the Christ-like hunger for the Salvation of men."

"I should like a more particular exposition of this Doctrine of Consecration. Do you mean that, as followers of Christ we are called upon to make a literal dedication of ourselves to Him as did the Apostles and Martyrs?"

"What else does Consecration mean? It involves to my mind the duty of every Christian man to place himself and all he possesses, life included, fully and freely, without reserve, at the service of God--literally--here and now. That has always been the meaning of Consecration to me. It has seemed to be a mere sham, and pretence on any other interpretation. Is not this what Paul means when he says, 'I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacririce, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service'? To Paul it meant that and nothing else, he illustrated his meaning by his own life, and was followed closely in this track by his fellow-Apostles, and multitudes more have been following on in the same lines from that day to this."

"But there are differences of opinion, General, on the subject?" "Yes, but I make answer: There cannot be two standards--one for Paul and the Apostles and the Martyrs and the Missionaries of bygone days, and another for those who are their true successors to-day; or one for those who lead the Army, and another for those who follow; one for that class of saints who go to the wars, and another for those who abide in the callings of everyday life at home ....

"If it does not signify that a man, on becoming a Christian, becomes voluntarily under obligation to serve his King with all the capacity, goods, influence, time, and anything else he may possess which is likely to advance the interest of his Master, I don't know what it does mean, neither do I understand the passages scattered so freely through both Old and New Testaments insisting on the same thing under the peril of all sorts of losses--too many for me even to allude to.

"There, there, I saw, was the standard; and there before my eyes were illustrations of it in the lives and deaths of Paul, his fellow-apostles, and the multitude of brave warriors that have followed him, in the true Apostolic Succession, right down to the present day.

"I saw with my youthful, uncorrupted Salvation eyes, that there could not be two standards for life and service---one for Paul and the Martyrs and Missionaries, and the other for leaders of God's Army, past and present. Therefore, here was the standard for every soul of us, whether leaders or followers, whether marching at the head of God's Armies or abiding in the trade and callings of everyday life. I saw it. I liked it. I embraced it in my inmost soul. It did not come to me in mournful, melancholy aspect. The consecrated life, with tolls and tears and troubles and what else, matched my consecrated spirit. Was I not a soldier of the Cross, and ought I not to welcome a soldier's career?"

"...Is it not probable that, as a result, springing from the natural enthusiasm of your nature, you raised this high standard of Christian Consecration to harmonize with the public career you had marked out for yourself?"

"No! Impossible. Because, please remember that I had no prospect of a ministerial life in those days. I had a laborious and anxious calling which took all my strength and attention many hours per day. My earthly lot was full of bitterness, disappointments, losses, and mortification. Indeed, it appeared at times as though I had nothing outside my family circle that I valued but God and a handful, a small handful, of comrades likeminded with myself, and a soldier's life. To become a minister, and have no other concern but how best to promote the glory of my God and the salvation of men, I remember to this hour, appeared altogether beyond my reach. But if I could not become a minister, I could fight on in such a sphere as I occupied and with such means as I could scrape together. This was plainly my God-appointed task. I would do it. And I asked nothing higher and better than this. Let me fight for my God and the salvation of men. That will give me joy--that will be heaven for me. Fighting was what I wanted. Only let me have plenty of it.

"It was under such circumstances and with such feelings that I became a Salvation Soldier without the name; and thenceforth, down to this very day, it has seemed to me one of my first duties to make other eyes see as my eyes saw, and other hearts feel as my heart felt, in those days."

"What then, in your opinion, does this consecration involve?" "Well, the seeking first the glory of God. He must not be left out. God must be the central figure, and His glory the end of any service. He must be first and last. No help for the poor world without Him. Vain the attempt to mend it without direct reference to the Maker. To seek to do good to the bodies as well as the souls of men. To love and labour for the afflicted, and to help those who have none to care for them. To tend the sick and the dying."

"But have I not heard you say that getting people saved became at once the joy of your heart?"

"Yes; it was my meat and drink to seek before all else the salvation of the souls of men. Indeed, it was here that my heart's love was captured and enthralled. I became a lover of souls. To save a man--that is, to win him over for Christ--appeared to me like finding a Pearl of Great Price. In those days I used to say I would rather be a successful soul-winner than fill the highest stations of earth, and were I only sure of ultimate salvation, than the highest Archangel in Heaven. Call it boyish enthusiasm or what you like---there was this hunger for souls burning in the centre of my heart by night and by day."

"We see this reproduced in the Salvationists of all ranks to-day?"

"Yes; and it was of the great mercy of God and by the fostering care of His Holy Spirit that much has grown out of this soul-love. Much began to grow at once, and grew at a great pace. My love-treasure set me to think and to work, and in working and thinking and planning I soon found myself, although only some sixteen years old, one of the principal leaders of a miniature Salvation Army."

"...After all these years of warfare and experience, what do you consider as the most remarkable feature of resemblance in the Salvation Army of to-day that this early love-treasure contained?"

After some thought, the General replied: "There are seven--First, our sphere of operation was amongst the poorest and most needy; then, our aim was the immediate salvation of the people; there were similar forms of leadership; for although connected with a Church, we practically managed our own work; there was to some extent rigid and similar discipline, there were aggressive attacks on the unsaved in the streets, lanes, and homes of the people. There were similar demonstrations of rejoicing: such as miniature Crystal Palace Anniversary in a large Public Tea-Garden, a great Field Day of Salvation, attended by thousands of people, with penitent meetings on the grass. We had Army funerals, with service around the coffin outside the house, a procession to the cemetery, and a service at the grave-side; there were adaptation and organization and house-to-house visitation, and many other methods which on review look now, at this distance, as though they had been the seed-corn--nay, verily, the small beginnings of the wonderful things that have followed in these latter times.

In this splendid and whole-hearted fashion did the lion roar before the lamb, and we are verily assured that all the honesty of his character, all the vehemence of his nature, and all the impetuous enthusiasm of his soul was in every roar. Not once did he boast of the work done for the bodies of men, not once did he refer to the universal attention aroused by his Darkest England Scheme, now in a flourishing condition. He goes back to his boyhood and draws a straight line from that distant past to this burning present--the spiritual line that unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

This reaction, as I have termed it, is experienced by every statesman who, less concerned for the success of his party, earnestly desires a better world. For a moment it seems as if some new Act of Parliament will revolutionize evil conditions and bring the millennium within sight; and men fling themselves into the battle of passing the Act with the self-sacrifice and enthusiasm of crusaders. But when the Act is passed, and little comes of it, and when, looking back on the record of Parliamentary Government we see how much has been achieved and how little changed, we begin to wonder, as the just and upright statesman wonders, whether the first of all conditions to be changed is not after all, as Christ said it was, the heart of man.

William Booth was a man of great compassion. He yearned over the sorrows and sufferings of humanity. His Darkest England Scheme was a statesman's Act of Parliament, aimed to change social conditions and reduce the sum of human misery. But while it did immediately change, and is still changing, for a great number, social conditions that were evil and unjust; and while it did immediately reduce the sum of human misery, for all of which he was profoundly grateful, he saw that the total transformation of humanity could only be wrought by a subdual of men's will to the will of God.

If he did not see quite as clearly as others about him did see, that this excellent social work of the Salvation Army was an expression of the religious conscience and quite definitely religious work, at least he saw, as perhaps no other man of his generation saw so visibly, that religious work is the greatest of all social works. --"You cannot make a man clean by washing his shirt."

 

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