 Section 24. 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 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 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 five pounds 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 they're trusted and skillful almaners. Rejoicing as we do in all that, we cannot too strongly guard everyone against the impression that the army has become, either at its center or anywhere else, so situated that there is not at any given moment extraordinary strain in some financial direction. It has come to be very generally known that the individual officer can only keep an existence because he has schooled his desires to be content with what others all around would regard as an impossible pittance. We hear one day of a great city where the conditions of life are such that a rescue home is evidently urgently needed, and the lady who calls our attention to the matter offers at once to find five hundred pounds towards the fitting up of such a home. But we know that to keep it up requires gifts amounting to some thousands of pounds each year, which if not subscribed locally, we shall have to provide from headquarters. Now what is to be done? Are we to stand still with what seems to us so valuable an offer, not only of money helps but of opportunity to help? Under the circumstances we know what the general would have done. He would, without a moment's hesitation, have said, this ought to be done and must be done, and trusting in God he would have made the other step forward, though perfectly conscious that it would probably involve him in new cares and anxieties. Four shillings and ten pence. Now really can't we manage that toppence to make five shillings? Such an appeal heard at a street corner where one of our open-air meetings is being closed is I fear the first and last that many people hear of the Salvation Army. They have not been present at the meeting. All the beautiful speaking and singing of happy men and women anxious to do anything they can for the good of others, of this the passage by known nothing. Many of them would not be seen standing to listen amidst the crowd. Still less one, for want of any considerable crowd, they would be more conspicuous. Hence they have no chance to see or know what really takes place. And they even seen the whole process of getting that four shillings and ten pence. They would have noted that most of the money really came from the Salvationists forming the ring, who threw their pence, or six pence, gradually in the hope of inciting others to do likewise. As it is I fear many go their way disgusted at the whole thing, because of the little scrap of it they have overheard. But pray what is the essential difference between the call for tapence to make up a shilling and the colossal call made in the name of some royal personage for an additional ten thousand pounds to make up the twenty-five thousand pounds needed for a new hospital wing. Surely a hospital, whose value and services commended to the entire population, should need no such spurs as subscription lists published in all the papers, or even the memory of a world benefactor to help it to get the needed funds. But it does, and its energetic promoters, be they royal or not, deserve and get universal praise for stooping, if it be stooping, to any device of this kind needed to get the cash. Do they get it? is the only question any sensible person asks. And nobody questions that our stooping officers and begging sisters get the tapences and shillings and pounds needed to keep the army going, in spite of all its critics, whether of the blatant street corner, or of the kid-gloved slanderer type. If we reflect upon the subject, we shall see how sound and valuable are the principles on which all our two penny appeals are based. From the very beginning the general always set up the standard of local self-support as one of the essentials of any real work, whilst laboring almost exclusively among the poorest of the poor, he wrote in 1870. The entire cost of carrying on the mission at present is about fifty pounds per week. The offerings of the people themselves at the various stations are now about seventeen pounds per week. Indeed nearly every station is paying its own working expenses. Thus the poor people themselves do something. This they ought to do. It would be wrong to deprive them of the privilege of giving their might, and if they prize the instrumentalities that have been blessed to them, and are rightly instructed, they will cheerfully give, however small their contribution may be. It has only been by clinging to this plan that the little society begun in the east of London has been able to spread itself throughout the world, and yet remain independent everywhere of local magnets. And the general had the sorry satisfaction of seeing the structure tested by the most cruel winds of slander and suspicion, with the result that the total of contributions to its funds during the last years has been greater than ever before. Part indeed of our greatest difficulty with regard to money now is the large total yearly at our disposal, when all the totals in every country and locality are added together. Anyone can understand that this must be so, and that it could not help us to publish the amount altogether. If in a hundred places only a thousand pounds were raised, anybody can see that to cry aloud about the hundred thousand in any one of those places could not but make everybody in that place less capable of strenuous struggle such as is needed to get together each thousand. Therefore whilst publishing every year the properly audited balance sheet referring to amounts received and spent in London, and similar balance sheets similarly audited in each other capital, we have always refrained and always shall refrain from any such massing of totals or glorying in any of them as could help our enemies to check the flow of liberality anywhere. When in 1895 there seemed to be a general cry for some special investigation into the use made of the fund raised as a result of the general's darkest England appeal, we were able to get a commission of some of the most eminent men in the country whose report effectively disposed of any doubts at the time. The commission had for Chairman Earl Onslow, and its members were the right honourable Sir Henry James, afterwards Lord James, Messers Sidney Buxton, Walter Long, and Mr. Edwin Waterhouse, president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. The right honourable Hophouse MP acted as secretary. The report of no commission could, however, still any hostile tongue. The cry for investigation has always been simply the cry of enmity, or envy, which no amount of investigation could ever satisfy. The general perfectly understood this at the time, and wrote to a friend of the discerning order. How I feel generally with respect to the future is expressed in one word, or rather two. Go forward. The Red Sea has to be crossed, and people rescued from hell here, and hell here after. We must stick to our post. I am quite aware that I may now, probably shall be, more misunderstood than ever. But God and time will fight for me. I must wait, and my comrades must wait with me. I need not say that the subject has had, and still has, our fullest consideration. But I cannot say more until I see clearly what position the country will take up towards me during the next few days. Need I say that this report never checked for one day the ferocity of the attacks upon the general or his army? And public opinion been deluded by the babblings of our critics in any country. We should not only have lost all support, but been consigned to jails as swindlers and robbers. But the fact that we get ever-increasing sums, and are ever more and more aided by grants from governments and corporations, or by permissions for street collecting, is the clearest demonstration that we are notoriously upright in all our dealings. So many insinuations have been persistently thrown out, year after year, with regard to the integrity of the general's dealings with finance, that I have taken care not merely to consult with comrades, but to give opportunity to some who were said to have left in disgust with regard to these matters, to correct my own impression if they could. Having been so little at headquarters myself since I left for Germany in 1890, I knew that my own personal knowledge might be disputed in my accuracy question. Therefore I have been extra-careful to ascertain, beyond all possibility of dispute, the correctness of the view I now give, one who for many years had the direction of financial affairs at the international headquarters, and who retired through failing health rather than become a burden upon the Army's ever-strained exchequer, wrote me on November 28, 1910. The general has always taken the keenest interest in all questions bearing upon the Army's financial affairs, and has ever been alive to the necessity for their being so administered as to ensure the contributing publics having the utmost possible value for the money contributed, at the same time rendering a careful account from year to year of his stewardship. Carefully prepared budgets of income and expenditure are submitted to him year by year in connection with all the central funds. Reports are called for from time to time as to the extent to which such estimates have been realized. He was always keen and farsighted in his consideration of the proposals put before him, and quick to find a flaw or weakness, or to point out any responsibilities which had not been sufficiently taken into account. Until recent years, when his worldwide journeyings made it necessary to pass the responsibility onto the chief of the staff, he largely initiated his own schemes for raising money, and wrote his own principal appeals. Those who refer to the general as a puppet in the hands of others, or as anything but an unselfish, disinterested servant of humanity, only show their ignorance of the subject. One of the schemes by which our finances have been greatly helped everywhere, and which is now imitated by many churches and societies all over the world, the self-denial week established in 1886 was the general's own invention. It was at a time when, as he writes, in some core half, and in some more than half of our soldiers have been for months without any income at all, or at most with just a shilling or two. In addition, many of our regular contributors, as owners of land or of manufacturing houses, have suffered from the depression and have not been able to assist us further. The rapid extension of the army has necessitated an increased expenditure. Our friends will see that our position is really a serious one. What is to be done? Reduction, which means retreat, is impossible. To stand still is equally so. We propose that a week be set apart in which every soldier and friend should deny himself of some article of food or clothing or some indulgence which can be done without, and that the price gained by this self-denial shall be sent to help us in this emergency. Deny yourself of something which brings you pleasure or gratification, and so not only have the blessing of helping us, but the profit which this self-denial will bring to your own soul. This effort, which in the year of its inauguration only produced 4,280 pounds, has in 26 years grown, till it totaled in Great Britain in 1911, 67,161 pounds, and has so taken hold of the people's minds and hearts everywhere as to produce even in poor little Belgium last year, 7,500 francs. Perhaps it need hardly be explained that the system of special effort and special begging near the entrance to railway stations and in all the most prominent places of the cities which has grown out of this week with the approval of governments and press everywhere has done more than anyone could have dreamt of, to increase interest in the needs of others and holiness and self-denial in attending to them. And it is, after all, upon that development of practical love for everybody that the army's finance depends. Merely to have interested so many rich people in the army might have been a great credit to the general's influence, but to have raised up everywhere forces of voluntary mendicants who at any rate for weeks at a time are not ashamed to be seen begging in the streets for the good of people they have never seen is an achievement simply boundless in its beneficent value to all mankind and limitless in the guarantee it provides for the permanent maintenance and extension of our work. Do let me beg you to realize a little of the intense interest taken in our finances locally by all our soldiers. Did you ever get to know one of our core treasurers? If not, believe me that your education is incomplete. Whether he or she be schoolmistress in the mining village of Underground Bee, shopkeeper in Birmingham, or cashier of a London or Parisian bank, you will find an experienced Salvation Army treasurer generally one of the most fully developed intelligences living. He or she could easily surpass Judas Iscariot himself, either for ability at bargaining or for what we call Salvation Cheek. He considers the Duke who owns most of his county or the mayor of the city is duty bound to help the army whenever its officer thinks a fitting moment has come to him to ask them to do so. And the treasurer never thinks that they already have helped us enough. Every farthing his core has received or paid for years past has passed through his careful fingers. In any city core I would accept his judgment about a doubtful coin before that of almost anyone and no human being could surpass him in eagerness or care to get the very utter most possible value for every penny spent. Hours after great meetings are over, you may find him with other officers busy still parceling coppers or in some other way serving tables. His own business or family would very often suffer for his late hours of toil in the cause if God allowed that sort of thing. But God has seen to it that many such a treasurer has climbed out of the very gutter into a well-to-do employer's position because he sought first his kingdom and his righteousness. These treasurers, if anybody took the trouble to interview them, would make it impossible for any decent person to believe the lies that have been told about are not publishing accounts, are extravagance, et cetera. They know how carefully even the smallest core book or collecting card is examined and with what precise and skillful method every account is kept. Like almost all our local officers, they are particularly cheery, friendly men and women. I fear we have but few women treasurers as finance, like so many other things is supposed to be beyond women's powers. And the sisters really do not as a rule like arithmetic. But man or woman, you have only to watch one of them a few moments when anybody is trying to arrange a joint excursion with various cores to see that with all their kindness the interests committed to their charge always command their first sympathy. Treasurer Pittman of Leatherby never could see and never will why either Birmingham one or Leamington or any other core should be more favored or more burdened than his own. Even should his words of time seem rough or few he will charm you almost without exception. If you get out of his wife or the captain or somebody all he does and suffers for Christ's sake. Nobody will ever know how often it was the treasurer who gave half the tophans to make up a shilling in the street corner collection that perhaps made the impression that the army was not self-supporting. But in spite of all his jollity the treasurer is often a sorely tried and burdened man. For all it is a struggle to get the pens together week after week, especially where the core has a hall of its own for ground rent and interest on which it must pay five pounds to 10 pounds a week. The treasurer's great opportunity comes when he has the joy of harboring in his own home for a night or two, the chief of the staff or some other special from London. Then he may get a chance to put a word in for his core. Does the chief ask him, why do we not get on better in this town? Well, chief, he will reply, just look at our hall. It fairly stinks, always has done, owing to that canal at the back that has almost made it impossible for us to get a large congregation, especially in warm weather. But why don't you get a better place? Well, there is nothing in the town large enough to let. And as for building, any site that would be of use would cost a pile of money. And we have no hope of raising any large sum here. Why? Have you no rich friends? There are a few very rich men here. I was seeing one of them myself only last month when we wanted to get some new instruments for our band. But what do you think he said to me? Why, said he, I have more than enough to do to keep up my own church. We have got to rebuild it and it will cost us 30,000 pounds. There is not a mill owner in the place who does not want to get salvationist work people, even to the boys of our soldiers, because they know they can depend on them. But to help us get a hall? That is not in their line. Therefore the treasurer and every officer must go on week after week with the miserable beg, beg, beg, which afflicts them perhaps even more than the most critical listener. And then our great work must suffer both for want of the needed plant to carry it on and from the appearance of too much begging, which in so many instances has undoubtedly hindered our gathering in the very people we most wished to help. What stories of self-denial, not one week in the year more than another, any such treasurer could tell? How officers managed to rear a healthy and promising family upon less than a pound of week, how the general's own granddaughters made six shillings a week due for their own personal support for months because their core could not afford more. How the sergeant major's wife did her washing during the night before self-denial week came on, so as to be able to stand all day long outside the station in the cold, collecting. How widow week keeps up her cartridges. That is to say, goes on giving the core a regular subscription of six pencil weeks since her husband's death, as before, lest the core should go down. Lately they took me to see a German widow now suffering in a hospital who, when her whole weekly cash earnings outside only totaled two shillings a week, invariably put in her cartridge two finnings, say a farthing. Now, I gave her nothing, nor did anybody else in my presence as her needs are now attended to, and I am sure she would rather keep up the fact of never having received anything from but always having given to the army. Of course, we do not pretend that all treasurers and soldiers are of the model sort. If they were, many of our bitterest financial struggles would never occur. If everybody who kept back part of what they ought to give to God were struck dead for singing such words, were the whole realm of nature mine that were a present far too small, God would need many a regiment of corpse carriers, I fear. The general, 17 years ago, wrote to a wealthy lady who had been excusing somebody's want of liberality to us by some of the slanders they had heard. Tell your friends in Gulltown the same that I am telling the public, that nine out of every 10 statements in the press that reflect upon us are either out and out falsehoods or half lies which are worse still, and that although not infallible, when in one case out of 10 we do make mistakes, there are circumstances which, if known, would excuse them very largely. I'm having wonderful meetings, immense crowds, soul awakening influences all day, penanted forms, backsliders, sinners, and half and half saints coming back to God. Never saw anything anywhere in any part of my life much more blessed. Read my letter in the war cry about the two days, every word is from my heart. Money or no money, we must and will have salvation. If the rich won't help Lazarus through us, then their money must perish. We must do the best we can. Join the Light Brigade and give a half penny per week. We shall get through. Is your soul prospering? Cast yourself this morning on your Lord for a supply of all you need. The Light Brigade is another invention of the generals, partly founded upon the Indian habit of taking a handful out of every new supply of food and laying it aside for the priests. The Light Brigade consists of soldiers and friends who place on their table a little box into which all who like can drop a little coin by way of thanksgiving to God and care for the poor before they eat. These are called Grace Before Meat boxes and in England alone they produced last year 8,284 pounds, 17 shellings, two pennies for the support of our social work. Altogether I venture to say it'll be found that for every shilling he ever got anywhere he prompted the giving of at least 1,000 shillings to other benevolent enterprises and that mankind is indebted to him for the stirring up to benevolent action of countless millions who never even heard his name. At the same time it will be found that by his financial plans he has made the army so largely dependent upon public opinion that were its beneficent work to cease its means of survival would at the same time become extinct so that it could not continue to exist when it had ceased to be a Salvation Army. End of section 24, recording by Tom Hirsch. Section 25 in Germany in old age. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Tom Hirsch. 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 provision for the spiritual wants of those who had practically ceased to be of any religion. In the following description of him taken from German papers during one of his last visits to the country we get not only some idea of his appearance to the people when he was 81 years of age but his sense of the importance of that people in the future of the Army. And it is a remarkable fact that German cities should have been subsidizing the Army's work before any English one did so. We have happily got complete enough accounts of the general's tour in Germany when 81 to supply not merely a most artistic representation of his own appearance and action at that age but at the same time to give an almost perfect view of the impressions and teachings his Army had been giving out there for nearly 30 years. In Düsseldorf we are told the old idealist spoke for an hour and a half with the fire of enthusiasm throwing out every now and then some spark of his humor amidst his stream of eloquence. He did not speak like a dying greybeard but like a young man ready to take up tomorrow morning the struggle with the misery of the whole world. Out of such material as this old man are made the great men who do great deeds on the battlefield in the sphere of science, in the province of religion, of humanity and of society. The Cologne Gazette goes more into detail and says at his great age the founder and leader of the Salvation Army hastens from continent to continent, from land to land to awaken in public meetings love for your neighbor. After a journey through Holland he came into West Germany. In this week he speaks in great cities from Dortmund to Karlsruhe, each day in a new place and often in several meetings. Many thousands came together last Sunday from Essen and neighborhood so that the great hall of the soldier's home itself was not large enough to hold them at the various meetings. Here yesterday evening 2,000 people wanted to give him a warm welcome in the Emperor's Hall. The 81-year-old philanthropist who strides so unbendingly along is full of youthful enthusiasm. His tall figure with its gleaming eyes, long curved nose and flowing beard help him to present himself to the audience with lively gestures illuminating his thoughts as at once accuser of our times and gentle judge. He is especially a gentle judge of fallen women and girls, 55,000 of whom from 10 years of age upwards he tells us the army has rescued. The fallen young men are forgiven by their fathers and mothers, says he. Why should not we also forgive the fallen girls? If nobody else will do so, we will. This sentiment called forth general applause. And then the general went on, the religion of the army has three main principles. You must get right with your God. You must be reconciled with him and feel the kiss of his forgiving love. You must live righteously in your own private life, in your family and in holiness of heart. You must give yourself up to the service of your fellow man. Must not wait to be called upon, but must have a fire in yourself, the fire of love. It took mightily hold of the audience as following upon this definition of the religion of the army, he told them that he felt himself now nearing the cold stream of death, but fully believed that this religion which had carried him through so much of care and disappointment up to this day, would also carry him through the dark valley into paradise, where he, who for so long had known no holiday, would at last find rest. Everywhere in Germany it is this revelation of a religion founded on unshakable faith, which impresses even the skeptical journalist. Here and there the tendency to doubt shows itself a little between the lines and it is suggested that the audience were only for the time being under the spell of this remarkable speaker. But most impressive is always the description of the general's calls to repentance and faith. In Berlin for a number of years, the general held meetings in the great circus bush on the National Bushtag, repentance day. And as the way in which his name is pronounced by most Germans comes very near one of the two words, it has almost become a booth day in the thoughts of many. It was evident, says one paper, again in the two meetings held yesterday, that the personality of the founder and leader of the army still exercises its charm. Both meetings were crowded. The circus was filled from arena up to gallery with a pressing multitude. At the close of the evening address, there was the call to the penitent form. And 158 men and women out of the most differing circles of society obeyed the call. Mr. Booth spoke in both meetings with the freshest energy and youthful fire. And today he travels to Denmark. The Frankfurt Gazette and other papers having the opportunity for the first time to report the general's meetings on a whole Sunday, a little later gave a much completer description of his preaching. The founder of the army says the Gazette bears his 81 years lightly. He is still equal to all the toils of the agitation and spoke for over five hours and three meetings in the great hall of the merchants union. The old gentleman keeps up his good humor and perfectly understands how to intersperse interesting anecdotes in his address. Last Sunday, says another paper, was a Booth day and certainly a repentance day. The general came to win soldiers for his army and ammunition for it too. But there was plenty of opportunity for repentance given. Everybody knows now the why and wherefore of the army's meetings. There is music, then prayer with closed eyes. And then a little sister sings a religious song to a worldly tune. That was so yesterday. But then the general came as chief speaker. He had no need of any other influence. His mere appearance works upon everyone. The public was composed of all sorts of people, politicians, socialists, as well as clergymen and leaders in church work were there, together with officials and working men and women. Nothing could be more impressive as to the ever widening circles who crowded to listen to the general than the following description of his meeting in Potsdam, the German Windsor, where the emperor generally resides. Says the local paper, one could not cease to marvel at the crowded state of the auditorium. The intelligent public, which generally keeps away from popular demonstrations, was there in force. Jurists, state officials, officers in uniform, doctors, and many ladies were amongst the hearers of the general. But some of the papers in smaller, but not less striking reports gave us a far fuller description of what the general's appeals brought home to the hearts of his hearers everywhere. No labored rhetoric, said a Leipzig paper, distinguished the speech and applause was not won by catchy phrases. The speaker talks like a plain man to plain people. Everybody listens enthralled as he tells of his life's work, of the unbounded love with which he would like to surround and lead to salvation everyone who lives and moves. One gets to understand how this man could gather around him such masses of disciples, and why, right and left, many a lady deeply touched puts her handkerchief to her eyes, and many a man wipes a tear from his cheek. Best of all, however, comes ever and on in these reports the testimony that the general has not been a mere talker, like so many others of his day, but has raised up a real fighting force who have by gradual painstaking labor and endurance, one for him this unbounded confidence in what he says of the army's religion. I remember, writes one reporter, how in the nineties in Berlin no soldier, much less a sister, could appear in the street without being laughed at at every step, made fun of and even abused, and I visited meetings in which there was great disorder, but how the picture was altered a few years later. Quietly and patiently the soldiers let scorn and even assaults pass, until the very rowdiest of the Berliners were sick of it. And on the other hand, everyone soon said that these people, after all, were doing nothing but to go right at the deepest miseries of the great cities, that they fed the hungry, visited the sick, and generally carried out practical Christianity. True, writes another, it is, naturally, not everyone whose taste is pleased with the ceremonies of the army, but before the worldwide unending, unselfish work of the salvationist, everyone feels like saying, hats off. It was not mere love of sensation that led such a stream of men to the Prince's Hall on Tuesday evening. They wished for once to come face to face with the old general whose work they had learned in the course of time to value. Men of science, clergymen, and officials and educated people generally, for once made the army their rendezvous. And those who had heard the general before immediately recognized that they had, not only to do with the very same resolute leader, following the one aim with undiminished ardor, but relying upon the same old gospel to win the world for Christ. He speaks, says a Hamburg paper, mostly with his hands behind his back, swaying gently to and fro. The short, sharp English sentences are translated one by one. It is the old recruiting talk of the chief captain in the fight against the sins of this world, the pressing exhortation to get converted at once, today, in this very hour. It is the old entreaty to become a child of God in spite of all opposition. The old call to purity of heart and life. Whoever has wandered must come back again. He who has fallen a hundred times must get up again for the hundred and first time. This general believes in the salvation of the worst and the most deeply sunken. He preaches the gospel of holding on, of going steadily forwards, of freedom from the lusts of the flesh and from public opinion. He preaches at the same time the gospel of work, of unwavered faithfulness in business, and of love to all mankind. When he has finished, the army sings with musical accompaniment and clapping of hands its glad and even merry-sounding songs, not without a mixture of that sudden inrush of enthusiasm, which springs from the conviction of having the only faith that can make people blessed and the consciousness of a resistance hard to be overcome. And then begins that extraordinary urgent exhorting of the sinner from the stage. The 10 and 20 times repeated, come, come to the penitent form represented here by a row of 20 chairs. In the last meeting of the generals in Copenhagen, 33 came out, how many will be in Hamburg? cries the leading officer. The first are soon kneeling, sobbing, praying, their hands over their eyes at the chairs. Every new songs are sung, spiritual songs set to worldly melodies. Every new sounds the ringing, come from the stage. Below the men and women soldiers go from one to another, speaking to the hesitating ones, laying a hand on the shoulder of the ready ones and leading them to the front. What a long time it may be since any loving hand was laid on the shoulder of many of those recruits. Life, the rough, pitiless life of the great city has always been pushing them along lower and lower down till it got them under foot. Here they listen to the sound of a voice of sympathy and feel the pressure of a hand that wishes to lead them. And there above sits the general for a while in an armchair, saying, the deepest fallen may rise again. He has only to step out into the ranks of the army, which is marching upward to the land of grace. As we left the hall, the 34th had already come out. It must be remembered that all these descriptions come from part of a single month's journeys and that the general was dependent upon translation for nearly every moment of intercourse, either in public or private with the people and that it will be entirely understood how great a power for God in this world, a man entirely given up maybe after he had passed his 80th year and with what clearness witness for God can be born even in a strange tongue when it is plain and definite. From time immemorial it has been customary to class philanthropists among the extra ordinaries, the marvelous people who do not pass muster in the common world, exceptions. Nobody thinks of measuring himself with them for the battle of life belongs to the egotists, each one of whom fights for himself. He who fights for others is smilingly acknowledged by the well-disposed as a stranger in the world. The ordinary man of the street pitilessly calls him a fool and the mass considers him unworthy of a second thought. He is there and he is endured so long as he does not bother anyone. There are three factors against which the old general has had to fight all his life, against well-meaning hesitation, against hard-hearted egoism and against the idle indifference born of ignorance. And these three streams that have flowed against him in every part of the world have not been able to hold him back. To those who think he has only become an important man and to those who measure a man's worth by the outer honors he gains, he became a man of importance when London made him a citizen and Oxford an honorary doctor. And now men are better inclined to excuse, in his case, the curious title of general of a curious army. I have often heard the gray-haired general in public meetings. For the first time on Saturday evening, I got near to him in a more private way. And then it seemed to me like a picture, as when a gray warrior, a commander with snow-white beard and keen profile, stands upright by the mast of a ship and gazes straight before him towards a new country. And General Booth, despite his 81 years, is looking out towards new land. He does not live on memories like the generality of old men. He does not allow himself any favored spot by the fireside. Full of fight and always leading, General Booth stands at the center of a gigantic apparatus and the old gentleman does not look like allowing men to take the control out of his hands. Everything about him displays energy and justifiable self-consciousness. He energetically shook my hand. With the ability of the man of the world, he drew the conversation to that which was nearest to his heart. And what his eyes can no longer exactly observe, his ears doubly well hear. He arrived on Friday evening from Denmark, holds three meetings in Hamburg on Sunday, travels on to Potsdam on Monday, and occupies himself with thoughts of a journey of inspection in India. The comfortable armchair that was offered him, he declined almost as if it was an insult. That is meant for old men, he said, and really the remark was justified when one heard the plans of the great general, for he has plans such as one of the youngest might have. He appears to me to be an able businessman who constantly thinks how to expand his undertaking and to supply it with all the novelties that a time of progress offers. He has altogether modern views. He does not hold fast with the reluctance of old age to old things, except to the old faith. In the meetings the general seemed to me rather severe, but that disappears when you get at him personally, especially when you have got used to his way of speaking. He almost flings each sentence out. Every phrase accompanied by some energetic gesture is like a war cry. I will, and I carry out what I will, seems to breathe in all about him. And who can complain of this will, this iron resoluteness with which he works at the raising up of men? He is in his kingdom an unlimited ruler, but one with a benevolent look who sees for the benefit of the blind. He must be all that for his extraordinary work. The general asks us to put questions. I could not imagine it. It seemed to me to be so useless in the presence of this important man. So he said, we are never satisfied with the progress we make in view of what still remains to be done. He spoke of the progress made by the social work of the army in Germany and of his plans. I never heard the general speak without his having plans, upon the carrying out of which he was at work with all his might. He puts his whole body and soul into whatever he is engaged in. The Salvation Army is the most interesting thing under the sun, said the general at the close of his earnest talk, and then added jokingly next to the Hamburg Press. On the Sunday, I saw him again as he spoke to a meeting of thousands, a curiously mixed public, where there were many of the foremost gentleman and ladies of society and many very common people. All, however, were equally enthused. I will only mention a couple of sentences out of the speech. The army wants to come into competition with nobody, only to be a friendly helper, nobody's enemy, but the friend of everybody. It will gladly be an inspiration and an example. It has become the almsgiver for many governments. It is not British, because it was born in Britain, just as little as Christianity is Jewish, because it came into the world in Judea, Elsie Mirstadt. Now that we see it all, but completed, we think this book singularly wanting in reference to the general's frequent mariness of mood. We have thought it needless to insert any of the amusing anecdotes that could have been so abundantly culled from any of his visits to any country, had we not been so anxious to select from the small space at our disposal what was most important. Nor have we wished to present the reader with the portrait of an infallible genius, or a saint who never said or did anything that he afterwards regretted. A victim almost all his life to extreme indigestion. It is indeed, to all who knew him best, marvelous that he could endure so much misery without more frequently expressing in terms of unpleasant frankness his irritation at the faults and mistakes of others. But really, after his death as during his life, we have been far too busy in trying to help in accomplishing his great life work to note these details of human frailty. End of Section 25 Recording by Tom Hirsch Section 26 The End Part 1 This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Hirsch. 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, and then, with his usual pause when he was going to tease, we shall have a chance to see what some of you can do. We laughed together, and I went off expecting to hear of his fully recovering his activity after the operation, to which we were always looking forward. Oh, that operation! It was to be the simplest thing in the world. When the eye was just ready for it, as simple and as completed deliverance from blindness as the other one had seemed for a few days to be, but this time he would be fully warned, and most cautious after it. And I really fancied the joy he would have after so long an eclipse. It seemed to me that he never realized how great his own blindness already was, so strong was his resolution to make the best of it, and so eager his perception, really by other means, of everything he could in any way notice. We had difficulty in remembering that he really could not see when he turned so rapidly towards anybody approaching him, or whose voice he recognized. To Colonel Kitchen during this dark period he wrote one day, Anybody can believe in the sunshine. We, that is you and I, and a few more of whom we know, ought to be desperate believers by this time, saviors of men, against their will, nay, compelers of the Almighty. And his writing was always so marvelous, both for quantity and quality. His very last letters to several of us consisted of a number of pages, all written with perfect clearness and irregularity with his own hand. It was perhaps the greatest triumph of his own unfailing faith and sunny optimism that he kept even those who were nearest to him full of hope as to his complete recovery of strength, till within a few days of his death. And then, gliding down into the valley, surprised all by sinking suddenly into eternal peace without any distinct warning that the end was so near. His youngest daughter, Mrs. Commissioner Booth-Hellberg, was with him during the last days. But really it would be only fair to describe his end as having begun from the day when, during his sixth motor tour, the eye which had been operated on became blind. Though after having it taken out he very largely rallied and passed through grand campaigns for some years, he was ever looking forward to the operation on the other eye, which was to restore him to partial sight. His cheeriness through those years and his marvelous energy astonished all. The following notes of his first foreign journey after the loss of sight cannot but be of special interest, showing with what zeal and enjoyment he threw himself into all his undertakings for Christ. Saturday, February 12, 1910. The crossing has been quite rough enough. I slept very little, and it was with real difficulty that I shambled through the long railway depot to my train for Rotterdam. At eight o'clock I woke up from a sound sleep with a startling feeling. It is a pity I could not have slept on. Fixed up at the old hotel six floors up, the Mass Hotel. Very fair accommodation, but a little difficult to get anything to eat, that is, such as meet my queer tastes and habits. Nevertheless, on the principle of any port in a storm, I have had much worse accommodations. Sunday, February 13, 1910. Had a wonderful day, far ahead of anything experienced before in this place. My opinion about it is jotted down in the war cry. I had, as I thought, remarkable power on each of the three occasions, and finished off at ten o'clock, far less exhausted than I frequently am. Still, I scarcely got into my rooms before the giddiness came on in my head very badly, and continued off and on until ten the next morning. I can't account for it. It may be my stomach, it may have something to do with the rocking of the steamer on Friday night. It may be with the doctor's fear, my overtaxed brain, or it may be something else. Whatever it is, it is very awkward while it lasts. Fifty-seven souls for the day. Monday, February 14, 1910. Left by the twelve-thirty-seven p.m. train for Gronigan, it slept a good bit on the way. Arrived about five-twelve p.m. reception very remarkable, considering the population is only some seventy-eight thousand. It was one of the most remarkable greetings I have ever had in any part of the world. There must have been getting on for a couple thousand people in the station itself who had each paid five cents for a platform ticket, and outside five thousand is a low estimate. Everybody very friendly. Entertained by the governor's wife's sister, the meeting was as wonderful as the reception. Immense hall. Could not be less than fifteen hundred people packed into it on one floor. I talked for an hour and three-quarters. Colonel Paltstra, my translator, did splendidly. The people listening spellbound. Not a soul moved until the last minute, when three or four went out for summaries in or another. It was a wonderful time, settled to sleep about eleven-thirty p.m., not feeling any worse. Tuesday, February 15, 1910. Had a fair night's sleep, the strange feelings in the head continue off and on, and the fact that they don't pass off in connection with the entreaties of the chief, and those about me, made me consent to give up the officers' council I was proposing to hold at Amsterdam next week, putting on lectures on the evenings of the two days, which I would otherwise have used for councils. I'm very loath to do this, from feeling that the officers are the great need. So far I have been delighted with what I've seen of the officers in the country. We ought to capture Holland. The governor has sent word to say that he is coming to see me this afternoon. I have had a long sleep, and I hope I shall be better for it. The governor has just come in. He appears a very amiable person, very friendly, disposed toward the army. We had a very nice conversation about matters in general, and at parting he expressed his kindest wishes for my future and for the future of the army. I left at a few minutes before seven. It has been snowing and raining and freezing and thawing the last few hours. Consequently, the atmosphere is not very agreeable. However, my carriage was well warmed, and we arrived at Aassen in a half an hour. A very nice hall, packed with a very respectable audience. I spoke on the old subject, the lesson of my life, and made it better as new as the Jew says about his second-hand garments. I was very pleased with it, and the people were too. I am entertained by Baron and Baroness van der Velts. The lady speaks English very nicely, and they are evidently very pleased to have me with them. I was glad to settle to sleep about eleven, and thankful for the mercies of the day. It was thus that nearly three years passed away. Then came at last the time when the long hoped-for operation was to take place. Rookstone, the house in Hadley Wood, a village on the northern outskirts of London, where the general died, stands almost at the foot of the garden of the present general, so that they could be constantly in touch when at home, and the general's grandchildren greatly enjoyed his love for them. But in the large three-windowed room where his left eye was operated upon, and where a few months later he died, his successor, his youngest daughter, Commissioner Howard, and his private secretary, Colonel Kitchen, had many valued interviews with him during those last months. I had not that opportunity until it was too late to speak to him, for he had said when it was suggested, full as he had been of hope of prolonged life almost to the end, oh yes, he'll want to come and get something for my life, and that will just finish me. Of the operation itself, we prefer to let the physician himself speak in the following extract from the Lancet of 19 October 1912. He was not in very good health in March 1910. He had occasional giddy attacks and lapses of memory, and from April till June of the same year, he had albumin urea, from which, however, he appeared entirely to recover. The vision of his left eye became gradually worse, but I encouraged him to go on without operation as long as he could. He did so until about the end of 1911, when his sight had become so bad that he could barely find his way about. Indeed, he met with one or two minor accidents on account of not being able to see. It then appeared to me he had much to gain and very little to lose by an operation, and further he was in much better health than he had been for some time. I pointed out to him that there was a risk and that if the operation failed, he would be totally blind, but that there were very long odds in his favor and that I was willing to take the risk if he was. He asked one question. If you were in my place, would you have it done? I said certainly I would. That quite decided him and all that remained to be done was to fix a time. General Booth, at that date, had some work which he wanted to finish and eventually the date for operation was fixed for May 23. On that day I operated. I did a simple extraction under cocaine. Nothing could have been more satisfactory as will be seen from the notes and the bulletin sent to the papers was the operation was entirely successful. The ultimate result depends on the general's recuperative power. When I covered the eye and bandage did I thought that success was certain and was confirmed in that opinion on the following morning when I lifted up the dressing and found all was well and that the patient, when he partly opened the eye could see. On the third day Dr. Milne, who was in attendance at once saw that mischief had occurred and the sequence of events I have narrated. How the eye became infected I am unable to say. I used every precaution. As I told the patient afterwards the only omission I could think of was that I had not boiled or roasted myself. I looked carefully for these before each operation. I regret two things in the case. One that the last operation was not done two or three months before when General Booth was in better health and two that it was not postponed for another month in which case I should not have done it for looking back on the whole history. I feel certain that he was not in his best condition on the third when the operation was performed. The General's own response when he was gently informed that there was no hope of his seeing objects anymore was, well, the lords will be done. If it is to be so, I have but to bow my head and accept it. He subsequently remarked that he had served God and the people with his eyes. He must now try to serve without them. He continued to dictate letters and even to write occasionally as he had been accustomed to do with the help of his secretaries and a frame that had been prepared for the purpose. But the very struggles against depression and to cheer others together with the sleeplessness that resulted took from his little remaining strength and it became evident that he was gradually sinking. Yet he was so remarkably cheerful and at times even confident that all around him were kept hoping up to the very last. To a group of commissioners who visited him, he said, I am hoping speedily to be able to talk to officers and help them all over the world. I am still hoping to go to America and Canada as I had bargained for. I am hoping for several things whether they come to pass or not. But on Tuesday, the 20th of August, it became evident that the end was very near. There gathered around his bed Mr. and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, Mrs. Commissioner Booth Helberg, Commissioner Howard, who had been summoned by telegram from his furlough, Colonel Kitching, Brigadier Cox, Adjutant Catherine Booth, Sergeant Bernard Booth, Captain Taylor, his last assistant secretary, nurse Edda Thimson of the London Hospital, and Captain Amelia Hill, his housekeeper. The heart showed no sign of failure until within half an hour of his death and the feet remained warm till within 20 minutes of the event. But the heart and pulse became gradually weaker, the breathing faster and shorter and more irregular, and at 13 minutes past 10 o'clock at night it entirely ceased. London awoke to find in our headquarters window the notice, General Booth has laid down his sword, God is with us. The day after his death at a meeting of all the commissioners present in London, the envelope containing the General's appointment of his successor was produced by the Army's solicitors, endorsed in the General's own writing and still sealed. Upon being opened, it was found to be dated the 21st of August 1890, and that it appointed the Chief of the Staff, William Bramwell Booth, to succeed him. The new General, in accepting the appointment and promising by God's help to fulfill his duties, expressed his great pleasure in discovering that it was dated during the lifetime of his mother, so that he could feel sure that her prayers had been joined with his fathers for him at the time. Immediately there began to pour in upon us from every part of the world expressions of admiration and sympathy, which were most valuable in their promise and Army's increased opportunity and usefulness in the future. His Majesty, the King, who had manifested deep sympathy with the General in his illness, sent the following generous message, which was one of the first to come to hand. Abbeystead Hall. I am grieved to hear the sad news of the death of your father. The nation has lost a great organizer and the poor, a wholehearted and sincere friend who devoted his life to helping them in a practical way. Only in the future shall we realize the good wrought by him for his fellow creatures. Today there is universal mourning for him. I join in it and assure you and your family of my true sympathy in the heavy loss which has befallen you. George R. Queen Alexandra, telegraphed. I beg you and your family to accept my deepest and most heartfelt sympathy in the irreparable loss you and the nation have sustained in the death of your great, good, and never-to-be-forgotten father, a loss which will be felt throughout the whole civilized world. But thank God his work will live forever. Alexandra. President Taft Wired. Washington to General Bramwell Booth. In the death of your good father, the world loses one of the most effective, practical philanthropists. His long life and great talents were dedicated to the noble work of helping the poor and weak and to giving them another chance to attain success and happiness. Accept my deep sympathy, William H. Taft. The King of Denmark Wired. Express my sincere sympathy, Christian R. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas B. Crosby Wired. The City of London sincerely mourns the passing away of its distinguished citizen, General Booth, whose grand and good work entitles him to an imperishable gratitude, whilst the governors and premiers of most of the colonies where the army is at work cabled in similar terms. The Emperor of Germany, as well as the King and Queen and Queen Alexandra, sent wreaths to be placed on the General's coffin, and the tributes of the press all over the world will be found in the following chapter. Sixty-five thousand persons came to Clapton Congress Hall to look upon his face as he lay in his coffin, and more than thirty-five thousand gathered for the Great Memorial Service in the Olympia, the largest obtainable building in London, on the evening before the funeral. All the press commented upon the remarkable joyfulness of our funeral services, but the funeral itself the next day was admitted to have been the most impressive sight the Great City has seen in modern times. In addition to officers, many bands from all parts of the country came to join in it. The coffin had been brought in the night to headquarters in Queen Victoria Street. The funeral procession was formed on the embankment, and whilst it marched through the city, all traffic was suspended from eleven to one o'clock. The millions who witnessed its passage along the five-mile march to Abney Park Cemetery seemed as generally impressed and sympathetic as the multitude gathered there. It was indeed touching to see not only policemen and ambulance workers, but publicans and numbers of the people offering glasses of water to the sisters who had been on their feet for six or seven hours before the service was ended. The memorial services held all over the world on the following Sunday were attended by quite unparalleled crowds of whom very many publicly surrendered their lives to God. End of Section 26. Recording by Tom Hirsch Section 27. The End. Part 2. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Hirsch The following letters to members of his own family showed the spirit of affection and cheerfulness which to the very last distinguished him. To his youngest daughter, the widow of Commissioner Booth-Hellberg, who though she had been fighting in one post or another in this country, India, America, Sweden, Switzerland, or France for over twenty years, he still regarded as his baby and special darling. He wrote, Hadley Wood, May 3, 1912. My very dear Lucy. Your letter is to hand. I am interested in all you say. It was very kind indeed beautiful of you to sit by the couch of dear Ericsson all those hours. But it will be a recollection of pleasure all through your life. And I have no doubt after the fading hours of this life have passed out of sight and thought, it will give you satisfaction in the life to come. There is a great deal in your suggestion that we should do more in the hospitals. It would be, as you say, beyond question a means of blessing and comfort. The need of salvation to many of the lovely, suffering, dying people, whose melancholy lot carries them there. But the old difficulty bars the way, the want of officers and money for the task. Well, we are doing something in this direction, and we must wait for the power to do more. I think much about many of the things you say. Your practical common sense comes out at every turn. Based, as your comments and suggestions usually are, on the religion of love makes them very precious. Go on, my dear girl. God, I feel, is preparing you for something very useful in His kingdom. I feel quite sure. But, oh, do be careful and not overrun your strength. Through mercy I am keeping better. I had a very trying day yesterday on the top of my table-work, which I find a continuous trial to my nerves. But I came through it, that is, through yesterday's hard pull. It was a visit to my native town, but you will read about it in the cry. I'm eating much more, not only in quantity, but am indulging in a little more variety. My difficulty at the moment is that while a good supper helps me to sleep, a scanty supper is agreeable to my brains, and my feelings hinder me from sleeping as I am so lively after it. Later I have just had a nice little sleep, quite refreshing it has been, and very welcome also. I am now in for a cup of tea. What a pleasure it would be if you were here to pour it out and chatter to me while I drink it. Well, I had anticipated this delight on my visit to Norway and Sweden in this coming July, but that I am afraid will not come, that is, my visit to Denmark, but I shall hold on to it, D.V., in connection with my annual campaign in Berlin and roundabout. Then I shall expect quite a long stay in your territory, similar to my last, or better, I hope. I am positively working night and day now, and I only hope I shall not break down. But I am careful, after all, and seem to be really substantially improved. I cannot finish this letter now, and although it is not worth posting, I think it will be best to send it off. I may put in a P.S. if there is an opportunity. Anyway, believe me, as ever and forever your affectionate father, W.B. At his last public meeting to celebrate his 83rd birthday at the Royal Albert Hall on the 9th day of May, the general had said, and now, comrades and friends, I must say goodbye. I am going into drydock for repairs, but the army will not be allowed to suffer, either financially or spiritually, or in any other way by my absence. And in the long future, I think it will be seen, I shall not be here to see, but you will. That the army will answer every doubt and banish every fear and strangle every slander, and by its marvelous success show to the world that it is the work of God and that the general has been his servant. In his last letter to the Chief, he wrote two months later, International Headquarters, London, E.C. July 4th, 1912 My dear Chief, I am pleased to hear that you are sticking to your intention of going away for a few days, in spite of my continued affliction, for affliction it can truthfully be called. I am very poorly, and the trial of it is that I cannot see any positive prospect of a definite speedy recovery, but it will come. I have never seriously doubted it. God won't let me finish off in this disheartening manner. Disheartening, I mean, to my comrades and to those I have to leave with the responsibility of keeping the banner flying. God will still do wonders in spite of men and devils. All will be well, Miriam will get well, Mary will get well, and both be brave warriors. Flurry will flourish more than ever, and you will be stronger. And although it may require more patience and skill, I shall rally. I am in real pain and difficulty while I dictate this. These horrid spasms seem to sit on me like a mountain, but I felt I could not let you go without a longer goodbye and a more affectionate kiss than what is so ordinarily. This is a poor thing, but it speaks of the feeling of my heart and the most fervent prayer of my soul. Love to all, yours as ever, W.B., the chief of the staff. To his second daughter in command of the army in the United States, his last letter read as follows. July 20, 1912 My dear, dear Eva, I had your letter. Bless you a thousand times. You are a lovely correspondent. You don't write your letters with your pen or with your tongue. You write them with your heart. Hearts are different. Some, I suppose, are born sound and musical. Others are born uncertain and unmusical. And are, at best, a mere tinkling symbol. Yours, I have no doubt, has blessed and cheered and delighted the soul of the mother who bore you from the very first opening of your eyes upon the world. And that, dear heart, has gone on with that cheering influence from that time to the present. And it will go on cheering everybody around you who have loved you. And it will go on cheering among the rest, your loving brother Bramwell and your devoted general, right away to the end. Nay will go on endlessly, for there is to be no conclusion to our affection. I want it to be so. I want it to be my own experience. Love, to be a blessing, must be ambitious, boundless, and eternal. O Lord, help me. And, O Lord, destroy everything in me that interferes with the prosperity, growth, and fruitfulness of this precious, divine, and everlasting fruit. I have been ill. I have been very ill indeed. I have had a return of my indigestion in its most terrible form. This spasmodic feeling of suffocation has so distressed me that at times it has seemed almost impossible for me to exist. Still, I have fought my way through, and the doctors this afternoon have told me as bluntly and plainly as an opinion could be given to a man that I must struggle on, for the consequences will be very serious. Then, too, the eye has caused me much pain, but that has very much, if not entirely, passed off, and the oculist tells me that the eye will heal up. But, alas, alas, I am absolutely blind. It is very painful, but I am not the only blind man in the world, and I can easily see how, if I am spared, I shall be able to do a good deal of valuable work. So I am going to make another attempt at work. What do you think of that? I have sat down this afternoon, not exactly to the desk, but anyway to the duties of the desk, and I am going to strive to stick to them if I possibly can. I have been down to some of my meals. I have had a walk in the garden, and now it is proposed for me to take a drive in a motor. I believe some kind soul is loaning me. Anyhow, I am going to have some machine that will shuffle me along the street, road, and square, and I will see how that acts on my nerves, and then perhaps try something more. However, I am going into action once more in the Salvation War, and I believe, feeble as I am, God is going to give me another good turn and another blessed wave of success. You will pray for me, I would like before I die, it has been one of the choicest wishes of my soul, to be able to make the Salvation Army such a power for God, and of such benefit to mankind, that no wicked people can spoil it. Salvation forever, Salvation yellow, red, and blue. I am for it, my darling, and so are you. I have heard about your open air services with the greatest satisfaction, and praise God with all my heart that in the midst of the difficulties of climate and politics, etc., you have been able to go forward. I have the daily papers read to me, and among other things, that are very mysterious and puzzling, are the particulars that I gather of the dreadful heat that you have had to suffer, both as a people and as individuals. You seem to have, indeed, been having lively times with the weather. It must have tried you very much. My telling you not to fret about me is the proper thing to do. That is my business in the world very largely, and if I can only comfort your dear heart, well, I shall do good work. Goodbye, my darling child. Write to me as often as you can, but not when overburdened. I am with you, and for you, and in you for ever and ever. Love to everybody. Your affectionate father and general, William Booth. To an officer whom he regarded almost as a daughter, and whose hearing had been greatly affected, he wrote, My dear sea, thank you for your sympathetic letter. It is good of you to think about me now and then, especially so as you must be much and often exercised about your own affliction. Perhaps you will think that it is easier for me to accept mine than it will be for you to accept yours. I have just been thinking that to have any difficulty in the hearing organ is not so serious as a difficulty with the seeing. You can read and write, and with a little contrivance and patience you can hear any communication that may be specially interesting and important. It is true you are shut out from the pleasure and profit that comes from the general conversation of a company and from listening to public speakers, although a great deal that you miss is no serious loss at all. In my case, I can imagine I am worse off. With me, reading is impossible, and writing is so difficult that, although I can scratch a few lines, the work soon becomes so taxing and difficult that I have to relinquish it. So, we'll sympathize the one with the other. We will trust in God, take courage, and look forward to brighter days. Anyway, God lives and there are a thousand things we can do for Him, and what we can do, we will do, and we will do it with our might. Every thoughtful reader of this volume will naturally have asked himself many times over, how is it possible for the leader of a great worldwide mission to leave his headquarters year after year for weeks and sometimes for months at a time without involving great risk of disaster to his army? The answer, familiar to everyone at headquarters and indeed to many others, lay in the existence largely out of sight even to the vast majority of the soldiers of the army, a man who, since his very youth, had been the general's unwariable assistant. It was the present general Bramwell Booth. Content to toil mostly at executive or administrative work, whether at headquarters or elsewhere, unseen and unapplauded, who was ceaselessly watching over every portion of the vast whole, and was ceaselessly preparing for advances, noting defects, stopping mistaken movements, and urging at every turn upon everyone the importance of prayer and faith, the danger of self-confidence, and the certainty of God's sufficiency for all who relied wholly upon Him. It was this organizer of victory in the individual and on many fields who made it possible for the army to march forward whilst its general was receiving from city to city and from village to village in motor and other tours the reward of faithful service to the poorest everywhere and was also ever advancing on the common foe. Therefore, this book could not be complete without some account of the then chief of the staff to explain his construction. Born in Halifax in 1856, amidst one of those great revival tours in which his parents shared in the tremendous toils that brought in every place they visited, hundreds of souls into deep conviction of sin and hearty submission to God, the little one must have drunk in from his very childhood some of that anxiety for the perishing and joy in their deliverance, which formed the basis of a salvationist career. Named after one of the greatest holiness preachers who accompanied John Wesley in his campaigning in the express hope to both father and mother that he should become an apostle of that teaching, the faith of his parents received abundant fulfillment in his afterlife. As a boy he shared with them all the vicissitudes of their eight gypsy years during which they were practically without a home and the one settled year of, as they thought, half-wasted time amidst the usual formalities, always galling to them both, or ordinary church life, so that with his usual acuteness of observation he must have noted all their horror of routine and learnt more than anybody noticed the reasons why the churches had become divorced from the crowds and the crowds from the churches. In his tenth year when they settled in London and began their real-life work he cannot but have partaken fully of the satisfaction this gave to them whilst they were as yet buried amidst the mass of East and Misery. It was shortly before the foundation of the work that he was converted at one of his mother's own meetings the shrinking from publicity, which seems an essential part of every conscientious person held him long back from resolving to become one of their officers. But during all the years between his being saved and that great decision he was constantly helping first in children's meetings and then in office work so that at twenty-one he was already a very experienced man both in the work of saving souls and in much of the business management for which a great movement calls. When I first saw him at seventeen he was still studying but he had been during the previous eighteen months of the general's illness and absence his mother's mainstay in the managing both of the public and the office work of the Christian mission caring and largely manager of a set of soup kitchens the precursors in some way of our present social wing for all this to be possible to a lad of seventeen of delicate health may give some little indication of the faculties with which God had endowed him it was not however till five years later when he had fully conquered his own taste for a medical career he had to bring himself fully to the war alone or with one of his sisters he visited the towns where many of our largest corps were being raised holding meetings and theaters and other popular resorts so that he gained first hand all the experiences of officers both in the pioneering days and in the after years of struggle against all manner of difficulty when every sort of problem in the corps had to be dealt with from hour to hour this much to explain how it was possible for a man so young to become at twenty-five the worthy and capable chief of the staff of an army already at work in both hemispheres and on both sides of the world the reader will also be able to understand how the chief traveling by night as often as by day could visit the general in the midst of any of his campaigns and in the course of a brief journey from city to city or between night and morning confer fully with him and take decisions upon matters that could not await even the delay of a male the comfort to the general as he often testified of the continual faithful service of this slave of a son one of the most invaluable forces of his life whilst on the one side we see it was in such self renouncing abandonment a certificate to an evidence of the nature of the general's own life we must read in it at the same time some part of the explanation of his boundless activities and influence for the chief of those days the general of these to have gone to and come away from his father's daily scenes of triumph without getting the slightest appetite himself for public displays or yielding in the slightest to the craving after human support or encouragement to turn him aside from the humdrum of duty is one proof of those gracious evidences of God's saving and keeping power with which the history of the salvation army abounds end of section 27 Recording by Tom Hirsch