The Authoritative Life of General William Booth Part 15

On the afternoon of his arrival he tells us he rested, wrote up correspondence and journal, and had some little thought about the coming Meetings.

"Night. Welcome Meeting in the Methodist Church. Packed. There must have been nearly 1,300 people present. The admission was free, and there were many Philistines, some socialists, and some lads bent on mischief. To add to our difficulties, my interpreter did his work so miserably that we had some confusion and restlessness. After an hour's talk, I paused for the collection to be taken, and changed interpreters. The second one did very much better. His voice, however, was feeble and his manner very quiet, so that things were not very much better for a time. Then we had a little quiet, and a decent finish. It was a considerable disappointment, however, and next door to a defeat. I retired to rest very sad, and with awkward forebodings about the coming Meetings.

"The great funereal vault of a church, the interpreting, the mocking young fellows void of any sense of honour or conscience to appeal to, or any respect for a stranger, the intense anxiety of the Officer in command to have good Meetings, and above all my longings to meet the needs of the hungry crowd, only wanting to hear, and many of them equally willing to obey: these and other troubling thoughts haunted my mind and spoiled my night's sleep.

But I fell back on my old remedy, and, comforting myself in the Lord, resolved to do what could be done and left myself in His hands.

"Sunday.--11 a.m. Had a local minister to translate; he did well.

Some fifty or sixty stood up at the close as seekers for a clean heart.

"Afternoon. The great church packed. Interpretation went fairly well. Began at 3 p.m. and went on till 5.20 p.m.

"Night. Police sent up word soon after six that the street was filling up, and the doors must be opened. When this was done the young fellows who had made so much trouble on Sat.u.r.day night--or at least some hundreds of this cla.s.s--forced their way in through all else, leaving hundreds more outside. They talked and laughed, and although now and then a policeman marched a row of them out, their game went on, spoiling everything.

"The voice of the interpreter was weak, and the confusion fl.u.s.tered him. So my dreams of a smash and of a hundred seekers were not realised, and we terminated with some six or seven gathered out of the crowd immediately near to the platform.

"It was a great disappointment. I felt beaten, and went home confessing it. And yet what could be done? My tongue was all but tied. I was helpless without an interpreter capable of conveying my meaning to the people. Such a man was wanting. Commending the whole matter and the anxious crowds of people so eager to hear to my Master, I retired at midnight.

"Monday.--Breakfast, 8.30 a.m. 9 a.m., spoke with a gentleman from Kiel, who is anxious to see The Army open there, and is building us a Hall. Saw his plans and arranged terms.

"9.30 a.m., saw the Officer from Stuttgart. He has a heavy struggle. 12 noon, drove round the city. In summer time it must be a very pleasant place.

"3.30 p.m., Meeting. Fine audience, very nearly filling the church.

Commenced with a new interpreter, a student--execrable! I soon had to fall back on one of the others.

"7 p.m., as full as the police would allow. Continued till 10 p.m.

And then had a Soldiers' Meeting till 11.30 p.m.

"Left Copenhagen the next morning at 8.30 a.m."

We who have since seen some of The General's greatest triumphs in that city, and have watched the steady growth of The Army in Denmark till it has won the sympathy of the Royal Family and of every other decent family in the country, must rejoice in this record of his first desperate battles there, and can guess how much of all the subsequent victory is due to what his people learned in those days.

But the record has a far wider interest, for it lets us see, as we have little opportunity ordinarily, the inward conflicts through which The General pa.s.sed in so many places where, out of his weakness, or the weakness of his forces, he, or they, were "made strong."

Few achievements of The General's lifetime will, I fancy, impress future generations more than his establishment of The Army in Finland at the very time when all the former liberties of that country were gradually being taken away.

Formerly recognised by treaties as a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, with its own Parliament and laws, which were supposed to be permanently guaranteed, Finland found itself looked upon with a growing jealousy just when a new const.i.tution was slowly changing the governmental arrangements of Russia. It is, as yet, too early for outsiders to understand how it came to pa.s.s that the country was regarded as a centre of disaffection, or why, ever and anon some new step was taken to nullify its Parliament, and to place it more and more under military control. What we are concerned with is the simple fact that these things interfered but little with the steady progress of The Army, and that this proved at every step the soundness of The General's principles, the completeness with which he succeeded in planting them in the hearts of his most distant followers, and the marvellous way in which G.o.d guided, protected, and blessed his work, just where he could do the least for its development.

The very beginning of the Work was due entirely to one of his most daring decisions, for it may well be doubted whether any attempt, under the leaders.h.i.+p of a foreigner, would have been tolerated at that time.

But when a young lady, who had become acquainted with The Army in Stockholm, devoted herself to its service, and after pa.s.sing some time in Training in London, was sent back with two or three subordinates to begin work in Helsingfors, who could look upon her with suspicion?

The moment she succeeded, however, in inducing a few of her first Converts to put on our uniform or insignia, the police came down upon them, took away all their badges, and declared that the formation of a Corps there must be regarded as for ever prohibited. Even when the Converts were provided with a second supply of badges, they were called to the police-station, and again deprived of them. But the leader had learnt from The General too well the lessons of patient endurance and continuance to give way. And when the police saw her followers supplied a third time with the signs of union with us, having in the meantime had so many opportunities to learn more both of the leader and of her people, they concluded that it would be, after all, the best for the public interest to let them alone.

Two newspapers in the two languages of the country were issued and sold in all the public-houses. Congregations were gathered in all the cities, and even small towns, and everywhere the authorities could see that no spirit of discontent with anything but sin and evil habits was being created, but that the police would find their tasks lightened, and the life of the poorest of the people brightened and bettered, if they let the work go on.

Chapter XIV.

Children Conquerors in Holland and Elsewhere

The General's own personal experience, as well as numberless instances that came under his observation in his own and other families, gave him the same a.s.surance as to the need and possibility of the Salvation of children as he had with regard to adults.

If human beings cannot hope to please G.o.d until they are born again of His Spirit, what folly it would be to give up the best years of life to mere outside instruction, instead of aiming first of all at this first and greatest need. This law he always laid down as the guiding line with regard to all work amongst children, instead of the ordinary Sunday School idea "first teach, and then try to lead the children to Christ."

In his first publication, _How to Reach the Ma.s.ses with the Gospel_, he wrote in 1871:--

"Great pains are taken, we know, to make the children acquainted with the history and theory of Christianity; but their conversion, which is the main thing, seems to us to be sadly and sorely overlooked. That the immediate gathering of the children to Christ is the teacher's work, is recognised, we fear, in very few schools.

It is not the aim of the present moment; and, consequently, little effort is made to bring it about. Feeling all this, we resolved that, if ever opportunity offered, we would try services as much adapted for the conversion and instruction of children as our other services are for adults.

"On the first Sunday afternoon in April, 1869, we held our first 'Children's Salvation Service,' in our late Hall in the old Bethnal Green Road, and five children professed to find the Saviour."

But of all The General's revolutionary tasks this has, perhaps, proved to be the toughest. His eldest son--now General Bramwell Booth--made the children's work his earliest care, and in later years held annually Councils for all Officers engaged in it in England.

But, although G.o.d has wrought wonders amongst the children in every land, so that we have now thousands of Officers who have been won in their early years by that Junior work, the spectre of the Sunday School ever and anon rises to threaten with a peaceful death, this Divine undertaking. Only the most persistent watchfulness can prevent the narrow idea of instruction, and unbelief as to children's Salvation which is its foundation, from gaining the upper hand. It is so easy to get a thousand children drilled into pretty attention, pretty performances, pretty recitations and singing, and even into some degree of knowledge of the killing letter, but so hard to get any one child really to submit to the one great Teacher of mankind, and be saved!

Therefore we take special pleasure in dwelling upon the fact that The General's theory has been proved, on trial, to result in producing heroes and heroines, capable, almost in infancy, of daring battle for G.o.d, and becoming, before they reach their majority, thoroughly experienced and intelligent conquerors.

In that earliest record we read:--

"Although the services are strictly for children, it is not an unusual thing to see adults sitting by the side of the little ones, and sometimes to see parent and child kneeling together seeking 'to know Him whom to know is life eternal.' One Sunday evening a woman brought her young son, who a short time previously had been detected in an act of dishonesty. During the service G.o.d's Spirit strove with both. The mother saw that she would have to give an account of her doings, as well as the boy, and so, side by side, they knelt, sought and professed to find pardon.

"A young lad who had been a source of great annoyance at our Meetings, and a dreadful swearer, a short time ago died triumphant in the faith. When lying in the London Hospital, evidently dying, he sent a request that I would tell the children that he was 'going Home'; 'but tell them I'm not afraid; and, Oh, tell them not to swear.'"

Many of our leading Officers of to-day were truly converted before they were ten years old, so that, at thirty, they were already veterans in the Fight. Two Colonels, who were later most frequently seen closely a.s.sociated with The General's Campaigns, like him were converted at fifteen--one of them being at that time almost overlooked by the Sergeant, who was counting the Penitents. "Captain," said he, "there are seventy-one; or seventy-two, if you count this lad."

The General has not only counted his young lads and la.s.ses whenever they were true Penitents, but has dared to set them at once to work to bring others to Christ and that with such effect that whole countries have felt the result.

Our first Dutch Officer was a young teacher, dismissed from his employment because he would persist in seeking the Salvation, as well as the instruction, of his young pupils. After spending a few months in England in order to be able to translate for us, he became the Lieutenant and general helper of our pioneer Officer there. The way had been prepared before us by a retired Major of the Dutch Army, who had for some time been carrying on mission work in the city of Amsterdam, and who, having seen something of The Army in England, turned over his Mission Hall to us and gave us all possible help. He was rewarded by seeing all his own children converted.

Holland has suffered, perhaps, more than any country in the world, from the subst.i.tution of head knowledge for real heart acquaintance with G.o.d.

The refuge of true believers in days of terrible persecution, it has seen its Churches either paralysed with the narrowest and coldest orthodoxy, proclaiming the impossibility of Salvation for any but the few elect, or the natural reaction, a wild "liberalism," which doubts everything. How far the two million Catholics of the country hold fast their old faith is doubtful; but it is admitted that very few of the other four millions profess to be "born again."

But The General never sought to trim his sails to catch any "modern"

breeze. Upon his every visit to the country he spoke out with the same simple liberty as in England. Of the fisherman leader he sent to represent him in Holland, knowing "only a handful" of Dutch words, a lady said, "He prays just like a man who is drowning." Such praying, and corresponding effort, for "the peris.h.i.+ng" soon brought thousands to kneel in penitence before G.o.d.

The General has visited the country repeatedly, presiding over the Annual Reviews, which have generally been held on some great land proprietor's estate, or holding "Days with G.o.d" in its largest theatres.

Of one such visit, in 1906, he writes:--

"I have just had a wonderful campaign in Holland--Meetings, enthusiasm, collections, and souls far beyond anything that has preceded it in my experience. Praise the dear Lord."

The simple old Gospel that any child can understand, has indeed made The Army triumphant all over Holland, and the following extracts from The General's diary, during his visit of 1908, will show how childlike a faith and devotion our people there have:--

"Rotterdam, Sat.u.r.day, _March 14th_.--Soldiers' and ex-Soldiers'

Meeting fine--three-fourths men. A great improvement on anything I have seen in the way of Soldiers' Meetings in this place. I got the truth out, and thirty-seven of them fell at the Penitent-Form to seek power to walk in its light.