The Authoritative Life of General William Booth Part 33

My Dear C.,--

"Thanks for your sympathetic letter. It is good of you to think about me now and then. Specially 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 sympathise the one with the other. We will trust in G.o.d, take courage, and look forward to brighter days.

"Anyway, G.o.d 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 was it possible for the Leader of a great world-wide 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 every one 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, of a man who, since his very youth, had been The General's unwearyable a.s.sistant. 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 as ceaselessly preparing for advances, noting defects, stopping mistaken movements, and urging at every turn, upon every one, the importance of prayer and faith, the danger of self-confidence, and, the certainty of G.o.d's sufficiency for all who relied wholly upon Him. It was this organiser 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 G.o.d, the little one must have drunk in, from his very childhood, some of that anxiety for the peris.h.i.+ng, and joy in their deliverance, which form 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 fulfilment in his after life.

As a boy he shared with them all the vicissitudes of their eight gipsy 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 ma.s.s of East-End 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 the public and the office work of "The Christian Mission," and the Secretary and, largely, manager of a set of soup kitchens, the precursors, in some ways, 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 G.o.d had endowed him.

It was not, however, till five years later, when he had fully conquered his own taste for a medical career that he gave 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 in theatres 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 as to individuals, and 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, travelling 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 mail.

The comfort to The General, as he often testified, of the continual faithful service of this slave of a son was one of the most invaluable forces of his life. Whilst, on the one side we may see in such self-renouncing abandonment a certificate to and 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 appet.i.te 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 G.o.d's saving and keeping power with which the history of The Salvation Army abounds.

Chapter XXV

Tributes

The great tribute The General received by the vast a.s.semblies in every country at his Funeral and Memorial services, said far more than any words could have expressed of the extent to which he had become recognised everywhere as a true friend of all who were in need, and of the degree to which he had succeeded in prompting all his Officers and people to act up to that ideal.

The following, a small selection of the most prominent testimonies borne to his life by the Press of various countries, will give some idea of what was thought and felt by his contemporaries about him and his work:--

The Christian World, _August 22, 1912_

"No name is graven more deeply in the history of his time than that of William Booth, Founder and General of The Salvation Army, who pa.s.sed to his rest on Tuesday night. At sixteen, the Nottingham builder's son underwent an 'old-fas.h.i.+oned conversion,' and, as he told a representative of _The Christian World_, 'within six hours he was going in and out of the cottages in the back streets, preaching the Gospel that had saved himself.' From that day he toiled terribly, and never more terribly than since his sixtieth year, after which the Social Scheme was launched, and The General undertook those evangelistic tours in which he traversed England again and again in every direction, and covered a great part of the Western world. How he kept up is a miracle, for he was a frail-looking figure, and he ate next to nothing--a slice or two of toast or bread and b.u.t.ter or rice pudding and a roasted apple, were his meals for many years past. It was his great heart, his invincible faith, his indomitable courage that kept him going.

"Plutarch would have put William Booth and John Wesley together in his 'Parallel Lives.' Each man 'thought in continents.' 'The world is my parish,' said Wesley, and Methodism to-day covers the world. So General Booth believed in world conquest for Christ, because he believed in Christ's all-conquering power, and he had the courage of his conviction.

He learnt much from Wesley, for he began as a Methodist. He knew what can be done by thorough organisation, and what financial resources there are in the multiplication of small but cheerful givers. Like Wesley, too, he combined the genius for great conceptions with the genius for practical detail, without which great conceptions soon vanish into thin air. He was more masterful than Wesley. When he broke away from the Methodist New Connexion, and founded the Christian Mission of which The Salvation Army was the evolution, he found that committees wasted their time in talk and were distracted in opinion. He read lives of Napoleon, Wellington, and other great commanders, and came to the conclusion that a committee is an excellent thing to receive and carry out instructions from a masterful man who knows what he wants, but otherwise they are worthless. He persuaded those of his colleagues who had unbounded belief in him, and whose sole concern was the progress of the Mission, to accept the military organisation with himself as Commander-in-Chief, and with his driving power and the inspiration of his heroic example, those Officers went to every part of Great Britain and to something like fifty different countries and 'did exploits.' That system may work with a selfless Christian hero who is a born Caesar or Napoleon. The Salvation Army's severe testing time has now come, when it will be seen whether, after all, the more cautious Wellingtonian methods of Wesley laid firmer foundations.

"The secret of General Booth's personal force and commanding power was an open one. To him there were no realities so demonstrable as the realities of the spiritual world--most of all, the reality of Christ's real personal presence and saving power to-day. He found that unquestioning faith in Christ's saving power worked everywhere and under all conditions. We differed from him on theological details, but we gladly recognise that scores of thousands of 'moral miracles,' in the shape of lives remade that were apparently shattered beyond repair and trodden in the mud of dissipation and bold habitual sinning, verified the faith. The burglar who had been forty years in prison and penal servitude, the most shameless of Magdalens, the drinker and gambler brought down to the Embankment at midnight, greedy for a meal of soup and bread, the man or woman determined to end a state of despair and disgust with the world by suicide, these, under the influence of The Salvation Army, became 'new creations.' But the same conviction, and the evidences of its miraculous Operation, captured a large number of men and women of the cultured and refined cla.s.ses, who were either the victims of moral weakness, or who felt the challenge to service and sacrifice for the sake of others. Kings, Queens, and Royal Princes and Princesses were glad to see General Booth, and gave their encouragement to his work, and it was fitting that, when King Edward died, a Salvation Army band should comfort the widowed lady by playing in the courtyard of Buckingham Palace her husband's favourite hymns.

"The Social Work was an inevitable outcome of the evangelistic work. It had its dangers, and The Salvation Army has not escaped all of them without scathe. But it was found that the difficulty with thousands of the Converts was that of giving them a chance to redeem their past, and to nurse them physically and morally till they were able to stand alone, in a position to take their places again in the ranks of decent and self-respecting citizens.h.i.+p. Then there was the 'Submerged Tenth'--the human wreckage tossed hither and thither by the swirling currents of the social sea. To safeguard the one cla.s.s, and to save the other from themselves and their circ.u.mstances, the Social scheme was launched, and those who estimate its success by moral valuation rather than in terms of finance, will say that it has justified itself, though it never accomplished what The General fondly hoped.

"Now that his worn-out body lies awaiting burial, The General's personal worth and the worth of his work are frankly confessed even by those who were once his bitterest critics. _The Times_ had a leader in which it said that he rose from obscurity to be known as the head of a vast organisation 'well known over all the world, and yielding to him an obedience scarcely less complete than that which the Catholic Church yields to the Roman Pontiff.' We wish _The Times_ had followed _The Standard_ in dropping the invidious quotation marks from the t.i.tle, General. William Booth was a great leader of men in a world campaign of individual and social Salvation. Why reserve the t.i.tle only for men skilled in the art of wholesale human slaughter?"

The Times, _August 8, 1912_

"The death of General Booth, which we announce with great regret this morning, closes a strange career, one of the most remarkable that our age has seen, and will set the world meditating on that fervent, forceful character, and that keen, though, as some would say, narrow intelligence. Born of unrecorded parentage, educated anyhow, he had raised himself from a position of friendless obscurity to be the head of a vast Organisation not confined to this country or to the British race, but well known over half the world, and yielding to him an obedience scarcely less complete than that which the Catholic Church yields to the Roman Pontiff. The full memoir which we publish to-day shows how this Salvation Army grew up--the creation of one man, or rather of a pair of human beings, for the late Mrs. Booth was scarcely less important to its early development than was her husband. Both of them belonged to the Wesleyan body, of which William Booth at the time of his marriage was a minister, though a very independent and insubordinate one; and deep ingrained in both was the belief which is a more essential part of the Wesleyan than of any other creed, the belief in conversion as an instantaneous change affecting the whole life. Booth himself had been converted at fifteen, and at sixty he wrote of 'the hour, the place of this glorious transaction' as an undying memory. Out of this idea of conversion, as not only the most powerful motive force in life, but as a force which was, so to speak, waiting to be applied to all, arose the whole Salvation Army Movement. It was not, of course, in any sense a new idea. Christians had been familiar with it in all ages, and both the New Testament and the history of the early saints supply instances in support of it. But Booth was probably more affected by more recent evidence. Imperfect as had been his training for the ministry, he doubtless learnt pretty thoroughly the history of Wesley and Whitefield, and of the astonis.h.i.+ng early years of the Methodist movement. In his own youth, too, Revivalism was an active force, and he himself had been strongly moved by an American missionary. His originality lay in carrying down the doctrine not only to the highways and hedges, but to the slums, the homes of the very poor, the haunts of criminals and riff-raff; in getting hold of these people; in using the worst of them--'converted,' as he honestly believed--as a triumphant advertis.e.m.e.nt; and then in organising his followers into a vast Army, with himself as absolute Chief. On the methods adopted nothing need be added to what is said in the memoir; they are familiar to all, though not so familiar as they were some twenty years ago.

"The root-idea of William Booth's religion, the object of his missionary work, was 'the saving of souls.' Translated into other language, this means the establishment of a conviction in the minds of men, women, and children that they were reconciled to G.o.d, saved, and preserved to all eternity from the penalties of sin. We do not propose to enter on the delicate ground of theological discussion, or to argue for or against the truth or value of such a conviction. The interesting point, in relation to General Booth's ideas and personality, is to note how this belief is worked into the system of The Army in the official programme, fantastically called the Articles of War, which has to be signed by every Candidate for enrolment. This curious doc.u.ment, which will greatly interest future social historians, consists of three parts--a creed, as definite as any taught by the Churches; a promise to abstain from drink, bad language, dishonesty, etc.; and a solemn promise to obey the lawful orders of the Officers, and never on any consideration to oppose the interests of The Salvation Army. The last part, the promissory part, is made much stricter in the case of Candidates for the position of Officer; these solemnly promise not only to obey The General, but to report any case they may observe in others of 'neglect or variation from his orders and directions.' Members.h.i.+p of the Organisation thus depends on absolute obedience, and on a profession of faith in Salvation in the definite sense formulated in the Articles of War. The two are inseparably conjoined. When we reflect upon what human nature is, in the cla.s.s from which so many of the members of The Army have been drawn, when we think how difficult it is to reconcile the hand-to-mouth existence of the casual labourer with any high standard of conduct, let alone of religion, General Booth's success, partial though it has been, is an astonis.h.i.+ng fact. It implies a prodigious strength of character, and a genius for seeing what would appeal to large numbers of humble folk.

"Will that success continue now that General Booth is dead? Everywhere we hear that The Army is not bringing in Recruits as fast as of old. Its novelty has worn off; its uniforms are no longer impressive; its street services, though they provoke no opposition, do not seem to attract the wastrel and the 'rough' as they did at first. We can readily believe that the work goes on more or less as before; but the gatherings, we suspect, are mostly composed of those who have long frequented them and of a certain number of new members drawn rather from existing sects than from persons till now untouched by religion. Then, with regard to the other side of The Army's work, the Social Schemes outlined in _In Darkest England_ have met with only moderate success, as all cool observers foretold in 1890. They have, at least, provided no panacea for poverty. Probably Mr. Booth felt this during the last years of his life; but he has been spared the sight of the still further decline of his projects, which to most of us seems inevitable. Of course, some persons are more confident: they argue that Napoleon's system did not disappear after Waterloo, nor Wesley's system with the death of its founder, and that the Roman Catholic Church is as strong as ever, though Pope after Pope disappears. That is true, but for the very reason that these systems were elaborate organisations, based on the facts of life. The Code Napoleon and the Methodist Connexion were much too well adapted to human needs to disappear with their authors. On the other hand, movements and systems which depend wholly upon one man do not often prove to be more than ephemeral. But none would deny that there is much to be learnt from The Salvation Army and from the earnest, strenuous, and resourceful personality of the man who made it. Let us hope that, if The Army as an Organisation should ultimately fade away, the great lesson of its even temporary success will not be forgotten: the lesson that any force which is to move mankind must regard man's nature as spiritual as well as material, and that the weak and humble, the poor and the 'submerged,' share in that double nature as much as those who spend their lives in the suns.h.i.+ne of worldly prosperity."

The Daily Chronicle, _August 21, 1912_

"To-day we have the mournful duty of chronicling the pa.s.sing of William Booth, the Head of that vast Organisation, the Salvation Army. The world has lost its greatest missionary evangelist, one of the supermen of the age. Almost every land on the face of the globe knows this pioneer and his Army, The Army which has waged such long, determined, and successful battle against the world's ramparts of sin and woe. Not one country, but fifty, will feel to-day a severe personal loss. From Lapland to Honolulu heads will be bowed in sorrow at the news that that striking figure who has been responsible for so much of the religious progress of the world of to-day is no more.

"The stupendous crusade which he initiated had the very humblest beginnings. It opened in the slummy purlieus of Nottingham, that city which gave to the world two of the greatest religious leaders of modern times--General Booth and Dr. Paton. It has pa.s.sed through periods of open enmity, opposition, criticism, but its Leader and his band of devoted helpers have never lost sight of their high aim. They were engaged in 'war on the hosts that keep the underworld submerged,' and they have now long been justified by their unparalleled achievements.

The time of scorn and indifference pa.s.sed, and General Booth lived to receive honour at the hands of kings and princes, and to have their support for his work.

"It is not given to every man who sets out with a great purpose to accomplish his aims. But of General Booth it may be said that he did more. His Movement reached dimensions of which he probably never dreamed in its early days, yet the extraordinary results made him ever hungrier for conquest. In a way the latter years of his life were perhaps the most notable of his whole career. He displayed a vitality and enthusiasm which seemed to increase with the weight of time. At a time when most men seek a greater measure of repose, General Booth worked on with all the freshness of early years. And it can be said that he has died in harness. He did not lift his finger from the pulse of the far-reaching Organisation which he brought into being until death called.

"The story of the growth of The Salvation Army is the most remarkable in the history of the work of the spiritual, social, and material regeneration of the submerged. From the by-ways of all the world human derelicts, which other agencies pa.s.sed by, have been rescued. No one was too degraded, too repulsive to be neglected. The work is too great to be estimated in a way which can show its extent. It has been achieved mainly by two great factors. The first is perfect organisation. Lord Wolseley once described General Booth as the greatest organiser in the world. The second feature was the wonderful personality of The Army's chief. He impressed it not only upon his colleagues but upon those whom he wished to rescue, and on the public at large. He radiated human sympathy and enthusiasm. His loss will be a heavy one for the world; it will be a severe blow for The Army. But we cannot think that his good work has not been built upon sound foundations, and that the war he directed so ably and so long will be relaxed. Nationally The Army has done magnificent work in fifty countries, and it has, therefore, tended to promote a greater spirit of brotherhood among the nations. To-day the whole world will unite to pay its tribute to a splendid life of devotion to a great cause. To that world he leaves a splendid example, and it will be the highest tribute that can be paid to his memory to keep green that lofty example which he set before all peoples."

The Daily Telegraph, _August 21, 1912_

"It is with no ordinary or conventional regret that we record this morning the death of General Booth. The news will be received by hundreds of thousands of Salvationists with profound and reverential grief, and by many who are not Salvationists, and who never could be, with respectful and sympathetic sorrow. For, whatever we may think of William Booth and of the wonderful Organisation which he so triumphantly established, it is certain that he belonged to the company of saints, and that during the eighty-three years of a strenuous life, he devoted himself, so far as in him lay, to the solemn duty of saving men's souls and extending the Divine Kingdom on earth. That success attended his efforts is, from this point of view, not of so much consequence as that the success was deserved by the patient, devout, and self-sacrificing zeal of the Founder of The Salvation Army. Long ago William Booth prevailed against the easy scepticism of those who found fault with his aims, and the sincere dislike of humble and reverent men, who doubted whether the cause of religion could be advanced by such riotous methods.

Not only was The General of The Salvation Army a saint and a mystic, who lived in this world and yet was not of this world, but he also was possessed of much practical ability and common sense, without which the great work of his life could never have been accomplished. We need only refer to that remarkable book which he published in 1890, _In Darkest England, and the Way Out_, in which will be found proposals to remedy the crying evils of pauperism and vice by such eminently wise expedients as Farm Colonies, Oversea Colonies, and Rescue Homes for Fallen Women; to say nothing of picturesque but also practical devices, such as the Prison-Gate Brigade, the Poor Man's Bank, the Poor Man's Lawyer, and Whitechapel-by-the-Sea. How is it possible to ridicule the objects or character of a man who has proved himself so earnest a worker for G.o.d?

As a matter of fact, William Booth was nothing less than a genius, and towards the end of the nineteenth century the world at large gave very generous recognition, not only to the spirit and temper, but to the results of an extraordinarily effective, and, indeed, epoch-making Movement. At the instance of King Edward VII The General was officially invited to be present at the Coronation ceremony in 1902. Nothing could have marked more significantly than this single fact the completeness of the change of public feeling; and when, in 1905, William Booth went on a progress through England, he was welcomed in state by the Mayors and Corporations of many towns.

"Is it better to live in this world with no religion at all or with a narrow and violent form of religious belief? People will judge the deceased teacher and chief, in respect of his theological and propagandist work, in accordance with the views which they hold upon this alternative. As regards his social labours, his pa.s.sionate efforts to help the 'submerged tenth,' his widespread helpfulness of the poor, his shelters and refuges, the feeling must and will be almost universal that he was an energetic and warm-hearted benefactor of his kind, who wrought much good to his times, and helped others to do it, and who had what Sir John Seeley called the 'enthusiasm of humanity' in very honourable, if noisy and demonstrative, form. But, since The General mingled all this with a cult--a distinct theological teaching, a theory of the Divine government and destiny of mankind which was in external form, as Huxley styled it, 'Corybantic'--the question does and must arise whether religion of the Salvationist school does good or harm to the human natures which it addresses. It is not necessary to dwell upon the dislike--we might, indeed, say the repulsion--felt by serious and elevated minds at the paraphernalia, the pious turmoil, the uproar and 'ba.n.a.lite' of much that has developed under the Banners of The Salvation Army. Prayers uttered like volley-firing, hymns roared to the roll of drums and the screaming of fifes, have been features of this remarkable revival which outraged many of the orthodox, and made even the judicious and indulgent ask whether any good could come out of such a Nazareth.

n.o.body gave utterance to this feeling with greater moderation or kindliness than Cardinal Manning, when, while confessing that the need of spiritual awakening among the English poor was only too well proved by the success of General Booth--that the moral and religious state of East London could alone have rendered possible The Salvation Army--his Eminence added these grave sentences: 'Low words generate low thoughts; words without reverence destroy the veneration of the human mind. When a man ceases to venerate he ceases to wors.h.i.+p. Extravagance, exaggeration, and coa.r.s.eness are dangers incident to all popular teachers, and these things pa.s.s easily into a strain which shocks the moral sense and deadens the instinct of piety. Familiarity with G.o.d in men of chastened mind produces a more profound veneration; in unchastened minds it runs easily into an irreverence which borders upon impiety. Even the Seraphim cover their faces in the Divine Presence.'

"Yet against what new movement of spiritual awakening in the people--against what form of religious revival might not the same argument of offended culture and decorous holiness be employed? And where would the lower ma.s.ses of men be to-day if Religion had not stooped out of her celestial heights--from the first chapters of Christendom until the last--to the intellectual and moral levels of the poor and lowly? In the sheet, knit at four corners, and lowered out of Heaven, there was nothing common or unclean. If, as is practically certain, General Booth, by the vast a.s.sociation which he founded and organised, touched with the sense of higher and immortal things countless humble and unenlightened souls; if, in his way, and in their way, he brought home to them the love and power of Heaven, and the duty and destiny of men, then it is not for refined persons who keep aloof from such vulgar tasks to mock at the life and deeds of this remarkable man. The particulars which we give elsewhere of his career show how, like Wesley, Whitefield, and Spurgeon, in this country, and like Savonarola, Peter the Hermit, and the Safi mystics abroad, William Booth, the builder's son of Nottingham, was obviously set apart, and summoned by time, temperament, and circ.u.mstances for the labours of his life. Like Luther, his answer to all objections--worldly or unworldly--would always have been, 'I can no other'. Meeting in Miss Catherine Mumford the wife who exactly suited him, and reinforced by many children, all brought up in the temper and vocation of their parents, The General made his family a sort of Headquarters' Staff of The Salvation Army, and celebrated his household marriages or bewept his domestic bereavements with all the eclat and effect of c.u.menical events. We saw him buy up and turn into stations for his troops such places as the 'Eagle Tavern' and 'Grecian Theatre,' overcome popular rioting at Bath, Guilford, Eastbourne, and elsewhere; fill the United Kingdom with his _War Cry_ and his fighting centres, and invade all Europe, and even the Far East. At home he plunged, insatiable of moral and social conquests, into his crusade for 'Darkest England,' being powerful enough to raise in less than a month as much as all England and the Colonies contributed for the Gordon College at Khartoum in response to another victorious general. For General Booth certainly ended by being victorious. If the evangelical creed he inculcated was rude, crude, and unideal, it was serious, sincere, and stimulating. He waged war against the Devil, as that mysterious personage was understood by him, with the most whole-hearted and relentless zeal. He enjoined, let it be remembered, an absolute temperance, soberness, and chast.i.ty upon the Officers and rank and file of his motley host; and, ugly as some may think the uniforms of Salvationists, the police and magistrates know that they cover for the most part honest hearts. Could The General have affected all this--or a tenth part of it--if he had not lent himself to the eternal necessities and weaknesses of the uneducated, and given them his drill, his banners, his drums, his prayer-volleys, his poke-bonnets, and his military tunics? We doubt it, and in contemplating, therefore, the enormous good this dead man did, and sought to do, and the neglected fields of humanity which he tilled for the Common Master, we judge him to be one of the chief and most serviceable figures of the Victorian age; and well deserving from his own followers the ecstasy of grief and veneration which is being manifested, and from contemporary notice the tribute of a hearty recognition of pious and n.o.ble objects zealously pursued, and love of G.o.d and of humanity made the pa.s.sion and the purpose of a whole unflinching life."