Authoritative Life of General William Booth — The End, Part 2

The following letters to members of his own family show the spirit of affection and of 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 Erickson 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--indeed, 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 am 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 connexion with my Annual Campaign in Berlin and round about.

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 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 opportunity.

"Anyway, believe me, as ever and for ever, "Your affectionate father, "W. B."

At his last public Meeting to celebrate his 83d birthday, at the Royal Albert Hall, on the 9th day of May, the General had said:-- "And now comrades and friends I must say good-bye.

I am going into dry dock 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 marvellous 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 4, 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.

Florrie 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 good-bye 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 cymbal.

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 and not give way, or 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 any way 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 for ever!

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 this world very largely, and if I can only comfort your dear heart--well, I shall do good work.

"Good-bye, 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 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 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 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 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 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 God'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 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 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 mass 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 God 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 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.

Chapter XXV