The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-03-26

services Degln ne taxes MS place as
one of them. He has his mind upon his
Master, this young man; he remem-
bers the friend of publicans and sin
ners.
In the same English city of factories
and slums there is great excitement
and a practical half holiday. The city
is decorated. Many thousand people
go out upon the country highway and
line it, waiting for some one. Sick
persons are brought upon beds and
filters and laid by the side of the road.
1t makes one think of scenes in the
New Testament. An old man comes
in an automobile, a beautiful old man,
looking like one of the saints. He has
snow white hair and long snow white
beard and a beautiful, kindly, gentle
face, full of all gentle thoughts that
man may think, without guile, without
one sordid or sensual cross, all good
and kindly. The people cheer wildly
when he comes and crowd around him
to touch his hand or hear him say a
word The sick on the beds are lifted
up for his blessing. He says something
to each, and each is visibly cheered
and lightened by his words. Some
persons raise a hymn, ten thousand
threats take it up, and so between
dense crowds of applauding people the
old man in the automobile enters the
city, like a famous saint or apostle in
the first days of the church. The city
authorities receive him with every
mark of respect; without dissent all
men do him honor; a speaker refers to
him as the foremost of the worlds Iiv-
ing philanthropiSts and benefactors;
unanimous applause greets the remark.
The boy preacher stoned in the slum
street and the old man revered and
venerated are one person; the place is
the same, the lacemaking city of Not
tingham, and the two scenes are per-
fectly typical of the wonderful life of
William Booth, general of the Saliva
ton Army, that now encircles the
globe, on whose labors the sun never
sets, whose drumbeat is literally heard
around the world.
There is no more astounding career
in all the records nor in all the fiction.
About it, about the man himself
there is something that even to us of
the world does not seem within the
range of human ordination. No king,
no emperor and no captain of industry
yields a power comparable to this
mans. In all the world is no other or
ganization-civil, military or industrial
that for order, method, system, en-
ergy and enthusiasm is fit to compare
with this. Not even the German
army works with precision so fault
less ana q QlSclpl1no 50 dOT111TdDl6
Looking impartially at these things,
am not perfectly sure that the human
mind and the human heart, working
together and charged with love and
feeling, unselfish and unremitting, have
any particular limits. If one man so
inspired can do these things, where
shall we set the bounds to feeling and
thought?
What were the endowment and en-
Al
His father was a prosperous trades
man in small way in this same city
of Nottingham, where William Booth
was born His mother was a sanity
and gentle soul, widowed when the boy
was still young, thenceforward wrap
ped UP in him. His ancestry was com
monplace, which is to say the very
best. everything good on this earth
having come from plain people He
had careful home training, but no
great schooling, for the elder Booth
lost all his money, and William must
go at an early age to work. Doubt
less this was likewise an advantage.
The glaciers of scholasticism could
hardly have chilled a fire so fierce as
burned in this bosom, but surely they
could in no way have helped it.
The family was orthodox in the Es-
tablished Church of England. but of
liberal views. One night going home
he passed a Wesleyan chapel where
services were being held. He thought
he would like to see what such serv-