The Authoritative Life of General William Booth | Page 9

one of the most valuable features of his whole career that
wherever he or his messengers went there came that same certainty
which from the days of Bethlehem onwards Jesus Christ came to bring
to every man.
"By faith we know!" If every outward manifestation of The General's
successes could be swept off the world to-morrow, this positive faith in
the one Saviour would be capable of reproducing all its blessed results
over again, wherever it was preserved, or renewed. Any so-called faith
which gives no certainty must needs be hustled out of the way of an
investigating, hurrying, wealth-seeking age. Only those who are certain
that they have found the Lord can be capable of inducing others to seek
and find Him.

Chapter III

Lay Ministry

Convictions such as we have just been reading of were bound to lead to
immediate action. But it is most interesting to find that William Booth's
first regular service for Christ was not called forth by any church, but
simply by the spontaneous efforts of one or two young Converts like
himself. No one could be more inclined towards the use of organisation
and system than he always was, and yet he always advocated an
organisation so open to all, and a system so elastic, that zeal might
never be repressed, but only made the most of. It is, perhaps, fortunate
that we have in one of his addresses to his own young Officers the
following description of the way he began to work for the Salvation of
his fellow-townsmen:--
"Directly after my conversion I had a bad attack of fever, and was
brought to the very edge of the grave. But God raised me up, and led
me out to work for Him, after a fashion which, considering my youth
and inexperience, must be pronounced remarkable. While recovering
from this illness, which left me far from strong, I received a note from a
companion, Will Sansom, asking me to make haste and get well again,
and help him in a Mission he had started in a slum part of the town. No
sooner was I able to get about than I gladly joined him.
"The Meetings we held were very remarkable for those days. We used
to take out a chair into the street, and one of us mounting it would give
out a hymn, which we then sang with the help of, at the most, three or
four people. Then I would talk to the people, and invite them to come
with us to a Meeting in one of the houses.
"How I worked in those days! Remember that I was only an apprentice
lad of fifteen or sixteen. I used to leave business at 7 o'clock, or soon
after, and go visiting the sick, then these street Meetings, and
afterwards to some Meeting in a cottage, where we would often get
some one saved. After the Meeting I would often go to see some dying
person, arriving home about midnight to rest all I could before rising
next morning in time to reach my place of business at 7 A.M. That was
sharp exercise! How I can remember rushing along the streets during
my forty minutes' dinner-time, reading the Bible or C. G. Finney's
Lectures on Revivals of Religion as I went, careful, too, not to be a

minute late. And at this time I was far from strong physically; but full
of difficulties as those days were, they were nevertheless wonderful
seasons of blessing, and left pleasant memories that endure to this hour.
"The leading men of the church to which I belonged were afraid I was
going too fast, and gave me plenty of cautions, quaking and fearing at
my every new departure; but none gave me a word of encouragement.
And yet the Society of which for those six apprentice years I was a
faithful member, was literally my heaven on earth. Truly, I thought
then there was one God, that John Wesley was His prophet, and that the
Methodists were His special people. The church was at the time, I
believe, one thousand members strong. Much as I loved them, however,
I mingled but little with them, and had time for but few of their great
gatherings, having chosen the Meadow Platts as my parish, because my
heart then as now went out after the poorest of the poor.
"Thus my conversion made me, in a moment, a preacher of the Gospel.
The idea never dawned on me that any line was to be drawn between
one who had nothing else to do but preach and a saved apprentice lad
who only wanted 'to spread through all the earth abroad,' as we used to
sing, the fame of our Saviour. I have lived, thank God, to