The Authoritative Life of General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army. George S. Railton
necessaries. I felt quite set up. It was my birthday, a Good Friday, and on the same day I fell in love with my future wife.
"But the people would have nothing to do with me. They 'did not want a parson.' They reckoned they were all parsons, so that at the end of the three months' engagement the weekly income came to an end; and, indeed, I would not have renewed the engagement on any terms. There was nothing for me to do but to sell my furniture and live on the proceeds, which did not supply me for a very long time. I declare to you that at that time I was so fixed as not to know which way to turn.
"In my emergency a remarkable way opened for me to enter college and become a Congregational minister. But after long waiting, several examinations, trial sermons and the like, I was informed that on the completion of my training I should be expected to believe and preach what is known as Calvinism. After reading a book which fully explained the doctrine, I threw it at the wall opposite me, and said I would sooner starve than preach such doctrine, one special feature of which was that only a select few could be saved.A
"My little stock of money was exhausted. I remember that I gave the last sixpence I had in the world to a poor woman whose daughter lay dying; but within a week I received a letter inviting me to the charge of a Methodist Circuit in Lincolnshire, and from that moment my difficulties of that kind became much less serious.
"The Spalding people welcomed me as though I had been an angel from Heaven, providing me with every earthly blessing within their ability, and proposing that I should stay with them for ever. They wanted me to marry right away, offered to furnish me a house, provide me with a horse to enable me more readily to get about the country, and proposed other things that they thought would please me.
"With them I spent perhaps the happiest eighteen months of my life. Of course my horizon was much more limited in those days than it is now, and consequently required less to fill it.
"Although I was only twenty-three years of age and Lincolnshire was one of the counties that had been most privileged with able Methodist preaching for half a century before, and I had to immediately follow in Spalding a somewhat renowned minister, God helped me very wonderfully to make myself at home, and become a power amongst the people.
"I felt some nervousness when on my first November Sunday I was confronted by such a large congregation as greeted me. In the morning I had very little liberty; but good was done, as I afterwards learned. In the afternoon we had a Prayer, or After-Meeting, at which one young woman wept bitterly. I urged her to come to the communion rail at night. She did so, and the Lord saved her. She afterwards sent me a letter thanking me for urging her to come out. In the evening I had great liberty, and fourteen men and women came to the communion rail; many, if not all, finding the Saviour.
"On the Monday I preached there again. Four came forward, three of whom professed to find Salvation. I exerted myself very much, felt very deeply, and prayed very earnestly over an old man who had been a backslider for seven years. He wept bitterly, and prayed to the Lord to save him, if He could wash a heart as black as Hell. By exerting myself so much I made myself very ill, and was confined to the house during the rest of the week. My host and hostess were very kind to me.
"The next Sunday I started from home rather unwell. I had to go to Donnington, some miles away, in the morning and evening, and to Swineshead Bridge in the afternoon.
"But at night God helped me to preach in such a way that many came out, and fourteen names were taken of those who really seemed satisfactory. It was, indeed, a melting, moving time.
"I was kneeling, talking to a Penitent, when somebody touched me on the shoulder, and said, 'Here is a lady who has come to seek Salvation. Her son came to hear you at Spalding, and was induced to seek the Saviour, and now she has come to hear you, and she wants Salvation, too." The Lord had mercy upon her, and she went away rejoicing.
"At Swineshead Bridge--the very name gives some idea of the utterly rural character of the population--I was to preach on three successive evenings, in the hope of promoting a Revival there. Many things seemed to be against the project; but the Lord was for us. Two people came out on the Monday evening, and God saved them both. This raised our faith and cheered our spirits, especially as we knew that several more souls were in distress.
"On the Tuesday the congregation was better. The news had spread that the Lord was saving, and that seldom fails to bring a crowd wherever it may be. That evening the word was with power, and six souls cried for mercy. At the earnest solicitations of the people, I decided to stay the remainder of the week, and urged them to pray earnestly, with the result that many more sought and found Salvation, and the little Society was nearly doubled.
"On the Saturday, just before I started home on the omnibus, a plain, unsophisticated Christian came and said, 'O sir, let me have hold of your hand.' When he had seized it between both his, with tears streaming down his face, he said, 'Glory be to God that ever you came here. My wife before her conversion was a cruel persecutor, and a sharp thorn in my side. She would go home from the Prayer Meeting before me, and as full of the Devil as possible; she would oppose and revile me; but now, sir, she is just the contrary, and my house, instead of being a little Hell has become a little Paradise.' This was only one of a number of cases in which husbands rejoiced over wives, and wives over husbands, for whom they had long prayed, being saved.
"I shall always remember with pleasure the week I spent at Swineshead Bridge, because I prayed more and preached with more of the spirit of expectation and faith, and then saw more success than in any previous week of my life. I dwell upon it as, perhaps, the week which most effectually settled my conviction for ever that it was God's purpose by my using the simplest means to bring souls into liberty, and to break into the cold and formal state of things to which His people only too readily settle down."
For the sake of readers who have never seen Meetings such as The General for so many years conducted, it seems at once necessary to explain what is meant by the terms "seeking mercy" or "Salvation," the "cries for mercy," and, above all, the "Mercy-Seat," or "Penitent-Form," which appear so constantly in all reports of his work.
From the first beginnings of his Cottage Meetings as a lad in Nottingham, he always aimed at leading every sinner to repentance, and he always required that repentance should be openly manifested by the Penitent coming out in the presence of others, to kneel before God, to confess to Him, and to seek His pardon.
This is merely in accordance with the ancient customs practised by the Jews in their Temple, to which practice Jesus Christ so strikingly calls attention in His Parable of the Publican, who cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The Psalms of David abound with just such cries for deliverance, and with declarations that God heard and answered all those who so cried to Him in the anguish of their guilt.
The General was never blind to the fact that open acts of contrition like this may be feigned, or produced by a mere passing excitement; but having seen so much of the indifference with which men generally continue in sin, even when they admit their consciousness of guilt and danger, he always thought the risk of undue excitement, or too hasty action, comparatively small.
The "Penitent-Form" of The Salvation Army is simply a form or a row of seats, immediately in front of the platform, at which all who wish to seek Salvation are invited to kneel, as a public demonstration of their resolution to abandon their sins, and to live henceforth to please God. Those who kneel there are urged to pray for God's forgiveness, and when they believe that He does forgive them to thank Him for doing so. Whilst kneeling there they are spoken to by persons who, having passed through the same experience, can point out to them the evils and dangers they must henceforth avoid, and the first duties which a true repentance must demand of them.
There are many cases, for example, in which the Penitent is urged to give up at once some worldly habit or companionship, or to make confession of, and restitution for, some wrong done to others. An Officer or Soldier accompanies the Penitent to his home or to his employer, should such a course appear likely to help him to effect any reconciliation, or take any other step to which his conscience calls him. The names and addresses of all Penitents are recorded, so that they may be afterwards visited and helped to carry out the promises they have made to God.
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