Читать книгу The Authoritative Life of General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army - George S. Railton - Страница 17
ОглавлениеArmy-making
What a place for a Christian Mission centre was Whitechapel Road!
"Just look here," said The General to his eldest son, then a boy of thirteen, as he led him late one Sunday evening through the great swing-doors of a public-house into the crowded bar. "These are the people I want you to live and labour for."
The mere appearance of many a thousand in the neighbourhood, whether inside or outside such houses, was enough to give some idea of the misery of their lives. The language and the laughter with which those ragged, dirty, unkempt men and women accompanied their drinking were such as to leave no doubt that they were wallowing in the mire. At that time, and, indeed, until the Children Act of 1909 came into force, it was the custom of thousands of mothers to take their babies and little children into the public-houses with them, so that the scenes of family misery and ruin were complete.
In many of the side streets and back lanes, where there was little wheel traffic, groups of men and women might have been seen bargaining; for the most dilapidated and greasy articles of old clothing that could still be worn, whilst lads and even children gambled with half-pence, or even with marbles, as if they could not early enough learn how fully to follow the evil courses of their elders. There were, and are still, streets within ten minutes' walk of the Whitechapel Road where dogs and birds were traded in, or betted on, competitions in running and singing being often indispensable to the satisfaction of the buyers and sellers.
By the side of the road along which there was, and is, a continuous stream of waggon and omnibus, as well as foot traffic, was a broad strip of unpaved ground, part of it opposite that Sidney Street which a few years ago became world-renowned as the scene of the battle of the London Police with armed burglars. This was called the Mile End Waste, and was utilised for all the ordinary purposes of a fair ground. The merry-go-rounds, and shows of every description, which competed with the unfailing Punch and Judy, and wooden swings, kept up a continuous din, especially on Saturday nights and Sundays.
Amidst all this the vendors of the vilest songs and books, and of the most astounding medicines, raised their voices so as to attract their own little rings of interested listeners. There, too, men spoke upon almost every imaginable evil theme, denouncing both God and Government in words which one would have thought no decent workman would care to hear. But all who have seen a fair will have some idea of the scene, if they can only imagine all the deepest horrors of appearance and demeanour that drunkenness and poverty, illness and rags, can crowd together within a few hundred yards of space.
Once you can place all that fairly before your imagination you can form some conception of the mind that could look upon it all and hunger to find just there a battlefield for life, as well as of the faith that could reckon upon the victory of the Gospel in such a place. We have all read accounts of missionaries approaching some far-away island shore and seeing the heathen dance round some cannibal feast. But such feasts could not have been very frequent, amidst such limited populations, whereas the ever-changing millions of London have furnished all these years tragedies daily and nightly numerous enough to crowd our memories with scenes no less appalling to the moral sense than anything witnessed on those distant pagan shores. To those who take time to think it out, the marvel of both the eagerness and the reluctance of Mr. and Mrs. Booth to plunge into this human Niagara will appear ever greater. As we look nowadays at the world-wide result of their resolve so to do, despite all their consciousness of ignorance and unfitness for the task, we cannot but see in the whole matter the hand of God Himself, fulfilling His great promise: "Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, the prey of the terrible shall be delivered, for I will contend with them that contend with thee, and I will save thy children. And all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."
As long as the God of that solitary, selfish tramp remains determined to redeem and save even the most depraved and abandoned of mankind, its Whitechapels and Spitalfields, and other moral jungles, can be turned into gardens, blooming with every flower of moral innocence and beauty--if only gardeners, capable of enough trust in God and toil for man, can be found.
The Meetings held at noon daily in front of the new Headquarters set an example of patient, persevering combat which was followed in the Meetings, outdoors or in, held by what was then known as "The Christian Mission." The first name used by "The General Superintendent," as our Founder was then called, was "The East London Christian Revival Society." This was changed to "The East London Christian Mission," and the "East London" being dropped, when the work extended outside London, "The Christian Mission" remained, much as the name was always disliked, from its appearance of implying a slight on all other missions.
The steadily increasing success of the Whitechapel work was such that when I first saw it, after it had only had that centre for two years, the Hall, seating more than 1,200 persons, would be crowded on Sundays, and, although the people had been got together from streets full of drunkenness and hostility, the audiences would be kept under perfect control, once the outer gates were closed, and would listen with the intensest interest to all that was said and sung.
On Sunday nights I have known ten different bands of speakers take their stand at various points along the Whitechapel Road, and when they all marched to the Hall, they could usually make their songs heard above all the din of traffic, and in spite of any attempts at interruption made by the opposition.
The enemy constantly displayed his hostility at the Meetings held in the street, whether in Whitechapel or any of the other poor parishes to which the work had spread, and was not often content with mere cries of derision either. Dirt and garbage would be thrown at us, blows and kicks would come, especially on dark evenings, and the sight of a policeman approaching, so far from being a comfort, was a still worse trial, as he would very rarely show any inclination to protect us, but more generally a wish to make us "move on" just when we had got a good crowd together, on the plea that we were either "obstructing the thoroughfare" or "creating a disturbance."
But what a blessed training for War it all was! The Converts learnt not merely to raise their voices for God, and to persist in their efforts, in spite of every possible discouragement, but to bridle their tongues when abused, to "endure hardness," and manifest a prayerful, loving spirit towards those who despite fully used them. The very fighting made bold and happy Soldiers out of many of the tenderest and most timid Converts.
And yet I am not sure whether a still more important part of The Army-making was not accomplished in the Prayer Meetings, and Holiness Meetings, which came to be more and more popular, until under the name of "Days with God" and "Nights of Prayer" they attracted, in many of the great cities of England, crowds, even of those who did not belong to us, but who wished to find out the secret of our strength, for it was by the light and help got in such Meetings that Converts became "steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," so that instead of merely carrying on a "Mission" for so many weeks, months, or years, many of them became reliable warriors for life.
How few of The General's critics, who sneered at his Meetings as though they were mere scenes of "passing excitement" had any idea of the profound teaching he gave his people! The then editor of "The Christian," who took the trouble to visit them, as well as to converse with The General at length, with remarkable prescience wrote, as early as 1871, in his preface to The General's first important publication, "How to Reach the Masses with the Gospel":--
"The following pages tell a fragment of the story of as wonderful a work, of its kind, as this generation has seen. No doubt it is open to the same kind of criticism as the sculptor's chisel might award to the excavator's pick; but I do not hesitate to believe that for every essential Christian virtue--faith, zeal, self-denial, love, prayer, and the like--numbers of the Converts of this Mission will bear not unfavourable comparison with the choicest members of the most cultivated Churches.
"There is not in this kingdom an agency which more demands the hearty and liberal support of the Church of Christ. In the East of London are crowded and condensed a large proportion of the poorer labouring population of London. The ruined, the unfortunate, the depraved, the feeble ones, outrun in the race of life, gravitate thither and jostle one another in the daily struggle for bread; thousands remain on the edge of starvation from day to day, and the bulk of these teeming multitudes are as careless of eternity as the heathen, and far more uncared for by the great majority of the professed people of God. Mr. Booth's operations are unparalleled in extent, unsectarian in character, a standing rebuke to the apathy of Christians, and a witness of the willingness of God to show His work unto His servants and to establish the work of their hands upon them."
From the beginning, The General had taught his people to come together for an hour's prayer early each Sunday morning, and to delight in prayer at all times, looking ever to God to deliver them personally from "all evil" and to "make and keep them pure within." These phrases were familiar to all English people; but that their real meaning might not only be taken in but kept ever before his people The General had established two weekly Holiness Meetings in the Mission Halls, one on Sunday morning and the other on Friday evening. These practices, kept up wherever The Army has gone all these forty-five years, have resulted in the cultivation of ideals far above those usual even in the most refined Christian circles.
Nothing has more astonished me, amongst all the torrents of eulogy passed upon The General and his Army since his death, than the almost invariable silence amongst Christian as well as secular papers about these Holiness Meetings, and that teaching of Holiness which were the root and secret of all the success of The Army.
Any capable schoolmaster might compile volumes of rules; but how to get them obeyed is the question. How could it be possible to settle every question of who shall be the greatest in an Army formed largely of the most independent and unruly elements, if there were no superhuman power that could destroy the foundations of envy and ill-feeling, and fill hearts, once wide apart, with the humble love that can prefer others' honour before one's own?
The organisation of The Army has been, and is, in all countries a steady, careful development. But it has only been made possible by the continual maintenance of a complete confidence in God for the needed supplies of wisdom and grace to enable each to submit to others for Christ's sake, to bear and forbear for the good of the whole Army, seeking ever to learn to do better, and yet being willing to be forgotten, and even to be undervalued, misunderstood, and ill-treated by a hasty or unjust superior, for Christ's sake.
General Booth, himself, did not always appear the most patient and kindly of leaders. He would have been the first to admit how he wounded tender hearts, and, perhaps, even repulsed some who could have been of greater helpfulness to him had he been able to endure more patiently their slowness and timidity.
But, conscious as he was of his own defects, he especially rejoiced when his son and successor began to shine as a Holiness teacher, whose weekly Meetings at Whitechapel became a power that was felt all over the world.
The teaching and enjoyment of this great blessing, with all the deliverance from self-seeking and pride which it brings, has made it possible to go on imposing more and more of regulation and discipline on all sorts of men and women without either souring their spirit or transforming The Army's system into mere machinery. The Army will go on to carry out its Founder's purpose better and better the more it learns how to sit constantly at the feet of the one great Master.
