Chapter I: Childhood and Poverty

William Booth was born in Nottingham, England, on April 10, 1829, and was left, at thirteen, the only son of a widowed and impoverished mother. His father had been one of those builders of houses who so rapidly rose in those days to wealth, but who, largely employing borrowed capital, often found themselves in any time of general scarcity reduced to poverty.

I glory in the fact that The General's ancestry has never been traced, so far as I know, beyond his grandfather. I will venture to say, however, that his forefathers fought with desperation against somebody at least a thousand years ago. Fighting is an inveterate habit of ours in England, and another renowned general has just been recommending all young men to learn to shoot. The constant joy and pride with which our General always spoke of his mother is a tribute to her excellence, as well as the best possible record of his own earliest days. Of her he wrote, in 1893:--

"I had a good mother. So good she has ever appeared to me that I
have often said that all I knew of her life seemed a striking
contradiction of the doctrine of human depravity. In my youth I
fully accepted that doctrine, and I do not deny it now; but my
patient, self-sacrificing mother always appeared to be an exception
to the rule.

"I loved my mother. From infancy to manhood I lived in her. Home
was not home to me without her. I do not remember any single act of
wilful disobedience to her wishes. When my father died I was so
passionately attached to my mother that I can recollect that,
deeply though I felt his loss, my grief was all but forbidden by
the thought that it was not my mother who had been taken from me.
And yet one of the regrets that has followed me to the present
hour is that I did not sufficiently value the treasure while I
possessed it, and that I did not with sufficient tenderness and
assiduity at the time, attempt the impossible task of repaying the
immeasurable debt I owed to that mother's love.

"She was certainly one of the most unselfish beings it has been my
lot to come into contact with. 'Never mind me' was descriptive of
her whole life at every time, in every place, and under every
circumstance. To make others happy was the end of all her thoughts
and aims with regard not only to her children but to her domestics,
and indeed to all who came within her influence. To remove misery
was her delight. No beggar went empty-handed from her door. The
sorrows of any poor wretch were certain of her commiseration, and
of a helping hand in their removal, so far as she had ability. The
children of misfortune were sure of her pity, and the children of
misconduct she pitied almost the more, because, for one reason,
they were the cause of sorrow to those who had reason to mourn on
their account.

"For many years before she died, love, joy, and peace reigned in
her heart, beamed from her countenance, and spoke in her words. Her
faith was immovably fixed on Him who is able to save to the
uttermost. It was a common expression of confidence with her that
'Jesus would go with her all the way through the journey of
life--even to the end. He would not leave her. Her feet were on the
Rock.'"

To this testimony to his mother's worth The General added:--

"To those whose eyes may fall on these lines, may I not be excused
saying, 'See to it that you honour your father and your mother, not
only that your days may be long in the land, but that you may not,
in after years, be disturbed by useless longings to have back again
the precious ones who so ceaselessly and unselfishly toiled with
heart and brain for your profoundest well-being.'

"My mother and father were both Derbyshire people. They were born
within a few miles of each other, the former at Somercotes, a small
village within a mile or two of Alfreton and the latter at Belper.
My mother's father was a well-to-do farmer. Her mother died when
she was three years of age; and, her father marrying again, she
was taken to the heart and home of a kind uncle and aunt, who
reared and educated her, giving her at the same time a sound
religious training.

"Years passed of which we have but imperfect knowledge during
which, by some means, she drifted to the small town of
Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Here she met my father, who was availing himself
of the waters as a remedy for his chronic enemy, rheumatism. He
offered her marriage. She refused. He left the town indignant, but
returned to renew his proposal, which she ultimately accepted.
Their marriage followed. Up to this date her path through life had
been comparatively a smooth one; but from this hour onward through
many long and painful years, it was crowded with difficulties and
anxieties.

"My father's fortunes appear to have begun to wane soon after his
marriage. At that time he would have passed, I suppose, for a rich
man, according to the estimate of riches in those days. But bad
times came, and very bad times they were, such as we know little
about, despite all the grumbling of this modern era. Nottingham,
where the family was then located, suffered heavily, a large
proportion of its poorer classes being reduced to the verge of
starvation. My father, who had invested the entire savings of his
lifetime in small house property, was seriously affected by these
calamitous circumstances; in fact, he was ruined.

"The brave way in which my mother stood by his side during that
dark and sorrowful season is indelibly written on my memory. She
shared his every anxiety, advised him in all his business
perplexities, and upheld his spirit as crash followed crash, and
one piece of property after another went overboard. Years of heavy
affliction followed, during which she was his tender, untiring
nurse, comforting and upholding his spirit unto death; and then she
stood out all alone to fight the battles of his children amidst the
wreck of his fortunes.

"Those days were gloomy indeed; and the wonder now in looking back
upon them is that she survived them. It would have seemed a
perfectly natural thing if she had died of a broken heart, and been
borne away to lie in my father's grave.

"But she had reasons for living. Her children bound her to earth,
and for our sakes she toiled on with unswerving devotion and
unintermitting care. After a time the waters found a smoother
channel, so far as this world's troubles were concerned, and her
days were ended, in her eighty-fifth year, in comparative peace."

"During one of my Motor Campaigns to Nottingham," The General wrote
on another occasion, "my car took me over the Trent, the dear old
river along whose banks I used to wander in my boyhood days,
sometimes poring over Young's _Night Thoughts_, reading Henry Kirke
White's _Poems_, or, as was frequently the case before my
conversion, with a fishing-rod in my hand.

"In those days angling was my favourite sport. I have sat down on
those banks many a summer morning at five o'clock, although I
rarely caught anything. An old uncle ironically used to have a
plate with a napkin on it ready for my catch waiting for me on my
return.

"And then the motor brought us to the ancient village of Wilford,
with its lovely old avenues of elms fringing the river.

"There were the very meadows in which we children used to revel
amongst the bluebells and crocuses which, in those days, spread out
their beautiful carpet in the spring-time, to the unspeakable
delight of the youngsters from the town.

"But how changed the scene! Most of these rural charms had fled,
and in their places were collieries and factories, and machine
shops, and streets upon streets of houses for the employes of the
growing town. We were only 60,000 in my boyhood, whereas the
citizens of Nottingham to-day number 250,000.

"A few years ago the city conferred its freedom upon me as a mark
of appreciation and esteem. To God be all the glory that He has
helped His poor boy to live for Him, and made even his former
enemies to honour him."

But we all know what sort of influences exist in a city that is at once the capital of a county and a commercial centre. The homes of the wealthy and comfortable are found at no great distance from the dwellings of the poor, while in the huge market-places are exhibitions weekly of all the contrasts between town and country life, between the extremest want and the most lavish plenty.

Seventy years ago, life in such a city was nearly as different from what it is to-day as the life of to-day in an American state capital is from that of a Chinese town. Between the small circle of "old families" who still possessed widespread influence and the masses of the people there was a wide gap. The few respectable charities, generally due to the piety of some long-departed citizen, marked out very strikingly a certain number of those who were considered "deserving poor," and helped to make every one less concerned about all the rest. For all the many thousands struggling day and night to keep themselves and those dependent upon them from starvation, there was little or no pity. It was just "their lot," and they were taught to consider it their duty to be content with it. To envy their richer neighbours, to covet anything they possessed, was a sin that would only ensure for the coveter an eternal and aggravated continuance of his present thirst.

In describing those early years, The General said:--

"Before my father's death I had been apprenticed by his wish. I was
very young, only thirteen years of age, but he could not afford to
keep me longer at school, and so out into the world I must go. This
event was followed by the formation of companionships whose
influence was anything but beneficial. I went down hill morally,
and the consequences might have been serious if not eternally
disastrous, but that the hand of God was laid on me in a very
remarkable manner.

"I had scarcely any income as an apprentice, and was so hard up
when my father died, that I could do next to nothing to assist my
dear mother and sisters, which was the cause of no little
humiliation and grief.

"The system of apprenticeship in those days generally bound a lad
for six or seven years. During this time he received little or no
wages, and was required to slave from early morning to late evening
upon the supposition that he was 'being taught' the business,
which, if he had a good master, was probably true. It was a severe
but useful time of learning. My master was a Unitarian--that is, he
did not believe Christ was the son of God and the Saviour of the
world, but only the best of teachers; yet so little had he learnt
of Him that his heaven consisted in making money, strutting about
with his gay wife, and regaling himself with worldly amusements.

"At nineteen the weary years of my apprenticeship came to an end.
I had done my six years' service, and was heartily glad to be free
from the humiliating bondage they had proved. I tried hard to find
some kind of labour that would give me more liberty to carry out
the aggressive ideas which I had by this time come to entertain as
to saving the lost; but I failed. For twelve months I waited. Those
months were among the most desolate of my life. No one took the
slightest interest in me.

"Failing to find employment in Nottingham, I had to move away. I
was loath, very loath, to leave my dear widowed mother and my
native town, but I was compelled to do so, and to come to London.
In the great city I felt myself unutterably alone. I did not know a
soul excepting a brother-in-law, with whom I had not a particle of
communion.

"In many respects my new master very closely resembled the old one.
In one particular, however, he differed from him very materially,
and that was he made a great profession of religion. He believed in
the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and in the Church of which he was a
member, but seemed to be utterly ignorant of either the theory or
practice of experimental godliness. To the spiritual interests of
the dead world around him he was as indifferent as were the vicious
crowds themselves whom he so heartily despised. All he seemed to me
to want was to make money, and all he seemed to want me for was to
help him in the sordid selfish task.

"So it was work, work, work, morning, noon, and night. I was
practically a white slave, being only allowed my liberty on
Sundays, and an hour or two one night in the week, and even then
the rule was 'Home by ten o'clock, or the door will be locked
against you.' This law was rigidly enforced in my case, although my
employer knew that I travelled long distances preaching the Gospel
in which he and his wife professed so loudly to believe. To get
home in time, many a Sunday night I have had to run long distances,
after walking for miles, and preaching twice during the day."

The contrast between those days and ours can hardly be realised by any of us now. We may put down almost in figures some of the differences that steam and electricity have made, linking all mankind together more closely than Nottingham was then connected with London. But what words can convey any picture of the development of intelligence and sympathy that makes an occurrence in a London back street interest the reading inhabitants of Germany, America, and Australia as intense as those of our own country?

What a consolation it would have been to the apprentice lad, could he have known how all his daily drudgery was fitting him to understand, to comfort, and to help the toiling masses of every race and clime?

In the wonderful providence of God all these changes have been allowed to leave England in as dominating a position as she held when William Booth was born, if not to enhance her greatness and power, far as some may consider beyond what she deserved. And yet all the time, with or without our choice, our own activities, and even our faults and neglects, have been helping other peoples, some of them born on our soil, to become our rivals in everything. Happily the multiplication of plans of intercourse is now merging the whole human race so much into one community that one may hope yet to see the dawn of that fraternity of peoples which may end the present prospects of wars unparalleled in the past. How very much William Booth has contributed to bring that universal brotherhood about this book may suffice to hint.