Chapter XXIII: In Germany in Old Age

Though we have had occasion to mention Germany repeatedly, there has been no opportunity to call attention to the great importance which The General attached to our Work in that country. It seemed almost as though we had been premature in our attack upon the country, so little were either Governments or people prepared for our violent urgency, when we began in Stuttgart, in 1886. But The General lived to see his annual visits to Berlin looked forward to by the Press and public as a natural provision for the spiritual wants of those who had practically ceased to be of any religion.

In the following description of him, taken from German papers during one of his last visits to that country, we get not only some idea of his appearance to the people when he was eighty-one years of age, but his sense of the importance of that people in the future of The Army. And it is a remarkable fact that German cities should have been subsidising The Army's work before any English one did so.

We have happily got complete enough accounts of The General's tour in Germany, when eighty-one, to supply not merely a most artistic representation of his own appearance and action at that age, but at the same time to give an almost perfect view of the impressions and teachings his Army has been giving out there for nearly thirty years.

In Düsseldorf, we are told:--

"The old idealist spoke for an hour and a half with the fire of
enthusiasm, throwing out every now and then some spark of his
humour amidst his stream of eloquence. He did not speak like a
dying greybeard, but like a young man ready to take up to-morrow
morning the struggle with the misery of the whole world. Out of
such material as this old man are made the great men who do great
deeds on the battle-field, in the sphere of science, in the
province of religion, of humanity, and of society."

The _Cologne Gazette_ goes more into detail, and says:--

"At his great age the Founder and Leader of The Salvation Army
hastens from continent to continent, from land to land, to awaken
in Public Meetings love for your neighbour. After a journey through
Holland he came into West Germany. In this week he speaks in great
cities from Dortmund to Carlsruhe, each day in a new place, and
often in several Meetings. Many thousands came together last Sunday
from Essen and neighbourhood, so that the great hall of the
Soldiers' Home itself was not large enough to hold them at the
various Meetings. Here yesterday evening 2,000 people wanted to
give him a warm welcome in the Emperor's Hall.

"The eighty-one-year-old philanthropist, who strides so unbendingly
along, is full of youthful enthusiasm. His tall figure, with its
gleaming eyes, long curved nose, and flowing beard, help him to
present himself to the audience, with lively gestures illuminating
his thoughts, as at once accuser of our times and gentle judge. He
is especially a gentle judge of fallen women and girls, 55,000 of
whom, from ten years of age upwards, he tells us, The Army has
rescued.

"'The fallen young men are forgiven by their fathers and mothers,'
says he. 'Why should not we also forgive the fallen girls? If
nobody else will do so, we will.' This sentiment called forth
general applause.

"'And then,' The General went on, 'The religion of The Army has
three main principles: (1) You must get right with your God. You
must be reconciled with Him, and feel the kiss of His forgiving
love. (2) You must live righteously in your own private life, in
your family, and in holiness of heart. (3) You must give yourself
up to the service of your fellow-men--must not wait to be called
upon, but must have a fire in yourself--the fire of love.'

"It took mightily hold of the audience as, following upon this
definition of the religion of The Army, he told them that he felt
himself now nearing the cold stream of death, but fully believed
that this religion, which had carried him through so much of care
and disappointment up to this day, would also carry him through the
dark valley into Paradise, where he, who for so long had known no
holiday, would at last find rest."

Everywhere in Germany it is this revelation of a religion, founded on unshakable faith, which impresses even the sceptical journalist. Here and there the tendency to doubt shows itself a little between the lines, and it is suggested that the audience were only for the time being under the spell of this remarkable speaker. But most impressive is always the description of The General's calls to repentance and faith.

In Berlin for a number of years the General held Meetings in the great Circus Busch on the National Buss-tag, Repentance Day; and, as the way in which his name is pronounced by most Germans comes very near one of the two words, it has almost become a Booth Day in the thoughts of many.

"It was evident," says one paper, "again in the two Meetings held
yesterday that the personality of the Founder and Leader of The
Army still exercises its charm. Both Meetings were crowded; the
Circus was filled from arena up to gallery with a pressing
multitude. At the close of the evening address there was the call
to the Penitent-Form, and 158 men and women, out of the most
differing circles of society, obeyed the call. Mr. Booth spoke in
both Meetings with the freshest energy and youthful fire, and
to-day he travels to Denmark."

The _Frankfort Gazette_, and other papers, having the opportunity for the first time to report The General's Meetings on a whole Sunday, a little later, gave a much completer description of his preaching:--

"The Founder of The Army," says the _Gazette_, "bears his
eighty-one years lightly. He is still equal to all the toils of the
agitation, and spoke for over five hours in three Meetings in the
great hall of the Merchants' Union. The old gentleman keeps up his
good humour, and perfectly understands how to intersperse
interesting anecdotes in his addresses."

"Last Sunday," says another paper, "was a Booth Day, and certainly
a Repentance Day. The General came to win Soldiers for his Army,
and ammunition for it, too; but there was plenty of opportunity for
repentance given. Everybody knows now the why and wherefore of The
Army's Meetings. There is music--then prayer with closed eyes, and
then a little sister sings a religious song to a worldly tune. That
was so yesterday; but then The General came as chief speaker. He
had no need of any other influence; his mere appearance works upon
every one.

"The public was composed of all sorts of people. Politicians,
Socialists, as well as clergymen and leaders in Church work were
there, together with officials and working-men and women."

Nothing could be more impressive as to the ever-widening circles who crowded to listen to The General than the following description of his Meeting in Potsdam, the German Windsor, where the Emperor generally resides. Says the local paper:--

"One could not cease to marvel at the crowded state of the
auditorium. The intelligent public, which generally keeps away from
popular demonstrations, was there in force. Jurists, state
officials, officers in uniform, doctors, and many ladies were
amongst the hearers of The General."

But some of the papers in smaller but not less striking reports gave us a far fuller description of what The General's appeals brought home to the hearts of his hearers everywhere.

"No laboured rhetoric," said a Leipzig paper, "distinguished the
speech, and applause was not won by catchy phrases. The speaker
talks like a plain man to plain people. Everybody listens
enthralled as he tells of his life's work, of the unbounded love
with which he would like to surround and lead to Salvation every
one who lives and moves. One gets to understand how this man could
gather around him such masses of disciples, and why, right and
left, many a lady deeply touched puts her handkerchief to her eyes
and many a man wipes a tear from his cheek."

Best of all, however, comes ever and anon in these reports the testimony that The General has not been a mere talker, like so many others of his day, but has raised up a real fighting force who have, by gradual painstaking labour and endurance, won for him this unbounded confidence in what he says of The Army's religion.

"I remember," writes one reporter, "how in the nineties, in Berlin,
no Soldier, much less a Sister, could appear in the street without
being laughed at at every step, made fun of, and even abused, and I
visited Meetings in which there was great disorder. But how the
picture was altered a few years later! Quietly and patiently the
Soldiers let scorn and even assaults pass, until the very rowdiest
of the Berliners were sick of it. And on the other hand every one
soon said that these people, after all, were doing nothing but to
go right at the deepest miseries of the great cities--that they fed
the hungry, visited the sick, and generally carried out practical
Christianity."

"True," writes another, "it is naturally not every one whose taste
is pleased with the ceremonies of The Army; but before the
world-wide, unending, unselfish work of the Salvationist every one
feels like saying, 'Hats off!'

"It was not mere love of sensation that led such a stream of men to
the Princes Hall on Tuesday evening. They wished for once to come
face to face with the old General whose work they had learnt in the
course of time to value. Men of science, clergymen and officials
and educated people generally, for once made The Army their
rendezvous."

And those who had heard the General before immediately recognised that they had not only to do with the very same resolute Leader, following the one aim with undiminished ardour, but relying upon the same old Gospel to win the world for Christ.

"He speaks," says a Hamburg paper, "mostly with his hands behind
his back, swaying gently to and fro. The short, sharp English
sentences are translated one by one. It is the old recruiting talk
of the chief captain in the fight against the sins of this world,
the pressing exhortation to get converted at once, to-day, in this
very hour. It is the old entreaty to become a child of God, in
spite of all opposition; the old call to purity of heart and life.
Whoever has wandered must come back again. He who has fallen a
hundred times must get up again for the hundred and first time.

"This General believes in the Salvation of the worst and the most
deeply sunken. He preaches the gospel of holding on, of going
steadily forwards, of freedom from the lusts of the flesh and from
public opinion. He preaches at the same time the gospel of work, of
unwearied faithfulness in business, and of love to all mankind.

"When he has finished The Army sings with musical accompaniment and
clapping of hands its glad and even merry-sounding songs, not
without a mixture of that sudden inrush of enthusiasm which springs
from the conviction of having the only faith that can make people
blessed, and the consciousness of a resistance hard to be overcome.
And then begins that extraordinary urgent exhorting of the sinner
from the stage--the ten-and-twenty times repeated 'Come'--come to
the Penitent-Form, represented here by a row of twenty chairs. 'In
the last Meeting of The General's in Copenhagen thirty-three came
out. How many will it be in Hamburg?' cries the leading Officer.

"The first are soon kneeling, sobbing, praying, their hands over
their eyes at the chairs. Ever new songs are sung--spiritual songs
set to worldly melodies. Ever anew sounds the ringing 'Come' from
the stage. Below, the men and women Soldiers go from one to
another, speaking to the hesitating ones, laying a hand on the
shoulder of the ready ones, and leading them to the front. What a
long time it may be since any loving hand was laid on the shoulder
of many of those Recruits! Life, the rough, pitiless life of the
great city, has always been pushing them along lower and lower down
till it got them underfoot. Here they listen to the sound of a
voice of sympathy, and feel the pressure of a hand that wishes to
lead them. And there above sits The General for a while in an
arm-chair, saying: 'The deepest-fallen may rise again. He has only
to step out into the ranks of The Army, which is marching upwards
to the Land of Grace.' As we left the Hall the thirty-fourth had
already come out."

It must be remembered that all these descriptions come from part of a single month's journeys, and that The General was dependent upon translation for nearly every moment of intercourse either in public or private with the people, and that it will be entirely understood how great a power for God in this world a man entirely given up may be after he has passed his eightieth year, and with what clearness witness for God can be borne even in a strange tongue when it is plain and definite.

"From time immemorial it has been customary to class
philanthropists amongst the extraordinaries, the marvellous
people--who do not pass muster in the common world--exceptions.
Nobody thinks of measuring himself with them, for the battle of
life belongs to the egotists--each one of whom fights for himself.
He who fights for others is smilingly acknowledged by the
well-disposed as a stranger in the world. The ordinary man of the
street pitilessly calls him a fool, and the mass considers him
unworthy of a second thought. He is there, and he is endured so
long as he does not bother any one.

"There are three factors against which the old General has had to
fight all his life long--against well-meaning hesitation, against
hard-hearted egoism, and against the idle indifference born of
ignorance. And these three streams that have flowed against him in
every part of the world have not been able to hold him back. To
those who think he has only become an important man, and to those
who measure a man's worth by the outer honours he gains, he became
a man of importance when London made him a citizen and Oxford an
honorary Doctor. And now men are better inclined to excuse in his
case the curious title of General of a curious Army.

"I have often heard the grey-headed General in Public Meetings. For
the first time on Saturday evening I got near to him in a more
private way. And then it seemed to me like a picture, as when a
grey warrior, a commander with snow-white beard and keen profile,
stands upright by the mast of a ship and gazes straight before him
towards a new country.

"And General Booth, despite his eighty-one years, is looking out
towards new land. He does not live on memories like the generality
of old men. He does not allow himself any favoured spot by the
fireside. Full of fight and always leading, General Booth stands at
the centre of a gigantic apparatus. And the old gentleman does not
look like allowing men to take the control out of his hands.

"Everything about him displays energy and justifiable
self-consciousness. He energetically shook my hand. With the
ability of the man of the world he drew the conversation to that
which was nearest to his heart. And what his eyes can no longer
exactly observe his ears doubly well hear. He arrived on Friday
evening from Denmark, holds three Meetings in Hamburg on Sunday,
travels on to Potsdam on Monday, and occupies himself with thoughts
of a journey of inspection in India.

"The comfortable arm-chair that was offered him he declined almost
as if it were an insult.' That is meant for an old man,' he said;
and really the remark was justified when one heard the plans of the
grey General, for he has plans such as one of the youngest might
have. He appears to me like an able business man who constantly
thinks how to expand his undertaking and to supply it with all the
novelties that a time of progress offers. He has altogether modern
views. He does not hold fast with the reluctance of old age to old
things, except to the old faith.

"In the Meetings The General seemed to me rather severe; but that
disappears when you get at him personally, especially when you have
got used to his way of speaking. He almost flings each sentence
out. Every phrase, accompanied by some energetic gesture, is like a
war cry. 'I will, and I carry out what I will,' seems to breathe in
all about him; and who can complain of this will, this iron
resoluteness with which he works at the raising up of men. He is in
his kingdom an unlimited ruler, but one with a benevolent look who
sees for the benefit of the blind. He must be all that for his
extraordinary work.

"The General asks us to put questions. I could not manage it. It
seemed to me to be so useless in the presence of this important
man. So he said, 'We are never satisfied with the progress we make
in view of what still remains to be done.' He spoke of the progress
made by the Social Work of The Army in Germany, and of his plans.

"I never heard The General speak without his having plans, upon the
carrying out of which he was at work with all his might. He puts
his whole body and soul into whatever he is engaged in.

"'The Salvation Army is the most interesting thing under the sun,'
said The General at the close of this earnest talk, and then added,
jokingly, 'next to the Hamburg Press.'

"On the Sunday I saw him again as he spoke to a Meeting of
thousands, a curiously mixed public, where there were many of the
foremost gentlemen and ladies of society and many very common
people. All, however, were equally enthused. I will only mention a
couple of sentences out of the speech: 'The Army wants to come into
competition with nobody, only to be a friendly helper--nobody's
enemy, but the friend of everybody. It will gladly be an
inspiration and example. It has become the almsgiver for many
Governments. It is not British because it was born in Britain, just
as little as Christianity is Jewish because it came into the world
in Judea.'"--Else Meerstedt.

Now that we see it all but completed, we think this book singularly wanting in reference to The General's frequent merriness of mood. We have thought it needless to insert any of the amusing anecdotes that could have been so abundantly culled from any of his visits to any country had we not been so anxious to select from the small space at our disposal what was most important.

Nor have we wished to present the reader with the portrait of an infallible genius, or a saint who never said or did anything that he afterwards regretted. A victim almost all his life to extreme indigestion, it is indeed to all who knew him best marvellous that he could endure so much of misery without more frequently expressing in terms of unpleasant frankness his irritation at the faults and mistakes of others. But really after his death as during his life we have been far too busy in trying to help in accomplishing his great lifework to note these details of human frailty.