ed, cabined, and confined
by a body of cold, hard usages, and still colder and harder people.
I desired freedom! I felt I was called to a different sphere of
labour. I wanted liberty to move forward in it. So when the
Conference definitely declined my request to set me free for
evangelistic work I bade them farewell.

"It was a heart-breaking business. Here was a great crowd of people
all over the land who loved me and my dear wife. I felt a deep
regard for them, and to leave them was a sorrow beyond description.
But I felt I must follow what appeared to be the beckoning finger
of my Lord. So, with my wife and four little children, I left my
quarters and went out into the world once more, trusting in God,
literally not knowing who would give me a shilling, or what to do
or where to go.

"All my earthly friends thought I was mistaken in this action; some
of them deemed me mad. I confess that it was one of the most
perplexing steps of my life. When I took it every avenue seemed
closed against me. There was one thing I could do, however, and
that was to trust in God, and wait for His Salvation."

The difficulty of the Church was really insurmountable at that time.
Since those days most of the Protestant Churches have learnt that
evangelistic work is just as essential as the ordinary pastoral
ministrations.

The fact is, that neither the Booths nor the Church were then aware that
God, behind all their perplexities, was working out a plan of His own.
Who laments that separation to-day? As the evangelists of any Church
they could not possibly have become to so large an extent the
evangelists of all.

Chapter VI

Revivalism

Not many days passed after William Booth's retirement from the ministry
of the Methodist New Connexion before his faith was rewarded by a warm
invitation to a small place at the other end of the country. One of his
former Converts was a minister in the little seaport Hayle, in Cornwall,
and he sent the call, "Come over and help us."

The Church had got into the stagnant condition which is so commonly
experienced wherever contentment with routine long holds sway. Mr. and
Mrs. Booth were not only welcomed, but given a free hand to take any
course they pleased to fill the building with hearers, and to secure
their Salvation.

Fighting now together, as they had learnt to do at Gateshead, they saw
re