cued are appallingly few, a ghastly minority
compared with the multitudes who struggle and sink in the
open-mouthed abyss. Alike, therefore, my humanity and my
Christianity, if I may speak of them as in any way separate from
each other, have cried out for some comprehensive method of
reaching and saving the perishing crowds."

The Booths had settled in a London home, finding that they must needs
have some fixed resting-place for their children, and that abundant
opportunities of one kind or another could be found for them both in the
metropolis. But The General, who was "waiting upon God, and wondering
what would happen" to open his way to the unchurched masses, received an
invitation to undertake some services in a tent which had been erected
in an old burial-ground in Whitechapel, the expected missioner having
fallen ill! He consented, and he thus describes his experiences:--

"When I saw those masses of poor people, so many of them evidently
without God or hope in the world, and found that they so readily
and eagerly listened to me, following from Open-Air Meeting to
tent, and accepting, in many instances, my invitation to kneel at
the Saviour's feet there and then, my whole heart went out to them.
I walked back to our West-End home and said to my wife:--

"'O Kate, I have found my destiny! These are the people for whose
Salvation I have been longing all these years. As I passed by the
doors of the flaming gin-palaces to-night I seemed to hear a voice
sounding in my ears, "Where can you go and find such heathen as
these, and where is there so great a need for your labours?" And
there and then in my soul I offered myself and you and the children
up to this great work. Those people shall be our people, and they
shall have our God for their God.'"

Mrs. Booth herself wrote:--

"I remember the emotion that this produced in my soul. I sat gazing
into the fire, and the Devil whispered to me, 'This means another
departure, another start in life!' The question of our support
constituted a serious difficulty. Hitherto we had been able to meet
our expenses out of the collections which we had made from our more
respectable audiences. But it was impossible to suppose that we
could do so among the poverty-stricken East-Enders--we were afraid
even to ask for a collection in such a locality.