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.
Chapter IX
Army Leading
We have seen Mr. Booth beginning on the spot, now marked with a stone,
near the site of "The Vine" public-house (since happily pulled down, the
site being turned into a public garden) on July 5, 1865, scrambling
through the first six years' difficulties until he marched the
beginnings of an Army of saved drunkards, infidels, and sinners into a
People's Market, transformed into a publ
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