n, with torches burning, everything quiet as death while I
spoke, and finishing up only with the ringing of the departing bell
of the train and the hurrahs of the people.

"At two in the morning, at Wagga-Wagga, of Tichborne fame, they
fairly bombarded my carriage shouting, 'General Booth, won't you
speak to us? Won't you come out?' But I thought you could really
have too much of a good thing.

"At another station, after speaking for the twenty minutes allowed
for breakfast, a lady put through the window a really superb
English breakfast, as good as ever I had in my life, with
everything necessary for eating it, and as we went off she added,
'Mind, I am a Roman Catholic.'

"The reception at Sydney was enormous, they say never surpassed,
and only equalled once at the burial of some celebrated oarsman who
died on the way from England. They had arranged a great reception
for him, and they gave it to his corpse. The enthusiasm of the
Meetings is Melbourne over again."

The General's almost invariable escape from illness during so many years
of travelling, in so many varying climates and seasons, can only be
attributed to God's special guidance and care. In Melbourne, influenza
raged in the home where he was billetted, and seized upon one of the
Officers travelling with him. And yet he escaped, and could resume his
journey undelayed. In South Africa, when he was seventy-nine, another of
his companions in travel was separated from him for days by severe
illness; but The General, in spite of a milder attack of the same sort,
was able to fulfil every appointment made for him.

Best of all, however, was the peculiarly blessed inward experience which
he enjoyed amidst all the outward rush of the Australian tour. It has
been so often suggested by truly excellent men that the soul cannot
enjoy all the fulness of fellowship with God without a great deal of
retirement from men, that we should like to have The General's inner
life fairly exhibited, if it were only in order for ever to bury this
monstrous and, we might also say blasphemous, superstition, which has so
often been supported by one or two quotations from the Gospel, though in
defiance of the whole story of Christ, and of every promise He ever
made.

Of what value could a Saviour be who drew back from helping His own
messengers upon the ridiculous pretence that they were too busy doing
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