arked that as he had served God and the people with
his eyes he must now try to serve without them. He continued to dictate
letters, and even to write occasionally as he had been accustomed to do,
with the help of his secretaries, and a frame that had been prepared for
the purpose. But the very struggles against depression and to cheer
others, together with the sleeplessness that resulted took from his
little remaining strength, and it became evident that he was gradually
sinking. Yet he was so remarkably cheerful and at times even confident
that all around him were kept hoping up to the very last.

To a group of Commissioners who visited him he said:--

"I am hoping speedily to be able to talk to Officers and help them
all over the world. I am still hoping to go to America and Canada
as I had bargained for. I am hoping for several things whether they
come to pass or not."

But on Tuesday, the 20th August, it became evident that the end was very
near. There gathered around his bed Mr. and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, Mrs.
Commissioner Booth-Hellberg, Commissioner Howard, who had been summoned
by telegram from his furlough, Colonel Kitching, Brigadier Cox, Adjutant
Catherine Booth, Sergeant Bernard Booth, Captain Taylor, his last
Assistant Secretary, Nurse Ada Timson of the London Hospital, and
Captain Amelia Hill, his housekeeper.

The heart showed no sign of failure until within half an hour of his
death, and the feet remained warm till within twenty minutes of the
event. But the heart and pulse became gradually weaker, the breathing
faster and shorter and more irregular, and at thirteen minutes past ten
o'clock at night it entirely ceased.

London awoke to find in our Headquarters window the notice, "General
Booth has laid down his Sword. God is with us."

The day after his death, at a meeting of all the Commissioners present
in London, the envelope containing the General's appointment of his
successor was produced by the Army's Solicitors, endorsed in the
General's own writing and still sealed. Upon being opened, it was found
to be dated the 21st August, 1890, and that it appointed the Chief of
the Staff, William Bramwell Booth, to succeed him. The new General, in
accepting the appointment, and promising by God's help to fulfil its
duties, expressed his great pleasure in discovering that it was dated
during the lifetime of his mother, so that he could feel sure that her
prayers had been joined with