The Authoritative Life of General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation ArmyRailton, George S. (George Scott)
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The Authoritative Life of General William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army
Railton, George S. (George Scott)
Booth, William, 1829-1912; Salvation Army
"It was in the open street that this great change passed over me,
and if I could only have possessed the flagstone on which I stood
at that happy moment, the sight of it occasionally might have been
as useful to me as the stones carried up long ago from the bed of
the Jordan were to the Israelites who had passed over them
dry-shod.
"Since that night, for it was near upon eleven o'clock when the
happy change was realised, the business of my life has been not
only to make a holy character but to live a life of loving activity
in the service of God and man. I have ever felt that true religion
consists not only in being holy myself, but in assisting my
Crucified Lord in His work of saving men and women, making them
into His Soldiers, keeping them faithful to death, and so getting
them into Heaven.
"I have had to encounter all sorts of difficulties as I have
travelled along this road. The world has been against me, sometimes
very intensely, and often very stupidly. I have had difficulties
similar to those of other men, with my own bodily appetites, with
my mental disposition, and with my natural unbelief.
"Many people, both religious and irreligious, are apt to think that
they are more unfavourably constituted than their comrades and
neighbours, and that their circumstances and surroundings are
peculiarly unfriendly to the discharge of the duties they owe to
God and man.
"I have been no exception in this matter. Many a time I have been
tempted to say to myself, 'There is no one fixed so awkwardly for
holy living and faithful fighting as I am.' But I have been
encouraged to resist the delusion by remembering the words of the
Apostle Paul: 'There hath no temptation taken you but such as is
common to man.'
"I am not pretending to say that I have worked harder, or practised
more self-denial, or endured more hardships at any particular time
of my life than have those around me; but I do want those who feel
any interest in me to understand that faithfulness to God in the
discharge of duty and the maintenance of a good conscience have
cost me as severe a struggle as they can cost any Salvation Soldier
in London, Berlin, Paris, New York, or Tokio to-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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