Condemned almost whenever mentioned, either by press or pulpit, The General and The Army were naturally treated by many authorities and largely by respectable citizens, not only as unworthy of any defence, but as deserving of punishment and imprisonment. In one year alone, 1882, no fewer than 699 of our Officers and Soldiers, 251 of them women and 23 children under fifteen, were brutally assaulted generally whilst marching through the streets singing hymns, though often when attending Meetings in our own hired buildings, and 86, of whom 15 were women, were imprisoned. True, these persecutions almost always gained for us sympathy and friends, as many as 30,000 people coming out in one case to the railway station to welcome an Officer upon his release from prison. Yet, year after year, such attacks were repeated, and, even during the last year, imprisonment was suffered by several Officers for leading Meetings where they had regularly been tolerated for some thirty years; but where some newly-appointed dignitary would rather not see them. When we ask in wonder how so bitter an opposition to such a leader, or his work, could arise, we always find the sort of explanation which that famous man John Bright once wrote to Mrs. Booth:-- "The people who mob you would doubtless have mobbed the Apostles. Your faith and patience will prevail. The 'craftsmen' who find 'their craft in danger,' 'the high priests and elders of the people,' whose old-fashioned counsels are disregarded by newly-arrived stirrers-up of men, always complain, and then the governors and magistrates, who may 'care for none of these things,' but who always act 'in the interests of the public peace,' think it best to 'straightly charge these men to speak no more' of Christ." The General's attitude in face of all these storms was ever the same; "Go straight on" was the pith of all his replies to inquiries, and his own conduct and bearing amidst the most trying hours were always in accord with that counsel. As in the case of many popular leaders of thought in England, the custom was established of meeting him at railway stations, and escorting him with bands and banners, music and song from train to theatre, Town Hall, or whatever the meeting-place might be for the day. When he was received, however, not as in later years with universal acclamations, but with derisive shouts and groans and sometimes with showers of stones and mud, he smiled to see the commotion, and took every opportunity to show his enemies how much he loved them. Already more than fifty years old, and looking decidedly older, when the worst of these storms burst upon him, this bearing often subdued crowds, the moment they really caught sight of his grey beard.