“I passed a weary night, and felt altogether unfit for the task before me.  The natural force seemed to have passed out of me, both mentally and physically.  In fact, my heart failed me, and there seemed nothing before me but the prospect of slackening down.  I was only kept going by the memory of so many deliverances brought out for me in the past.

“We had one of the largest audiences, and the biggest crowd I ever addressed in a single day.  In the morning it appeared that Satan sat at my door, suggesting all sorts of discouraging things.  He tried to make me believe that my public work was done, and especially suggesting that I should renounce the subject on which I was talking, and wait for better days before I attempted to talk again.  The Prayer Meeting that followed was certainly encouraging.  We had twenty-seven out.  Still, I came away with very much the same feeling that had been aroused while I was talking.  I took a little refreshment, and tried to get a little sleep, but my mind was too much agitated to allow of it.  I woke up and called for the notes of my lecture.  My mind could not put two and two together hardly, and so I gave up in despair and left myself to my fate.  On my way to the Meeting, however, a strange feeling came over me.  It was like the sun through a rift in the black clouds, and all at once a spirit of tenderness, hope, and faith came over me.  A voice in my soul seemed to say, ’Go and do the Lord’s work, and the people will gather; go for their souls, and all will be well.’  I accepted the command, my fears vanished, a spirit of confidence took possession of me, I rose, I addressed the crowd for an hour and twenty minutes with all the physical vigour and mental liberty I could desire.

     “Night.  A terrific crowd.  I talked for an hour and ten minutes with
     the same force and fervour as in my most successful efforts; 147
     came on to the stage in the After Meeting.”

It was thus in the smaller matters of personal strength and health, as in the greatest affairs, that The General struggled, believed, and triumphed all through his career.

Australasia has gone farther than most countries towards State socialism.  But it was well remarked by some statesman many years ago, “We are all socialists now.”

No man within his times was more intensely devoted to the cause of the poor than William Booth.  He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people’s condition in any land.  But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent those who will not submit to any man’s dictation from leaving their families to starve when work is to be obtained.