To bring the Gospel into the common life, to carry the message and
     sympathies of Jesus into the factory, the street, the house, is an
     urgent necessity in our age.

He sees Christianity, not as an interesting school of philosophy, not as a charming subject for brilliant and amicable discussions, but as a force essential to the salvation of mankind; a force, however, which must first be disentangled from the accretions of ancient error before it can work its transforming miracles both in the heart of men and in the institutions of a materialistic civilisation.  It is in order that it should thus work in the world, saving the world and fulfilling the purposes of God, that he labours in no particular school of the Church, to make the reasonableness of Christ a living possession of the modern mind.

Supreme in his character is that virtue Dr. Johnson observed and praised in a Duke of Devonshire—­“a dogged veracity.”

GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH

BOOTH, W. BRAMWELL, General of the Salvation Army since 1912; e.s. of late General Booth; b.  Halifax, 8 March, 1856; m. 5882, Florence Eleanor; two s. four d.  Educ.:  Privately.  Commenced public work 1874; Chairman of the S.A.  Life Assurance Society and the Reliance Bank; Chief of Staff, Salvation Army, 1880-1912.  Publications:  Books that Bless; Our Master; Servants of All; Social Reparation; On the Banks of the River; Bible Battle-Axes; Life and Religion; and various pamphlets on Social and Religious Subjects.

[Illustration:  GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH]

CHAPTER VIII

GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH

. . . for the generality of men, the attempt to live such a life would be a fatal mistake; it would narrow instead of widening their minds, it would harden instead of softening their hearts.  Indeed, the effort “thus to go beyond themselves, and wind themselves too high,” might even be followed by reaction to a life more profane and self-indulgent than that of the world in general.—­EDWARD CAIRD.

Because General Booth wears a uniform he commands the public curiosity; but because of that curiosity the public perhaps misses his considerable abilities and his singular attraction.  His worst enemy is his frogged coat.  Attention is diverted from his head to his epaulettes.  He deserves, I am convinced, a more intelligent inquisitiveness.

To begin with, he is to be regarded as the original founder of that remarkable and truly catholic body of Christians known as the Salvation Army.  His picturesque father and his wonderful mother were the humanity of that movement, but their son was its first impulse of spiritual fanaticism.  The father was the dramatic “showman” of this movement, the son its fire.  The mother endowed it with the energy of a deep and tender emotion, the son provided it with machinery.