Mrs Booth: A Strong Individuality.

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 109, 4 March 1893, Page 4

Mrs Booth : A Strong Individuality.

••w Mrs Booth was a woman of strong individuality. "By the time I was twelve," sbe herself has said, " I had my own ideas in politics, and could fight my" father across the table." She was still a child when, seeing a drunken man who was being jeered by the crowd as ho was led off by a policeman, she slipped up to him, put her hand in his, and so walked with him to the station. She very early 'knew her own mind' on a subject ■which even determined and strongwilled young women may be pardoned for finding somewhat difficult to settle. She had, 'quite as a young girl,' made up her mind as to the sort of husband she would have. • I was determined,' she says, "that bis religious views should coincide with mine ; and further, she required that he should be a man of sense, for 'I knew that I could never respect a fool, or a man much weaker mentally than myself.' The third essential was •oneness of tastes and views, any idea of lordship or ownership being lost in love.' Then she very much desired that he should be dark and tall, and had a special liking for the name of 'William.' At the age of twenty, at a chapel in Clapham, she bad the pleasure of listening one Sunday to a young local preacher named William Booth, who fulfilled her requirements to the letter. They speedily became engaged, and some of their 'love letters' are given in the 'Life.' It was Mrs Booth who was largely instrumental in inducing her husband to leave the Methodist New Connection, and 'start on his own account.' He was a travelling Evangelist in connection with that body, and some of the ministers — jealous it is said of his success, desired to restrict him to a specified circuit. The matter was dobated in Conference, and a compromise was suggested and apparently about to he adopted. At this point Mrs Booth, who was occupying a seat in the gallery, rose and electrified the assembly by calling out 'Never V Her husband 'amid the President's cries of 'Order !' started for the door, met his wife at the bottom of the gallery stairs, embraced her, and both shook the dust of the Methodist New Connexion from off their feet. They began a mission in East London on their own account, and in time were struck by the happy inspiration of converting it into the Salvation Army, which has since grown to such huge dimensions.