GENERAL BOOTH

Hokitika Guardian, 8 February 1928, Page 1

GENERAL BOOTH

MEMORIAL TO THE ARMY FOUNDER. LONDON, Dec. 24. Near where. AViHiam Booth, on Mile End Waste, one Sunday in July, 186-5, opened his great campaign there has been unveiled a memorial bust of the “Founder and First General of tbe Salvation Army.” Hundreds of Salvationists, who arrived in four processions headed by bands and with banners Hying, attended the ceremony, at which General Bra ni well Booth presided. Air John Scurr, AI.P. for tbe division, unveiled the memorial. The bust is the work of Air George E. Wade who knew the “Old General” very well, and has remained an ardent admirer of his life and labours. “Afy father,” said the General, “was a great Englishman, and a groat mail. However degraded the human guise, AVilliam Booth saw through to the Divine. T remember one day walking with him down the Commercial road, when lie came across a broken, drinksodden woman lying in the gutter. The police were less observant then. “The Old General stopped and picked her up, and to my younger eyes she was simply a filthy object. Sometiling almost untouchable. But my father stood her up and held her.

“I said: “Oh, father, wo can do nothing with her, and I turned away in disgust. “AVillie, be said sternly, and some of you know how stern he could be at times. ‘Willie, think what- a- beautiful thing she might have been—and may still be. In every human being the Old General saw a soul, and iu that soul a Potential soldier.”