The Daily News. THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1912. GENERAL BOOTH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 81, 22 August 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1912. GENERAL BOOTH.

The death of General Booth removes from the arena of public life one of the most picturesque figures of this century. This world-famed altruist lias seen the Salvation Army, of which lie was the founder and the head, grow from the smallest of evangelistic organisations into a body that has laid its finger on the world's pulse in almost every country in the globe. General Booth was born at Nottingham in 1829, and at the early age of fifteen commenced to preach in the open air, subsequently entering the ministry in 18a2. After being a travelling evangelist, appointed by the Conference of the Methodist New Connection Church, he was required to settle to their ordinaiy circuit work. To this he submitted for some years, but eventually, in ISfil, resigned in order to again give himself to evangelistic labor. While travelling through the country he came to London and was struck by the destitute condition of the eastern portion of its population, and commenced, on the sth of July, 1805, special efforts on their behalf. This effort was at first styled the Christian Mission, but developed in 1878 into the Salvation Army, which has grown until it has corps, circles and societies established in 54 countries and colonics, with over 20,000 officers and employees maintained for the work. In connection with this be has organised a great system for the benefit of the submerged, starving, vicious, and criminal classes, which has

now about i) 00 social institutions. Picturesque as it is in its methods, the Army which General Booth founded lias been a power for good throughout the world. Strictly unseetarian in its operations. the key to its sympathies has been simply (he plea of misery, destitution or trouble. Its eager adherents have waited patiently at (lie prison gates, at the mouths of the slums of great cities, at the doors of houses of ill-fame, in the bars of pot-houses, and wherever the spectres of want and crime are wont to stalk, with a helping hand held ready for all who required it. No religious organisation has done more to smooth the seamy side than has the vast Army for which the dead evangelist is responsible. lis methods may not have ap- j

pealed always to the aesthetic temperament, but it has laid the healing unction of help and sympathy to many ft social sore which other religious organisations have hesitated' to touch. The grand old leonine man who now lies dead vas almost solely responsible for the creation of this world-wide Army of practical evangelists, and right up to the hour of his death he maintained a singularly personal control of the details of its administration. General Booth has several times toured the world in the interests of his modern evangelism and his hearty personality is well-known in New Zealand. We 'can ill afford to spare men of his calibre from the ranks of social reformers, and the Army of which he >as the head will have the sincerest sympathy of the public of all sects and all denominations, at tlio irreparable loss that it has sustained.