General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, died on
Tuesday night in his eighty-fourth year. He had undergone repeated operations for cataract, and was totally blind for several weeks before his death, but bore his sufferings with characteristic fortitude, and retained full possession of his faculties till a few days before his death. The story of his life and his rise from obscure beginnings to the untrammelled command of a world-wide organization is an astonishing record, and, however much his judgment may be impugned or his methods criticised, his claim to greatness rests on the grounds of character as well as achievement. Born in 1829 at Nottingham, he renounced the doctrines of the Church of England and joined the Wesleyan Methodists at the age of thirteen. Two years later he was "converted," and, under the influence of an American revivalist, took an active part in open-air mission work in the Nottingham slums. He then spent three years in business in London, followed by mission work in the provinces, became a minister in the Wesleyan New Connexion, and served for a while as travelling evangelist and as a regular pastor at Halifax and Gateshead, until friction with the authorities induced hint to resign his membership of the New Connexion. He then entered on the career of an independent preacher, visiting Cornwall—where the Wesleyan Conference closed the chapels against him and his wife—Cardiff, and Walsall, where ho started the Hallelujah Band, and in 1865 settled in the East- end of London, where he formed the Christian Mission, which grew into the Salvation Army.
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