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.
It was Mr. Bramwell Booth, with his young friend Mr. Railton abetting
him, who, discontented with the dullness and conservatism of the
Christian Mission, drove the Reverend William Booth, an ex-Methodist
minister preaching repentance in the slums, to fling restraint of every
kind to the winds and to go in for religion as if it were indeed the
only thing in the world that counted. William Booth at that time was
forty-nine years of age.
Again, it was Mr. Bramwell Booth, working behind the scenes and pulling
all the strings, who edged his father away from concluding an alliance
with the Church of England in the early eighties. Archbishop Benson was
anxious to conclude that alliance, on terms. The terms did not seem
altogether onerous to the old General, who was rather fond of meeting
dignitaries. But Mr. Bramwell Booth would hear of no concession which
weakened the Army's authority in the slums, and which would also
eventually weaken its authority in the world.
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