It was the rallying cry of an old general, and it was dutifully recorded and sent to the sixteen thousand Salvation Army officers then serving in fifty-eight countries around the world. When he was done, William waved a farewell to those gathered in Albert Hall and quipped, “I am going into dry dock for repairs.”
But the repairs failed to restore William’s sight, and by his eighty-third birthday, he had to face the reality that he would never see again. It was a sad month for William, and it was made sadder when Bramwell broke some stunning news to his father. The “unsinkable ship,” the RMS Titanic, had struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sunk within minutes. Her sinking cost the lives of some fifteen hundred men, women, and children. One of those who perished on the ship was William’s old friend W. T. Stead, who had been jailed for his part in changing Britain’s laws to protect girls like Annie Swan and who had faithfully helped William write In Darkest England and the Way Out. Several officers in the Salvation Army were also lost in the sinking of the ship.
When he had recovered from the initial shock, William dictated a telegram to President William Taft in the United States.
My heart is moved by the fearful calamity which has befallen the world in the loss of the Titanic—moved with sorrow for the dead, among whom are some of my long-tried friends; moved with sympathy for the living, whose loss can never be repaired, and moved in its deepest sources of feeling concerning that sudden and awful summons into the presence of God.
William paused to wipe the tears from his eyes before he went on.
I pray that it may speak to the multitudes of the reality and nearness of the world to come, and the urgency and overwhelming necessity of preparing for it. God bless and comfort you all!
By mid-August, William himself was coming close to the “reality and nearness of the world to come.” He began drifting in and out of consciousness, barely aware of what was going on around him. The Blood and Fire flag he had carried up Mount Calvary was draped over his bed. His officers and soldiers watched as the life ebbed from William Booth’s eighty-three-year-old body. On August 20, 1912, Bramwell, Florence, Marian, and Lucy gathered around his bed. A doctor stood nearby. At 9 P.M. William’s breathing grew irregular and then faltered and stopped.
“Is this death?” Bramwell asked the doctor.
Dr. Milne took William’s hand and felt for a pulse. Then he reached over and closed William’s unseeing eyes. “This is death,” he replied quietly.
“Now he is with our mother,” Bramwell said. He picked up a telegram that was on the nightstand. It was from Eva, and it read, “Kiss him for me.” Bramwell Booth placed the telegram in his father’s hand and bent and kissed him one last time before walking sadly out of the room. He had arrangements to make. His father had been “promoted to glory,” and he deserved one last salute—a fitting funeral.
At midnight a motor hearse transported William’s coffin to Clapton Congress Hall. Word of William’s death had already spread like wildfire throughout London. As the hearse made its way to the hall, a row of cars filled with reporters and photographers formed in line behind it. The motorcade drove slowly through the winding streets. At each police station it passed along the route, all of the lights were turned on, and rows of detectives, inspectors, and constables stood bareheaded in a silent tribute to the general who had commanded a worldwide army.
By the next morning a banner hung in the front window of the international headquarters of the Salvation Army. It read, “The General Has Laid Down His Sword.” William had held the post for fifty-three years.
William’s body lay in state for three days, during which time more than 150,000 people from every walk of life came to pay their last respects. Over a dozen heads of state sent wreaths, and messages of sympathy addressed to Bramwell Booth arrived from leading men and women all over the world. King George wrote, “Only in the future shall we realize the good wrought by him for his fellow creatures. Today there is universal mourning for him. I join in it.”
American President William Taft sent a message that said, “In the death of your good father the world loses one of its most effective practical philosophers.”
Even the newspapers, which had once written so scathingly about William and ridiculed him as “General von Booth,” could not now find enough words with which to praise him. The editor of the Daily Telegraph stated enthusiastically, “Whatever we may think of William Booth, and of the wonderful organization which he so triumphantly established, it is certain that he belonged to the company of saints…. We judge him to be one of the chief and most serviceable figures of the Victorian age.”
As expected, William’s funeral service was huge. On Tuesday, August 27, 1912, people lined up for hours outside Olympia Hall, waiting for the service to begin. Only the first forty thousand people could be seated. Those who were fortunate enough to get inside found themselves sitting in a huge hall decked out for the occasion with flags and white streamers, just as it had been decorated twenty-two years before for Catherine Booth’s funeral.
Accompanied by ten thousand uniformed members of the Salvation Army marching in lockstep and forty bands, the hearse bearing General William Booth’s body drove slowly along from Olympia Hall after the service. The heart of London came to a standstill for four hours as the long procession wound its way through the densely crowded streets. Three thousand policemen were on duty to control the crowd, but few were needed to keep the peace. As the hearse passed, mourners stood in silence.
Finally the hearse drove through the gates of Abney Park Cemetery, where William was laid in a grave beside Catherine. His tombstone read:
William Booth
Founder & 1st General Of The Salvation Army
Born 1829
Born Again In The Spirit 1845
Founded the Salvation Army 1865
Went To Heaven 20th August 1912
Bramwell, Marian, Eva, and Lucy, of course, all attended their father’s funeral. But Kate and Herbert were also there, even though they had been estranged from William, and Ballington, still living in the United States, sent a letter of condolence.
When William’s will was finally read, everything he owned amounted to less than five hundred pounds. The man who had raised millions of pounds for his army had lived out his life in frugal simplicity.
For weeks after William was buried, the rumor spread that Queen Alexandra had come to the funeral in disguise. No one could prove whether the rumor was true or not, but in one sense it did not matter. What mattered was that no one thought it strange or unbelievable that a queen might have been standing shoulder to shoulder with a charwoman at William Booth’s funeral.
Chapter 16
Stringing Lights Around the World
It was 1935 and General Evangeline Booth, the fourth general of the Salvation Army, stood on an old railway platform seeking shelter from the rain as she waited for her driver to repair the broken-down car. A small crowd gathered around her, but Eva was too tired and wet to talk with them. Besides, her voice was hoarse from the preaching she had done that evening.
As she stood peering into the darkness, a policeman strolled over and climbed the platform steps. He tipped his hat at Eva and said, “Begging your pardon, General, but there’s a man down there who says he must talk to you.”
Eva sighed. “Then let him come up,” she replied.
“But he can’t,” the policeman said.
“Why not?” Eva asked.
“Because he can’t climb the stairs.”
“And why can’t he climb the stairs?”
“Because he’s ninety-three years old, ma’am.”
“Ninety-three years old!” Eva responded, wondering what the old man could possibly want to talk to her about.
“He says he has come two hundred miles to see you,” the policeman added.
“That can’t be!” Eva replied.
“He really does want to see you,” the police officer said apologetically.
“If he’s come all that way, I suppose I had better see what he wants.” With that she pulled her jacket tight around her and descended the stairs from the platform.
Soon she was standing in front of an aged man. His back was bent in a permanent bow, and his features were weathered and leathery. Eva leaned down to speak to him. “I am General Evangeline Booth. How may I help you?”
The old man’s eyes lit up, and he reached for her hand and held it tightly as he looked at her face. “Ah, you are the spitting image of your father, that you are,” he said. “I heard you would be preaching in this village tonight, and I had to see you with my own eyes. You see, I used to be a lamplighter. And when I was a young man, I happened on your father, William Booth, God rest his soul. He was inspecting a tent recently put up on the Old Quaker burial ground, and something about him drew me over. I talked to him, and I offered to help string the lights in the tent.” He stopped and took a long breath. “I’ll never forget the words your father said that night.”
Eva strained forward, mesmerized by the old man.
“He said to me, ‘You mark my words, one day they will be stringing lights just like these around the world.’ That’s what your father said—those very words.”
William Booth’s words uttered so long ago were true. Today the Salvation Army spans the globe, reaching out to others with the love of God, the courage of their convictions, and the discipline of good soldiers. The Salvation Army is now established in eighty countries with sixteen thousand evangelical centers and operates more than three thousand social welfare institutions, hospitals, schools, orphanages, homeless shelters, and social service agencies—lights strung around the world.
