The William Booth Collection

THESE Letters were, with one or two exceptions, originally published in The Social Gazette and The War Cry, two of the weekly publications of The Salvation Army in the United Kingdom. As will be seen, from a very superficial glance, they were intended to interest and instruct those to whom The Army especially strives to adapt itself, and to whom it seeks before all else to be useful… The topics dealt with are such as are woven and interwoven with the lives of “the common people.” The style of treatment is such as they can understand… Meantime, I send forth these Messages from. their General’s heart to his dear people, with the assurance of my love, and of my confidence in God for them. Let them remember that the best way to test my advice is to practise it.William Booth, London, January, 1902

The following Letters were, in the first instance, addressed to weekly meetings of Salvation Soldiers. They called forth so many expressions of thankfulness, and so many requests that they might be printed in a permanent form, that I have gathered them together in this little book. They do not, of course, profess to treat this great subject with anything like completeness, nor do I make any claim for them to literary elegance or power; and yet, if they are used at all, they must go as they are, for I have no opportunity to properly revise them. William Booth, 1902

SINCE I have neither time nor inclination for book-writing in the presence of the fearful necessities of the millions perishing around us, and am yet bound to make known in the clearest possible way to those who look to me for guidance what I believe to be the Lord’s will, I have thought proper to put into a permanent form such reports of addresses and other brief records of my views as could be readily got together. Of such papers as are to be found here I may, then, say that I mean every word of them, but that they cannot be taken as a complete expression of all I mean, Those who wish to feel and act within their several spheres as soldiers of the Salvation Army feel and act in theirs, will doubtless be pleased to read reports, imperfect though they may be, of what I have said, and will, I trust, be profited, in so doing. Officers and soldiers of the Army will, I know, “read’ with the same attention and sympathy with which they have listened, and will, I trust, make a far better record, of our thoughts and sayings in their lives. Those who wish to hurt our reputation should be most strongly recommended to examine this book, which, from its incompleteness, will afford them abundant opportunity, even without misquotation, to misrepresent out principles; and they can safely count upon our not replying to their misrepresentations, for we are content to have God for our Defence.William Booth, 1890

This volume contains the outlines of a series of addresses by General William Booth, delivered to Salvation Army Officers at the International Congress held in London, in June, 1904.

That which is here printed does not profess to be a verbatim report of those Addresses, but is merely a reproduction of the written notes from which The General spoke, and is issued in this form in reply to an oft repeated request for information as to the teaching given by The General to his Officers.

International Headquarters, May, 1907.