General Booth Brings the Salvation Army’s Hallelujah Show to Seattle

General William Booth, of the Salvation Army, spent the second day of his visit to Seattle yesterday in consultation with his officers and soldiers at a holiness meeting, where singing, prayer and pious ejaculations abounded, and in addressing a large meeting at the Armory on the history and work of the army. It was a living testimony to the influence the Salvation Army has acquired since it was mobbed by ignorant peasants in England and its members imprisoned for disturbing the peace. The General was thanked by preachers of various denominations, and members of all classes composed his audiences.

At the Armory last night General Booth talked about Christianity from a Salvation Army standpoint. Rev. Clark Davis, chairman of the meeting, made a short address; Rev. Wallace Souther read the resolution adopted by the ministers’ committee; there was singing; and General Booth himself held the attention of the audience by a brief exhortation and prayer, in which he kept those who knelt on their knees for twenty or twenty-five minutes. The reporter found him not an inspiring, magnetic speaker before a large audience: his delivery lacked the power of voice and gesture of a great preacher, and his words were mostly a plain talk, with only once or twice an attempt at oratorical effort.

In beginning, General Booth said he had been invited to say something of the Salvation Army, its successes and its future, and especially how it came about, but he would much prefer to be saving sinners. “Practical Christianity,” he said, “consists in fishing, fighting, lighting,” and he instanced France, Germany, Sweden, India and other countries where the tendency was to drift away from the church. His own field, the famous slums of London, he characterized as a misty deep of sin, a black space.

“The story of the Salvation Army,” he continued, “is an encouragement to those who are working in the cause of Christianity, and it is now being accepted by other sects as a great power for good. It is an organization of men—an organization, remember; we do not want to become a church. Yet it ought to be received with open arms by them all and encouraged. The churches give to the army, but not in the main much, not as much as they ought to. It should be their rule to give at least 3½ per cent of all their collections.”

He said he had been in the service fifty years, but did not want to go to heaven yet; when his work was done he wanted to go up with a great hallelujah crowd. Religion, he said, is love, and the love that did not go out seeking to save souls was not the love of Jesus Christ. The Christian who sought to go to heaven alone, without thought of his neighbor, would be condemned to purgatory and fed on bread and water all the eternal days.

His first work in the London slums began, he said, when he was sent there for a fortnight to see what he could do. He went into the alleys and dark houses seeking the “rag, tag and bobtail.” He recalled that the churches sent him to the rear door while the rich were permitted to enter at the front. In one mile around the place, he was told, there were at least 10,000 people not regularly visited by a single saving grace. “Here is my work,” he said to himself. He had no influence but one thing—Jesus Christ. If the people were told that Christ was waiting for them, they would repent. They did not want preaching; they wanted something to lift them.

He described the growth of the Army. At first he thought he would have a dozen workers; after a while he had a thousand. From a small beginning twenty-nine years ago, the Salvation Army now had 4,000 officers, of whom 2,000 were self-supporting, and millions of members. It was at work in forty-two different countries, with an expedition about to land in Java, one ready to go to Japan, and India, Spain, Gibraltar and Egypt in the line of attack. It was preaching in thirty or forty different languages. General Booth said he had great faith in good women; as it is written on the banner of Jesus Christ that there is neither male nor female in the service of God, he had given them all the opportunity possible. “A good woman is better than a man.”

Speaking of the War Cry, he said he thought they could raise a revenue of $250,000 yearly through advertising, but he would as soon think of advertising liver pills or pain killer from the platform as of inserting an advertisement in the War Cry. “Twenty-five War Crys,” he said, “in fifteen languages, 60,000,000 copies per annum, and yet there is not a serial story, not a novel or love story, but the one great love story of Jesus Christ. What paper on earth can show such a record?”

At the holiness meeting at the First M.P. Church yesterday afternoon, General Booth told the Army people: “You want to get more power and get the devil out of you. Sing louder, pray louder.” The meeting was a council of war for the general, the Army officers and the common soldiers. It began at 3:30 in the basement of the church and lasted until after dark. An enterprising photographer waited outside in the chill air with his camera leveled on the doors to get a shot at the general, but darkness came and the commander’s voice could still be heard within in prayer, song and exhortation; the photographer finally went home disappointed. The council was open only to those who wore the Salvation Army regalia, but there were at least 300 of these, enough to fill the basement. The earlier part was quiet, deliberative work, but toward the close it became a praise and song service, the songs loud and fast. General Booth’s voice could be heard from outside commanding “louder,” or “again.”

Major Lawley, second to General Booth, explained the councils: “Children want to see their father. You can understand that, can’t you? Just so, the soldiers, God bless them, want to see the general. It is a family meeting. Then they want to know the work as he knows it and does it. These meetings are a holiness meeting. We want to reload our guns, more ammunition, preparation for the work outside.” Asked about the reception at Seattle, he said: “In England we would say ‘tip top’; in America I believe you say ‘K.’ In fact, the public demonstration has been one of the largest we have had since we sailed from England nearly seven months ago. It has been very demonstrative in Seattle.”

General Booth leaves Seattle this morning on his return journey, which he expects to complete in England by the first days of March. The party goes to Victoria today and will successively visit Vancouver and Kamloops, where meetings will be held. Thereafter the party will take the Canadian Pacific railway east and will visit the principal towns on the line as far east as Toronto, which city they hope to reach about February 6. Several days will be spent there, and the party will probably visit Buffalo, Worcester, Boston and New York. If the plans are carried out, General Booth will sail for home on February 27, after having spent nearly nine months in the United States and Canada. Several hundred meetings have already been attended and nearly 10,000 miles of railroad travel completed.