Summing up the journey and its general impressions to an old friend, he writes:--
"Well, I have been busy and no mistake. Day after day, hour after hour, you might say minute after minute, I have had duties calling for immediate attention. Oh, it has been a whirl! But what a wonderful rush of success the nine weeks have been since I landed at New York.
"The people, the Press, the dignitaries of all classes have combined in the heartiest of welcomes ever given in this country, I suppose, to 'a foreigner' of any nationality. It has been remarkable, and, indeed, surprising, for it was so largely unexpected.
"I have just come into this city of Kansas. The two largest hotels have competed to have the privilege of giving me their best rooms, with free entertainment. A monster brewery that illumines the whole city every night with a search-light has been running alternate slides, one saying, 'Buy our Lager Beer,' and the other, 'General Booth at the Convention Hall Monday night.' The building for my Meeting to-night will hold 8,000 people, and on Saturday 4,000 tickets were already sold.
"You will be a little interested in this because you will know something of the difficulties that seemed to lie ahead of me when I started. God has been very good, and I hope my Campaign will do something towards the forwarding of His wishes in the country."
The reception at New York was one of the most enthusiastic The General ever had. At four o'clock on the Saturday morning, enough of his followers and friends to fill fifteen small steamers had assembled, so as to be sure to be in time to meet his liner. By way of salute, when the great steamer appeared, they discharged seventy-three bombs--one for each year of his life, as yet completed.
The New York Herald said of his Sunday there:--
"Eight thousand people heard General William Booth speaking yesterday at the Academy of Music. The rain had no effect in keeping either Salvation Army people or the general public from the Meetings. About one-third of those present wore Salvation Regalia.
"General Booth displayed wonderful energy throughout his fatiguing day's work. His voice has great carrying power, and the speaker was distinctly heard throughout the auditorium. Despite the fact that they could not gain admission to the building, at the evening service, people remained standing in the drenching rain from 7:30 till after 9 o'clock to see The General leave."
"At the close of his last address," says The Times, "167 men and women had been persuaded to his point of view, and went to the Mercy-Seat."
How generally the whole country, and not merely the central areas, was stirred by the mere arrival of The General, may be guessed from the following words taken from the Omaha Daily News article of the Monday for its readers through far-away Nebraska:--
"One of the arrivals on the steamship Philadelphia is General William Booth of The Salvation Army. That vessel never carried before so great a man as this tall, white-haired, white-bearded organiser, enthusiast, and man-lover.
"Wherever men and women suffer and sorrow and despair, wherever little children moan and hunger, there are disciples of William Booth. The man's heart is big enough to take in the world. He has made the strongest distinct impact upon human hearts of any man living. This is a man of the Lincoln type. Like Lincoln he has the saving grace of humour, and sense of proportion. There is something of the mother-heart in these brooding lovers of their kind. There is the constraining love that yearns over darkness and cold and empty hearts. Big hearts are scarce.
"In an age of materialism and greed William Booth has stirred the world with a passion for the welfare of men. His trumpet-call has been like the silvery voice of bugles. His spirit will live, not only in lives made better by his presence, but in the temper of all the laws of the future."
We shall see from the welcomes given to him by great official personages, that these remarks do not in the least exaggerate the feeling created all over the country by the activities of The Army. Had The General merely made great proposals he would only have been looked upon in the generally favourable way in which men naturally regard every prospector of benevolent schemes. But the country recognised in him the man who, in spite of the extreme poverty of most of his followers, had raised up, and was then leading on, a force of obedient and efficient servants of all men.
The journey was arranged, for economy of time, so as to include a visit to Canada, and its general course was as follows: From New York he travelled to St. John's, New Brunswick, where the Premier, in welcoming him, said the work of The Salvation Army had "placed General Booth in a position perhaps filled by no other religious reformer." From New Brunswick he passed on to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Montreal (where he was the guest of Earl Grey, the Governor-General), Ottawla, Kingston, Hamilton, London, and Toronto. Thence he returned to the States, and held Meetings in Buffalo, Chicago, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, Des Moines, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland, Omaha, St. Joseph, St. Louis, Birmingham, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Worcester, in three of which cities he conducted Councils of Officers, in addition to public Meetings.
The impression invariably made wherever he went, was thus ably summed up by the Chicago Interocean:--