The following letter to his youngest daughter, and some entries in his diary, will give some idea of the inner victory he really gained on many such occasions.
Commissioner Lawley, mentioned in this letter, was The General's almost constant companion and helper in many years' travel in many lands, leading the singing, soloing, managing the Prayer Meetings, and generally aiding in every arrangement, a true armour-bearer and comrade at every turn:--
"Fair night; might have been better. Plenty of weakness; still, better than it often is.
"Lawley just been in; he is not over well; says we have got the biggest theatre (The Empire). He is not quite sure whether its suitability for talking is beyond the Coliseum at Glasgow, but he thinks the Meetings are rather heavy for a sick man, whom four doctors have been conjuring during the week to 'settle down' and take things quietly, under pain and penalties of the sufferings described.
"However, I am going on with faith that God won't forsake me. It is very probable that Mr. MacDougal said something of the same kind when he retired to rest on his last sleep, and failing to appear in the morning was found by his son with life extinct, gone to live by sight; anyway, to have some further assistance to sight through his faith in the Better Land.
"This has been one of the most remarkable of the many remarkable days of my history.
"I passed a weary night, and felt altogether unfit for the task before me. The natural force seemed to have passed out of me, both mentally and physically. In fact, my heart failed me, and there seemed nothing before me but the prospect of slackening down. I was only kept going by the memory of so many deliverances brought out for me in the past.
"We had one of the largest audiences, and the biggest crowd I ever addressed in a single day. In the morning it appeared that Satan sat at my door, suggesting all sorts of discouraging things. He tried to make me believe that my public work was done, and especially suggesting that I should renounce the subject on which I was talking, and wait for better days before I attempted to talk again. The Prayer Meeting that followed was certainly encouraging. We had twenty-seven out. Still, I came away with very much the same feeling that had been aroused while I was talking. I took a little refreshment, and tried to get a little sleep, but my mind was too much agitated to allow of it. I woke up and called for the notes of my lecture. My mind could not put two and two together hardly, and so I gave up in despair and left myself to my fate. On my way to the Meeting, however, a strange feeling came over me. It was like the sun through a rift in the black clouds, and all at once a spirit of tenderness, hope, and faith came over me. A voice in my soul seemed to say, 'Go and do the Lord's work, and the people will gather; go for their souls, and all will be well.' I accepted the command, my fears vanished, a spirit of confidence took possession of me, I rose, I addressed the crowd for an hour and twenty minutes with all the physical vigour and mental liberty I could desire.
"Night. A terrific crowd. I talked for an hour and ten minutes with the same force and fervour as in my most successful efforts; 147 came on to the stage in the After Meeting."
It was thus in the smaller matters of personal strength and health, as in the greatest affairs, that The General struggled, believed, and triumphed all through his career.
Australasia has gone farther than most countries towards State socialism. But it was well remarked by some statesman many years ago, "We are all socialists now."
No man within his times was more intensely devoted to the cause of the poor than William Booth. He was indifferent to no practical scheme or effort for the improvement of the people's condition in any land. But for that very reason he loathed, with uncommon vigour, such socialism as would spurn and crush out of the world the man who is no longer in first-class physical condition or desirous of earning an honest living by hard work, instead of going about to create hatred between man and man, and would prevent those who will not submit to any man's dictation from leaving their families to starve when work is to be obtained.
The General's indignation was specially aroused when "socialist" spouters tried to block all his plans of beneficence with their foul misrepresentations. He fought every such attempt with the utmost determination, and by the help of God and the more intelligent of his fellow-countrymen, crushed every such attack more completely than the public sometimes knew, for he resolutely kept out of any political or social agitation and went calmly on his way, even when his quietude led the enemy to imagine that he was yielding. In later years, when all the pressmen of a city came together to meet him, the Social Democratic paper representative would, of course, come with the rest. On the occasion of such an interview once in Denmark, he writes:--
"The Social Democrat usually contents himself by compassionating the inadequacy of my efforts for dealing with the miseries which they contemplate, with the remark that I don't go deep enough, that mine is a superficial operation, whereas they destroy poverty by dragging it up by the roots!
"My notion is that the principles upon which my efforts are founded carry me to the lowest roots of all, namely, the selfishness of human nature. Their notion is that capital is the root of the misery. Destroy the capital, or rather I expect they mean divide it up, or let everybody have the benefits that flow out of its possession. My notion is that the roots of the selfishness are to be found in human nature itself."