’We must stick to the form of sound words, for there is more in it than appears on the surface. “Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” was the theology of our forefathers, and I am suspicious of all attempts to mend it.’
And once more:–
’Let us beware of wrong doctrine, come through whomsoever it may. Holy men make sad mistakes. “Well, but,” say some, “is not a person who holds wrong views with a right heart better than a person with right views and a wrong heart?” Yes, so far as his personal state before God is concerned, but not in his influence on man. My charity must extend to those likely to be deceived or ruined by his doctrines as well as to him.’
Mrs. Booth’s whole life was a continual fight against sin–sin of all kinds. Whether her Meeting was held for the very lowest and roughest, or whether rows of clergy and lawyers, and lords and ladies sat to listen, it made no difference to her. She attacked sin, and went straight at the very heart-sins of the people in front of her.
‘We need great grace,’ she says in the midst of her wonderful West-End campaign, where even princes and princesses came to hear her. ’I think the Lord never enabled me to be more plain and faithful. As a lady in high circles said to me, “We never heard this sort of Gospel before.” No, poor things, they are sadly deceived.’
Drink, too, was another evil which Mrs. Booth fought against during the whole of her life. She began, as you remember, when a girl by being secretary of the ‘Band of Love’ of those days.
In the early days of their engagement The General was strongly advised to take a little wine for the sake of his health. Our Army Mother wrote him a long letter, showing him how false and foolish such advice was, and ending with:–
’I have had it recommended to me scores of times, but I am fully and for ever settled on the physical side of the question. [Footnote: That means taking it for the sake of health.–Ed.]
’It is a subject on which I am most anxious you should be thorough. I have far more hope for your health because you abstain, than I should if you took wine. Flee the detestable thing as you would a serpent; be a teetotaller in principle and practice.’
Though, as we have seen, full of boundless faith and pity for the drunkard, Mrs. Booth attacked the makers and sellers of drink unmercifully. She says, on one occasion:–