Heritage of Freedom Issue 9 | 1986

ARTICLE TOOLS

Find similar articles E-mail this page

One summer evening in 1865 a tall, extremely energetic Methodist minister walked through London's East End. He stopped to listen to a group of men who were preaching outside the Blind Beggar public house. Their teaching, their methods, their fervour gripped his interest and it showed on his face. He was invited to have a word. The preachers listened spellbound.

'This is the man we want at the tent,' they agreed.

After the nightly street meetings they would adjourn to an old tent in a disused burial ground. They needed a leader more able than themselves for these indoor gatherings, and so they invited the minister, William Booth, to take charge. A few days later, on Sunday 2 July, he conducted a service out of which grew the Salvation Army.

William Booth was born in Nottingham in 1829, the son of an unsuccessful builder. He had been a pawnbroker's assistant in his native town and in Kennington, London. Since then he had been a full-time preacher for thirteen years, but that summer evening he was out of an appointment. Among the poor of Whitechapel he found his destiny.

Slowly he made converts and unintentionally built up a new Christian body. This at first he called The Christian Mission. By 1878, when the name of the organization was changed to The Salvation Army, he had eighty-eight paid helpers and operated fifty centres, from North Shields to Portsmouth as well as in Wales.

...

During the 1878 annual conference Captain Elijah Cadman jumped to his feet. He was a colourful character, a diminutive one-time chimney sweep and boxer.

'I would like to wear a suit of clothes that would let everybody know I meant war to the teeth and salvation for the world' he said.

Within days, Salvationists, as they were beginning ...