Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



673 



GENERAL BOOTH— AN 



APPRECIATION BY W. T. STEAD. 



With his wonted sympathy and foresight, the 

 founder of this Review was one of the very first 

 to recognise the potentialities of the Salvation 

 Army, and his tribute to General Booth which 

 appears in The Fortnightly Review will be read 

 with universal interest. 



Mr. Stead enjoyed the General's continued 

 friendship for thirty years and rendered the 

 Army yeoman's service in many a fight, and the 

 estimate is the result of an unusual intimacy 

 between two men remarkable for their daring 

 initiative and total disregard of the petty 

 conventions. 



The little sketch was penned some time before 

 the General's death and its value lies in the 

 frank criticism of a friend who was a comrade 

 and critic both. 



Of the aged General Mr. Stead writes : — 



He is the man who has been seen by the greatest 

 number of human eyes, whose voice has been heard by 

 the greatest number of human ears, and who has 

 appealed to a greater number of human hearts, in a 

 greater number of countries and continents, not only 

 than any man now alive, but — thanks to the facilities 

 of modern travel — than any man who has ever lived 

 upon this planet. That in itself is a unique distinction. 

 But when we have to add to this that he has called into 

 being devoted companies of men and women in fifty- 

 four different countries and colonies, and that he has 

 done all this without any advantage of wealth, station, 

 patronage, or education, enough has been said to justify 

 the claim that in many respects General Booth is the 

 most remarkable man living. 



Many jibed at the Calvinistic quality of the 

 General's creed, and Mr. Stead turns the point 

 with characteristic skill : — 



We may dislike his theology — the worse we think of 

 it, the more our wonder should increase that a man so 

 handicapped should have done so much. We may 

 criticise his methods, but the more faulty his tactics the 

 more amazing the results which he has achieved. We 

 may doubt the permanence of his work, but it has at 

 least come into existence, and the man who builds even 

 a mud hovel on solid earth is greater than he whose airy 

 castles of the imagination never materialise themselves 

 into actual reality. 



It w^ould be impossible to calculate the 

 influences which have run the wide world round 

 as a result of General Booth's intrepid cam- 

 paign, but to Mr. Stead, at least, he was a con- 

 stant inspiration : — 



As an example of what one man can do, unaided 

 save by his wife, in the face of overwhelming obstacles, 

 the career of General Booth forms one of the most 

 inspiring and encouraging stories of our times. For 

 what man has done man can do. General Booth has 

 widened our conception of the possible. He has 

 strengthened our confidence in the infinite potentialities 

 of the individual. And if only for that he deserves 

 and has received the gratitude of mankind. 



FROM "DEVIL" TO ARCHBISHOP. 



The work and personality of Cosmo Gordon 

 Lang are delightfully sketched by Charles D. 

 Michael in the December Sunday At Home. 

 The Archbishop at the outset of his career, after 

 leaving Oxford, went up to London and began 

 to read for the Bar, "devilling," as the term 

 is, for Mr. W. S. Robson, now Lord Robson. 

 In this connection there is a story worth repeat- 

 ing. Not long ago Dr. Lang found himself on 

 the platform at a public meeting side by side 

 with his old legal chief, and the humour of the 

 situation suddenly struck him. " Isn't it 

 strange, Robson," he whispered, " that your 

 former * devil ' should now be your Arch- 

 bishop? " 



His first curacy was at Leeds, and when he 

 went there he found the assistant clergy living 

 in isolated lodgings at some distance from their 

 work ; but before he had been six months 

 amongst them he had induced four of his unmar- 

 ried brethren to join him in starting a clergy 

 house in the very midst of the parish :— 



The place selected was a disreputable public-house, 

 a well-known resort of thieves and other bad characters, 

 which had lost its licence on account of the disorderly 

 way in which it had been conducted. This was rented, 

 and suitably fitted up for Its new purpose. The tap- 

 room was transformed into a dining-room, with the bar 

 as a sideboard, and the bottling-room became a little 

 private chapel. Here the five clergy lived, and under 

 the direction of their energetic young colleague, the one- 

 time resort of thieves became a veritable house of 

 prayer, and rooms that had resounded with oaths and 

 curses rang with songs and praises. The influence of 

 the clergy after they had taken up their abode in this 

 centre and citadel of sin increased enormously, so much 

 so that it soon became necessary to build a new clergy 

 house, and the old one was turned into a boys' club. 



THE LATE ANDREW LANG. 



The late Mr. Andrew Lang fitly receives in 

 Folklore a number of tributes to his distinctions 

 as folklorist and critic. The tributes are in 

 English, German and French. The principal 

 memorial notice is by Mr. Edward Clodd, who 

 says : — 



It is, then, in his original contributions towards the 

 supersession of the philological by the anthropological 

 method of interpretation that the folklorist and the com- 

 parative mythologist owe Andrew Lang an incalculable 

 debt. And there is warrant for the belief that he would 

 have accepted in this recognition the most welcome tribute 

 to the abiding features of his life-work. 



The character of two very different persons 

 long dead is discussed in the Nineteenth Century. 

 Rev. Dr. Murray defends Cromwell at Drogheda 

 from monstrous charges, and Lady Helen Gra- 

 ham glorifies Montrose as one who elected to fol- 

 low " the heroic for earth too hard. " 



