William and Catherine Booth have to be some of the most brilliant story-tellers in church history. Taking a page from "Pilgrim's Progress," William Booth wrote the book, "Sergeant-Major Do-Your Best" to instruct through narrative on key, pragmatic theological points he wanted to emphasize in the local corps (church) setting.“The Juniors”
Sergeant-Major Do-Your-Best
William Booth (1906)
I want to tell you that we’ve got everything going at high speed now in Darkington No. 1. You would hardly believe the wonderful advances that’s been made this last few weeks.
Captain Faithful’s prayers and tears and personal talks, and all the rest of it, have brought forth a glorious harvest. It is just as I am always telling the Officers when they get downhearted. I always says as such times: “Captain, cheer up! You’ve put in the seed, and if you don’t reap the fruits of it all, another Captain will!” And then they says: “Sergeant-Major, we like to reap the harvest of what we sow ourselves” – which it is perfectly natural that they should. Leastaways, I think so.
Well, I was saying that we are going ahead at Darkington. You see our new Captain, he seems to have struck another vein, as the colliers say, with his seeking out the roughest and worst; and it has been a very profitable vein, too, I can tell you; not only because of the poor creatures that have been brought up out of the horrible pit, but because it has seemed to put new life into everybody and everything.
There is one thing, however, which our Divisional Officer is always worrying about, and where he will have it that we come very much short, and that is the Juniors. It is true we have a “Children’s work,” as they call it; but it is only a poor, bedraggled affair. It’s been going a long time, but nobody pays much attention to it. The place where they hold their meetings in cramped, and dark, and dirty; the big picture bills on the walls about Moses crossing the Red Sea, and Daniel in the lions’ den, and such like – which Deacon Propriety presented to us – are all covered with dust; some of them are actually hanging in pieces; while the Locals told off to look after the children, are – well, I won’t say anything about them, or perhaps it might come to their ears and hurt their feelings, and that would be a pity.
Then the children are a forlorn lot, with one or two exceptions; the order in the meetings is wretched; and altogether the thing has such a poor name that the Soldiers, instead of sending their children, simply give it the cold shoulder, and go on with their meetings as if there was no such thing as a Junior work in the Corps at all.
You see, Captain Faithful was a wonderful man – God bless him! – but I must confess he did not care much for the children. Perhaps that is not a fair way of putting it, but his delight was more in an Open-Air Campaign, or a Sunday evening fight, or a struggle to get somebody saved at a demonstration, or to have a good Holiness Meeting, with everybody on their faces before God, than it was for going in for the young people.
Then, there’s our present Captain – God bless him! – he’s full of his Saturday nights’ maneuvers, and storming the factory gates, and fetching the backsliders out of the publics, and all that kind of thin; which doings, I say, is all right, excellent, first-rate. God forbid that I should ever speak a word against Officers who work day and night for souls! But, still, I must tell the truth; and that is, that neither of them ever worried themselves very much about the children.
The there’s Treasurer Hold-it-tight. He don’t concern himself much about the Juniors. You see, he has no family of his own, and his wife makes no secret of not having any particular love for children.
And, to tell the truth – may God forgive me! – I’ve not been a great advocate of the Juniors myself; and Sarah, she never misses a chance of laying the law down to me about it.
“Sergeant-Major,” she says, “where would your children have been, if they had not been looked after and shown the right way, and stirred up to walk in it, when they was young? You’ve not done much at them yourself, have you now? You’ve been so busy with the Seniors, and the Outposts, and the Open-Airs, and such like – which things ought to be seen to – of course they ought. But, then, you see, the children, Sergeant-Major, had the good fortune to have a mother who loved their souls, and who made up her mind that they should love God and be a good Salvationists, whatever came. Now, what I want to know, Sergeant-Major, is this: Where would your children have been to-day, if they had not been cared for when they was young?
“Look at Tom Blaze-away’s family – although he reckons he’s a good Salvationist – which he is, as when he sings, ‘Death is coming and the Judgment Day’ in the Open-Air, the people can hear him three streets off, and when he gets fairly a-goin’ on his knees in the After-Meetings, the windows of the Hall fairly rattle again, and I fancy sometimes that they very foundations of the building tremble.
“But, there now, just look at his children! Don’t they tear one another’s clothes, and pull one another’s hair, and make faces at their father, and sauce their mother, and use bad language, and I don’t know what else? What is to become of them if somebody don’t look after them? That’s what I want to know!
“It is true their mother, bless the timid little soul, ought to teach them and save them; but then, what does she know about saving and training children? Why, you remember as how as she was the daughter of that horrid, drunkard, Ted Never-full, and they were married when she was only seventeen, and the children came fast, and Tom drank all he could lay his hands on for the first few years. Then they have only been converted a little while, and have everything to learn. But there are the bairns all the same; and, I ask you, what is to be done with them?”
Then, Sarah, she goes on: ”Look at the children down the alley at the back of our house. What is to be done with them, Sergeant-Major, I want to know? You should look in there some times!
“I’ve just been down to visit that poor, dying woman, whose husband was found lying in the gutter, helplessly drunk, on Saturday night, and took home by Will Boozham. As I stood in his room I had a look out of the window at a gang of youngsters in the court, who was talking to each other in a most confidential manner about what they was going to be when they ‘growed-up,’ as they called it. One little, half-naked rascal said he was going to be a thief; another, scratching his head in ever such a ferocious manner, was going to get drunk every night; another declared that he was going to be a soldier, and shoot the Boers; and so on, and on and on. Oh, it did make my blood curdle to see them in their rags and filth, with their mouths full of cursing and filthiness. I felt as if I was looking at little-devils instead of human creatures. Sergeant-Major,” says Sarah, “what is to become of these young plants, if nobody don’t care for them?”
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Sarah has just got a letter from our boy, Jack, who, I told you, had got his first Corps at Flintville, and a hard-shop the lad has found it. Sarah says that if she had the management of things, she would not send a lad on his first command to a place where things was so difficult.
But I says, “Sarah, it’s all right! It will all turn out for the best, and it’ll be good for Jack; anyhow, in the long run.” Well, as I was a-saying, Sarah has got a letter, and it has cheered her up not a little, and she declares she is going to read it to the Captain, to push him up to doing something more for the Juniors. And then she made me promise to speak of it, and said it would be interesting. Perhaps there’s a bit of mother’s pride in this, but the letter really sounds very well. Here it is: –
“Dear Mother, – I can’t stop any longer from telling you the good news about our Corps. You know what a fight we’ve had; but, never mind, better days are coming on.
“And it’s all been through three young girls, the daughters of a Staff Officer, who have gone in for a Band of Love. They’ve got some of the dirtiest and lowest children in the place together, and they’ve loved and amused and taught them, with an amazing lot of patience.
“For a while all seemed to be of no use, the children only got harder and harder; but then the break came and some of the worst got saved.
“And now, to see those boys at the meetings, in the Hall and in the Open-Air, and hear them testify and pray, it is wonderful. It’s cheered up our Soldiers, and they’re working with a new heart. The mothers and fathers of these children are coming to the meetings. Some of them have got converted, and we’ve got a real new start, I do believe. Tell dad he’s to get the Captain to run a Band of Love at Darkington 1.”
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Sarah had a good cry over that letter. I couldn’t see for the life of me what there was in it to cry about. I should have thought it was real delightful to hear that Jack was in such good spirits, and that something was being done in that dark hole. But I suppose they were tears of joy. Anyway, after that letter, she took on about the Juniors again in real earnest. In fact, she got what you might call the Junior fever. So much so, that it took away her appetite, and kept her from sleeping. So at last I says to her: “Well, Sarah, you’d better go an talk to the Captain yourself.” “All right!” says she, “I must talk to somebody, or I shall be real ill about the business.”
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Sarah has seen the Captain, and had a good go with him. She told me about it after. She says he fairly cried when she told him about Rom Blaze-away’s children, and the poor neglected little things down our alley. He said that he had been in India, when he was in the king’s army, and that the heathen children were not in so bad a case as the poor things she described to him. “But,” said the Captain, “how an I go about forming a Band of Love?”
“Well,” says Sarah, “there’s Sergeant Never-tire. She’s the soul of what it done for the children in Darkington, and she’s been telling me that they must have a bigger place. And the Sergeant says that there’s an old warehouse close by the Hall that they can have for five shillings a week, and that it could be cleaned up and made quite grand for a few pounds; and if the Soldiers would only set to, they could do nearly all that wants doing at it themselves.”
Well, the Captain, he promised Sarah to pray about it, and to bring it up at the next meeting of the Locals.
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We’ve had the Locals’ Meeting, and I’m sorry to say that some rather hard things were said about the Junior scheme. You see, the Captain, he made a nice speech, which, to tell the truth, was just about the same that Sarah had been saying to him, and then he proposed they should take up the children in earnest, and go for the warehouse that Sergeant Never-tire had recommended. He’d been to look at it, he said, and he thought it would do proper.
There was no response to the proposal, and I must confess that I didn’t feel like saying anything myself, which vexed Sarah very much. She told me afterwards that I hadn’t the heart of a chicken, or else I should have jumped up, and said: “Well done, Captain, that’s it! And there’s my five shillings towards doing the place up!”
After a little silence, however, Treasurer Hold-it-tight, he gets on his feet. I smelt mischief as soon as I see him shuffle off his seat!
“Captain Seek-the-lost,” says he, “this is a good case you’ve made for the children. I’ve no doubt that many of ‘em is in a very poor way, both for this world and the next. But who’s responsible for them? Isn’t it their fathers and mothers for, if it isn’t to take care of their children, and have them taught and saved, and got ready for Heaven? If I had any children, which I haven’t, I shouldn’t want other folks to come and look after them – me and my wife would reckon that we had to do that work ourselves. The work of The Salvation Army, I reckon, is to go for the fathers and mothers, get them saved, and then let them take care of the children.
“Then, as to the warehouse, who’s to pay the cost of doing it up, please? Why, there’s our own Hall, doesn’t that need painting, and don’t the spouts want mending; and ain’t there other things that want seeing to? And then, who’s to pay the five shillings a week? Can you tell me, pray?
“And then,” he went on, “if you fill this warehouse with children, where are the Company Sergeants to come from? That’s what I want to know. Then, Captain, if you have all the Soldiers at work among the children, just ask yourself, where will the Open-Airs and the Pub-Boomers’ and the Drunkards’ Brigade be? And where will all the other work of the Corps be? I say, let us stick to what we’ve got in hand, and do that well. We never was doing better than we are. Why not let well alone?”
Then Treasurer had not got down on his seat before Sarah was on her feet. Her face was crimson, and her heart was full, and she talked – bless her! — as she can talk when her blood’s up. I can’t tell you what she said, nor nobody else can. I know she cried, and we all cried, and made the Captain promise to take the warehouse, and I promised my five shillings, and Boozham and Grumbleton and a lot more promised to help as well.
And then what should the Treasurer do but jump up and resign, saying that if such wild things as these was done, he could not be responsible for the Corps, and he would have no more to do with the money.
But the Captain, he says: “Treasurer Hold-it-tight, we cannot let you go out of the office like this. You know I’ve not been a strong advocate for the Juniors myself, but I see now that we ought to do something extra, and we will do something, God helping us. But, Treasurer,” says the Captain, “you must stay my time out, anyway; and if this thing does not turn out to your satisfaction, I’ll write to the Divisional Officer, and you can give up your office then, and we’ll go out together.”
Now, things took a strange turn after this meeting, and this is how it happened. You see, Treasurer Hold-it-tight had a brother, Charley, who was the misery and disgrace of the family. It appeared as if the drink fiend had got possession of him altogether. I don’t know how he got into this wretched plight – but he went from bad to worse, until he got about as far away as a man could get who is not actually dead and lost. His wife died of a broken heart. He lost situation after situation. Nobody would look at him. Hold-it-tight and his wife helped him all they could. They gave him food, and clothes, and money, and paid his rent to keep out the bailiffs again and again. They prayed with him, and advised him, and got the Captain to talk to him times without number; but it was all in vain, and at last they gave him up, and told him they would do no more. And this made him real mad, and set him on to hate his brother with all his heart.
He had three children. They lived in filth and wretchedness – if you canal it living at all – in an old hovel belonging to a farm-house at the very end of the town, in a field all by itself. Poor wretch! He was at the bottom of the ladder, and seemed but to want to go one step lower to be gone for ever.
Well now, it seems that just after we got into the warehouse, the Sergeant Never-tire, by some means or other, persuaded the eldest of this drunkard’s children to come to the Band of Love – and directly afterwards they got her beautifully saved. You see, she was a real nice child, about twelve years old, and what you might call regular good-looking. Sarah had just got a new bonnet and frock for Polly, so after she had mended the old ones up, she fixed Sally up in them, and when she was dressed in her uniform, she looked just like a little angel.
Well, little Sally no sooner got right herself than she set to work to get her father saved. She began by singing to him the songs she learned at the meetings. Her favorite was: —
“Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord,
Or you can’t go to Heaven when you die.”
Then she used to pray for him, and cry over him, and talk about her mother in Heaven, and about Jesus dying for him on the cross. But he only seemed to harden his heart and drink more and more.
One night, however, he let her bring him to the meeting. I don’t know how it came about, but there it was. I think he was a little gone with the drink, but he knew quite well what he was doing. My word! Wasn’t everybody surprised to see him there! Many of us knew that he had sworn a thousand times that he would never enter the doors while his brother Steve, the Treasurer, was alive.
When he came in he was a strange spectacle, I can tell you. His face had not been washed for many a day; his hair was all matted with dirt; all the clothes on him was a ragged shirt and a pair of old trousers, all patched and torn, while on his feet were two old boots, both belonging to the same foot.
As he got inside, he slunk down on a back seat close by the door with his dear little daughter, her face radiant with smiles, sitting by his side. I cannot describe that meeting. I believe every Soldier, and everybody else in the place that knew Charley was there, prayed for him that night. The converted old topers testified furiously. Everybody sang over and over again: “Oh, you must be a lover of the Lord”; and when the After-Meeting had got well on, the prettiest sight my eyes ever beheld in Darkington was to see little Sally lead her ragged, miserable, drunken father to the mercy-seat, and kneel by him, and pray that God would have mercy on his soul.
He was not there long before the Treasurer was kneeling on the other side. Hold-it-tight may have done some crying before that night, but I had never seen him shed a tear. But his poor drunken brother, Charley, smashed up and groaning for mercy at the Savior’s feet, broke the Treasurer’s heart, and he sobbed till you could hear him right over on the other side of the Hall.
Charley got properly saved; and when he and the Treasurer stood hand in hand, singing “Praise God, I’m saved!” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place.
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The fastest friend of the Juniors possess in Darkington to-day, the one who gives his money most freely, and works hardest and longest and most successfully for them, is Treasurer Hold-it-tight.
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