Having known both of them intimately during the years in which The Salvation Army was being formed, I can positively contradict the absurdly exaggerated statement that The General would have had little or no success in life but for the talents and attractive ministry of Mrs.Booth.She was a helpmeet in the most perfect sense, never, even when herself reduced to illness and helplessness, desiring to absorb either time or attention that he could give to the great War in which she always encouraged him as no other ever could.

Remaining to her latest hour a woman of the tenderest and most modest character, she shrank from public duty, and merely submitted so far as she felt "constrained," for Christ's sake, to association with anything that she was convinced ought to be done to gain the ears of men for the Gospel, however contrary it might be to her own tastes and wishes.

Perhaps her most valuable contribution to the construction of The General's life was her ability to explain to him opinions and tastes differing widely from his own, and to sustain and defend his general defiance of the usual traditions and customs of "society." His own feelings about it all he has described in these words:-- "The sensations of a new-comer to London from the country, are always somewhat disagreeable, if he comes to work.

The immensity of the city must especially strike him as he crosses it for the first time and passes through its different areas.

The general turn-out into a few great thoroughfares, on Saturday nights especially, gives a sensation of enormous bulk.