
Booths Writing Boldly: Memorable Quotes from the Booth Family
by Colonel Richard Munn
Vachal Lindsay penned the memorably alliterative opening line in his poetic depiction of General William Booth entering heaven: “Booth led boldly with his big bass drum.”
We can almost hear it, boom, boom, boom!
It is certain that Booth was bold. Indeed, it seems as if the entire extended family was such. General John Larsson titled his 2015 book on the clan simply, Those Incredible Booths.
This 10-part series will look at bold written exhortations from William, Catherine, Bramwell, Herbert, and Evangeline. The force of their collective convictions still lands. Often quoted, they have the capacity to pierce straight into the heart of the matter, impatiently swatting aside distractions and equivocations.
Let’s start at the very beginning, with a young, bold Booth.
Boom!
Booths Writing Boldly: Part 1
“God shall have all there is of William Booth.”
—William Booth
Writing in his diary following his conversion, 15-year-old William Booth immediately demonstrates his characteristic force and conviction. Here in the private record of an impressionable teenager is the stuff of leadership — wholeheartedness, passion, and focus.
“God shall have all there is of William Booth.”
Oft repeated in the innumerable current publications on leadership is the need for the leader to embody conviction. If the leader is not sold on the enterprise, it is unlikely others will follow. We can sense it.
Of far deeper consequence, however, William is forthrightly asserting a faith issue. Founding an international movement was most certainly not on his mind. Whether by precocious intuition, or the sovereign move of God upon the young life of a chosen apostle, he wrestles with heart of the gospel and emerges a world-changer.
Jesus said so himself — “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33) and equally memorably, quoting the Shema (the Jewish prayer), “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
“God shall have all there is of William Booth.”
Here we catch a beautiful glimpse into the heart of William Booth. Two decades later, often standing alone on Whitechapel Road amid quite wretched poverty in the East End of London, disbursing gospel tracts and testifying to the whosoever, it was likely this inner core conviction that kept William going. And others followed.
Of this, quite probably, you and I can be thankful — as penned in song lyrics imaginatively speaking directly to Booth: “When you found your destiny, you found mine.”
Even now, can you and I write it?
“God shall have all there is of … ?”