o back to the old forms the moment his
Campaign ended!

What is not at all strange is that there should have grown up within the
Church a strong opposition to him, so that, at the end of two and a half
years, a majority of the Conference voted against his continuing these
Campaigns, and required him to resume the ordinary routine of the
ministry. Surely, any one might have foreseen that unless the old forms
could be altered in favour of the new regime, the leader of this warfare
must submit to the old routine. True, he might try to carry out in his
Circuit, to the utmost of his power, his ideas of free and daily
warfare; but, unless all who were under him in the various places which
constituted a Methodist Circuit would constantly agree and co-operate,
no one man could prevent the old forms from prevailing.

But William Booth was no revolutionist, and his willingness and
submission to carry on the old routine, with little alteration, for four
successive years surely proved that no desire for personal exaltation or
mastery, but only the conquest of souls, was his guiding influence.

In those four years, spent in Brighouse and Gateshead, he tried to
introduce into the churches as much as he could of the life of warfare
which he considered necessary. In one year he so far won over the
officialdom of Brighouse that they desired his reappointment; whilst in
Gateshead he so transformed the Circuit that before many weeks had
passed the Central Chapel, which had hitherto borne the dignified but
cool-sounding name of "Bethesda," was dubbed by the mechanics, who
formed the bulk of the surrounding population, "The Converting Shop."

To those iron workers, accustomed daily to see masses of metal suddenly
changed, whilst in a red-hot state, into any desired form by the action
of powerful machinery, set up for the purpose, such a name was both
intelligible and expressive.

It, moreover, accorded with the new pastor's idea of the proper
utilisation of any building devoted to the worship of Jesus Christ.
There ought to be felt there, he thought, that marvellous heat of Divine
Love which was implied in Christ's engagement to "baptise" all His
followers "with fire," and the services should above all else, be such
as would ensure the immediate conversion to God of all who came under
their influence.

But in Gateshead The General was to discover the most potent force that
could be brought to bear upon all these questions, in the libe