ht to do
something for God with those eyes! Good-night!"
"I had never had such a shock," says the Commissioner, as he now is. "If
that's being accepted for the Work, I said to myself--what next, I
wonder."
But, sure enough, in another three weeks' time he was called out from
his place of employment by a Staff Officer, who asked him, "Can you be
ready to go to M---- next Monday?" And he went.
This young man had been a devotee of billiards; but had become
interested in The Army by seeing two of our "Special" speakers--one a
very short Officer, the other a giant doctor from Whitechapel, who
weighed some 334 lbs., wheeled up a steep hill in a pig cart, to a great
Open-Air Meeting. After listening many times without yielding, he was
startled out of his coolness by a large Hall in which he attended a
Night of Prayer being burned to the ground the next day. The next
evening, with one of his companions, he went to the Penitent-Form and
found the mercy of God.
When The General was at all in doubt about a Candidate for Officership,
he would often draw such a one out by means of the most discouraging
remarks. To one who had gone expecting a hearty welcome, he said, "Well,
what good do you think you'll be?" The General's eldest son being
present, desiring to help her, remarked upon the high commendation her
Officers gave her. He wished to send her off directly to a Corps; but
The General, still uncertain, said, "No, send her to Emma," which opened
the way for her immediately to leave her business and go to the
newly-opened Training Home for women under his daughter's direction.
A similar Home for young men, under the present Chief of the Staff,
Commissioner Howard, provided means to take those about whose fitness
for the Work there was any doubt, and give them a training prior to
sending them on to the Field.
In 1880, The General addressed the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of the
United Kingdom. That Conference is one of the most powerful Church
assemblies in the world, directing as it does the entire forces of its
Church within the British Empire, and consequently influencing very
largely all Methodists in the world. It was a remarkable testimony to
The General's work that, so early as 1880, its most influential leaders
should have been able to arrange, despite considerable opposition, for
him to address the Conference which that year sat in London. The
President, in welcoming him, warned him that they could only give
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