Him for His special kindness
when He gives it."

There is, I think, no doubt that God did give to young William Booth
such a call, although he never spoke of it, perhaps lest he might
discourage any who, without enjoying any such manifestation, acted upon
the principles just referred to. At any rate, he battled through any
season of doubt he had with regard to it, and came out into a certainty
that left him no room for question or fear.

Chapter IV

Early Ministry

We cannot wonder that God Himself rarely seems to find it wise, even if
it be possible, to fit men for His most important enterprises in a few
years, or by means of one simple process of instruction. Consider the
diversity of men's minds and lives, and the varying currents of thought
and opinion which are found in the various parts of the world at
different periods of even one century, and it will at once be seen how
impossible we should all immediately pronounce it to fit one man by
means of one pathway of service to be the minister and leader of the
followers of Christ in every part of the world.

Christ Himself was kept in an obscurity we cannot penetrate for thirty
years before He was made known to the comparatively small people amongst
whom all His time on earth was to be spent. Moses was not called till he
was eighty years old, having spent forty years amidst the splendours of
one of the grandest courts of the ancient world, and forty more amidst
the sheep on a desert border!

How was the ardent English lad who came to serve in a London shop during
the week, and to do the work of a lay preacher on Sundays, to be fitted
to form and lead a great Christian Order of devotees out of every
nation, and to instruct and direct them in helping their fellow-men of
every race in every necessity that could arise? To prepare a man merely
to preach the Gospel a few years of service in that work might suffice;
but then we should probably have seen a man merely interested in the
numbers of his own audiences and the effect produced upon them by his
own preaching.

For William Booth a much more tedious and roundabout journey was needed.
He must first of all preach his way up from the counter to the pulpit,
and he must then have twenty years of varied experiences in ministerial
service amongst widely differing Churches, before he could be fit to
take up his appointed place, outside all the Churches, to raise from
amongst every class a new force for