The contrast between those days and ours can hardly be realised by any
of us now. We may put down almost in figures some of the differences
that steam and electricity have made, linking all mankind together more
closely than Nottingham was then connected with London. But what words
can convey any picture of the development of intelligence and sympathy
that makes an occurrence in a London back street interest the reading
inhabitants of Germany, America, and Australia as intense as those of
our own country?

What a consolation it would have been to the apprentice lad, could he
have known how all his daily drudgery was fitting him to understand, to
comfort, and to help the toiling masses of every race and clime?

In the wonderful providence of God all these changes have been allowed
to leave England in as dominating a position as she held when William
Booth was born, if not to enhance her greatness and power, far as some
may consider beyond what she deserved. And yet all the time, with or
without our choice, our own activities, and even our faults and
neglects, have been helping other peoples, some of them born on our
soil, to become our rivals in everything. Happily the multiplication of
plans of intercourse is now merging the whole human race so much into
one community that one may hope yet to see the dawn of that fraternity
of peoples which may end the present prospects of wars unparalleled in
the past. How very much William Booth has contributed to bring that
universal brotherhood about this book may suffice to hint.