Childhood and Poverty



William Booth was born in Nottingham, England, on April 10, 1829, and
was left, at thirteen, the only son of a widowed and impoverished
mother. His father had been one of those builders of houses who so
rapidly rose in those days to wealth, but who, largely employing
borrowed capital, often found themselves in any time of general scarcity
reduced to poverty.

I glory in the fact that The General's ancestry has never been traced,
so far as I know, beyond his grandfather. I will venture to say,
however, that his forefathers fought with desperation against somebody
at least a thousand years ago. Fighting is an inveterate habit of ours
in England, and another renowned general has just been recommending all
young men to learn to shoot. The constant joy and pride with which our
General always spoke of his mother is a tribute to her excellence, as
well as the best possible record of his own earliest days. Of her he
wrote, in 1893:--

"I had a good mother. So good she has ever appeared to me that I
have often said that all I knew of her life seemed a striking
contradiction of the doctrine of human depravity. In my youth I
fully accepted that doctrine, and I do not deny it now; but my
patient, self-sacrificing mother always appeared to be an exception
to the rule.

"I loved my mother. From infancy to manhood I lived in her. Home
was not home to me without her. I do not remember any single act of