“From time immemorial it has been customary to class philanthropists amongst the extraordinaries, the marvellous people—­who do not pass muster in the common world—­exceptions.  Nobody thinks of measuring himself with them, for the battle of life belongs to the egotists—­each one of whom fights for himself.  He who fights for others is smilingly acknowledged by the well-disposed as a stranger in the world.  The ordinary man of the street pitilessly calls him a fool, and the mass considers him unworthy of a second thought.  He is there, and he is endured so long as he does not bother any one.

“There are three factors against which the old General has had to fight all his life long—­against well-meaning hesitation, against hard-hearted egoism, and against the idle indifference born of ignorance.  And these three streams that have flowed against him in every part of the world have not been able to hold him back.  To those who think he has only become an important man, and to those who measure a man’s worth by the outer honours he gains, he became a man of importance when London made him a citizen and Oxford an honorary Doctor.  And now men are better inclined to excuse in his case the curious title of General of a curious Army.

“I have often heard the grey-headed General in Public Meetings.  For the first time on Saturday evening I got near to him in a more private way.  And then it seemed to me like a picture, as when a grey warrior, a commander with snow-white beard and keen profile, stands upright by the mast of a ship and gazes straight before him towards a new country.

“And General Booth, despite his eighty-one years, is looking out towards new land.  He does not live on memories like the generality of old men.  He does not allow himself any favoured spot by the fireside.  Full of fight and always leading, General Booth stands at the centre of a gigantic apparatus.  And the old gentleman does not look like allowing men to take the control out of his hands.

“Everything about him displays energy and justifiable self-consciousness.  He energetically shook my hand.  With the ability of the man of the world he drew the conversation to that which was nearest to his heart.  And what his eyes can no longer exactly observe his ears doubly well hear.  He arrived on Friday evening from Denmark, holds three Meetings in Hamburg on Sunday, travels on to Potsdam on Monday, and occupies himself with thoughts of a journey of inspection in India.

“The comfortable arm-chair that was offered him he declined almost as if it were an insult.’  That is meant for an old man,’ he said; and really the remark was justified when one heard the plans of the grey General, for he has plans such as one of the youngest might have.  He appears to me like an able business man who constantly thinks how to expand his undertaking and to supply it with all the novelties that