“...He was not in very good health in March, 1910; he had occasional giddy attacks and lapses of memory, and from April till June of the same year he had albuminuria, from which, however, he appeared entirely to recover.  The vision of his left eye became gradually worse, but I encouraged him to go on without operation as long as he could.  He did so until about the end of 1911, when his sight had become so bad that he could barely find his way about; indeed, he met with one or two minor accidents on account of not being able to see.  It then appeared to me he had much to gain and very little to lose by an operation, and further, he was in much better health than he had been for some time.  I pointed out to him that there was a risk and that if the operation failed he would be totally blind, but that there were very long odds in his favour, and that I was willing to take the risk if he was.  He asked one question:  ‘If you were in my place would you have it done?’ I said certainly I would.  That quite decided him and all that remained to be done was to fix a time.  General Booth at that date had some work which he wanted to finish, and eventually the date for operation was fixed for May 23rd.  On that day I operated.  I did a simple extraction under cocaine.

“Nothing could have been more satisfactory, as will be seen from the notes, and the bulletin sent to the papers was, ’The operation was entirely successful; the ultimate result depends on The General’s recuperative power.’  When I covered the eye and bandaged it I thought that success was certain, and was confirmed in that opinion on the following morning when I lifted up the dressing and found all was well, and that the patient, when he partly opened the eye, could see.  On the third day Dr. Milne, who was in attendance, at once saw that mischief had occurred, and the sequence of events I have narrated.  How the eye became infected I am unable to say.  I used every precaution; as I told the patient afterwards, the only omission I could think of was that I had not boiled or roasted myself....  I looked carefully for these before each operation.  I regret two things in the case:  (1) that the last operation was not done two or three months before when General Booth was in better health; (2) that it was not postponed for another month, in which case I should not have done it, for looking back on the whole history I feel certain that he was not in his best condition on May 23rd when the operation was performed.”

The General’s own response when he was gently informed that there was no hope of his seeing objects any more was:—­

     “Well, the Lord’s Will be done.  If it is to be so I have but to bow
     my head and accept it.”