New York's Inferno Explored: Scenes Full of Pathos Powerfully Portrayed-Siberian Desolation Caused by Vice and Drink-Tenements Packed with Misery and Crime (Cooking in America)
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This 1891 temperance work, published by The Salvation A...)
This 1891 temperance work, published by The Salvation Army, explores the social conditions of late nineteeth-century New York City.
(The Soldier's Manual is an unchanged, high-quality reprin...)
The Soldier's Manual is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1889. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.
Ballington Booth was a British-born American social activist. He founded Volunteers of America, a Christian charitable organization, and became its first General from 1896 to 1940.
Background
Ballington Booth was born on July 28, 1857, in Brighouse, Yorkshire, England, the second of eight children of William and Catherine (Mumford) Booth. When he was eight his father left the Methodist ministry to found the Salvation Army, and thenceforth the life of the family was centered in that organization. It was a remarkable family. Of the eight children all but one became outstanding evangelical preachers and religious leaders. Ballington's older brother, William Bramwell Booth, became the Salvation Army's second general, and a younger sister, Evangeline Cory Booth, was chosen as its fourth general after commanding its forces in the United States for thirty years. Another sister, Emma Moss Booth-Tucker, served as co-commander of the Salvation Army in the United States with her husband, Frederick Tucker.
Education
The Booth children grew up in a home where religion was the dominating interest, and Ballington's education - both practical and formal - was aimed at preparing him for a career as an evangelist. Mrs. Booth directed the early education of her children at home with the aid of governesses and tutors. Ballington later attended boarding school in Bristol, went to preparatory school in Taunton, and completed his formal education at the Institute for Theological and Missionary Training (now Paton Congregational College) in Nottingham.
Career
Ballington Booth began his evangelical work in the Salvation Army when he was seventeen, and by the time he was twenty-three he had the rank of colonel and was in charge of the first Salvation Army training home for men officers. In 1883 he was sent to Australia as co-commander of the Salvation Army forces there with the rank of marshal, and after two successful years he returned to England by way of Canada and the United States. In 1886, he married Maud Elizabeth Charlesworth, and in April of the following year they sailed to the United States to assume command of the Salvation Army work there. He and his wife declared their intention of becoming American citizens and received their final papers on May 23, 1895. After a successful nine-year command, Ballington and Maud Booth resigned from the Salvation Army in the midst of a dispute that involved differences of opinion about the policy of the organization and personality conflicts within the Booth family.
In March 1896 they founded the Volunteers of America, a religious and social-welfare association, organized (like the Salvation Army) along military lines, but with a constitution providing for the determination of policies through a democratic process and for the election of the commander-in-chief. Included among its social services were rehabilitation centers for destitute men, maternity homes and hospitals for unwed mothers, day nurseries, summer camps, homes for the aged, and a program of prison and parole work.
Recognized as one of the outstanding public speakers of his generation, Booth traveled all over the United States, speaking and preaching. His lifelong concern about the nation's social problems and the need for personal spiritual regeneration were the central themes of his lectures and sermons. On September 14, 1896, he was ordained as a "presbyter in the Church of God in General" by Bishop Samuel Fallows of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the presence of ministers of the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational denominations, an ordination that emphasized his position as a non-denominational evangelist. He spoke always without notes, and his intensely dramatic delivery, used with a combination of humor and pathos, made him a master of rhetorical oratory. "He could play with an audience as a Paderewski can with his instrument, " commented one observer.
Booth was the author of The Salvation War, Or How We Marched in 1884 through Australasia (1885), From Ocean to Ocean (1891), and The Prayer That Prevails (1920).
Although General Ballington Booth directed the evangelical and social service work of the Volunteers of America, the important prison work of that organization was under the supervision of his wife, Maud Ballington Booth. Known as "The Little Mother of the Prisons, " she was a familiar sight to prisoners in penal institutions all over the country. Both the General and Mrs. Booth had active careers that involved much travel, but they and their two children were an unusually close and devoted family. In later years ill health forced Booth to play a less active role. He died a few months after his eighty-third birthday at his family home in Blue Point, Long Island, New York, and was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York.
(The Soldier's Manual is an unchanged, high-quality reprin...)
Personality
Booth's speaking manner was enhanced by his personal appearance. He was a handsome man with flashing dark eyes, black hair and mustache, who stood six feet three and a half inches tall. Of slender build, he always appeared in public dressed in a military type of uniform. Even in later years, clean-shaven and with white hair, his distinguished appearance made him stand out in any group. A slight English accent was noticeable when he spoke, although he frequently emphasized in his lectures that he was "an Englishman by birth, but an American by principle, affection and adoption. "
Quotes from others about the person
"When Ballington Booth devoted his life to religion the stage lost a good actor, the forum an orator. " - the Pittsburgh Post
Interests
Music played an important part in General Booth's ministry. It was said that he could play as many as fifteen musical instruments. He composed several hymns, among the best known of which are "The Cross is Not Greater than His Grace, " "You've Carried Your Burden, " and "Over and Over Like a Mighty Sea. "
Connections
On September 16, 1886, Ballington Booth married Maud Elizabeth Charlesworth, daughter of an Anglican clergyman. They had two children: Charles Brandon and Theodora.