of a strong horse moving finely and freely gave him waves of strength, inspired him with a feeling of force and power. He was very fond of riding and driving, but the mere sight of a good, well-fed, well-groomed, and well-handled horse gave him quite as much inspiration as either of these exercises.

In the matter of field games, he was without a single liking; indeed he was intolerably sceptical of their value. He had loved fishing as a youth, and as a young minister he had once tasted the pleasures of shooting; but so far as we are able to discover he never took part in a game of cricket, football, or tennis. Any game which absorbed grown men's attention to the exclusion of the great end of life incurred his condemnation. Games were only to be regarded as diversions. The danger of cricket and football lay in their tendency to deflect the mind of men from the serious purposes of life. But his contempt for the majority of such games was perhaps coloured, if not directly inspired, by a kind of inability to understand their attraction.

With his children, as we have seen, he played a very hearty game of "Fox and Geese," and Bramwell Booth informs us, with a smile that almost writes a chapter of his father's biography" He was always the Fox." Dominant and masterful everywhere, he was dominant and masterful even in the games of his children, throwing himself into all their pleasures with a quite boyish zest, and insisting that whatever they did should be done thoroughly. It is characteristic of him that he taught his boys to buy and sell postage-stamps to advantage, concerning himself in their collection, and encouraging them so to conduct this business that they might be independent of pocket-money. In the same manner, he did not merely cast a paternal eye upon the menagerie in the garden, but on occasion took an active part in "the rigging up of rabbit-hutches," in the serious side of the silkworm enterprise, and in the breeding and sale of guinea-pigs. Something of the naturalist showed itself in the interest he manifested from the very first in the children's collection of moths, and particularly in one of the boys' early enthusiasm for ants.

It may be imagined that with such a father the children

did not see anything odd or tyrannical in his religious habits. They worshipped him; and when he told them about the Bible they accepted every word he said without a moment's question. He encouraged them to discuss every subject under the sun, delighted indeed to set them arguing; but never was the fundamental question of the Bible's absolute authority even questioned. It was a household founded upon the Bible. The children might and did argue about the French Revolution, about socialism, about history, about characters in fiction; but the one unquestioned and unquestionable centre of their life was the unerring authority of the Bible as the Word of God.

One of the indoor games which he liked, and at this time played occasionally, was draughts, in which he seems to have been something of a master. But above everything else he liked to romp with his children, to surrender himself to their animal spirits, and to let them pull him about on the floor, to tumble over his prostrate body, and to drag him up by his hands to his feet.

He believed in discipline and punishment, and his children accepted this faith as part of their religion. He would be indulgent and kind; he interested himself heart and soul in their games; but let one of them break a rule, let them even say something foolish in discussion or arrive five minutes late for a meal, and they were at once made acquainted with his discipline. "I think, looking back," says one of the sons, "that he was over-stern on occasion; I am perfectly sure he flogged me several times without just cause; but I am equally certain that the spirit of discipline which ruled the household was salutary. None of us grew up slackers; none of us played with life. How many families go to pieces for want of discipline and punishment?"

That William Booth was in some respects a strict father may be judged from the following narrative. A slight discrepancy was discovered at the last moment in the accounts of the Christian Mission. Bramwell Booth, then a boy of thirteen, was set to help in discovering the mistake. For a stretch of seventy-two hours, without sleep, the boy toiled through all the jumble of figures, and at last found where the error lay. So delighted were the committee that

they subscribed and made him a present of £5. Of this £5 his father allowed him to keep ten shillings. "I want the balance," he said, “ for the rice pudding," referring to that rice pudding which always appeared on the dinner-table challenging any member of the family to go away hungry.

Another instance may be given. In the year 1872, William Booth entered upon a commercial speculation, dictated by sympathy with the sufferings of the poor. He set up six or seven shops, where soup was always to be furnished night and day, and where a dinner of three courses could be bought for sixpence. This venture of "Food for the Million "- the first, I believe, of its kind— was a very considerable success. Bramwell Booth, a lad of sixteen, was the manager of this difficult business. He bought the necessary provisions, he inspected the depots, he examined the accounts, he supervised in its details the work of the assistants. And for this labour, a labour which might have tried the powers of a practised business man, he was rewarded by his father, who feared the effect of money, with a wage which most boys would have regarded as pocket-money.

We must bear in mind, however, that William Booth was not snatching at the profits of this enterprise in the spirit of a money-grabber. He needed every penny he could get for the expenses of his household and for his innumerable charities. The domestic expenditure was a serious charge upon his precarious income. Bramwell Booth has a most distinct memory of his father's financial worries. "He had an anxious temperament," he tells me; "he was always expecting ruin." This business of "Food for the Million," even in its prosperity, did not allay his anxiety. His children were a growing expense; Mrs. Booth was continually falling ill; the future seemed never to promise a rest from his burdens. In 1878 trouble arose with the managers of his scattered shops, competition from men with large capital threatened them with ruin, and the worry of the thing interfered with his work at the Mission. In a moment of disappointment he abandoned the business altogether.

At this point we may refer with convenience to the finances of William Booth. He aimed from the very first