Little Eva

In London on Christmas morning, 1865, tall, hirsute William Booth came down to breakfast with a straw-lined basket in his hands. "Here," he said to his sons & daughters, "is God's Christmas gift."

God's gift to the Booths that Christmas was an auburn-haired girl who grew up to be a general--Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army. Now 82 and retired, General Booth has never written her memoirs, though she has often been urged to. Said she: "I have never written about myself. I won't write about myself, and that decides it." But she let somebody else do it: she handed her papers and correspondence over to British Journalist Philip Whitwell Wilson, with whom she had been in close touch for some 20 years. Published this week is Author Wilson's General Evangeline Booth (Scribner; $3.50)--a warm and folksy paean of praise for a remarkable woman.

"I Die a Ransom!" The Salvation Army (first called the Christian Mission) and Evangeline were both born in the same year. At 15 she was fitted out with a sergeant's uniform and sallied forth as a full-fledged soldier of Christ. The Salvationists of those days lived in a world of bitter war. Mission houses were "citadels" and "forts," converts were "prisoners of war" or "trophies." Posters proclaimed:

WAR! WAR IN WHITBY!

2,000 MEN AND WOMEN

Wanted at once to Join the Hallelujah

Army that is Making an Attack

on the Devil's Kingdom . . .

Little Eva,* as she was called, dressed herself in rags and masqueraded as a Piccadilly Circus flower girl, or sold matches, to learn the needs and ways of the poor she was dedicated to help. To campaign against liquor, she bought a guitar and charmed boozers out of pubs with her singing. She began to preach in the vivid, staccato style that later packed the biggest auditoriums:

"Judgment thunders: the wages of sin is death. Ye must die.

"But breaking through the ranks of heaven and hell there comes one with garments dyed crimson red.

"His brow drops blood, His side is torn, His hands have nail prints, His feet are bruised, His heart is bleeding, and He throws his emaciated body across the gaping chasm between justice and mercy, and cries:

" 'Stand back, ye lawful accusers, I die a ransom! . . .'

"Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world."

In 1895, when General William Booth was on a tour abroad, his eldest son, Chief of Staff Bramwell Booth, ordered a general shuffling of Commissioners. In what has been called a game of musical chairs, he recalled his younger brother, Commissioner Ballington Booth, from his post in the U.S. In protest Ballington and his wife resigned and began to set up a rival organization called Volunteers of America. Evangeline was rushed to New York to talk him out of it, but Ballington was adamant. When he called a meeting, of New York Army members to try to convert them to his Volunteers, sister Evangeline found the doors closed against her. She dashed around to the rear of the building, climbed the fire escape and appeared dramatically on the platform. She spoke, writes Author Wilson, "as seldom she has spoken before or since." The Salvationists (but not brother Ballington) were won over.

Overhead, Ruth Nichols. Sadder and bitterer for Evangeline was her rift with Bramwell Booth, who succeeded his father as General of the Army. When in 1922 it was announced in the press that he had ordered Evangeline to leave her phenomenally successful post as Commander in the U.S., a group of potent U.S. supporters of the Army sent a turkey-talking cable to the international headquarters in England. Bramwell was forced to retreat, and Evangeline stayed in the U.S. But General Bramwell was still a problem.

He was, in Evangeline's words, "encouraged ... to look upon the Army as a dynasty which was to descend to his children; and more and more the Army all around the world sensed this, with all its tragic dangers." In 1927 she handed Bramwell a confidential memo urging that the Army's constitution be changed to allow the election of generals, instead of having them appointed by their predecessors. When Bramwell rejected this suggestion, she circulated the documents among the Army's Commissioners and Territorial Commanders. By 1928, 72-year-old General Bramwell Booth was so broken in health that the Army became a regency administered by Chief of Staff Edward J. Higgins. At a tense meeting of the High Council of Army leaders from all over the world, Bramwell was ousted as unfit to hold office. Higgins was elected general--by 44 votes to 17 for Evangeline.

When Higgins retired in 1934, Evangeline was elected almost unanimously. Her triumphant return to New York rated one of the city's big hellos. Reports Wilson:

"For a start Mayor La Guardia gathered together 250 leading citizens as a reception committee. Down the harbor boats were beflagged and the sirens made their music. Overhead Ruth Nichols . . . roared in her plane scattering roses . . . Along Lower Broadway . . . [the street] was snowbound with ticker tape ... At the City Hall the proceedings were broadcast, and the vibrant voice of the new General, pleading and purposeful, claimed:

"The world for Christ and Christ for the world."

* Named by her mother, who had been reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. In the U.S. later, W.C.T.U. President Frances Elizabeth Willard persuaded Eva Booth to assume the fuller, more formal name Evangeline.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.