LAST GRAND FIELD COUNCIL ADDRESS
BY BALLINGTON BOOTH
Just before the Grand Field Council adjourned the final session of the meeting in St. Paul, MN on May 19, 1937, the officers gathered and requested that General Booth deliver the following speech, his last known address before his death at age 81.
"I was wondering when I would be called upon to speak to you. I am very glad to look into the faces of my comrades once more, and as I look at first one and then another, I am reminded of the days and years that have passed, and it is a glorious thought to me that I am still with you and that you are still with me. I thank God that He has thought me worthy to continue among you during these years that have gathered, and I thank Him for the blessed time spent in your company at the front of The Volunteer warfare. I hope I shall be with you longer."
"My mind has gone back some distance to childhood days. It is a wonderful thing to have the memory of a child's happy play-years. I remember how in our nursery we set up a soap-box, which to a child-mind was filled with an imaginary audience, a congregation over which I had complete control. This audience was never satisfied unless we had what we have sung about this morning — people who had been brought to the penitent form."
Here the General requested his audience to sing two verses of the hymn "My Jesus, I Love Thee," and then he continued:
"I want to continue to meet the crowds. I want to be a soul-winner. I want the years left me to witness men and women at the spot I love to see them...the feet of Jesus Christ. My whole heart is brought close to you as I talk, think, and read about Him. I want you to understand more and more that the great purpose of The Volunteers of America, the great reason for membership in this Organization, is to bring men and women to Jesus Christ. That is what is needed pre-eminently in the world today. Take me where you will, you cannot take me anywhere that so stirs my heart as to the feet of this same Jesus of whom we have been singing today."
"Oh, my brothers and sisters, let it not slip from you. Stop at the right moment. Hold your hearts ready for the baptism of the Spirit of God, and while you can win souls there will always be a place for you in the world. Ah, be a soul-winner; that is what we want. My life is nearly past, but there is something left with me. There are these officers who face me; there are these dear men and women who have read their Bibles and lived its truths and made something of it in the presence of the multitudes. And they were not ignored — the multitudes heard them gladly. Ah, that is what we want — that is what we want!"
"Recently I have been reading in this same Bible some of the great difficulties God's servants were called to suffer. I have marked them and have followed them in my thought, and I have asked 'what fundamentals of success had they, that others have not?' What is the secret of true success when one steps on the platform before the crowd? Is it command? That is very good! Is it spectacular presentation? Provided the speaker is sincere and not striving for effect, that too is good! But I tell you again, all goes for naught unless we succeed in getting down low enough to weep tears at the feet of Jesus Christ. You know that is true; I know that is true!"
"We must continue to be soul-winners in the sense that we were in the days of our first burning enthusiasm. That is far above the wonder of the hills as you look upon them in beautiful nature. It is far above any language at your control, wherever you speak it. It is something that comes to the soul; it takes hold of the heart, it moves you! You need not speak, you can put your hand in your brother's and your sister's, in your son's and your daughter's, and you can say, 'This is the power you will recognize.'"
"That is what we need in The Volunteers of America, God's people. During the last few weeks I have been reading the Old Testament particularly, and as I have made notes to remind me of a verse or a passage from a Chapter or a truth, I have seen something greater than that which I sought at the moment. I have seen the underlying determination of these men of God to keep their faces turned irrevocably toward Him in spite of difficulties and hardships and often threatened with death. Think of Moses! He faced trials as hard or harder than any Apostle was called upon to face, situations as difficult as any in the history of man. The people he had led out of Egypt had only now to cross the Red Sea, but instead of trusting their leader who had brought them thus far they hesitated and they rebelled, and then said 'It had been better for us to have remained in the wilderness!'"
"Then the Great Prophet spoke! He was conscious of something new that was given to his heart as he led them on, and he thundered 'Be Silent! Wait! Trust in God who has brought you so far; trust Him to the end.' And they were silent."
So with us, my dear Comrades! We must trust Him and He will never fail us. I thank Him for your devotion to this Cause; I thank Him for your loyalty and fidelity; I thank Him that through the passing years your determination to carry His message to waiting eager hearts has not wavered. May it continue through many coming years until one by one we gather 'round His great white throne and hear His recompensing 'Well done!'"
"God bless and guide you all!"
....General Ballington Booth, Founder Volunteers of America