| OCR Text |
Show ToAmencanPeople,Leader's Eightieth Birthday An niversary Celebrated New York, Apiil 12. A message from General William Booth, founder and commander of the Salvation Army, was read tonight by Miss Eva Booth, commander of the American Salvation Army, at a remarkable celebration in Carnegie Hall In honor of the general's eightieth birthday anniversary. It fol lows: "London, April 10, 1909. "To the American People: Oh, America, how vast is your opportunity for making a last mark for good on the entire human race. Endowed with measureless material resources, enjoying enjoy-ing the unbounded confidence of your own people, favored with the concentrated concen-trated light of earth and heaven, possessed pos-sessed of an Influence covering like a shadow, all the world beside; what a power you must be destined to become. be-come. "Wha will you do with this mighty, 'magic force? If you are permitted to realize jour ambition to lead tho world, whither will you lead It? To utter abandonment of faith In tho eternal and the neglect of every duty flowing out of it, to senseless worship of Mammon, to useless frivolities? No, 1 am sure you wont, and I blush at the very mention of such things aud denounce them with all my soul.' "Where flse can you lead tills por, blind, stumbling world of ours, but to the mighty, Just, holy God and obedience obe-dience to His commands; ' the practice prac-tice of righteousness, purity, kindness and simplicity, to self-sacrificing service ser-vice to mankind? "America, I invite yon to the actual icallzatlon of the Christian principles you profess and to practical imitation of Jesus Christ, whn came out of Ilia heaven to seek and to save. "Come along then, let us gird up cur loins and go out of our heaven and put our arms around perishing multitudes multi-tudes and bring them to Christ, purity, peace and paradise. "I invite you to make our common Christianity an ungainsayable reality and thus wipe out the reproach fast gathering over us that it- is nothing more than an exploded tradition, a fashionable association or a lifeless ceremony. Then, when the wondering world asks: 'In what country can I find the thing described by the letter let-ter of the Bible and set forth In the life of Jesus Christ?' tho answer shall be: 'America.' (Signed) "GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH." |
