"But I heard of a Rev. Richard Poole who was moving about the country, and the stories told me of the results attending his services had aroused in me memories of the years gone by, when I thought little and cared less about the acceptability of my own performances, so long as I could drag the people from the jaws of Hell.
"I resolved to go and hear him. I found him at the house of a friend before the Meeting, comparatively quiet. How I watched him! But when I had heard him preach from the text, 'Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the salvation of God,' and had observed the blessed results, I went to my own chamber--I remember that it was over a baker's shop--and resolved that, regardless of man's opinions, and my own gain or position, I would ever seek the one thing.
"Whilst kneeling in that room, there came into my soul a fresh realisation of the greatness of the opportunity before me of leading men and women out of their miseries and their sin, and of my responsibility to go in for that with all my might. In obedience to the heavenly vision, I made a consecration of the present and future, of all I had, and hoped to have, to the fulfilment of this mission, and I believe God accepted the offering.
"I continued my public efforts in line with my new experience."
Happily and freely as William Booth had been allowed to lead his people, however, he and his intended wife both saw that there could be no permanent prospect of victory amongst these "Reformers." The very popularity of a preacher was sure to lead to contention about the sphere of his labours.
"The people," he writes, "with whom I had come into union were sorely unorganised, and I could not approve of the ultra-radicalism that prevailed. Consequently, I looked about for a Church nearer my notions of system and order, and in the one I chose, the Methodist New Connexion, I found a people who were, in those days, all I could desire, and who received me with as much heartiness as my Lincolnshire friends had done.
"Ignorance has different effects on different people. Some it puffs up with self-satisfaction. To others it is a source of mortifying regret. I belonged to the latter class. I was continually crying out, 'O God, how little I am, and how little I know! Give me a chance of acquiring information, and of learning how more successfully to conduct this all-important business of saving men to which Thou hast called me, and which lies so near my heart.'