The Authoritative Life of General William Booth Part 50

Footnotes

A. The general tendency towards indifference quite as much as the better impulses of our age have produced such a toning down of the teachings of Calvin, both in and out of Switzerland, that it may be startling to some to be reminded that, except the Lutheran and Methodist, every Church still has in its list of Doctrines those of Election and Predestination.

If it were true that every human being was predestined, before birth, either to a good or a bad life, there would, of course, be no meaning in a Saviour or a Gospel; and we can understand the indignation of this honest lad, when he was asked to undertake to teach such things. He never learned how to reconcile the profession of a set of doctrines one does not believe with any religion. The recollection of this incident helped him in limiting to the utmost possible extent, the Doctrinal Declarations of The Army. But whatever he asked any one to subscribe to he expected them truly to believe and earnestly to teach.

1. Transcriber's note: In the original, the words "in the United States and Denmark, yet it will only make" were repeated. The entire paragraph, with original linebreaks preserved, read:

This may possibly seem specially and curiously unfair in the United States and Denmark, yet it will only make in the United States and Denmark, yet it will only make the principle of this omission from The General's own records and ours the more clear.

The repeated line has been removed since this is clearly a printer's error.