LOYAL TO THEIR ADOPTED LAND, THE BOOTHS CREATED A CHARITY
[Above: Maud Ballington Booth, by Gertrude Käsebier 1902, public domain, WIkimedia]
MAUD ELIZABETH CHARLESWORTH became interested in social work as a young girl. Her pastor father and her mother were active in helping the poor in a London slum. When Maud grew older she joined the Salvation Army. In 1882 she helped Catherine Booth, daughter of "General" William Booth, and two other “Salvation lassies” to organize a branch of the Salvation Army in Paris. In 1883 the team attempted to do the same in Geneva but were arrested and expelled.
Against the objections of her father, Maud married General Booth’s second son, Ballington, taking both his first and last name. General William Booth sent the pair to America in 1888 to reorganize the New York work which was in financial difficulty. Although they sailed across the Atlantic as second-class passengers, Maud and Ballington became acquainted with a number of wealthy Americans in first class. These contacts would prove advantageous in their future fund-raising efforts. In response to their efforts, the New York branch soon was out of debt.
In 1895 Maud and Ballington became United States citizens. The following year, the pair resigned from the Salvation Army and co-founded the Volunteers of America. On a visit to America in 1894, General William Booth had been impressed by the quality of work the pair did. However, he was unhappy that they displayed American flags and eagles at their meetings, and he insisted that they share money raised in America with the worldwide Salvation Army. Ballington Booth refused, saying to do so would violate agreements with donors. Booth ordered his son and Maud back to England but rather than leave their adopted country, they left the Salvation Army.
On 8 March 1896, they drew up a constitution for the Volunteers of America. Their goal was to “uplift all people and bring them to the immediate knowledge and active service of God.” The new organization gave equality to men and women. For months, Maud and Ballington traveled in separate directions to raise support and develop the work of the Volunteers. Within six months they had established one hundred and forty posts in Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Wherever they saw a need, they tried to help. Consequently Maud found herself creating the Parent-Teacher Association and also deeply engaged in prison work. She wrote letters, books, and pamphlets. These always pointed to Christ as the answer to personal and societal problems. In her pamphlet Look Up, she wrote,
The Christ of Easter was also the Christ of Calvary. Think of the dark side of the picture: the night of agony in Gethsemane, alone, suffering, forsaken, and betrayed; the trial in which the divine defendant stood arraigned before unjust judge and bitter enemies; sworn against falsely, insulted, condemned amid the acclamations of an incensed mob. Christ the convict bears his cross up Calvary, bowed with a grief no one can estimate. Christ the savior dies in agony, and darkness reigns upon the scene!
The greatest darkness often comes before the dawn, and so the dawn of the first Easter, after the awful scene of Calvary brought to the world the brightest day-dawn of hope that ever could have come to man.
Maud often spoke to groups of prisoners, offering them new life and hope, and she lectured around America, successfully calling for prison reforms, including the establishment of a parole system. (One of her books was After Prison, What?) Following the death of her husband in 1940, she was elected general of the Volunteers of America, a post she held for the remainder of her life. On this day 26 August 1948, Maud Ballington Booth died in Great Neck, New York.
—Dan Graves
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Maud and Ballington Booth got the inspiration for their ministry from the Salvation Army, founded by Maud's father-in-law. That work is described in Boundless Salvation: William Booth and the Salvation Army. Watch it and Our People: The Story Of William and Catherine Booth at RedeemTV.
(Boundless Salvation and Our People can be purchased at Vision Video.)
The William and Catherine Booth story is also told in Christian History #26
