A word from William

Buried forces

Continuing a monthly series of messages that William Booth sent to corps to be read in Sunday meetings

2 FEBRUARY 1908

HOW often we complain of the little progress salvation seems to make in the world. We see pleasure, wealth, trade and science growing and expanding at a rapid rate, while the Kingdom of our God makes such little headway. Is it any wonder? Just compare the vast energy, time, wealth and other forces that are expended upon earthly enterprises with the trifling powers that are called into play for the heavenly undertakings.

I wonder what the experience is in your corps. Are all the forces possessed by officers, local officers, soldiers, juniors and the people who come and go from your hall properly used on behalf of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the salvation of men and women? I have no doubt that you will sometimes say that if you only had more money or a different hall, or perhaps better soldiers or different officers, how much better you could do. But hold hard a moment and let me ask whether you are using the forces you have already.

To begin with, is the thinking force among you as much in active service as it might be? Is there not a certain amount of brain power lying unemployed? Might there not be some new plans for attracting the people to your building or getting at them in their own homes or in the streets and marketplace or in their pleasure haunts?

Might not something fresh be done to stir up your soldiers to greater activity, to draw the Holy Ghost down from Heaven and get your own hearts set on fire with divine love? Or might there not be greater contrivance for making your meetings more interesting and spiritual, so making them more effective?

Let me also ask, is there not a large amount of buried talent in your corps? Supposing there are only 20 or 30 of you, I have no doubt there are some slumbering gifts that have not yet been brought to the front. I have no doubt there is some soldier with a useful gift of song, who has never sung a solo in the hall or street. There is probably someone who can pray with unction and power, who has never poured forth his soul in a regular congregation. It is not unlikely that there is someone in your ranks who could testify or talk with power and influence, whose mouth has not been opened.

Find out these people with the buried gifts and let us have those gifts brought up to serve their God and save the people.

Is there not a large amount of buried affection among you? You all have hearts that can love. Stir them up to the exercise of this affection.

Perhaps there are graves among us, in which somebody’s first love has long been buried. Don’t you remember those days when some of you could hardly sleep at night or work by day for the burning love in your hearts for Jesus and your comrades and the dying men and women in your own neighbourhood? Oh, go in for a resurrection! Fetch out the precious affection from its hiding place. It is just the thing the corps requires.

Then, is there not a little money buried somewhere in your corps, which, if we could only dig it out and set it moving, would be very useful to Jesus in the dark places of the Earth or in your own neighbourhood or right in the corps itself?

I do not know where the burial place is or the amount that lies interred there. But whatever it be, if it belongs to God and ought to be used for his glory and the salvation of the world, fetch it out. I am afraid that a good many Salvationists go about whining and begging for money for the Army which they could readily produce themselves if they had a mind to do so! If this is the case with any soldier or friend of the corps, I hope they will bring out their hidden treasures and lay them at the Master’s feet.

Once more, let me ask whether there is not a large amount of energy buried in your corps. This is a valuable quality, of which I thank God The Salvation Army is not destitute, but she needs a great deal more. What is the experience of your corps in this respect? Are you all at work with all your might? Oh, what a contrast there is between the energy displayed by many Salvationists in the way they go about their own business and the way they go about the Lord’s. They slumber. They go to the meetings and sing and pray and testify, half asleep.

Is your corps like that? I hope not. But if so, it is high time to awake out of sleep.