Лучшие книги Уильяма Бута

A work years ahead of its time, looking at the social issues in Victorian England and presenting pioneering ways of solving them from a Christian perspective. Although this was written over a hundred years ago, the same core issues still lie at the heart of Western society, and thus this revolutionary book still has something to say to the Church, encouraging it to offer physical support along with its words.

William Booth (1829-1912) is the founder of the Salvation Army. He worked as a Methodist lay-preacher in the poverty strikken East End of Londen in the mid-1800's before he founded the Salvation Army in 1865.

In this book he explains his views on how a Christian should live and act. Booth believed that people should be helped and not judged. The Salvation Army is still very active in the distribution of humanitarian aid in many countries of the world. In this memoir-like book Booth also writes a lot about the poverty and destitution he saw in the slums of London. He includes some of the stories of people he met to help him explain his points of view on poverty and humanitarian help. He is not only touched by the difficulties of the poor, he also believes that to save the soul of a man you need to seek the salvation of the body ("...I must assert in the most unqualified way that it is primarily and mainly for
the sake of saving the soul that I seek the salvation of the body." [Copied from Chapter 5]).

The first edition of this book was printed in 1890.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in William Booth and the Salvation Army, or in social history of the UK in the 19th century.