Catherine Booth on the Need for Evangelism

Catherine Booth passionately shares from her heart on the desperate need for evangelism:
 

The Lord have mercy on us! Is there not work enough to do? It makes my ears tingle and burn with shame when I hear people saying, `You must not send agencies here and there, and we can't have our organization interfered with.' I say, `Are all the sinners converted in your neighbourhood?' Nay; has every poor, lost, wretched soul heard the name of Jesus, and the testimony of His Gospel? Are there not teeming thousands round about you who never heard His name, and who care nothing for Him, who live every day trampling His law under their feet? For Christ's sake, send somebody after them. If they will not have your doctors of divinity and your polished divines, get hold of fishermen and costermongers and send them! Let the people have a chance for their souls. Let them hear, for if they hear not, how shall they believe. Oh, they are dying for lack of knowledge--they are, friends; thousands, are dying for the lack of knowledge. It is quite a common thing for us to get people into our services who say, `I never knew there was anything so pretty as that in the Bible. I didn't know you were reading from the Bible. We never heard anything like that before.' Hundreds of men in this country were never in a place of worship, save to be christened or to be married, and a good many, sad to say, are living without being married. While we have been standing UPON OUR DIGNITY, WHOLE GENERATIONS HAVE GONE TO HELL!--if the Bible is true. How much longer shall we stand there? If Jesus had stood upon His dignity He would never have come to die between two thieves. The whole work of redemption is a work of humiliation, self-sacrifice, and suffering; and if we are not willing to follow Him in that, we may as well give up professing His name.

For more on her book Aggressive Christianity, see the Catherine Booth page.