Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/165

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148
BOOTH.

but at the age of thirty he resolved to devote his life to the cause of religion. Accordingly, after going through a course of ecclesiastical studies, he was ordained priest at Strasburg in 1834. In 1847 he was consecrated Bishop of Carcasonne, and in 1854 translated to the see of Evreux, and in 1858 made Archbishop of Rouen. He was created and proclaimed a Cardinal in 1863. His Eminence, who sat in the Senate by virtue of his title of Cardinal, has always been an ardent supporter of the Pope's temporal power, and of the independence of the Church. He is renowned for his eloquence in the pulpit. He edited the religious correspondence of the Abbé Bautain, under the title of "Philosophie du Christianisme," 2 vols. 1835.


BOOTH. (See Sclater-Booth.)


BOOTH, Edwin, born near Baltimore, Maryland, November 15, 1833. He is a son of the actor Junius Brutus Booth, and was trained for the dramatic profession. Having filled many minor parts, he made his first regular appearance on the stage as Tressel, in "Richard III.," in 1849, and in 1851 performed the character of Richard III., in place of his father, who had been suddenly taken ill. After a tour through California, Australia, many of the Pacific Islands, and the Sandwich Islands, he re-appeared at New York in 1857, visited England and the Continent in 1861, and returning to New York commenced a series of Shaksperean revivals at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1863. After a series of successful engagements in Boston, Philadelphia, and other large cities, he commenced, in 1868, the erection of a new theatre in New York, which was opened Feb. 3, 1869; but the cost of the building, in which Mr. Booth had invested all his means, prevented ultimate pecuniary success, and the theatre, although it still bears his name, passed from his hands. For several years he virtually retired from the stage, but near the close of 1877 he began in New York a series of brilliant performances. He rarely undertakes any except the leading characters of Shakspere: Hamlet, Othello, Iago, Shylock, and Richard III., Hamlet being his most admired personation. The last two years he has chiefly spent in England, where he has met with marked success. In the early part of 1883 he played Shaksperean parts at Berlin and Hamburg with great applause.


BOOTH, The Rev. William, General of the Salvation Army, was born at Nottingham, April 10, 1829, and educated at a private school in that town. He studied theology with the Rev. Wm. Cooke, D.D., became a minister of the Methodist New Connexion in 1850, and was appointed mostly to hold special evangelistic services, to which he felt so strongly drawn that when the Conference of 1861 required him to settle in the ordinary circuit work, he resigned and began his labours as an evangelist amongst the churches wherever he had an opportunity. Coming in this capacity to the East End of London he observed that the vast majority of the people attended no place of worship, and he commenced "The Christian Mission" in July, 1865. To this mission, when it had become a large organisation, formed upon military lines, he gave in 1878 the name of "The Salvation Army," under which it soon became widely known and grew rapidly until it has now (Dec. 1882) 450 corps at stations established in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Australia, India, the Cape of Good Hope, Canada, and Sweden. 1,019 officers or evangelists are entirely employed in and supported by this Army under the General's absolute direction, and they hold upwards of 7,500 services in the open air and in theatres, music halls, and other buildings every week. The General has published several hymn and music books, a volume entitled