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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Catherine Booth, by Colonel Mildred Duff
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+Title: Catherine Booth
+       A Sketch
+
+Author: Colonel Mildred Duff
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7125]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 12, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CATHERINE BOOTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+CATHERINE BOOTH
+A SKETCH
+
+_Reprinted from The Warriors' Library_
+
+BY
+COLONEL MILDRED DUFF
+
+WITH A PREFACE BY
+GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+Colonel Duff has, at my request, written the following very interesting
+and touching account of my dear Mother; and she has done so in the hope
+that those who read it will be helped to follow in the footsteps of that
+wonderful servant of God.
+
+But how can they do so? Was not Mrs. Booth, you ask, an exceptional
+woman? Had she not great gifts and very remarkable powers, and was she
+not trained in a very special way to do the work to which God called her?
+How, then, can ordinary people follow in her steps? Let me tell you.
+
+Mrs. Booth walked with God. When she was only a timid girl, helping her
+mother in the household, she continually sought after Him; and when, in
+later years, she became known by multitudes, and was written of in the
+newspapers, and greatly beloved by the good in many lands, there was no
+difference in her life in that matter. She was not content with being
+Mrs. General Booth of The Salvation Army, and with being looked upon as a
+great and good woman, giving her life to bless others. No!  she listened
+daily for God's voice in her own heart, sought after His will, and leaned
+continually for strength and grace upon her Saviour.  You can be like her
+in that.
+
+Mrs. Booth was a soul-winner. A little while before her spirit passed
+into the presence of God, and when she knew that death was quite near to
+her, she said: 'Tell the Soldiers that the great consolation for a
+Salvationist on his dying bed is to feel that he has been a soul-winner.'
+Wherever she went--in the houses of strangers as well as of friends, in
+the Meetings, great and small, when she was welcomed and when she was
+not, whether alone or with others--she laboured to lead souls to Christ.
+I have known her at one time spend as much trouble to win one as at
+another time to win fifty. You can follow her example in that.
+
+Mrs. Booth always declared herself and took sides with right.  Whatever
+was happening around her, people always knew which side she was on. She
+spoke out for the right, the good, and the true, even when doing so
+involved very disagreeable experiences and the bearing of much
+unkindness.  She hated the spirit which can look on at what is wicked and
+false or cruel, and say, 'Oh, that is not my affair!' You can follow her
+example in this also.
+
+Mrs. Booth laboured all her life to improve her gifts. She thought; she
+prayed; she worked; she read--above all, she read her Bible.  It was her
+companion as a child, as a young follower of Christ, and then as a Leader
+in The Army. Those miserable words which some of us hear so often about
+some bad or unfinished work--'Oh, that will do'--were seldom heard from
+her lips.  She was always striving, striving, striving to do better, and
+yet better, and again better still. All this also you can do.
+
+Mrs. Booth was full of sympathy. No one who was in need or in sorrow, or
+who was suffering, could meet her without finding out that,  she was in
+sympathy with them.  Her heart was tender with the love of Christ, and so
+she was deeply touched by the sin and sorrow around her just as He was.
+Even the miseries of the dumb animals moved her to efforts on their
+behalf. This sympathy made Mrs. Booth quick to see and appreciate the
+toil and self-denial of others, and ever grateful for any kindness shown
+to her or to The Army or to those in need of any kind. The very humblest
+and youngest of those who read this little book can be like her in all
+this.
+
+Mrs. Booth endured to the end. She never turned back. She was faithful.
+Her life and work would have been spoilt if she had given up the fight.
+She was often sorely tempted. She was slandered and misrepresented by
+enemies, betrayed by false friends, and often deeply wounded by those who
+professed to love her, though they deserted the Flag. But she held fast.
+You can be like her in that.  You may make many mistakes, suffer many
+defeats, but you can still keep going on, and it is to those who go on to
+the very end, whether in weakness or in strength, that Jesus will give
+the crown of life.
+
+Mrs. Booth trusted with all her heart in the love and sacrifice of her
+Saviour. These were her hope and her strength. When at the height of her
+influence and popularity she delighted in that wonderful song which we
+still so often sing:--
+
+  I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
+  And purchased my pardon when nailed to the tree;
+
+and when, amid much suffering, she lay dying, we often sang together
+with her:--
+
+  Victory for me!
+  Through the Blood of Christ my Saviour;
+  Victory for me!
+  Through the precious Blood.
+
+This was her victory. You can follow her in the faith that won it. Will
+you?
+
+BRAMWELL BOOTH.
+
+_International Headquarters._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+   I. CHILDHOOD
+  II. CONVERSION AND SOUL STRUGGLES
+ III. A THREE-YEARS ENGAGEMENT
+  IV. A LIFE OF SACRIFICE
+   V. THE SPEAKER
+  VI. THE MOTHER
+ VII. THE WORKER
+VIII. GOODNESS
+  IX. LOVE
+   X. THE WARRIOR
+  XI. LAST DAYS
+ XII. DATES IN MRS. BOOTH'S LIFE
+
+
+
+
+
+CATHERINE BOOTH:
+A SKETCH
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+CHILDHOOD
+
+
+'Parents who love God best will not allow their children to learn
+anything which could not be pressed into His service.'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+
+The Mother of The Salvation Army was born at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, on
+January 17, 1829, and God gave to her the very best gift He can give to
+any child--a good and holy mother.
+
+Katie Mumford, as she was then called, had no sister to play with, and of
+her four brothers only one lived to be a man. But her dear mother more
+than made up for every lack, and from her lips the little girl learned
+those blessed lessons which, in her turn, she has taught to us.
+
+One lesson which Mrs. Mumford early taught her daughter was that our
+bodies will not live for ever. She took Katie to see the body of her
+infant brother who had just died; and, though she was not more than two
+years old at the time, Katie never forgot that first lesson. Spiritual
+things were even then real to her, just because they were so real to her
+mother. Heaven was home to her, and Jesus her best Friend, ever near to
+help and guide her.
+
+Truthfulness was a second of those early lessons which remained with our
+Army Mother all her life. She was but four years old when Mrs. Mumford
+found her one evening sobbing bitterly in her little cot long after she
+should have been asleep. She had told a falsehood, and conscience would
+not let her rest. When she had sobbed out her confession, her mother
+talked and prayed with her, and at last left her, happy in the assurance
+that she was forgiven by her Heavenly Father.
+
+After this you will not be surprised to hear that another lesson early
+taught to Katie by her mother was to love her Bible. She could read
+nicely when she was but five years old, and she loved to stand by her
+mother's side, and read the Bible stories aloud, with just a little help
+over the very long words. And this love for God's Word grew deeper every
+year, so that by the time she was twelve years old she had read it
+through eight times. In later years people often wondered how it was that
+Mrs. Booth knew her Bible so well, and could so quickly answer their
+difficulties and objections in Bible words. Much of the secret lay in
+this early training, and in the hours she spent in Bible study later on,
+when she had reached the age of some of our younger Corps Cadets.
+
+I wish we could have seen her in those days. She had very dark hair,
+which curled naturally; black, flashing eyes, and such a warm heart, and
+strong, impetuous nature that she could do nothing by halves. Whatever it
+was, work or play, her whole soul had to be in it.
+
+Since she was not at all strong, and had few girl friends, Katie did not
+play rough or noisy games, but her love for her dolls made her quite a
+little mother to them. She treated them almost like real children, and
+would sew and toil, and never rest till she felt she had in every way
+done her duty to them. She loved animals, too, especially dogs and
+horses, and could not bear to see any one ill-treat them. Oh, how she
+suffered one day, watching some poor sheep driven down the road! She
+watched the man beat them--she could not stop him; and at last she tore
+home, and flung herself down almost choking and speechless with
+indignation and distress.
+
+Her mother did not check Katie for feeling so keenly. She encouraged her;
+for she knew that a hard, indifferent child, who can see suffering and
+not care or be distressed over it, would make a hard woman; and she
+wanted her Katie to be full of love and tenderness for all, and
+especially for those needing help.
+
+When Catherine was twelve years old she became very interested in the
+drink question. She wrote letters about it, and sent them to different
+newspapers, for there was no 'War Cry' nor 'Young Soldier' in those days;
+and she also became the secretary of what was then called a Juvenile
+Temperance Society, and did all she could to get boys and girls to
+promise never to touch the drink.
+
+Katie was also, like many of you, much interested in the heathen. She
+would go round to all her friends collecting money to pay for preachers
+to be sent to them; and in order to get more money she would deny herself
+sugar and other small luxuries. No one told Katie to do this; but you see
+our Army Mother herself taught us, by her example when only a child, to
+keep our great Self-Denial Week.
+
+Of course, most of Katie's time was taken up with her lessons, and, as
+she loved to learn and study, they were no hardship to her. For two years
+she went to a boarding-school, and here her companions soon found out how
+straight and truthful she was. 'You'll never get _her_ to tell a
+lie,' the girls said, 'nor even to exaggerate, so it's no use trying.'
+Every one knew also that Katie felt for the backward girls and those who
+were slow and dull. She wanted them to succeed, and would help them
+between school hours. That was her joy, you see--to help and care for
+others; whether at school or at home she was the same.
+
+But you must not think that Catherine was perfect. Oh, no, indeed!
+Sometimes her schoolmates would tease her because she was so quiet, and
+liked to read better than to play; and at such times, instead of being
+patient, she would flare up into a passion, and say harsh, angry words.
+When the storm was over she would be, however, Oh! so sorry, and would
+beg her schoolfellows to forgive her.
+
+When Katie had been at school two years, God sent her a very great trial.
+Instead of being able to go on learning and keeping up with the other
+girls, she had to return home, and for three long years to lie nearly all
+the time on her back, often suffering very much. She had a serious spinal
+complaint, and her friends sometimes doubted whether she would ever walk
+again.
+
+You wonder what she did in those three years? I will tell you. When the
+pain would permit it, she would knit and sew. She could not, of course,
+hold heavy needlework; but little things, like babies' socks and hoods,
+pin-cushions, and so forth, she would make most beautifully, and then
+they would be sold to help on the work of God.
+
+Besides her sewing, Katie read a great deal. First, as I have already
+told you, she read her Bible, and learnt to know God's thoughts about the
+world and sin, and His wishes for His people. For seven months at one
+time Catherine had to lie on her face on a special sort of couch made on
+purpose for her; but she invented a contrivance by which, even then, she
+could read her Bible, though still remaining in the position that the
+doctors wished. Then, too, she would read good books--explanations of the
+Bible, about Holiness, soul-saving, lives of those who have lived and
+worked for God, and so on. When she had read a chapter she would shut the
+book, and write down as much as she could remember of it. This helped her
+to think clearly and to remember what she read, and also to put her
+thoughts into words.
+
+But she never wasted her time reading stories and novels. Later on in her
+life she said she was so thankful for this, for she thought that novels
+and silly story books made people discontented with their own homes and
+duties, and put wrong, hurtful ideas into their minds. Let us recollect
+and follow our Army Mother's example here, and not waste time on stories
+which are not true.
+
+We, if we had known Katie Mumford in those three years of pain and
+weariness, should have pitied her very much. We might have been tempted
+to feel that God was hard in not letting her be strong like other girls;
+but we now see that all the time He was fitting her for the wonderful
+future before her; and when she became Mrs. Booth, the great preacher,
+she herself understood this.
+
+'Being so much alone in my youth,' she said, 'and so thrown on my own
+thoughts and on those expressed in books, has been very helpful to me.
+Had I been given to gossip, and had there been people for me to gossip
+with, I should certainly never have accomplished what I did.'
+
+So, you see, God was all the time giving her the very best training He
+could, and teaching her, as she lay there alone on her bed, what she
+never could have learned in the ordinary way. And He will train you, too,
+in the very best way for your future, if you will but determine to trust
+and serve Him as did Catherine Mumford.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+CONVERSION AND SOUL STRUGGLES
+
+
+
+'No soul was ever yet saved who was too idle to seek.'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+Perhaps you, the Corps Cadet, for whom I am especially writing this
+little book, have been tempted to break your vows by becoming engaged to
+some one who does not want to be an Officer. And you think, perhaps, that
+no one understands your feelings.
+
+You will be surprised, then, to know that our Army Mother had just such a
+battle to fight when she was a girl.
+
+She had a cousin, a little older than herself, who was tall and very
+clever. He came with his parents to stay in her home, and Katie had not
+seen him since they were young children. He quickly grew very fond of his
+cousin, and Catherine found how nice it was to have some one to give her
+presents and to love her as he did. At last he begged her to promise that
+by and by she would be engaged to him. Now Katie was very perplexed. On
+the one hand she loved her cousin, and did not want to grieve him, and
+yet in her heart she knew he was not truly given up to God, and would not
+help her in her soul.
+
+'Go to the Meeting with you, Katie?' he used to say. 'Of course, I'll go
+anywhere to please you.' But then, while she was trying to get a
+blessing, he would be scratching little pictures on the back of the seat
+to make her laugh. Perhaps you can guess the struggle it was for Katie to
+decide what her answer should be. 'If you will only say "yes," and be
+engaged to him, I am sure you will be able to help him, and very likely
+get him properly saved,' the Devil would whisper. 'Break it off now,
+Katie; do not go another step; you know God cannot smile on it.' That was
+how her conscience spoke.
+
+At last, one day as she was truly praying and seeking for light, she read
+the verse in 2 Corinthians vi. 14: 'Be ye not unequally yoked together
+with unbelievers.' It came to her as the voice of God.
+
+'I will do it, Lord,' she said, after a long struggle; and she sat down,
+and wrote her cousin a letter, telling him just why she could never be
+engaged to him, and breaking it all off for ever. Then she turned back to
+her home duties, and did not re-open the question.
+
+And did our Army Mother in after years regret that she had acted like
+this? No, indeed; she has told us that she saw plainly later on that, if
+just then she had chosen to follow her own feelings and wishes, instead
+of obeying God's command, all her life would have been altered, and she
+would never have done the glorious work He had planned for her. It was a
+hard battle at the time, and cost her many tears; but it was worth it,
+ten thousand times over, as we can all see to-day.
+
+Very soon after this victory Catherine became really converted.
+
+'What!' you say. 'Was she not converted before this?'
+
+No. All her life she had, like many children trained to-day in
+Salvationist homes, felt God's Holy Spirit striving with her. Sometimes,
+when quite a little girl, her mother would find her crying because she
+felt how she had sinned against God.
+
+But when she was about fifteen she longed to know that she was really
+saved.
+
+'Don't be silly,' said the Devil in her heart. 'You have been as good as
+saved all your life. You have always wanted to do right. How can you
+expect such a sudden change as if you were a great big drunkard? It's
+absurd.'
+
+'But my _heart_ is as bad as the heart of a big sinner,' cried poor
+Katie in an agony of fear. 'I have been as bad inside, if not in my
+outward actions and words.'
+
+And then she took hold of God in faith. 'Lord, I must be converted. I
+cannot rest till Thou hast changed my whole nature; do for me what Thou
+dost do, for the thieves and drunkards.'
+
+But for six weeks it seemed as if God did not hear her cry. She grew more
+and more unhappy. All her past sins rose before her: those bursts of
+temper when she was at school, those wrong thoughts and feelings. Yes,
+the Bible was true when it said: 'The heart is deceitful above all things
+and desperately wicked.'
+
+Katie argued, too, like this: 'I cannot recollect any time or place where
+I claimed Salvation and the forgiveness of my sins; if God _has_
+saved me, He would surely have made me certain of it. Anyway, I must and
+will know it. I must have the assurance that I am God's child.'
+
+Unable to rest, she would pace her room till two o'clock in the morning,
+and would lie down at last, with her Bible and hymn-book under her
+pillow, praying that God would Himself tell her that her sins were
+forgiven. At last, one morning, as she woke, she opened her hymn-book,
+and read these words:--
+
+              My God, I am Thine,
+              What a comfort divine,
+    What a blessing to know that my Jesus is mine.
+
+Now she had read and sung these lines scores of times before, but they
+came this morning with a new power to her soul.
+
+'I am Thine!' 'My Jesus is mine!' she exclaimed. 'Lord, it is true!--I do
+believe it! My sins are forgiven. I belong to Thee!' and her whole soul
+was filled with light and joy. She now possessed what she had been
+seeking all these weeks--the assurance of Salvation! And then what do you
+think she did? She threw on a wrapper, and, without waiting to dress,
+hurried across to her mother's room, and tapped at the door.
+
+'Come in,' said her mother's voice; and Katie, her face shining with joy,
+burst into the room. 'Mamma, mamma, I am a child of God! My sins are
+forgiven--Jesus is my Saviour!' she cried, flinging herself into her
+mother's arms. And this was the same Katie, who had been so shy and
+backward that she had never before dared to speak about her spiritual
+anxieties, even to her mother! Ah! what a change real conversion, or
+change of heart, had made.
+
+For the next six months Katie was so happy that she felt as if she were
+walking on air. 'I used to tremble,' she tells us, 'and even long to die,
+lest I should back-slide or lose the sense of God's favour.'
+
+But as time went on she learned, as we all have to do, to walk by faith,
+not by sight, and to serve and follow the Saviour whether she had happy
+feelings or not.
+
+But you must not suppose, because Katie had the assurance of Salvation,
+that therefore she had no more fighting. No--indeed, her fighting days
+had only just begun.
+
+One of her great difficulties, which many Corps Cadets will understand,
+was that she felt so nervous about doing anything in public. No one, of
+course, asked her to speak--such a thing was never dreamed of; but the
+lady who took the Bible Class which she attended regularly would now and
+then ask her to pray. 'Miss Mumford will pray,' the lady would say, when
+they were all kneeling together.
+
+But Katie was too shy to begin, and sometimes they would wait for several
+minutes before she had courage to say a few words. 'Don't ask me to pray
+again,' she said one day to her leader; 'the excitement and agitation
+make me quite ill.'
+
+'I can't help that,' was the very wise answer; 'you must break through
+your timidity; for otherwise you will be of no use to God.'
+
+And did Katie persevere? Yes, indeed, she did. Here is an entry made some
+time later in the diary that she kept, which shows you how very much her
+experience was like yours:--
+
+'I have not been blessed so much for weeks as I was to-night. I prayed
+aloud.  The cross was great, but so was the reward.
+
+My heart beat violently, but I felt some liberty.'
+
+Though Catherine's spine difficulty was better, she was still very
+delicate, and at the age of eighteen every one felt sure she was going
+into a decline. But, sick or well, her soul grew stronger, and her desire
+to please and serve God better increased every day.
+
+'I do love Thee,' she wrote in the same little diary, 'but I want to love
+Thee more.'
+
+It was not till many years later that Catherine received the blessing of
+a clean heart; but even now she had begun to desire and long for it. She
+also writes at this time: 'I see that this Full Salvation is very
+necessary if I am to glorify God below, and find my way to Heaven. I want
+a _clean_ heart. Lord, take me and seal me.'
+
+Some people, even after they are converted, are too proud to own
+themselves wrong, or to confess when they have sinned.  Catherine was not
+of that sort. In one of her letters to her mother she ends with these
+words:--
+
+'Pray for me, dear mother, and believe me, with all my faults and
+besetments, your loving child.'
+
+Her hunger after a holy life was real and practical. She knew she must
+learn to live by method--that is, doing right, whether she liked it or
+not--and not by feelings, if she was to be of use in the world.
+
+So at the end of the year she wrote some new resolutions; and as they may
+be of help to you, I will copy them for you just as she put them down:--
+
+'I have been writing a few daily rules for the coming year, which I hope
+will prove a blessing to me, by the grace of God. I have got a paper of
+printed rules also, which I intend to read once a week. May the Lord help
+me to keep to them! But, above all, I am determined to search the
+Scriptures more attentively, for in them I have eternal life. I have read
+my Bible through twice during the past sixteen months, but I must read it
+with more prayer for light and understanding. Oh, may it be my meat and
+drink! May I meditate on it day and night! And then I shall bring forth
+fruit in season; my leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever I do shall
+prosper.'
+
+She had also her own private ways of denying herself, not for the sake of
+earning money or praise by it, but simply because she felt it was right.
+One of these rules was to do without dinner, and butter at breakfast,
+once in the week, because she felt it helped her in her soul.
+
+I cannot end this chapter without telling you of the one great sorrow
+which darkened all her early years. Some of you, I know, will enter into
+her feelings so well.
+
+Her father, at one time saved and earnest about the souls of others, had
+grown cold and backslidden, and now never even went near a Meeting. You
+can fancy what agony this was to both Mrs. Mumford and her daughter. They
+prayed and wept in vain--he only seemed to get more indifferent.
+Catherine would sometimes write her feelings and her sorrow in her diary,
+and there we read:--
+
+'I sometimes get into an agony of feeling while praying for my dear
+father. Oh, my Lord, answer prayer, and bring him back to Thyself! Never
+let that tongue which once delighted in praising Thee, and in showing
+others Thy willingness to save, be engaged in uttering the lamentations
+of the lost! Oh, awful thought! Lord, have mercy! Save, Oh! save him in
+any way Thou seest best, though it be ever so painful. If by removing me
+Thou canst do this, cut short Thy work, and take me Home. Let me be bold
+to speak in Thy name. Oh, give me true courage and liberty, and when I
+write to him, bless what I say to the good of his soul!'
+
+For many years this prayer of Catherine's was not answered; but she held
+on, as you must do for those you love, in faith and prayer; and at last
+she had the unspeakable joy of seeing her dear father come back to God
+through one of her own Meetings which he had attended. His last years
+were full of peace, and were spent in serving God and rejoicing in His
+Salvation.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A THREE-YEARS ENGAGEMENT
+
+
+
+'What a need there is for effort and energy; or real religion and common
+sense!'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+One Sunday, when Catherine and her mother went to the Meeting as usual,
+they found a 'Special' there, taking the services. He was quite different
+from the other Specials, and Catherine could not help noticing him with
+extra interest. He spoke to the people's hearts, and was not so much
+occupied in preaching a good sermon as in getting some one converted. But
+he did preach a very good sermon for all that, and chose this verse as
+his text--'This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'
+
+A few days later Catherine and her mother were spending the evening with
+a friend, when the very same preacher came in, and was introduced to them
+as the Rev. William Booth.
+
+Catherine knew they had one subject in common--love for souls; but before
+the evening ended she discovered that the young minister was quite as
+earnest as she was herself in fighting the Drink curse and all that was
+connected with it.
+
+A few Sundays later Mr. Booth preached again in the same building, this
+time as the minister, or, as we should say, 'Officer in charge,' and no
+longer as a Special. And now you will guess that the two often met, and
+that, because they had so many interests in common, they soon learned to
+know each other well, till respect grew into friendship, and friendship
+into love.
+
+Catherine was at this time twenty-two years old, and Mr. Booth was three
+months younger; but, though you would have said they were old enough to
+know their own minds, they did nothing hastily, and would enter into no
+engagement till they were quite sure of God's Will in the matter.
+
+Had Catherine ever before thought of the day when she would get married?
+you, perhaps, ask. Oh, yes, indeed, and when but a girl of sixteen--
+directly, in fact, after she was saved--she settled in her own heart what
+sort of a man her future husband must be. First, she decided, he must be
+truly converted, and a total abstainer, not to please her, but from his
+own choice. Then he must be a man of sense, or she could never respect
+him; and, if they were to be happy, they must feel and think alike on all
+important matters.
+
+Ah, if our women-Soldiers and Cadets to-day would but follow our Army
+Mother's example, there would be fewer unhappy marriages and wrecked
+lives!
+
+But in her secret heart Catherine had also, girl-like, some ideas about
+the sort of man she would like to marry, if she might choose. He should
+be a minister--that was the nearest she could get to an Officer in those
+days; William was a name she particularly liked, and--if only he might be
+tall and dark! If you had been there when Katie Mumford first listened to
+his preaching you would have seen that he was 'tall and dark' indeed.
+
+But though William Booth loved Catherine with a deep and holy love, which
+increased each time they met, yet he was very poor, and he wondered if he
+ought, under the circumstances, to ask her to share his lot. He wrote a
+letter to her, telling her how perplexed and troubled he was, and her
+answer shows us that, right from the very earliest days, before they were
+even engaged, her one desire was that his soul should prosper.
+
+'My dear friend,' she begins ... 'The thought that I should cause you any
+suffering or increase your perplexity is almost unbearable. I am tempted
+to wish that we had never seen each other. Do try to forget me, as far as
+the remembrance would injure your usefulness or spoil your peace. If I
+have no alternative but to oppose the Will of God, or trample on the
+desolations of my own heart, _my choice is made_. "Thy will be done"
+is my constant cry. I care not for myself; but Oh, if I cause you to err,
+I shall never be happy again.'
+
+It was not the fear of poverty that frightened her, for a few days later
+she says:--
+
+'I fear you did not fully understand my difficulty. It was not
+circumstances. I thought I had assured you that a bright prospect would
+not allure me, nor a dark one affright me, if only we are _one in
+heart_.
+
+My only reason for wishing to defer the engagement was that _you_
+might feel satisfied in your mind that the step is right.... If you are
+convinced on this point, let circumstances go, and let us be one, come
+what may.'
+
+This is exactly what they did, and after meeting, and together
+consecrating their lives to God, they solemnly pledged themselves to each
+other.
+
+And now began a three-years' engagement, in which, though often for long
+months at a time they never met, they remained true to each other and to
+God, in thought and word and deed.
+
+Many of the beautiful letters that our Army Mother wrote to The General
+at this time, I am glad to tell you, have been kept, and we will look
+together at some of the ways in which she tried to help and cheer him.
+
+In the first letter after their engagement she ends with these words:--
+
+'The more you lead me up to Christ in all things, the more highly shall I
+esteem you; and if it be possible to love you more than I do now, the
+more shall I love you. You are always present in my thoughts.'
+
+Now you must not think that, even in these early days, our General had a
+very easy life. He was often much perplexed and troubled, longing above
+all to do God's Will for the Salvation of the people, and yet not quite
+sure what that Will was. At these times Catherine was of untold help to
+him.
+
+Once he was very unsettled--not certain whether he should remain away in
+the North of England, or accept a place in London, where the two could
+often meet. Most girls would have said, 'Oh, come, then we shall be near
+to each other'; but you will see that her advice to him is just as
+suitable for you when you are not certain of your duty--that she does not
+consider her own feelings at all.
+
+'I wish,' she writes, 'you prayed more and talked less about the matter.
+Try it, and be determined to get clear and settled views as to your
+course. Leave your heart before God, and get satisfied in His sight, and
+then do it, be it what it may. I cannot bear the idea of your being
+unhappy. Pray do in this as you feel in your soul it will be right. My
+conscience is no standard for yours.'
+
+Then she adds, lower down:--
+
+'Oh, if you come to London, let us be determined to reap a blessed
+harvest. Let our fellowship be sanctified to our souls' everlasting good.
+My mind is made up to do my part towards it. I hope to be firm as a rock
+on some points. The Lord help me. We must aim to improve each other's
+mind and character. Let us pray for grace to do it in the best way and to
+the fullest extent possible.'
+
+'Anyway,' she says, a day or two later--and ever remember her words when
+outside things try and distress you--'don't let the controversy hurt your
+soul. Live near to God by prayer.... You believe He answers prayer. Then
+take courage. Just fall down at His feet, and open your very soul before
+Him, and throw yourself right into His arms. Tell Him that if you are
+wrong you only wait to be set right, and, be the path rough or smooth,
+you will walk in it.
+
+'Oh, you must live close to God! If you are a greater distance from Him
+than you were, just stop the whirl of outward things, or rather leave it,
+and shut yourself up with Him till all is clear and bright upwards. Do,
+there's a dear. Oh, how much we lose by not coming to the point. Now, at
+once, realize your union with Christ, and trust Him to lead you through
+this perplexity. Bless you. Excuse this advice. I am anxious for your
+soul. Look up. If God hears my prayers, He must guide you--He will guide
+you.'
+
+In these early days our General was tempted, as some of us are tempted
+to-day, to feel nervous and shy when talking before large crowds, and
+where the people were better dressed and better off than usual. He wrote
+his feelings to Catherine, and she sends him back her wise advice and
+help. 'I am sorry for this,' she says, 'and am persuaded it is the fear
+of man which shackles you. Do not give place to this feeling. Remember
+you are _the_ Lord's servant, and if you are a faithful one it will
+be a small matter with you to be judged of man's judgment. Let nothing be
+wanting beforehand to make what you say helpful, but when you are before
+the people try to think only of your own responsibility to Him who hath
+sent you.'
+
+Again, later, she writes:--
+
+'Try and cast off the fear of man. Fix your eyes simply on the glory of
+God, and care not for frown or praise of man. Rest not till your soul is
+fully alive to God.' How truly she herself carried this out in her own
+Meetings you will hear later on.
+
+Miss Mumford was very anxious that The General should improve himself
+with plenty of hard work. She saw what he might become, and she also knew
+that unless he did _his_ part all those wonderful powers which God
+had lent to him would be thrown away.
+
+'Do assure me,' she writes, 'my own dear William, that no want of energy
+or effort on your part shall hinder the improvement of those talents God
+has given you.'
+
+So that, with his constant travelling and preaching, he might get time to
+read and think and learn, she suggested a little plan to him in his
+billets.
+
+'Could you not,' she says, 'provide yourself with a small leather bag or
+case, large enough to hold your Bible and any other book you might
+require--pens, ink, paper and a candle? And, presuming that you generally
+have a room to yourself, could you not rise by six o'clock every morning,
+and convert your bedroom into a study till breakfast time?... I hope, my
+dearest love, you will consider this plan, and keep to it, if possible,
+as a general practice. Don't let little difficulties prevent your
+carrying it out.'
+
+You must remember that at this time neither Catherine nor Mr. Booth ever
+dreamed of the wonderful work they were to be called to do. He was then
+preaching and getting souls saved, mostly in country places, and had many
+a 'hard go,' but _that_ was no reason why he should not improve.
+
+Did The General like this advice and counsel? Or did he feel, as some men
+do to-day, that women cannot judge nor understand such things?
+
+Ah! he was wise, and only too glad to have all the help that Catherine
+could give him. In fact, he often wrote begging her to help him more. The
+outlines for addresses which she sent him weekly he valued and used, as
+this letter shows:--
+
+'I have,' he writes, 'just taken hold of that sketch you sent me on "Be
+not deceived," and am about to make a full sermon on it. I like it much.
+It is admirable.
+
+'I want a sermon on the Flood, one on Jonah, and one on the Judgment.
+Send me some bare thoughts, some clear, startling outlines. We must have
+that kind of truth which will move sinners.'
+
+But if Catherine Mumford was anxious about the mind and work of her
+future husband, much more was she anxious about his soul. To her, there
+could be no true love without faithfulness, and where she felt it
+necessary, she cautioned him in the truest and tenderest way:--
+
+'You have special need,' she writes, 'for watchfulness and for much
+private intercourse with God.
+
+'My dearest love, beware how you indulge that dangerous element of
+character, ambition. Misdirected, it will be everlasting ruin to
+yourself, and perhaps to me also. Oh, my love, let nothing earthly excite
+it; let not the wish to be great fire it. Fix it on the Throne of the
+Eternal, and let it find the realization of its loftiest aspirations in
+the promotion of His glory, and it shall be consummated with the richest
+enjoyments and brightest glories of God's own Heaven.'
+
+You wonder, perhaps, if Catherine ever wrote 'love letters,' as we call
+them. She never wrote the foolish and sentimental letters which say a
+great deal, and mean very little; but she was able to put her great love
+into words strong, intense, and full of tenderness.
+
+'Do I remember?' she asks in one letter. 'Yes, I remember all--all that
+has bound us together. All the bright and happy, as well as the clouded
+and sorrowful times of our fellowship. Nothing relating to you can time
+or place erase from my memory. Your words, your looks, your actions, even
+the most trivial and incidental, come up before me as fresh as life. If I
+meet a child called William, I am more interested in him than in any
+other. Bless you. Keep your spirits up, and hope much for the future. God
+lives and loves us, and we shall be one in Him, loving each other as
+Christ loved us.'
+
+William Booth and Catherine Mumford were married in London, on June 15,
+1855; and here are a few lines from the last letter she wrote to him
+before the engagement was ended, and the long thirty-five years of happy
+married life began:--
+
+'I long to see you. Your letters do not satisfy the yearnings of my
+heart. Perhaps they ought to. I wish it were differently constituted. I
+might be much happier. But it _will_ be extravagant and enthusiastic
+in spite of all my schooling. If I ever get to Heaven, what rapture shall
+I know! No, there is no fear of our loving each other too much. How can
+we love each other more than Christ has loved us? And this is the
+standard He has given us. What a precious thing is the religion of Jesus!
+It makes our first duties our highest happiness. It has the promise of
+the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. We will spend
+all our energies in trying to persuade men to receive and practise it.'
+
+How wonderfully she carried this intention into practice, and, together
+with The General, lived every moment 'publishing the Sinner's Friend,'
+you shall read later on.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A LIFE OF SACRIFICE
+
+
+
+'Since I came to the crucifixion of myself, I have not cared much what
+men might say of me.'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+At the time when our Army Mother married The General's work was, as we
+have seen, that of an 'Evangelist' or 'Travelling Minister.' He would
+stay in a town for some weeks or months, as the case might be, preaching
+and holding Meetings, and getting people saved, both in the town itself
+and the places round.
+
+It was a blessed and useful life, but very wearying; and we can fancy how
+trying it must have been for Mrs. Booth after her marriage not to have
+any home of her own, but to billet first in one stranger's house, and
+then in another's.
+
+But she did not complain, though we see what it cost her by a letter she
+writes to her mother, telling the good news that they are to live in
+lodgings while at Sheffield:--
+
+'You cannot think,' she writes, 'with what joy I look forward to being to
+ourselves once more. For though I get literally oppressed with kindness,
+I must say I would prefer a home where we could sit down together at our
+own little table, myself the mistress, and my husband the only guest. But
+the work of God so abundantly prospers that I dare not repine, or else I
+feel this constant packing and unpacking and staying amongst strangers to
+be a great burden, especially while so weak and poorly. But then I have
+many mercies and advantages. My precious William is all I desire, and
+without this what would the most splendid home be but a glittering
+bauble?'
+
+For several years Mrs. Booth travelled in this way from place to place,
+helping, cheering, and encouraging her husband in his soul-saving
+campaigns. She felt her duty lay here, and even when she had a little son
+to care for, she was unwilling to settle down. Writing to her mother, who
+urged her to leave off this trying life; or, at any rate, to hand the
+baby over to her, she says:--
+
+'My objection to leaving William gets stronger as I see the need he has
+of my presence, care, and sympathy; neither is he willing for it himself.
+Nor can I make up my mind to parting with Willie.'
+
+Mrs. Booth's object was to be a help to her husband--not a hindrance; to
+push him forward in his soul-saving work--not to hold him back; and
+therefore, instead of rejoicing, as most wives and mothers would have
+done, when a settled home and work were offered him, she was doubtful.
+
+'Personally considered,' she writes to her mother, 'I care nothing about
+it. I feel that a good rest in one place will be a boon to us. Anyhow, if
+God wills him to be an Evangelist, He will open the way. I find that I
+love the work itself far more than I thought I did, and I am willing to
+risk something for it.'
+
+After this came several years of great conflict and struggle. The
+Conference (or, as we would say, Headquarters) under whom The General
+worked did not wish him to continue the great Salvation Campaigns for
+which God had so marvellously fitted him. They wanted him to 'settle
+down,' and spend perhaps several years in one place like ordinary
+ministers.
+
+To please those who were over him he did this, and spent four years in
+one town. But though God blessed his efforts, The General was convinced
+that he was called to greater things. He loved the sinners; wherever he
+went crowds flocked to hear him, and the vilest were converted. Was it
+God's will, therefore, that he should sacrifice the work his soul loved,
+and 'settle down' into an ordinary life, helping and reaching only the
+people of one small city?
+
+This question our Army Mother helped him to decide. Try to picture her
+position. She had by this time a family of little children, and her
+health was very delicate. By counselling The General to 'settle down,' as
+his friends wished him to do, she would have a nice home, a comfortable
+income, and, above all, the constant presence of her husband, who would
+no longer need to leave her on his long soul-saving tours.
+
+By refusing the position offered, and choosing instead to take up the
+'evangelistic life' again, The General turned his back on salary, home,
+and work, and went out into the world, with his wife and four children,
+friendless and alone. Do you wonder that the struggle was a severe one?
+
+'Pray for me,' she wrote to her mother, when the question was about to be
+settled. 'I have many a conflict in regard to the proposed new departure;
+not as to our support--I feel as though I can trust the Lord implicitly
+for all that; but the Devil tells me I shall never be able to endure the
+loneliness and separation of the life. He draws many a picture of most
+dark and melancholy shade. But I cling to the promise, "No man hath
+forsaken," etc., and, having sworn to my own hurt, may I stand fast. I
+have told William that if he takes the step, and it should bring me to
+the workhouse, I would never say one upbraiding word. No. To blame him
+for making such a sacrifice for God and conscience' sake would be worse
+than wicked. So, whatever be the result, I shall make up my mind to
+endure it patiently, looking to the Lord for grace and strength.'
+
+But if it was difficult for Mrs. Booth, the path was equally dark and
+hard for The General.
+
+'William hesitates,' she writes a few weeks later. 'He thinks of me and
+the children, and I appreciate his love and care. But I tell him that God
+will provide, if he will only go straight on in the path of duty. It is
+strange that I, who always used to shrink from the sacrifice, should be
+the first in making it. But when I made the surrender I did it whole-
+heartedly, and ever since I have been like another being. Oh, pray for us
+yet more and more! We have no money coming in from any quarter now. Nor
+has William any invitations at present. The time is unfavourable. I am
+much tempted to feel it hard that God has not cleared our path more
+satisfactorily. But I will not "charge God foolishly." I know that His
+way is often in the whirlwind, and He rides upon the storm: I will try to
+possess my soul in patience, and to wait on Him.'
+
+Sometimes you have heard your Officers talking in a Meeting, and telling
+the people that, if they will but step out in faith, and do right, God
+will open up the way for them. The example of our General and Army Mother
+has taught us this lesson, for few ever took a step of faith into greater
+darkness and difficulty than they did at this time.
+
+'My dearest,' writes Mrs. Booth to her mother, 'is starting for London.
+Pray for him. He is much harassed. But I have promised to keep a brave
+heart. At times it appears to me that God may have something very
+glorious in store for us, and when He has tried us He will bring us forth
+as gold. It will not be the first time I have taken a leap in the dark,
+humanly speaking, for conscience' sake.'
+
+It was, indeed, a 'leap in the dark': to break up their little home in
+the North, and, travelling by boat, to save expense, to bring their four
+children to Mrs. Mumford's house in London. There they separated: the
+father and mother went to Cornwall, to hold a Salvation campaign in a
+little chapel that had been lent to them, and the children remained
+behind.
+
+Of the marvellous way in which God blessed the Cornish work, I cannot
+stop to tell you. Mrs. Booth's name as a preacher was by this time
+becoming as widely known as that of her husband; and they went from one
+place to another, at first together, and then, afterwards, separately, so
+as to be able to do more good, for four long years.
+
+Whenever possible, our Army Mother took her children with her: she never
+left them to others when she could help it, and later on I shall tell you
+what a devoted and tender mother she was; but the strain of those four
+long years no one will ever know. I want you to see the dark as well as
+the bright side of her wonderful life; and here is part of a letter to
+her mother, written at that time:--
+
+'I feel dreadfully unsettled at present. I don't like this mode of living
+at all. William has now been away from home, except on Friday and
+Saturday, for twelve weeks. I long to get fixed together again once more.
+The going backwards and forwards and being in other people's houses does
+not suit William. Nor do I like leaving home for the Sabbaths. I am much
+tempted to look gloomily towards the future. But "my heart is fixed." "I
+will trust, and not be afraid."'
+
+Then again, a little later on:--
+
+'Pray for me. I sometimes feel as though I had taken a path which is too
+hard for me, and duties too heavy for me to perform; but it is my
+privilege to say, and to feel, "I can do all things through Christ which
+strengtheneth me."'
+
+Once again she says:--
+
+'Well, the Lord help us to be faithful to our convictions, even in the
+dark and cloudy day! I have felt it hard work to do so lately. Many a
+time have I longed to be where the weary are at rest.
+
+'Well, we must labour and wait a little longer; it may be that the clouds
+will break, and surround us with sunshine. Anyway, God lives above the
+clouds, and He will direct our path.'
+
+The General and Mrs. Booth were holding Salvation services in London when
+our Army Mother was called to make a fresh sacrifice, never dreaming of
+the wonderful results that would spring from it. You shall read about it
+in her own words, spoken many years afterwards:--
+
+'I remember well,' she says, 'when The General decided at last to give up
+the evangelistic life and to devote himself to the Salvation of the East-
+Enders. He had come home from a Meeting one night, tired out, as usual.
+It was between eleven and twelve o'clock. Flinging himself into an easy
+chair, he said to me, "O Kate, as I passed by the doors of the flaming
+gin-palaces to-night I seemed to hear a voice sounding in my ears, 'Where
+can you go and find such heathen as these, and where is there so great a
+need for your labours?' And I felt as though I ought at every cost to
+stop and preach to these East-End crowds."
+
+'I remember the emotion that this produced in my soul. I sat gazing into
+the fire, and the Devil whispered to me, "This means another new
+departure--another start in life."
+
+'The question of our support I saw at once to be a serious difficulty.
+Hitherto we had been able to meet our expenses by the collections which
+we had made from our respectable audiences. But it was impossible to
+suppose that we could do so among the poverty-stricken East-Enders. We
+did not then see things as we do to-day. We were afraid even to ask for a
+collection among the East London crowds.
+
+'Nevertheless, I did not answer discouragingly. After a moment's pause
+for thought and prayer, I answered, "Well, if you feel you ought to stay,
+stay. We have trusted the Lord once for our support, and we can trust Him
+again."'
+
+Mrs. Booth, when she answered like this, had no idea of all that was to
+follow. She never dreamt that, from The General's standing alone in
+Whitechapel, a mighty wave of Salvation would sweep over the earth, nor
+that God was about to raise up an Army of which she and The General were
+to be the leaders.
+
+But, as always before, she willingly agreed to whatever would be for
+God's glory and the Salvation of souls; and we all know to-day how, from
+that little Whitechapel beginning, grew the Christian Mission, and how,
+at last, the Christian Mission became The Salvation Army.
+
+Do not think, however, that our dear Army Mother's consecration stopped
+here! No, indeed. One by one, as they became old enough, she gave up her
+children to the Work, and we shall never know all we owe as an Army to
+her beautiful spirit of devotion and sacrifice.
+
+Let us stand together by her open grave in the autumn twilight. Her
+twenty-six years of fight and toil in The Salvation Army are over now,
+her spirit has been summoned Home. Listen. The Army Founder himself is
+the speaker. He is recalling the forty years which he and our dear Army
+Mother had trod together, and his words sum up better than any other
+words could do what she was to our Leader:--
+
+'If you had had a tree,' he said, speaking to the vast crowd that stood
+round the grave, 'that had grown up in your garden, under your window,
+which for forty years had been your shadow from the burning sun, whose
+flowers had been the adornment and beauty of your life, whose fruit had
+been almost the stay of your existence, and the gardener had come along
+and swung his glittering axe and cut it down before your eyes, I think
+you would feel as though you had a blank--it might not be a big one--but
+a little blank in your life.
+
+'If you had had a servant who for all this long time had served you
+without fee or reward, who had administered, for very love, to your
+health and comfort, and who suddenly passed away, you would miss that
+servant.
+
+'If you had had a counsellor who, in hours--continually occurring--of
+perplexity and amazement, had ever advised you, and seldom advised wrong;
+whose advice you had followed, and seldom had reason to regret it; and
+the counsellor, while you were in the same intricate mazes of your
+existence, had passed away, you would miss that counsellor.
+
+'If you had had a friend who had understood your very nature, the rise
+and fall of your feelings, the bent of your thoughts, and the purpose of
+your existence; a friend whose communion had ever been pleasant--the
+most pleasant of all other friends--to whom you had ever turned with
+satisfaction, and your friend had been taken away, you would feel some
+sorrow at the loss.
+
+'If you had had a mother for your children who had cradled and nursed and
+trained them for the service of the living God, in which you most
+delighted--a mother, indeed, who had never ceased to bear their sorrows
+on her heart, and who had been ever willing to pour forth that heart's
+blood in order to nourish them, and that darling mother had been taken
+from your side, you would feel it a sorrow.
+
+'If you had had a wife, a sweet love of a wife, who for forty years had
+never given you real cause for grief; a wife who had stood with you, side
+by side, in the battle's front, who had been a comrade to you, ever
+willing to interpose herself between you and the enemy, and ever the
+strongest when the battle was fiercest, and your beloved one had fallen
+before your eyes, I am sure there would be some excuse for your sorrow.
+
+'Well, my comrades, you can roll all these qualities into one
+personality, and what would be lost in all I have lost in one. There has
+been taken away from me the light of my eyes, the inspiration of my soul,
+and we are about to lay all that remains of her in the grave. I have been
+looking right at the bottom of it here, and calculating how soon they may
+bring and lay me alongside of her, and my cry to God has been that every
+remaining hour of my life may make me readier to come and join her in
+death, to go and embrace her in life in the Eternal City.'
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE SPEAKER
+
+
+
+'I will never speak to sinners so that one man or woman in my audience
+can stand up and say, "You might have warned me more faithfully, spoken
+more plainly than you did." I would rather die than that should be the
+case.'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+No one must think that Mrs. Booth became a great speaker all in a moment,
+or by any 'royal road.' She started when about eighteen, as many a Corps
+Cadet has since done, by just taking a class or Company on Sundays, never
+dreaming of doing more. An elder girls' Company was given to her; and she
+had fifteen girls to teach, whose ages varied from twelve to nineteen.
+
+Two half-days she spent every week in preparing for her Company, and in
+trying to make each lesson end in a practical way, so as to do them real
+good.
+
+Then on Sunday, when the rest of the children had been dismissed, Miss
+Mumford would beg to be given the key of the room and would remain
+behind, holding a little Prayer Meeting with her girls. Sometimes they
+would stay on for an hour and a half, and many by this means became truly
+converted.
+
+Often with so much praying and singing Catherine quite lost her voice
+before the end of the Meeting; but, so long as souls were saved, she did
+not mind that.
+
+Soon after her marriage Mrs. Booth took another class of this same kind,
+and also a little sort of Sergeants' Meeting, and then--for you see our
+Army Mother was led on, just as you or I may be, step by step--she gave
+a short talk to the Band of Hope children (something like our Band of
+Love of today) on the evils of drink.
+
+'Oh, how I wish,' she wrote to her father, 'that I had started speaking
+years ago!'
+
+A little later on Mr. and Mrs. Booth moved to Gateshead, and there the
+people were very much surprised to hear their minister's wife pray aloud
+when her husband had done speaking; for in those days very few women
+thought of praying, much less of speaking, in public.
+
+'Since you can pray so beautifully, will you come and talk to us on our
+special Prayer-Meeting night?' some of the people asked. But Mrs. Booth
+was horrified.
+
+'Of course, I said "No,"' she wrote. 'I don't know what they can be
+thinking of.'
+
+Just at this time an argument began in one of the newspapers as to
+whether women had the right to speak for God or not. Mrs. Booth wrote an
+answer to this question you can read it for yourself in her book,
+'Practical Religion'--and she showed from God's Word, that women have the
+same right to help to get people saved that the men have. The little
+pamphlet was already printed and being widely read, and our Army Mother
+lay alone in her room very ill, when the thought flashed into her soul,
+'You have been helping other women to preach and to speak for God. What
+about yourself?'
+
+'Oh, no, Lord, not me; I can't. I am, as Thou knowest, the most timid and
+bashful disciple ever saved by grace.' That was her answer.
+
+Then the Lord took her back to the days when she first gave herself to
+Him, at the age of fifteen. He showed her that all the way along this one
+thing had hindered and stopped her from 'being the blessing or from
+getting the blessing He intended.'
+
+'Lord,' she cried, 'if Thou wilt come back to me as in the old days, I
+will obey, though I die in the attempt.'
+
+But at the moment God seemed not to answer her cry, and when she was well
+again all went on as before.
+
+Three months later Mrs. Booth was quietly sitting one Sunday morning in
+chapel with her eldest boy, when a very wonderful thing happened. You
+shall read about it in her own words:--
+
+'I felt much depressed in mind,' she says, 'and was not expecting
+anything particular, but as the testimonies proceeded I felt the Holy
+Spirit come upon me. It seemed as if a voice said to me: "Now, if you
+were to go and testify, you know I would bless it to your own soul as
+well as to the people!" I gasped again, and said in my heart: "Yes, Lord,
+I believe Thou wouldst, but I cannot do it!" I had forgotten my vow.
+
+'A moment afterwards there flashed across my mind the memory of the time
+when I had promised the Lord that I would obey Him at all costs. And then
+the voice seemed to ask me if this was consistent with that promise. I
+almost jumped up and said, "No, Lord, it is the old thing over again. But
+I cannot do it!" I felt as though I would sooner die than speak. And then
+the Devil said, "Besides, you are not prepared. You will look like a
+fool, and will have nothing to say." He made a mistake. He overreached
+himself for once. It was this word that settled it. "Ah!" I said, "this
+is just the point. I have never yet been willing to be a fool for Christ.
+Now I will be one!"
+
+'Without stopping another moment, I rose up from my seat and walked down
+the aisle. My dear husband thought something had happened to me, and so
+did the people. We had been there two years, and they knew my timid,
+bashful nature. He stepped down, and asked me, "What is the matter, my
+dear?" I replied, "I want to say a word!" He was so taken by surprise
+that he could only say, "My dear wife wishes to speak!" and sat down. For
+years he had been trying to persuade me to do it. Only that very week he
+had wanted me to go and address a little Cottage Meeting of some twenty
+working people, but I had refused.
+
+'I stood--God only knows how--and if any mortal ever did hang on the arm
+of Omnipotence, I did. I just stood and told the people how it had come
+about. I confessed, as I think everybody should who has been in the wrong
+and has misrepresented the religion of Jesus Christ. I said, "I dare say
+many of you have been looking upon me as a very devoted woman, and one
+who has been living faithfully to God. But I have come to realize that I
+have been disobeying Him, and thus brought darkness and leanness into my
+soul. I have promised the Lord to do so no longer, and have come to tell
+you that henceforth I will be obedient to the holy vision."
+
+'There was more weeping, they said, in the chapel that day than on any
+previous occasion. Many dated a renewal in righteousness from that very
+moment, and began a life of devotion and consecration to God.
+
+'Now I might have "talked good" to them till now. That honest confession
+did what twenty years of preaching could not have accomplished.'
+
+After this wonderful victory Mrs. Booth never again drew back. The same
+night she spoke once more, with even greater power than in the morning,
+and before long invitations came pouring in from all parts, for wherever
+she went souls were saved and people sanctified.
+
+But it cost her a great deal to preach like this. She writes of one
+Meeting held soon after:--
+
+'I got on very well, and had three beautiful cases, but I cannot tell you
+how I felt all day about it. I could neither eat nor sleep. I never was
+in such a state, and when I saw the people, I felt like melting away.
+However, I got through.'
+
+Even to the last, when she was known all round the world as one of the
+greatest women-preachers of the day, she never spoke without feeling
+deeply the responsibility and importance of her work, nor without having
+prepared carefully beforehand what she wanted to say.
+
+It was very difficult for her, with four little children, the eldest only
+four years and three months old, to get enough time and quiet. We should
+have said it was impossible, for she was not well off, and could not
+afford to put her sewing out, or to have many servants to work for her;
+but she says:--
+
+'God forced me to begin to think and work, and He gave me grace and
+strength to do it. Many a time while I was nursing my baby I was thinking
+of what I should say next Sunday, and between times I noted down with a
+pencil the thoughts as they struck me. Then I would appear with an
+outline scratched in pencil, trusting in the Lord to give me the power of
+His Holy Spirit; and from the day I began He has never allowed me to open
+my mouth without giving me signs of His presence and blessing.'
+
+The two books she always used in getting ready for her Meetings were her
+Bible and Concordance.
+
+In later years she taught her children how to prepare for their Meetings,
+and some of the advice she gives is very helpful to Corps Cadets.
+
+'"Jesus wept,"' she writes to her eldest girl, who was then fourteen,
+'would be a nice subject for you at one of your little Meetings. And you
+could find some texts to show how David wept, and Daniel, and Jeremiah,
+etc., if you like it. But don't take it because _I_ say so--you must
+ask the Lord for your subjects.'
+
+Later on, however, as The Salvation Army grew, Mrs. Booth felt that,
+though it was just as necessary to prepare, yet to speak from notes was
+often not helpful to either the Officer or the people, so she writes to
+one of her sons:--
+
+'Get out of them! They don't fit our work. When you get on, you don't
+want them; and when you don't, they are no good. At first, if your memory
+won't serve you, just jot on a small bit of paper the size of a ticket
+your main divisions in large writing, but no more. Like this:--
+
+  'Day of wrath is come.
+  '1. God's wrath.
+  '2. Just wrath.
+  '3. Uttermost wrath.
+  '4. Eternal wrath.'
+
+On the platform Mrs. Booth's manner was as simple and natural as when by
+her own fireside; anything 'put on' or affected she hated.
+
+'If I were asked,' she says, 'to put into one word what I consider to be
+the greatest hindrance to the success of Divine truth, even when spoken
+by sincere and real people, I should say _stiffness_. Simplicity is
+indispensable to success, _naturalness_ in putting the truth. It
+seems as if people, the moment they come to religion, put on a different
+tone, a different look and manner--in short, become unnatural.'
+
+But Mrs. Booth not only prepared for her Meetings by thought and study,
+but she prepared most of all by prayer.
+
+'Oh, if we could,' she writes, 'get more of the spirit of prayer into
+those who love God! Few understand it at all.
+
+'I always find an exact proportion in the results to the spirit of
+intercession I have had beforehand. That is why I like to be alone in
+lodgings.'
+
+Before her Meeting she would wrestle and plead with God for hours, in
+tears and agony, and then would face her congregation overflowing with
+love and faith.
+
+'Pray for me,' she writes during her marvellous Portsmouth campaign. 'No
+one knows how I feel. I think I never realized my responsibility as I did
+on Sunday night. I felt really awful before rising to speak. The sight
+almost overwhelmed me. With its two galleries, its dome-like roof and
+vast proportions, when crammed with people, the building presents a most
+imposing appearance. The top gallery is ten or twelve seats deep in
+front, and it was full of men. Such a sight as I have never seen on any
+previous occasion. Oh, how I _yearned_ over them! I felt as if it
+would be a small thing to die _there and then_, if that would have
+brought them to Jesus.'
+
+Nothing short of men and women getting converted satisfied her.
+
+'They say,' she writes of another campaign, 'the sinners here will
+"_bide some bringing down_." Well, the Lord can do it. They tell me,
+too, that I am immensely popular with the people. But _that_ is no
+comfort unless they will be saved.'
+
+She laboured to get the truth home to the hearts of her listeners, and
+that is why her talking was so blessed.
+
+'God made you responsible,' she said, 'not for delivering the truth, but
+for GETTING IT IN--getting it home, fixing it in the conscience as a red-
+hot iron, as a bolt, straight from His throne; and He has given you also
+the _power to do it_; and if you do not do it, _blood_ will be
+on your skirts. Oh, this genteel way of putting the truth! How God hates
+it! "If you please, dear friends, will you listen? If you please, will
+you be converted? Will you come to Jesus? Shall we read just this, that,
+and the other?" No more like apostolic preaching than darkness is like
+light.'
+
+How can I show you some of the marvellous results of her preaching? In
+every part of our land her influence and words made themselves felt; the
+largest buildings were crowded with all classes of society, and glorious
+cases of conversion and sanctification crowned her labours everywhere. A
+lady who was at some of her women's Meetings at Lye, near Birmingham,
+tells us:--
+
+'The women left their work, and in all sorts of odd costumes flocked to
+the Meetings, some with bonnets, some with shawls fastened over their
+head, others with little children clinging to their necks. All, with
+eager, inquiring faces, took their seats and listened to the gracious
+words which fell from the lips of dear Mrs. Booth. And when the
+invitation was given, what a scene ensued! It baffles all description.
+Crowding, weeping, rushing to the penitent-form came convicted sinners
+and repentant backsliders. When the form was filled the penitents dropped
+upon their knees in the aisles or in their seats, so that it was
+difficult to move about.'
+
+When holding some Meetings in a Rotherhithe chapel (for The Army was only
+just beginning its work, and our Army Mother took Meetings in different
+churches and chapels up and down the land), the victories were just as
+glorious, and one of her Converts says:--
+
+'There were many remarkable cases of conversion at these Meetings.
+Amongst others there were the two daughters of a publican. When one
+sister was saved the other went to hear Mrs. Booth on purpose to ridicule
+the services. But she was seized with such an agonizing realization of
+her sins that she came down from the top of the gallery to the penitent-
+form, crying out aloud, "I must come! I must come!" Soon after their
+father gave up the public-house, and they afterwards became members of
+Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle.
+
+'I have seen as many as thirty persons seeking Salvation in a single
+Meeting, and some years afterwards, when I looked at the register of our
+chapel, I found about one hundred names of those who had professed to be
+converted at this time.'
+
+Our Army Mother, too, was equally straight and fearless with the rich
+when, later on, they also came in crowds to hear her. She had but one
+message and one gospel for all alike. She says, 'By God's help I will not
+regard the person of man, but will plainly and fearlessly declare the
+truth, come what may.' God honoured this spirit, and her Meetings in the
+West-End of London, where the great and rich live, were some of the most
+glorious of her life. Of one such she writes:--
+
+'The Lord has very graciously stood by me, and given me much precious
+fruit. Last Sunday we had the Hall crowded, and a large proportion of
+gentlemen. The Lord was there in power, and twenty-one came forward--some
+for Salvation and some for purity. Several were most blessed cases of
+full surrender. We did not get away till nearly six, and we began at
+three. Everybody is amazed at this for the West-End! The audience is very
+select, we never having published a bill. Pray much, dear friend, that
+God may do a deep and permanent work in this Babylon. It seems as though
+He gave me words of fire for them, and they sat spellbound.'
+
+You say you wish you had heard her speak? Indeed, we all wish you had:
+you could never have forgotten it. But several of her addresses were
+taken down in shorthand at the time, and are reprinted in her books, so
+you can get and read them; and they will bless and teach you as they have
+taught thousands before you.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE MOTHER
+
+
+
+'A lady once said to me, "How have you managed to get your children
+converted so early?" "Oh," I said, "I have been beforehand with the
+Devil."'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+I have already told you how Mrs. Booth had the true mother spirit when
+but a little child, loving and tending her dolls as if they had been real
+babies; you will, therefore, guess that with her own children she was the
+best and most careful of mothers. She began early to train them in the
+right way, and never left them unless forced to do so.
+
+'I cannot part with Willie,' she writes to her mother, who offered to
+free Mrs. Booth by taking charge of the baby for her; 'first, because I
+know the child's affections could not but be weaned from us; and
+secondly, because the next year will be the most important of his life
+with reference to managing his will; and in this I cannot but distrust
+you. I know, my darling mother, you could not wage war with his self-will
+so resolutely as to subdue it. And then my child would be ruined, for he
+must be taught implicit, uncompromising obedience.'
+
+But long before writing this she had already claimed her boy for God and
+His war. 'I had from the first,' she says, 'definite longings over
+Bramwell, and lifted him up to God as soon as I had strength to do so,
+especially desiring he should be a teacher of Holiness.' These prayers
+began to be answered very early. The boy had a truthful and conscientious
+nature. Never, his mother says, does she remember his telling her a lie.
+But, for all that, he needed, as do all children, training and teaching,
+and Mrs. Booth was too wise not to be firm. She writes therefore:
+
+'I believe he will be a thoroughly noble lad, if I can preserve him from
+all evil influence. The Lord help me! I have had to whip him twice lately
+severely for disobedience, and it has cost me some tears. But it has done
+him good, and I am reaping the reward already of my self-sacrifice. The
+Lord help me to be faithful and firm as a rock in the path of duty
+towards my children!'
+
+We know how practical our Army Mother always was; sentimental pity
+without help she despised. When her little son, therefore, saw and pitied
+a small boy with shoeless feet, his mother quickly reminded him of his
+little money-box.
+
+'Would you rather keep the money for barley-sugar, Willie, or give it to
+the poor boy?' she asked. 'Give it to the boy,' he said at once, and so
+learnt his first lesson in self-denial.
+
+When the boy was seven years old he was converted, to his mother's
+deepest joy. Some time before she had talked to him in a Meeting, and
+urged him to get saved. The boy sat still and said nothing. 'Willie, I
+insist,' said his mother at last. 'You must answer me. Will you give your
+heart to God or not? Yes or no?'
+
+Willie looked up in her face steadily and answered back 'No.'
+
+Mrs. Booth said no more just then, but held on in faith and prayer, and
+some months later, to her unutterable thankfulness, she found him
+squeezed in among a number of other children at the penitent-form. He
+had, unasked, made his way there, and was weeping and confessing his sins
+with all his heart.
+
+Needless to say, he was faithfully dealt with, and the boy, now our
+beloved General, dates his conversion from that moment. A little later
+Mrs. Booth wrote of him:--
+
+'Willie has begun to serve God, of course as a child, but still, I trust,
+taught of the Spirit. I feel a great increase of responsibility with
+respect to him. Oh! to cherish the tender plant of grace aright. Lord
+help!'
+
+And as with the eldest so with the other seven. One by one they gave
+their hearts to the Lord as soon as they grew old enough to do so.
+
+'She used to gather us round her,' says one of her daughters,' and pray
+with us. I wore then a low frock, and her hot tears would often drop upon
+my neck, sending a thrill through me which I can never forget.'
+
+She would pray again and again that she might lay them in their graves
+rather than she should see them grow up wicked.
+
+Mrs. Booth was very particular about the way in which her children were
+dressed.
+
+Of course, there was no uniform in those days, but The Army spirit was
+already in The Army Mother, and she would not have any finery or show,
+either for herself or her children.
+
+'Accept,' she writes to her mother, 'my warm thanks for the little frock
+you sent. There is only one difficulty--it is too smart. We must set an
+example in this direction. I feel no temptation now to decorate myself,
+but I cannot say the same about the children; and yet, Oh, I see I must
+be decided. Besides, I find it would be dangerous for their own sakes.
+The seed of vanity is too deeply sown in their young hearts for me to
+dare to cultivate it.'
+
+Even in her early days Mrs. Booth felt how wrong it was to spend time and
+money over dress:--
+
+'I remember feeling condemned,' she says, 'when quite a child, not more
+than eight years old, at having to wear a lace tippet such as was
+fashionable in those days. From a worldly point of view it would have
+been considered, no doubt, very neat and consistent. But on several
+occasions I had good crying fits over it. Not only did I instinctively
+feel it to be immodest, because people could see through it, but I
+thought it was not such as a Christian child should wear.'
+
+In everything to do with her home Mrs. Booth was a most practical and
+careful mother. She hated waste and luxury, but her children were always
+properly dressed and fed and cared for, and never lacked what was
+necessary for them.
+
+Ladies who had been blessed by her words came to consult her about their
+souls, and to their surprise found the great preacher, not shut away in
+her study, but hard at work perhaps ironing the baby's pinafores, or
+cutting out a pair of trousers for one of her boys! 'I must try,' she
+said, when she began to live this two-fold life, 'to do all in the
+kitchen as well as in the pulpit to the glory of God. The Lord help me.'
+He did help her, and it was this practical mother-spirit at home which
+gave her so much force and power on the platform.
+
+As the children grew older, they were more away from her side, and her
+letters to them are suitable, not only to her actual sons and daughters,
+but to her spiritual grandchildren who will read this little book.
+Therefore I am going to give you some extracts, which you may take as
+though written by our Army Mother straight to your own heart.
+
+To one of her boys at school she wrote:--
+
+'I do hope you are industrious, and do not lose time in play and
+inattention. Remember Satan steals his marches on us by _littles_--a
+minute now, and a minute then. Be on the look out, and don't be cheated
+by him!
+
+'All your little trials will soon be over, so far as school life is
+concerned; and every one of them, if borne with patience, will make you a
+wiser and better man. Never forget my advice about not listening to
+_secrets_! Don't hear anything that needs to be whispered--it is
+sure to be bad. Choose the boys to be your companions who most love and
+fear God, and pray together when you can, and help each other.'
+
+Here is a very beautiful letter written when one of her children desired
+to go in for some higher education, which Mrs. Booth feared might spoil
+the soul life:--
+
+'I do so want you and all my children to live supremely for God. I do so
+deeply deplore my own failure compared with what my life might have been,
+and I feel as if I could die to save you from making a mistake. Perhaps
+you say, "You don't want me, then, to learn any more?" Yes, I do, a great
+deal more; but of the right kind, in the right way, and for a right
+purpose, even the _highest good of your race_. I would like you to
+learn to put your thoughts together well, to think logically and clearly,
+to speak powerfully--that is, with good but simple language--and to write
+clearly and well.'
+
+Just the wish we have now for all our Young People!
+
+Early in their childhood the elder children were taught to be responsible
+for the younger, and when at school they were given places of trust as
+monitors, and so on. As if knowing the responsibilities they would by and
+by be called to fill in our ranks, Mrs. Booth gives them some wise
+counsel:--
+
+'I hope,' she says to one who has been left in charge of the other
+children, 'you will show yourself to be a true son of your mother, and a
+consistent disciple of the Lord. Very much depends on you as to the ease
+and comfort of managing the little ones. Do all you can. Be forbearing
+where only your own feelings or comfort are concerned, and don't raise
+unnecessary difficulties; but where their obedience to us or their health
+is at stake, be firm in trying to put them right.'
+
+'I am pleased,' she says to one of the boys who has been in charge of
+others at school, 'that Mr. W. puts such confidence in you; but do not be
+puffed up by it. Remember how weak you are, and ask the Lord to save you
+from conceit and self-sufficiency. Try to be fair and just in all
+dealings with the boys--i.e., do not be hard on a boy whom you may not
+happen to like so well as another; but be fair, and treat all alike when
+left in charge.'
+
+Again, she warns one of them against extremes, even in well doing:
+
+'You are under a mistake to suppose that sacrificing your recreation-time
+will help you in the end. It will not. Cramming the mind acts just in the
+same way as cramming the stomach. It is what you digest well that
+benefits you, not what you cram in. So many hours spent in study, and
+then relaxation and walking, will do your mind much more good than "all
+work, and no play." Now mark this. Do not be looking so much at what you
+_have_ to do as to what you are _doing_. Leave the future (you
+may spend it in Heaven), and go steadily on doing to-day's work in
+to-day's hours, with recreation in between to shake the seed in. One
+step well and firmly taken is better than two with a slip backwards.
+Poor human nature seems as though it must go to extremes--either all or
+none, too much or too little, idleness or being killed with work! May
+the Lord show you the happy medium.'
+
+'I was sorry about the cause of the accident. I don't like that way of
+doing things in fun! Though it was very wrong and wicked of the boy to
+throw the brick, yet it would have been better to let him look at the
+guinea-pigs being fed, and thus have pleased him. There was no harm in
+what he wanted to do. You should watch against a hectoring spirit, and
+mind the difference between a sacrifice of truth and principle, and one
+only of self-importance or of mere feeling. If a boy wants you to do
+wrong, then be firm as a rock and brave for God and goodness.'
+
+'Mind your soul,' she says at another time. 'Do not let your thoughts get
+so absorbed, even in study, as to lead you to forget your Bible and to
+neglect prayer.'
+
+Later, again, as a wise mother she warns them in the tenderest way
+against their special temptations.
+
+Against lightness:--
+
+'Be watchful against levity. C. is a good, devoted fellow, but naturally
+an incorrigible joker. It may not hurt him much, because it is his
+nature; but it will hurt you if you give way to it. It hurts nearly
+everybody.
+
+Watch! Don't descend to buffoonery. While you become all things to win
+some, don't forfeit your natural self-respect and the dignity of your
+position as a servant of Christ.'
+
+Against too much talk:--
+
+'The Spirit is teaching you this--is showing you that you must be more
+silent. The tongue is one of the greatest enemies to grace (James iii.
+5-13). Strive to obey these teachings of God. Yield yourself up to obey;
+and though you sometimes fail and slip, do not be discouraged, but yield
+yourself up again and again, and plead more fervently with God to keep
+you. Fourteen years ago you were learning to walk, and in the process you
+got many a tumble. But now you can not only walk yourself, but teach
+others. So, spiritually, if you will only let God lead you, He will
+perfect that which is lacking in you.'
+
+But it was not at first easy for the mother-spirit in Mrs. Booth to allow
+her delicate girls of fourteen or fifteen to undertake a public life, and
+to speak and sing at the street corners, surrounded by a rough, low
+crowd. Such a thing was unheard-of in those days.
+
+Once, hearing that her daughter Catherine had spoken in the open air to a
+large crowd, Mrs. Booth objected, as other mothers have since objected:
+the girl was too young as yet--she must wait awhile.
+
+But her eldest son, looking at his mother in the tenderest and most
+solemn way, said, 'Mamma, dear, you will have to settle this question
+with God; for Katie is as surely called and inspired by Him for the
+particular work as you are yourself.'
+
+Mrs. Booth said no more. She took this as the voice of God, and gave her
+girl up to the marvellous work which God had called her to do.
+
+Later she writes of her to a friend:--
+
+'Join me in praying that she may be kept humble and simple, and that all
+that the Lord has given her may be used for Him.'
+
+'I see,' she says, writing at this same time to her daughter, 'what a
+glorious, blessed, useful life you may live; but I also see your danger,
+and I pray for you that you may be enabled to cast aside the world in
+every form, to look down upon its opinions, and to despise its spirit,
+maxims, and fashions.'
+
+Later on, again, came the days when the boys had to choose, as you have
+to do, how they would spend their lives. Mrs. Booth might be writing to a
+Corps Cadet of to-day when, in a letter to one of her sons, she says:--
+
+'I hope the Lord will make you so miserable everywhere and at everything
+else that you will be _compelled_ to preach! Oh, my boy, the Lord
+wants such as you--_just such_--to go out amongst the people,
+seeking nothing but the things that are Jesus Christ's! You are free to
+do it; able by His grace; born to do it, with splendid opportunities.
+Will you not rise to your destiny? "Have courage, and be strong, and I
+(the I Am) will be with thee." "Get thee out, and I will go with thee."
+Dare you not take hold of the arm that holds the world and all things up?
+And if you do, can you fail? The Lord gird you with His strength, and
+make your brow brass, and your tongue as a flame of fire. You _must
+preach_!'
+
+To another of her boys she writes:--
+
+'You may, perhaps, be wanted to stand and do battle for the Lord. Surely
+you will not sell your birthright? The Lord help you! Take hold of
+David's God. Hold your head up, keep your shoulders back, and go
+forward.'
+
+Again:--
+
+'This is what the world wants: men of one idea--that of getting people
+saved. There are plenty of men of one idea--that of _gold_-getting.
+They make no secret of it; they are of a worldly spirit. Now we want men
+who are set on soul-saving, who are not ashamed to let everybody know it
+--men of a Christ-like spirit. There need be no mistake or mystery about
+it. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Paul and every other man of
+like spirit has had his fruits, and will have to the end of time. It is
+"Not by might, nor by power, but by _My Spirit_, saith the Lord of
+Hosts."'
+
+With one of her daughters she reasons and pleads:--
+
+'Oh, it seems to me that if I were in your place--young, no cares or
+anxieties, with such a start, such influence, and such a prospect--I
+should not be able to contain myself for joy! I should, indeed, aspire to
+be the "bride of the Lamb," and to follow Him in conflict for the
+Salvation of poor, lost, miserable man. I pray the Lord to show it to
+you, and so to enamour you of Himself, that you may see and feel it to be
+your chief joy to win them for Him. I say I pray for this--yes, I groan
+for it, with groanings that cannot be uttered; and if ever you tell me it
+is so, I shall be overjoyed.
+
+'I don't want you to make any vows (unless, indeed, the Spirit leads you
+to do so); but I want you to set your mind and heart on winning souls,
+and to leave everything else with the Lord. When you do this you will be
+happy--Oh, so happy! Your soul will then find perfect rest. The Lord
+grant it to you, my dear child.'
+
+She made all her children feel that the only reward they could give her
+for her ceaseless toil and labour on their behalf was that they should
+give themselves to the War:--
+
+'I hope, my dear boy, that, whatever sense of obligation or gratitude you
+have towards me, you will try to return it by resolutely resisting all
+temptation to evil, and by fitting yourself to your utmost to be useful
+to your fellow-men. I ask from you, as I asked from God, no other reward.
+If I know my own heart, I would rather that you should work for the
+Salvation of souls, making bad hearts good, and miserable homes happy,
+and preparing joy and gladness for men at the Judgment bar, if you only
+get bread and cheese all your life, than that you should fill any other
+capacity with L10,000 per year.'
+
+To one of her children, when tempted to be over-anxious, she writes:--
+
+'Keep your mind quiet. Lean back on God, and don't worry. It is His
+affair, and if you have done what you could, that is enough. Alas! how
+little we have of the faith that can "stand still, and see the Salvation
+of God." What would you do if you were put in custody for two years, like
+Paul was? And yet that imprisonment at Rome sent the Gospel far and wide!
+God's ways are not our ways. He takes in the whole field at once, and
+does the best He can for the entire world. Human wisdom never has been
+able at the time to comprehend His plans, but years after it has often
+seen their wisdom. Let us learn to trust in the dark--to stand still.'
+
+To another, tried and discouraged at the start of his public life:--
+
+'I have only a minute or two; but, lest you should think I don't
+sympathize with you, I send you a line. You ask, did I ever feel so? Yes,
+I think just as bad as any mortal _could_ feel--_empty_, inside
+and out, as though I had nothing human or Divine to aid me, as if all
+Hell were let loose upon me.
+
+But I have generally felt _the worse before the best results_, which
+proves it was Satanic opposition. And it has been the same with many of
+God's most honoured instruments. I believe nearly all who are truly
+called of God to special usefulness pass through this buffeting.
+
+'It stands to sense, if there is a Devil, that he should desperately
+withstand those whom he sees are going to be used of God. Supposing
+_you_ were the Devil, and had set your heart on circumventing God,
+how would you do it but by opposing those who were bent on building up
+His Kingdom? He hopes to drive us from the field by blood and fire and
+vapour of smoke. But our Captain fought and won the battle for us, and we
+have only to hold on long enough, and victory is sure. "Courage!" your
+Captain cries. "Only be thou strong, and of good courage, and I will be
+with thee, and teach thee what to say."
+
+'"He hath chosen the weak things." He has not _made shift with
+them_--taken them because there were no others. No! He hath
+_chosen_ them. Will He ever forsake them, and thus make Himself a
+laughing-stock for Hell? Never! Will He ever let the Devil say, "Ah, ah!
+He chose this weak one, and then let him fail"? No, no, no!'
+
+On the important question of courtship, she writes:--
+
+'The Devil sets such innocent-looking traps--_spiritual traps_--to
+catch young people! Ah, he is a serpent still! Beware of his devices, and
+always cry to God for wisdom and strength of will to put down all foolish
+tampering. You are born for greater things. God may want you to be a
+leader in some vast continent, and you will want a companion and a
+counsellor--a "helpmeet." The original word means "_a help
+corresponding to his dignity_" This is the meaning given by the best
+expositors. Oh, what wisdom there is even in the _words_ which God
+has chosen to express His ideas! "Corresponding to his dignity!" Yes, and
+no man ever takes one below this mark who does not suffer for it; and,
+worse still, generations yet unborn have to suffer also. Mind what God
+says, and keep yourself till that one comes.
+
+'A wrong step on this point, and you are undone. Oh, the misery of an
+unsuitable match! It is beyond description. I could tell you tales of woe
+that are now being enacted. But I must wait till we meet.
+
+'I have seen too much of life, and know too much of human nature, to have
+much confidence in promises given under such circumstances. For my own
+part, I made up my mind when I was but sixteen that I would not have a
+man, though a Christian, who should offer to become even an abstainer for
+my sake. I felt that such a promise would not afford me ground for
+confidence afterwards. And do not we see enough all round us to show that
+unless people adopt things on principle, because they see it to be right,
+they soon change? Look at the folks who promise to give up tobacco and
+dress, for the sake of getting into berths; how soon it evaporates! No,
+my lad, wait a bit. "Couldst thou not watch with Me one hour?" Jesus
+lived a single life for your sake all the way through. Can you not live
+so till He finds you one after His own heart? I feel sure He will. Pray
+about it in faith. I am doing so; and God will answer. But Oh, don't run
+before Him! Wait on the Lord.
+
+'A little longer and you will be saying, "Oh, how glad I am I waited! I
+have now found a treasure indeed!" When God's time and person are come,
+He will bring you together. How delighted and satisfied Isaac must have
+felt when the servant told him the way God led him (Genesis xxiv.).'
+
+When standing by her grave The General said she was _The Army
+Mother_. He said the truth.
+
+One of her early promises, given to her as a girl, when she only saw its
+greatness and hid it away in her heart as too sacred to be spoken of, and
+almost too wonderful ever to be accomplished, were the words: 'I will
+make thee a mother of nations.'
+
+When called to send her children abroad, she paid to the full the heavy
+price; but she also saw the glorious outcome, and from her death-bed sent
+tenderest messages to those of distant lands and far-off nations who
+owned her as their Army Mother.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE WORKER
+
+
+
+'What the Lord wants is, that you shall go about the business to which He
+sets you, not asking for an easy post, nor grumbling at a hard one.'--
+MRS. BOOTH.
+
+If she had not been a worker, our Army Mother would have done little with
+her life. The wonderful call which came to her, her great gifts, the zeal
+and love which filled her heart, would all have been useless had she not
+been willing to work, and to work hard, and to work every day.
+
+Stop and think about this. No life accomplishes anything unless it is
+full of hard work--often work accompanied by much drudgery, whether it is
+the life of a king or of a poor man. Mrs. Booth has set us all an example
+in this, for she would work ceaselessly with head or hands or heart, as
+long as ever her health allowed her to do so. Laziness and idleness of
+all kinds she detested; nor could she tolerate a lazy person in her
+service.
+
+She worked first of all in her home. When she spent a morning in her
+kitchen, the work there was perfectly done. The dinner was ready at the
+right time, properly cooked, good and wholesome. She allowed no waste and
+no extravagance. Her bread was light and beautifully baked, and when she
+had finished her morning's work her kitchen was as neat as when she
+began. She finished everything, and put it straight as she went along.
+
+It was the same with the children. She was alike nurse and doctor,
+dressmaker and tailor; she made and mended, washed and ironed for her
+boys and girls during their early years, and herself attended to every
+smallest detail of their lives. Strangers who asked where Mrs. Booth
+bought her children's things, so that they could go to the same shop,
+could scarcely believe the reply: 'Mamma makes all our clothes herself'
+--so beautifully were they cut and finished.
+
+And when the little garments were of no further service to her, she would
+alter and mend them once again, and give them away. Her baby-clothes,
+when the last daughter had outgrown them, were given to a member of the
+Mission for his child.
+
+He will never forget taking the little bundle home to his wife and
+turning over the tiny things. 'I had often heard Mrs. Booth preach,' he
+said, 'but those baby-clothes preached a louder sermon to me and my wife
+than ever her words had done. They were all darned and mended and
+patched, and the work--but, there, I never saw such stitches! And as we
+looked, and knew the hours of toil she must have put into them, rather
+than throw them away, as many another would have done--well, I tell you I
+listened to her next sermon as I had never listened before.'
+
+And this same diligent, tireless spirit was with her to the last. When on
+her deathbed, able only to use her left hand, and propped up by pillows,
+she devised a little frame on which, painfully, stitch by stitch, she
+could work a last token of love for The General.
+
+When her hands were folded still in death, I saw those slippers. They
+were beautifully embroidered, one with the words, 'He will keep the feet
+of His Saints'; and the other with the sure and certain hope which lay
+beyond the parting, 'Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem'
+--a fitting and sacred service with which to close her many years of toil
+and labour for others.
+
+But our Army Mother had another way of working in her home--that is, she
+worked over others. If a girl wished to learn, Mrs. Booth would take
+endless trouble in showing her the best way to wash or iron, or clean a
+grate, or do whatever the work on hand might be. She instructed her
+servants, explaining to them the reason for doing their duties in a
+certain way, teaching them forethought and common sense, and dealing
+faithfully with them over all their failures.
+
+'Better,' she said, in one of her addresses--and she lived it out in her
+own home--'better take a girl whom you have to teach how to wash a
+child's face, or to stitch a button on, if she is true and sincere, than
+have one ever so clever, who will teach your children to lie and
+deceive.'
+
+She worked, too, over the cases of need and poverty which were often at
+her door. Not content, like so many, with giving a few coppers to a
+beggar, or some broken food, she would inquire into the _cause_ of
+the distress; and then, if the need seemed genuine, she would help,
+either by getting the father work, or by having the home visited and
+suitable relief given after the true condition of things had been found
+out.
+
+And this was only a little of the homework with which her hands were ever
+full. Of her ceaseless care over her children's mind and soul training I
+have told you elsewhere. But of her public work perhaps the most
+exhausting was that which resulted from her Meetings. For she could not
+rest content with the most careful preparation beforehand, nor with
+pouring out her whole soul upon the people during the forty or fifty
+minutes that her address lasted. At the close of the Meeting, whenever
+her health allowed it, she would labour and toil, often for two hours and
+more, dealing herself with the penitents, meeting their difficulties, one
+by one, and was unwilling to leave them until, as far as possible, all
+had claimed and received the blessing they sought.
+
+The next day, too, she would follow up any special case with a long
+personal letter from her own pen, or she would arrange another interview,
+or in some way keep in close, actual touch with the struggling soul,
+until the step of obedience had been taken, and he or she was fairly
+started on the Narrow Way.
+
+And it was this careful, earnest, patient after-work which gave such
+glorious harvests to her soul-saving campaigns. Labour and trouble were a
+joy to her, if she could but help one sincere, seeking soul into the
+light.
+
+But remember this: while she so toiled over all who came to her for
+advice and guidance, she never repeated nor passed on to others their
+confidences. If she had done so, people would soon have left off corning
+to her; they would have said, 'We cannot trust her.' She was, as you
+know, a mighty speaker; but about other people's affairs she was entirely
+silent--as you must learn to be if you wish to be of any service to God
+or man.
+
+And Mrs. Booth strove constantly to teach all who were around her to work
+as she did. 'You have begun well enough--now carry it through,' she would
+say again and again to her children, and whether it was a doll's frock,
+or an article for 'The War Cry,' or a series of Meetings, it was always
+the same. Unfinished, half-done work she detested with all her soul. 'If
+a thing is worth beginning at all, then it is worth finishing,' she would
+say; and this great principle followed her through her life in small
+things as in great.
+
+This was the reason that, on her deathbed, she could say, turning to the
+Chief of the Staff, 'I have no vain regrets about the past. As far as my
+strength allowed, I have finished the work I had to do as I went along;
+and now I leave it, all imperfect as it has been, in His hands.'
+
+Perhaps, by nature, you are not a worker. But what you are not by nature,
+you can become by grace. God can teach you to love work. And as you work,
+you will, like our dear Army Mother, learn better and better how to work;
+and your life, whenever God calls you to lay it down, shall be like hers,
+not unfinished, but complete.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+GOODNESS
+
+
+
+'I see more than ever that the religion which is pleasing to God consists
+in doing and enduring His will, rather than in good sentiments and
+feelings. The Lord help us to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.'--
+MRS. BOOTH.
+
+When our first General stood on that October evening by the grave of his
+beloved wife, and spoke to us with a breaking heart of our Army Mother,
+he unfolded to us the three great qualities which made her character so
+beautiful. First, and foremost, she was good; secondly, she was love;
+and, thirdly, she was a Warrior. Let us, following The General's outline,
+look at these three leading qualities in her life. 'First,' he said, 'she
+was _good_. She was washed in the Blood of the Lamb. To the last
+moment her cry was "a sinner saved by grace." She was a thorough hater of
+shams, hypocrisies, and make-believes. Her goodness was of a practical
+sort. "By their fruits ye shall know them" was a text she often quoted,
+and one by which she was always willing to be judged.'
+
+It is of this 'goodness of a practical sort' that I want first to tell
+you, before we consider that soul goodness which made her life so holy.
+
+Mrs. Booth could not imagine any goodness apart from industry. As we have
+already seen, she considered it a sin to waste precious time. Any one who
+was lazy she could not endure, and when one such offered for the work she
+wrote of him:--
+
+'I do hope you will not throw a lot of money away in trying H------, just
+for want of courage to tell him at once that he will not do, because I am
+sure that it will be thrown away. It is the _nature_ of the man that
+is at fault, and not his _circumstances_. He is a _drone_, and
+nothing, no change of place or position, can ever make him into a bee. He
+never ought to have left his trade; he never _would_ have done so if
+he had thought soul-saving was harder work!'
+
+Extravagance and waste of every kind she abhorred, and had she not been
+so careful in planning and arranging, her time and money would again and
+again have run short. The sewing, mending, and housekeeping needed for a
+family of little children when means are scarce would have been burden
+enough for most mothers. But besides this came her own letter-writing,
+preparing for her Meetings, and also the hours she spent consulting and
+advising The General, whose voice, 'Here, Kate,' would call her from the
+nursery or kitchen to help him decide some important question.
+
+Again, it was impossible to talk to Mrs. Booth, even for five minutes,
+without finding how true and sincere she was. To please no one would she
+keep back the truth, or appear different from her real self.
+
+'I believe,' she writes, when quite a young woman, 'honesty to be the
+best policy, and I shall act upon it. Let me have truth, if it shakes the
+foundation of the earth.'
+
+She was sincere and faithful in every part of her nature: faithful with
+her own soul and in dealing with the souls of others. Great or small,
+rich or poor, she made no difference, and never held back from reproving
+sin when it was needful.
+
+'I see more than ever,' she said, 'the need of making righteous people
+true in their _inward parts_. Let us be more thorough than ever with
+souls under conviction. Let us not be afraid to wound too deeply.
+Thousands of professors have never been truly convinced of sin, much less
+truly converted. Sin to them is _being found out_!'
+
+Though all through her life our Army Mother hungered and thirsted to
+know God better, and to serve Him more perfectly, yet it was not till
+some time after her marriage that she received the blessing of a clean
+heart.
+
+Of the struggle and conflict which she went through, before the blessing
+of Holiness became hers, she shall tell you in her own words:--
+
+'I had been earnestly seeking all the week to know Jesus as an all-
+sufficient Saviour dwelling in my heart, and thus cleansing it every
+moment of all sin; but on Thursday and Friday I laid aside almost
+everything else, and spent the chief part of the day in reading and
+prayer, and trying to believe for it. On Thursday afternoon at tea-time I
+was well-nigh discouraged, and felt my old visitant, irritability, and
+the Devil told me I should never get it, and so I might as well give it
+up at once. However, I know him of old as a liar and the father of lies,
+and pressed on, cast down, yet not destroyed.
+
+'On Friday morning God gave me two precious passages. First, "Come unto
+Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Oh,
+how sweet it sounded to my poor, weary, sin-stricken soul! I almost dared
+to believe that He did give me rest from inbred sin--the rest of perfect
+Holiness. But I staggered at the promise through unbelief, and therefore
+failed to enter in. The second passage consisted of those thrice-blessed
+words, "Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us wisdom,
+righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." But again unbelief
+hindered me, although I felt as if getting gradually nearer.
+
+'I struggled through the day until a little after six in the evening,
+when William joined me in prayer. We had a blessed season. While he was
+saying, "Lord, we open our hearts to receive Thee," that word was spoken
+to my soul, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My
+voice, and open unto Me, I will come in, and sup with him." I felt sure
+He had long been knocking, and Oh, how I yearned to receive Him as a
+perfect Saviour! But Oh, the inveterate habit of unbelief! How wonderful
+that God should have borne so long with me! When we got up from our
+knees, I lay on the sofa, exhausted with the excitement and effort of the
+day. William said, "Don't you lay all on the altar?" I replied, "I am
+sure I do!" Then he said, "And isn't the altar holy?" I replied in the
+language of the Holy Ghost, "The altar is most holy, and whatsoever
+toucheth it is holy." Then, said he, "Are you not holy?" I replied with
+my heart full of emotion and with some faith, "Oh, I think I am!"
+Immediately the word was given me to confirm my faith. "Now are ye clean
+through the word which I have spoken unto you." And I took hold--true,
+with a trembling hand, and not unmolested by the tempter, but I held fast
+the beginning of my confidence, and it grew stronger, and from that
+moment I have dared to reckon myself dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto
+God through Jesus Christ my Lord.
+
+'I did not feel much rapturous joy, but perfect peace, the sweet rest
+which Jesus promised to the heavy laden. I have understood the Apostle's
+meaning when he says, "We who believe do enter into rest." This is just
+descriptive of my state at present. Not that I am not tempted, but I am
+allowed to know the Devil when he approaches me, and I look to my
+Deliverer Jesus, and He still gives me rest. Two or three very trying
+things occurred on Saturday, which at another time would have excited
+impatience, but I was kept by the power of God through faith unto full
+Salvation.
+
+'And now what shall I say? "Unto Him who has washed me in His own Blood
+be glory and dominion for ever and ever," and all within me says "Amen!"
+Oh! I cannot describe, I have no words to set forth the sense I have of
+my own utter unworthiness. Satan has met me frequently with my peculiarly
+aggravated sins, and I have admitted it all. But then I have said, the
+Lord has not made my sanctification to depend in any measure on my own
+worthiness or unworthiness, but on the worthiness of my Saviour. He came
+to seek and to save "that which was lost." "Where sin hath abounded,
+grace doth much more abound"'
+
+How wonderfully in after years Mrs. Booth explained and led others into
+this same blessing, we know. Was not, then, the long struggle and agony
+on her own behalf worth it? Yes, indeed, and it will be so with you when
+you get this glorious blessing in your soul.
+
+You will have noticed how in struggling for Holiness Mrs. Booth had to
+fight unbelief. This determination to trust God fully marked her out as
+strong in faith.
+
+She had this marvellous faith because she obeyed and struggled to throw
+herself on the Lord; but faith was not _natural_ to her any more
+than it is to you or me.
+
+Often money was short, and she hardly knew how she would be able to feed
+and clothe her family: this was a sore trial of her faith. On one such
+occasion she wrote to her mother:--
+
+'We have not at present received as much as our travelling expenses and
+house rent. I feel a good deal perplexed, and am sometimes tempted to
+mistrust the Lord. But I will not allow it. Our Father knows!'
+
+Later on we get a sight of her own experience in one of her letters, when
+she said:--
+
+'I am much tried just now by perplexities of every kind; uncertainty,
+from a human standpoint, hedges me in on every side. Satan says it is
+useless trying to steer straight through such a labyrinth; but I am
+determined to hold on to the promises, come what will. My God is the
+living God. He sees me, knows me, loves me, cares for me, wants to have
+me with Him in Glory, as much as He did Abraham, or Paul, or John. If
+this be true, what have I to fear?'
+
+And again:--
+
+'"Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see
+the Salvation of God?" This is a precious word. It has kept my soul alive
+many a time when Satan has almost overthrown me. "If thou canst believe,
+all things are possible to thee. Never mind whether anybody else can or
+cannot. If others are too strong to let Me carry them, if thou art weak
+enough to throw up all self-effort, and trust Me with thy whole weight, I
+will carry thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." I know this is the way.
+Hence the babes go in with the simple and the great sinners, while the
+reasoners, and the strong, and the proud, and the fearful are shut out.'
+
+Again, to one who was cast down, and tempted to be discouraged because of
+his failings, she writes:--
+
+'It is well to see them, for how can we take hold of Jesus to mend what
+we don't see? It is best to know ourselves, but we Salvationists are in
+danger of erring on the other side. We look too much at ourselves apart
+from Him who is or would be our righteousness, sanctification, and
+redemption. Faith in Him as your keeper will do more in five minutes than
+years of conflict without it.'
+
+Once, in another letter, she gives us a beautiful bit of her own soul's
+experience on this subject:--
+
+'I had such a view of His love and faithfulness on the journey from
+Wellingborough, that I thought I would never doubt again about anything.
+I had the carriage to myself, and such a precious season with the Lord,
+that the time seemed to fly. As the lightning gleamed around I felt ready
+to shout, "The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." Oh, how
+precious it is when we see as well as believe, but yet more blessed to
+believe and not see! Lord, work this determined, obstinate, blind,
+unquestioning, unanswering faith in me and my beloved friend, and let us
+two dare to trust Thee in the midst of our peculiar trials. As I looked
+at the waving fields, and grazing sheep, the flashing sky, a Voice said
+in my soul, "Of what oughtest thou to be afraid? Am I not God? Cannot I
+supply thy little, tiny needs?" My heart replied, "It is enough, Lord; I
+will trust Thee, forgive my unbelief."'
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+LOVE
+
+
+
+The truest love must ever seek the highest good of its object; sometimes
+even with forgetfulness of important smaller advantages.'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+The second great quality in Mrs. Booth's character, as given by the first
+General, was her love.
+
+'She was _love_,' he says. 'Her whole soul was full of tender, deep
+compassion. Oh, how she loved, how she pitied the suffering poor! How she
+longed to put her arms round the sorrowful, and help them!'
+
+'How,' asked Mrs. Booth once, 'are we to put heart into people? Even
+grace seems to fail to do so in many instances. I think it needs mothers
+to do this from infancy upwards.'
+
+You will recollect that Mrs. Mumford fostered this 'heart' and love in
+her little girl; and you will remember how keenly Katie felt, blazing up
+into wrath at any story of wrong or injury, and ready to sacrifice her
+life for those she loved. This spirit grew with her. She could not help
+caring and struggling to help all who needed her. The General often told
+her in later years that she was killing herself by carrying every one's
+burdens. Then she would try to leave off for a little, but her heart was
+too strong, and she could not hold it back.
+
+When but a child, running down the road with her hoop and stick, she saw
+a drunkard being dragged off to prison by a policeman. All the people
+were jeering and mocking at the poor friendless wretch. Instantly Katie's
+pity and love fired up. She dashed across the street, and marched along
+close by the man's side, so that he might feel that at least one little
+heart cared for him, and wanted to help him.
+
+To the end of her life she carried this deep, tender pity wherever she
+went. She loved the poor. 'With all their faults,' she said, 'they have
+larger hearts than the rich'; and she loved them for it.
+
+Where any one had a warm heart, she could forgive and overlook many
+mistakes; but with cold, narrow, 'fishy' souls, she had neither sympathy
+nor patience.
+
+Our Army Mother's help was practical. She did not only give money or
+pity, but she--so to speak--rolled up her sleeves and helped the
+suffering herself.
+
+Every sort of suffering and need appealed to her. If an animal was
+wounded or in pain, she stopped, and herself relieved it as best she
+could; and to the last, if she saw a horse or any creature being ill-
+treated, she would not hesitate to rush out and stop the driver, or in
+some way force him to leave off his cruelty.
+
+She was not only kind and helpful to those she liked, but every living
+thing that suffered had a claim upon her, and the greater the need the
+more tender and ready was her help.
+
+Mrs. Booth was a people's woman, and she was never weary of scheming and
+planning how to help the poor in the most practical way.
+
+'When I see people going wrong,' she said, when but a girl of twelve, 'I
+must tell the poor things how to manage.'
+
+Dirt and sin, and drink and misery, could not quench this love; it was a
+part of her very nature. Long, long before Slum Sisters were ever thought
+of, Mrs. Booth did their work herself, just because she so loved the
+poor, and longed to help them. You shall read the story in her own
+words:--
+
+'I remember in one case finding a poor woman lying on a heap of rags. She
+had just given birth to twins, and there was nobody of any sort to wait
+upon her. I can never forget the desolation of that room. By her side was
+a crust of bread and a small lump of lard. "I fancied a bit o' bootter
+(butter)," the woman remarked apologetically, noticing my eye fall upon
+the scanty meal, "and my mon, he'd do owt for me he could, bless'm--he
+couldna git me iny bootter, so he fitcht me this bit o' lard. Have
+_you_ iver tried lard isted o' bootter? It's _rare good_!" said
+the poor creature, making me wish I had taken lard for "bootter" all my
+life, that I might have been the better able to minister to her needs.
+However, I was soon busy trying to make her a little more comfortable.
+The babies I washed in a broken pie-dish, the nearest approach to a tub
+that I could find. And the gratitude of those large eyes, that gazed upon
+me from out of that wan and shrunken face, can never fade from my
+memory.'
+
+Before public Meetings took up so much of her time, she delighted in this
+house-to-house visiting, and went especially for the drunkards, over whom
+God gave her a wonderful power.
+
+'I used to visit in the evenings,' she says, 'because it was the only
+part of the day in which I could get away; and, besides, I should not
+have found the men at home at any other time. I used to ask one
+drunkard's wife where another lived. They always knew. After getting hold
+of eight or ten in this way, and getting them to sign the pledge, I used
+to arrange Cottage Meetings for them, and try to get them saved. They
+used to let me talk to them in homes where there was not a stick of
+furniture, and nothing to sit down upon.'
+
+In this way our Army Mother sought and cared for the drunkards long
+before Drunkards' Brigades were dreamt of.
+
+When, at a later time in her life, she first heard of the wicked and
+cruel way in which young girls are trapped and drawn into sin, Mrs.
+Booth's soul was filled with a whirlwind of holy indignation.
+
+'I feel as though I could not rest, but as though I must go and ferret
+out these monsters myself,' she wrote. 'Almost everybody, notwithstanding
+the indignation, seems so content with talking. Nobody appears willing to
+take the responsibility of doing or risking anything. Oh, what a state
+the world has got into!'
+
+But, deep and practical as was her love in earthly things, her passion
+for lifting and leading souls into Salvation and Holiness was a thousand
+times more intense. 'If we only realized, as we ought, the value of
+souls, we should not live long under it,' she said; and she herself
+realized it fully enough to make her fight on ceaselessly in spite of
+intense weakness. 'If it were not for eternity,' she often sighed, 'I
+should soon give up this life.'
+
+It was love for souls which made her go from town to town, care-worn,
+weary, often quite unfit to meet the immense congregations which came to
+hear her.
+
+It was love for souls which kept her sitting for hours at her writing-
+table, when she should have been resting, trying to help those who turned
+to her for counsel and direction from every part of the globe.
+
+It was love for souls which gave her many a sleepless night, and chained
+her to her knees, weeping and pleading, agonizing with God on behalf of
+the people she was to face the next day.
+
+And this love for souls grew even stronger as death came near. 'Eva,' she
+exclaimed to one of her daughters, as she lay racked with agonizing pain,
+'don't you forget that man with the handcuffs on. Find him. Go to
+Lancaster Jail; let somebody go with you, and find that man. Tell him
+that your mother, when she was dying, prayed for him, and that she had a
+feeling in her heart that God would save him; and tell him, hard as the
+ten years of imprisonment may be, it will be easier with Christ than it
+would be without Him.'
+
+She was lying between earth and Heaven, thinking of the joy and peace
+awaiting her, when it seemed as if she saw the dark face of a heathen
+woman, and heard the cry, 'Won't you help us?' The old love for perishing
+souls woke again directly, and she cried, 'Oh, yes, Lord, I will go
+anywhere to help poor struggling people. I would go on an errand to Hell,
+if the Lord would promise me that the Devil should not keep me there.'
+
+In one of these last days she sent a dying message to the Officers. 'Tell
+them,' she said, 'that the only consolation for a Salvationist on his
+death-bed is to have been a soul-winner. After all my labours I feel I
+have come far short of the prize of my high calling. Beseech them to
+redeem their time, for we can do but little at the best.'
+
+A little maid who was a Candidate came into Mrs. Booth's sick-room once
+as she was speaking, and she called her to her bedside, giving her
+warning and counsel which every Corps Cadet can take as though spoken to
+herself:--
+
+'You will be finished with the dishes soon,' she said, 'and you are going
+to be a Cadet. I have been very pleased with you while you have been
+here, because you have worked out of sight with a good will, and I think
+you will make a brave Officer. You will promise me, will you?' she said,
+as she laid her trembling hand on the girl's head. 'Yes,' was the reply,
+'I will,' amid stifled sobs.
+
+'Give me a kiss, then,' said Mrs. Booth. 'Promise me that you will never
+get spoiled by any unfaithful Officer. If you ever get mixed up with
+such, do not hide it from Headquarters, but let them know about it, and
+they will soon move the false away from you. I shan't be here; but, Oh!
+may God help them to get rid of the wrong. Discernment of spirits! Oh,
+why should we not have that gift back? It is very necessary.'
+
+Mrs. Booth's whole heart was wrapped up in the spread of The Army, and
+she was never more of a warrior than when fighting its battles. And The
+Army needed some one to stand up for it in those days. We who live to-day
+can hardly fancy the fierce, bitter persecution the early-day
+Salvationists had to fight through.
+
+Now, even those who dislike and despise us are forced to admit that 'The
+Army does a great deal of good'; but then it was different, and again and
+again, both by speech and writing, Mrs. Booth had to defend and stand up
+for our methods.
+
+'I would not,' she says, after she had spoken too plainly for some rich
+people who were offended at her words, 'sit down and listen to their
+abuse of The Salvation Army for all their money. But I did not say a word
+that I would object to have published upon the housetops. Such, however,
+is often the spirit of the rich. They think that one must sit and hear
+whatever they may choose to say, and hold one's breath, because of their
+money! But, no, I will never be dumb before a golden idol!'
+
+She loved the Uniform: she herself planned that worn by Army women, and
+always wore her own, rejoicing to be able to give to our people a way of
+escape from the fashions and extravagances of the world.
+
+She loved the Flag, and was true to its beautiful meaning. She loved to
+present Colours to the newly-opened Corps, or to parties of Officers
+going abroad; and when, shortly before she passed away, she changed her
+room, she begged that the dear Army Flag might be brought in and hung
+above her bed.
+
+'There,' said The General, 'the Colours are over you now, my darling.'
+
+And she clasped them fondly with her left hand, and traced the motto--
+'Blood and Fire.'
+
+'Yes,' she said, 'Blood and Fire; that is just what my life has been--a
+constant and severe fight.'
+
+'It ought to be "Blood and Fire and Victory,"' said The General.
+
+'I'll fight on till I get it,' she answered. 'I won't give in. Next time
+I see them I shall be above the pain and sorrow for ever.'
+
+But, though at the last she longed to be at rest, it was not easy for her
+great mother's heart to unloose itself from those she loved, and from the
+thousands in all lands who looked to her as to a mother.
+
+If you have learnt to love very deeply you will also have to suffer, and
+her very love made the parting so difficult.
+
+'Oh,' she exclaimed, when speaking of leaving The General and her
+children, 'mine is such a heart! it seems as if it had got roots all
+round the world clutching on to one and another, and that it will not let
+them go! And yet You can take care of them, Lord, better than I could. I
+do, I do believe! O Eternal Father, Shepherd of the sheep, do Thou look
+after my little flock!'
+
+'Amen,' we who read these lines may say; adding to her prayer, 'And give
+us that same heart and love which made her life of such mighty power.'
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE WARRIOR
+
+
+
+'Fighting is hard work, whatever sort of fighting it is. You cannot fight
+without wounds of body, heart, or soul.'--MRS. BOOTH.
+
+'Lastly,' said The General in that same beautiful tribute to our Army
+Mother that I have already quoted from,' she was a _warrior_. She
+liked the fight. She was not one who said to others, "Go," but "Here, let
+_me_ go"; and when there was the necessity she said, "I _will_
+go!" I never knew her flinch until her poor body compelled her to lie on
+one side.'
+
+Our Army Mother was, indeed, before all things a warrior; she fought
+bravely and unceasingly her whole life through.
+
+In thought and purpose she was independent, and dared to stand out for
+what she felt right. Cowardice, in her opinion, was one of the commonest
+and most subtle sins of the day, and she had no patience with those who
+dared not say 'No,' and feared to stand alone.
+
+She thought for herself, and though always eager to hear and learn as
+much as possible from others, yet she was not carried away by their
+opinions, but carefully weighed and considered their arguments, and then
+formed her own judgments.
+
+Mrs. Booth strove earnestly for doctrine.
+
+'Let us take care,' she said, in The Army's early days, 'what Gospel we
+preach. Let us mind our doctrine.'
+
+And again:--
+
+'We must stick to the form of sound words, for there is more in it than
+appears on the surface. "Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and the Holy
+Ghost," was the theology of our forefathers, and I am suspicious of all
+attempts to mend it.'
+
+And once more:--
+
+'Let us beware of wrong doctrine, come through whomsoever it may. Holy
+men make sad mistakes. "Well, but," say some, "is not a person who holds
+wrong views with a right heart better than a person with right views and
+a wrong heart?" Yes, so far as his personal state before God is
+concerned, but not in his influence on man. My charity must extend to
+those likely to be deceived or ruined by his doctrines as well as to
+him.'
+
+Mrs. Booth's whole life was a continual fight against sin--sin of all
+kinds. Whether her Meeting was held for the very lowest and roughest, or
+whether rows of clergy and lawyers, and lords and ladies sat to listen,
+it made no difference to her. She attacked sin, and went straight at the
+very heart-sins of the people in front of her.
+
+'We need great grace,' she says in the midst of her wonderful West-End
+campaign, where even princes and princesses came to hear her. 'I think
+the Lord never enabled me to be more plain and faithful. As a lady in
+high circles said to me, "We never heard this sort of Gospel before." No,
+poor things, they are sadly deceived.'
+
+Drink, too, was another evil which Mrs. Booth fought against during the
+whole of her life. She began, as you remember, when a girl by being
+secretary of the 'Band of Love' of those days.
+
+In the early days of their engagement The General was strongly advised to
+take a little wine for the sake of his health. Our Army Mother wrote him
+a long letter, showing him how false and foolish such advice was, and
+ending with:--
+
+'I have had it recommended to me scores of times, but I am fully and for
+ever settled on the physical side of the question. [Footnote: That means
+taking it for the sake of health.--ED.]
+
+'It is a subject on which I am most anxious you should be thorough. I
+have far more hope for your health _because_ you abstain, than I
+should if you took wine. Flee the detestable thing as you would a
+serpent; be a teetotaller in principle and practice.'
+
+Though, as we have seen, full of boundless faith and pity for the
+drunkard, Mrs. Booth attacked the makers and sellers of drink
+unmercifully. She says, on one occasion:--
+
+'By your peace of conscience on a dying bed; by the eternal destinies of
+your children, by your care for never-dying souls; by the love you owe
+your Saviour, I beseech you _banish the drink_.
+
+'Tell me no more of charity towards brewers, distillers, and publicans.
+Your false charity to these has already consigned millions to an untimely
+Hell!... Arise, Christians, arise, and fight this foe! You and you alone
+are able, for your God will fight for you!'
+
+Another thing for which our Army Mother fought, and which to-day we owe
+in great measure to her efforts, is the position to which women have been
+lifted as speakers and teachers in God's work. She first, as we have
+seen, opened the way herself; and then she left it open, encouraging and
+helping tens of thousands of simple, holy women all round the world to
+follow in her steps.
+
+She had a tough battle to wage. All classes wrote and spoke against women
+being allowed to stand and speak for God in the open air or in public
+halls; but, strong in faith and courage, convinced that she had Divine
+authority for what she did, our Army Mother fought on, arguing, writing,
+preaching on the matter. Now to-day there is scarcely a land where The
+Army bonnet is not known and loved, nor where Army women cannot gain a
+crowd of respectful listeners.
+
+Now I am going to show you some of the hindrances in spite of which our
+Army Mother fought on.
+
+The first of these hindrances was the burden which God allowed Mrs. Booth
+to carry all through her life--a weak and suffering body. She said, when
+her life was drawing to its close, that suffering seemed to have been her
+special lot, and that she could scarcely remember a day in her life when
+she had been wholly free from pain.
+
+'I don't care about my body,' she exclaimed when lying in her last
+illness. 'It has been a poor old troublesome affair. I shall be glad for
+it to be sealed up. It is time it was. Oh, I have dragged it wearily
+about.'
+
+Most women suffering as she did, with a weak spine, heart disease, and
+over-strained nerves, would have lived the life of an invalid. But the
+warrior spirit within forced her body along. Scores of times she has gone
+from her bed to the Meeting, and then, exhausted and fainting with the
+effort, has had to be almost carried home. But she had done her work, and
+sent the arrow of conviction into hundreds of hearts.
+
+Writing after one special strain of work and anxiety, she says:--
+
+'The excitement made me worse than I have been for two years. My heart
+was really alarming, and for two days I could hardly bear any clothes to
+touch me. This has disheartened me again as to my condition. But God
+reigns, and He will keep me alive as long as He needs me.'
+
+Another of her hindrances, and one which was almost more difficult to
+overcome than weakness of body, was depression.
+
+I wonder if you know what that is? If so, it will help you to realize
+that Mrs. Booth had to fight it also.
+
+The Devil seemed allowed to try and test her faith to the uttermost, and
+at times to blot out all peace and glory from her soul. During one such
+time of darkness she writes:--
+
+'I know I ought not, of all saints, or sinners either, to be depressed. I
+know it dishonours my Lord, grieves His Spirit, and injures me greatly;
+and I would fain hide from everybody to prevent their seeing it. But I
+cannot help it. I have struggled hard, more than any one knows, for a
+long time against it. Sometimes I have literally held myself, head and
+heart and hand, and waited for the floods to pass over me.'
+
+But our Army Mother did not give up working for God, and sit down in
+despair, because she was thus tried. One day, just before leaving for a
+great West-End Meeting, in which God made her words as a sharp two-edged
+sword, she wrote this to one of her children:--
+
+'I have been very much depressed since you left--more so than usual. It
+is of no use reasoning with myself when these fits of despondency are on
+me. I must hold on and fight my passage through; and when I get to Heaven
+the light and joy will be all the greater. If I dared give up working I
+should do so a hundred times over; but I _dare_ not.'
+
+Another and constant hindrance which our Army Mother had to fight for the
+greater part of her life was poverty. It was so difficult, many times, to
+make two ends meet. She had, during many years of her life, no regular
+money coming in on which to depend, and during that time it was a
+constant struggle to have her children properly cared for and give them
+the needed education.
+
+But most of all did our Army Mother show herself a warrior in her own
+Salvation campaigns. In those early days there were no praying Soldiers
+and Sergeants to be had to deal with the penitents--no one, either, to
+lead her singing, scarcely even to keep the doors or take up the
+collection. She would arrive in a town absolutely alone. A hall had been
+taken in which she was to speak, and she would hire a tiny lodging, or
+stay in whatever home would receive her, and set to work. We can scarcely
+understand the loneliness of her position. Here was a proof of her mighty
+faith in God.
+
+She began these solitary campaigns when her sixth child was but a few
+weeks old, and God most wonderfully owned her labours. At one place she
+saw one hundred grown-up people and two hundred children come to her
+penitent-form in six days. But it was a fearful battle.
+
+'I have a comfortable little cot to stay in,' she writes to her mother
+from one such battle-field, 'very small and humble; but it is clean and
+quiet; and when I feel nervous no one knows the value of quietness. I
+have felt it hard work lately. Many a time have I longed to be where the
+weary are at rest.'
+
+At Margate, some years later, she commenced her Meetings without knowing
+a single person in the place. For some weeks she had not even a helper in
+the Prayer Meetings, nor one who would give out a song for her. Mrs.
+Booth could not sing herself, and there was often an awkward pause before
+any one would be willing to pitch her tune. 'If only,' she said when The
+Army was fairly on its feet, 'I had been able to command a dozen reliable
+people such as I could have anywhere now, I think I could have done
+almost anything.'
+
+Even more wonderful was her experience at Brighton.
+
+The Dome, a great building holding three thousand people, had been taken
+for her Meetings.
+
+'I can never forget my feelings,' says this Soldier-saint, 'as I stood
+upon the platform and looked upon the people, realizing that among them
+all there was no one to help me. When I commenced the Prayer Meeting, for
+which I should think quite nine hundred remained, Satan said to me, as I
+came down from the platform according to my custom, "You will never ask
+such people as these to come and kneel down here? You will only make a
+fool of yourself if you do." I felt stunned for a moment; but I answered,
+"Yes, I shall. I shall not make it any easier for them than for the
+others. If they do not realize their sins enough to be willing to come
+and kneel here, they will not be of much use to the kingdom."'
+
+The Lord set His seal upon Mrs. Booth's faith and courage, for the first
+to volunteer were two old gentlemen, both over seventy years of age; and
+she had ten or twelve at the mercy-seat before the Meeting ended.
+
+Writing from Portsmouth, she tells the same story of loneliness and
+victory:--
+
+'You say, "How do you get on personally?" Oh, I never was so hampered for
+help in every way in all my life! The most able man I have keeps a
+milliner's shop, and the one that opens for me generally is an overseer;
+so their attention is divided and the time limited. Pray for me. I never
+needed your prayers so much. This is a dreadfully wicked place.'
+
+Yet during the seventeen weeks of her stay some six hundred names were
+taken, many of them wonderful trophies of God's mercy.
+
+Having lived such a warrior's life, you think, very likely, that the
+death-bed experience of our Army Mother would be all peace and glory. But
+no. Right down into the Valley she needed to use the Sword of the Spirit
+and the Shield of Faith, for to the last Satan was allowed to test and
+try her.
+
+But she fought on!
+
+'One of my hardest lessons,' she said in her last hours, 'has been the
+difference between faith and realization; and if I have had to conquer
+all through life by naked faith, I can only expect it to be the same now.
+All our enemies have to be conquered by _faith_, not realization;
+and is it not so with the last enemy, death? Yes, if it please the Lord
+that I should go down into the dark valley without any realization,
+simply knowing that I am His, and He is mine, I am quite willing--I
+accept it.'
+
+This is the faith that made our Army Mother and all the Bible saints such
+conquerors. It is the secret of their victory--the faith without which it
+is impossible to please God, and for which we all need to pray, 'Lord,
+increase our faith.'
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+LAST DAYS
+
+
+
+'As I look back on life I do not remember the houses I have lived in, the
+people that I have known, the things of passing interest at the moment.
+They are all gone. There is nothing stands out before my mind as of any
+consequence, but the work I have done for God and Eternity.'--MRS.
+BOOTH.
+
+If The General and those who loved our Army Mother best had been able to
+choose for her, they would most likely have said: 'Let her live and fight
+and work on, up to within a few days of her promotion to Glory. Let the
+call come quickly and painlessly, as it has come to others in our ranks.'
+
+But the Lord, who loved her more than we did, saw fit to send to her two
+and a half years of ever-increasing weariness and suffering. For long
+months she lay on the very bank of the River, longing for the messenger
+of Death to carry her across. Those who loved her could not tell why the
+Lord sent her this last fiery trial; they could only bow with her, and
+say, 'Thy will be done.'
+
+It was in February, 1888, that Mrs. Booth, who was anxious about her
+health, went to consult a great doctor and get his opinion. She was
+alone, for no one had thought her illness was so serious. She asked him
+to tell her the truth--all through her life, as you know, she wanted the
+truth; and after a little hesitation he told her.
+
+The truth was the saddest that she could hear. That dreadful illness--
+cancer--through which she had so tenderly nursed her own dear mother,
+had come to her, and in the doctor's opinion she had much suffering to
+pass through, and only two or, at the most, three years longer to live.
+Mrs. Booth listened calmly, thanked the doctor, and then, getting once
+more into the cab, drove home all alone.
+
+It was a dark journey. The War needed her. The General needed her. Her
+children needed her. And yet the sentence of Death had been passed upon
+her, and she must soon leave them all. What did she do? I think you can
+guess.
+
+She knelt down in the cab, and in prayer committed to God, in a new and
+deeper way than ever before, her own body, and her dear ones and the work
+He had given her to do.
+
+At last the cab stopped before her own door, and The General came out to
+meet her.
+
+'I shall never forget that meeting in this world, or the next,' he says.
+'I had been watching for the cab, and had run out to meet her and help
+her up the steps. She tried to smile on me through her tears; but,
+drawing me into the room, soon told me, bit by bit, what the doctor had
+said. I sat down speechless. She rose from her seat, and came and knelt
+beside me, saying: "Do you know what was my first thought? That I should
+not be there to nurse you in your last hour."
+
+'I was stunned. I felt as if the whole world were coming to a standstill.
+Opposite me, on the wall, was a picture of Christ on the cross. I thought
+I could understand it then, as never before. She talked to me like an
+angel; she talked as she had never talked before. I could say little or
+nothing. I could only kneel with her and try to pray. That very same
+night The General was to leave London for some great Meetings in Holland,
+and Mrs. Booth would not hear of his changing his plans and remaining
+with her.
+
+'The War must go on' was her thought, even when all her family stood
+stunned and heart-broken around her, unwilling to leave her even for a
+moment.
+
+Two years later, when but a few more days of suffering remained to her, a
+last message from her lips reached us as Self-Denial Week began. 'The War
+must go on' was one of its sentences.
+
+'The War must go on' had been as her motto, lived out in all the long,
+long months that lay between. Instead of immediately laying aside her
+work, when the doctors gave their dreadful judgment, and beginning to
+think only of herself, she went on with it as long as her increasing
+weakness allowed.
+
+But step by step the disease grew worse. First she was forced to give up
+Meetings and public work. Then it became impossible for her to use her
+right hand, and she was therefore obliged to give up her correspondence,
+though she still continued to dictate her letters, and learnt also to
+write with her left hand.
+
+Soon her daily drives became too tiring, and by and by she went out of
+the house into the little garden for the last time; and then for the
+concluding twelve months of her life she was a prisoner in her room,
+lying in constant suffering.
+
+But during these long months the greatest joy and relief that could come
+to her was to hear of some fresh victory or triumph for the Kingdom of
+Jesus. Her interest in The Army and her love for the people were as keen
+as ever, and War Councils were held and new developments planned in her
+chamber, and much of The General's Darkest England Scheme for the poor
+and outcast was thought out and decided upon beside her sick bed.
+
+Again and again, too, Mrs. Booth would receive deputations of Officers of
+different classes and from various countries in which The Army was at
+work, who came to Clacton-on-Sea, where the last fifteen months of her
+life were spent, to listen to her words of advice and inspiration.
+
+There were no Corps Cadets in those days; but our Army Mother left some
+specially beautiful words about the Juniors, to which I must refer.
+
+When she was told by the Officer then in charge of our Junior Work in
+England that the children loved and prayed continually for her, she
+smiled.
+
+'The thought of the little ones,' says some one who was there, 'brought
+our beloved Army Mother wholly out of herself and her pain and
+weariness.'
+
+'A very choice branch of the work,' she said. 'I have often told Emma
+that I hoped when I was too old for public work God would let me end
+where I began--with the children. But it seems that it is not to be so.'
+
+'Give the children,' she went on, in reply to the messages they had sent,
+'my dear love, and tell them that if there had been a Salvation Army when
+I was ten I should have been a Soldier then, as I am to-day.
+
+Never allow yourself to be discouraged in your work. I know you must meet
+with many discouragements; but I am sure the Spirit of God works mightily
+on little children long before grown people think they are able to
+understand.'
+
+Again and again during that last year of awful suffering it seemed as if
+Mrs. Booth were about to leave us; but then she would revive, and come
+back to endure more weeks and months of agony.
+
+But at last, on October 4, 1890, all could see that she was on the brink
+of the River, and even those who loved her the most tenderly could not
+wish to hold her back.
+
+'O Emma, let me go, darling,' she whispered; and hearing the reply, 'Yes,
+we will, we will,' she said, 'Now! Yes, Lord, come, Oh, come!'
+
+The singing of The Army songs seemed to comfort her; and once she raised
+her suffering arm, and pointed to the text, '_My grace is sufficient
+for thee_,' which hung on the wall. It was lifted down and placed at
+the foot of her bed, so that her eyes could often rest on it during those
+last hours.
+
+'Soon after noon,' says the present General, 'I felt that the deepening
+darkness of the Valley was closing around my dear mother, and a little
+later I took my last farewell. Her lips moved, and she gave me one look
+of unspeakable tenderness and trust which will live with me for ever.
+Again we sang:--
+
+  My mistakes His free grace doth cover,
+    My sins He doth wash away;
+  These feet which shrink and falter
+    Shall enter the Gates of Day.
+
+And, holding her hand, The General gave her up to God. It was a solemn
+and wonderful scene.'
+
+The Chief of the Staff and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, Mrs. Booth-Tucker, and
+the Commander, and her three daughters, Marian, Eva, and Lucy, knelt
+round the bed, upon which were placed photographs of the other members of
+her family who were unavoidably absent. Near to her stood her faithful
+nurse, Captain Carr, and others of the household, the dear General bowing
+over his beloved wife and companion in life's long strife, and giving her
+up to the keeping of the Father.
+
+One by one the members of the family tenderly embraced her; then a gleam
+of recognition passed over the brightening countenance as The General
+bent over her. Their eyes met---the last kiss of love on earth, the last
+word till the Morning, and without a movement the breathing gently
+ceased, and a warrior laid down her sword to receive her crown.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You may have heard of those wonderful days from Tuesday morning till
+Sunday night, when the coffin containing the precious remains of our Army
+Mother lay at the Congress Hall, Clapton, and when more than fifty
+thousand people came to have a last look at her dear face.
+
+A piece of glass had been let into the plain oak coffin. It was just
+large enough to show the head and shoulders, and she lay as if in a sweet
+sleep.
+
+You wonder if many came merely from curiosity. Some did, of course, but
+most of the people came because her life and example and words had been
+so blessed to their souls; and they came as they would come to look at
+the dead face of their own mother. It was the most wonderful tribute to a
+woman's life and words that London had ever seen.
+
+For all kinds of people came--rich and poor, good and bad, people of many
+different religions, and many with no religion at all. Working men came
+in their dinner-hour, with their tools on their backs and tears in their
+eyes; mothers lifted up their little children to look at the one who had
+taught them the way of life; and, best of all, by the side of her coffin
+knelt many a wanderer and backslider to give themselves afresh to God.
+
+More than one poor girl went direct from the Congress Hall to the Rescue
+Homes, to begin to live 'as she would have wished'; and the Cadets on
+guard were all the time dealing with drunkards and helping those who
+desired to begin from thenceforth to live a new and different life.
+
+Even to-day, twenty-four years later, we often meet those who date their
+conversion, or their first step in the Narrow Way, from their look at
+that face lying in its simple coffin.
+
+One of Mrs. Booth's own grandchildren, Mary, the present General's second
+daughter, looks back to that scene as the time when God in an
+unmistakable manner sealed her as His. She was only five years old as she
+knelt by the coffin, but nevertheless she decided there, in her childish
+consecration, like Ruth of old, that 'Thy people shall be my people, and
+thy God my God'; and in the spirit of this consecration she lives to-day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In order that some of the crowds who wished to share in the funeral
+service might be present, the largest hall in London, the Olympia, was
+taken. Twenty-six thousand people filled it; and though it was, of
+course, impossible for them all to hear, they followed the service given
+on printed papers with reverent sympathy.
+
+The coffin was carried down the immense hall by Officers; The General and
+his family followed.
+
+Those who arranged for this last mighty gathering remembered that Mrs.
+Booth, when with us, was never happy to leave a Meeting unless it had
+been brought to a point, and something definite had been done; and
+therefore, when the songs and prayers and readings were over, the huge
+crowd was asked to kneel and make a solemn covenant with God.
+
+It was a beautiful covenant, and ended with these words:--
+
+'And now, in this solemn hour, and in the presence of death, I come again
+to Thy footstool, and make this covenant with Thee.'
+
+Then all who had made the covenant from their hearts rose and sang
+together:--
+
+  Just as I am Thou dost receive,
+  Dost welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
+  Because Thy promise I believe,
+  O Lamb of God, I come!
+
+It was just such an ending to the wonderful service as our Army Mother
+would have chosen had she been still on earth with us.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next morning was dry and bright. 'I shall ask God to give you a fine
+day for my funeral, Emma, so that you mayn't take cold,' our Army Mother
+had said, for she was ever thoughtful for others; and her prayer was
+answered, for though the white mist crept up from the river to the
+Embankment, where the procession was forming up, there was no rain nor
+wind.
+
+Tens of thousands of our dear Soldiers would gladly have sacrificed a
+day's work in order to follow in the funeral procession of one they so
+dearly loved; but, so as not to gather too large a crowd, only Officers
+were allowed in the march, which passed through countless throngs of
+people from International Headquarters to Abney Park Cemetery, a distance
+of about five miles.
+
+All along the route the crowds stood in dense masses, and roofs, windows,
+and every nook and corner were packed with human beings. Nothing had been
+seen like it, said the police, since the Duke of Wellington's funeral,
+forty years before.
+
+It was a wonderful march. I wish you could have seen it! Sometimes it
+seemed as if every one was weeping; and when the open hearse, with its
+plain oak coffin, crowned by The Army bonnet and well-worn Bible, passed,
+all heads were bared, all voices hushed, and tears filled all eyes.
+
+The General, standing alone in his open carriage all along the long, sad
+way, must have felt that he had the people's sympathy and love with him
+in his grief, for scores of heartfelt 'God bless you's!' came from lips
+that are unused to such words.
+
+And at last the yellow evening sun shone out as the great procession
+reached the gates of Abney Park Cemetery and wound towards the open
+grave.
+
+Only a part of the mighty throng could hear The General's beautiful
+words, so strong and yet so tender, from which I have already quoted, but
+all joined in the song, 'Rock of Ages,' which seemed to roll up to the
+heavens themselves.
+
+Several leading Officers and members of The General's own family prayed
+and spoke, wonderfully upheld in spite of their deep grief and the strain
+of the last days. And then by the open grave the present General led all
+hearts to make a fresh consecration, the whole assembly promising, with
+God's help, that they would be
+
+'Faithful to Thee, faithful to one another, and faithful to a dying
+world, till we meet our beloved Mother in the Morning. Amen.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If ever you are in Abney Park Cemetery you should visit her grave. It is
+very simple. Around the little piece of earth runs a grey stone, with
+these words carved on it:--
+
+  CATHERINE BOOTH,
+
+  MOTHER OF THE SALVATION ARMY
+
+  More than Conqueror, through Him that loved us,
+  and gave Himself for all the world and for you.
+
+  Do you also follow Christ?
+
+and above are two small beds of flowers.
+
+Do many people go to see it? you wonder.
+
+Oh, yes. All round it a path is worn in the grass, made by the tread of
+many feet; for mothers bring their boys and girls to see it, and tell
+them what a mother she was, and men and women of all creeds and races
+pause beside it, and remember.
+
+Many Officers, too--from distant lands, and speaking strange tongues you
+could not understand--come to The Army Mother's grave when they visit our
+shores. For she was their Mother as well as ours, they say.
+
+They kneel beside the stone, and spell out the name, and then they
+consecrate themselves afresh to God and the needs of the heathen lands,
+and they claim His grace to follow in her steps.
+
+For our Army Mother is not dead. True, her body lies in the quiet grave
+at Abney Park, and her spirit is in Heaven; but her life and influence
+still live among us, her words are treasured, and our greatest prayer and
+desire for the girls and wives and mothers in our ranks is that they may
+live to be worthy daughters of Catherine Booth.
+
+
+
+
+DATES IN MRS. BOOTH'S LIFE
+
+
+
+1829. January 17th. Catherine Mumford born at Ashbourne, Derby.
+1829. April 10th. William Booth born at Nottingham.
+1843. Catherine has to leave school owing to severe illness.
+1844. Refuses to be engaged to her cousin.
+1845. Is converted.
+1846. Seems likely to go into consumption.
+1850. Takes Sunday class of elder girls.
+1851. June. Miss Mumford hears Mr. Booth preach; later meets him at a
+      friend's house.
+1852. May 15th. They are engaged to be married.
+1855. June 16th. The wedding.
+1857. Mrs. Booth speaks to a children's meeting on Temperance.
+1859. She starts work among drunkards. She writes her first pamphlet on
+      woman's right to preach.
+1860. Mrs. Booth speaks for the first time in public.
+1861. Mr. and Mrs. Booth break up their home in the north, and come to
+      London, choosing an evangelistic life.
+1864. Mrs. Booth begins to hold Evangelistic campaigns apart from her
+      husband.
+1864. July. East End Mission begun.
+1868. First Headquarters established.
+1869. Mrs. Booth's wonderful Brighton campaign.
+1870. East London Mission becomes the 'Christian Mission.'
+1871. Mrs. Booth publishes her first book.
+1877. Christian Mission becomes 'The Salvation Army.'
+1878. The uniform is chosen.
+1886. First Self-Denial Week.
+1888. February. Mrs. Booth learns that she is suffering from cancer.
+1888. June 21st. Mrs. Booth speaks in public for the last time (at the
+      City Temple).
+1889. August. She goes to Clacton-on-Sea.
+1890. October 4th. Mrs. Booth is promoted to Glory.
+1890. October 6th. Her body brought to Congress Hall, Clapton.
+1890. October 11th. Funeral at Abney Park.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Catherine Booth, by Colonel Mildred Duff
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