Booth, Catherine Mumford, 1829-1890; Salvation Army -- Great Britain -- Biography
'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:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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