'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.