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