The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"Carpenter, Minnie Lindsay Rowell
Religion
The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"
Carpenter, Minnie Lindsay Rowell
Lee, Kate; Salvation Army
'She lived in the spirit of the command, "Be pitiful, be courteous." The
graciousness of her spirit always reminded me of Christ. She did not seem
to understand the meaning of sarcasm.
'Her health was very frail. Whilst stationed here, she was often fighting
bronchitis, but she never spoke of herself. Never even said she was
tired. There was not a trace of self-pity or self-love about her.'
From many sources one hears of this continual fight with and triumph over
physical weakness. A woman hall-keeper tells, 'One evening I caught her
creeping like an old woman, through the dimly lighted hall, bent almost
double with bronchitis. "Oh, Adjutant," I cried, "you're ill. You should
go home to bed." When she knew I had seen her, she steadied herself to
take breath, smiled sternly, then waved me off, and presently walked
briskly into her converts' meeting.' A lieutenant tells, 'Sometimes in
the morning she looked so ill and old, and I would beg of her to let me
take her breakfast to bed. But she would laugh and say, "What's the good
of giving way to feelings? I'll be all right when I warm up to work."
Though ever a spartan to herself she was always tender in her treatment
of others.'
The following extracts from an article by the late Mrs. Colonel Ewens
appeared in 'The Officer' under the title of 'My Ideal Field Officer.' It
indicates the high esteem in which Adjutant Lee's Divisional Commanders
held her:--
For some years now, a woman Officer who is still in the field, has
been the living embodiment of my 'Ideal Field Officer.'
I was conducting a Junior meeting at her corps when the bandmaster
stepped into a side room for his instrument. I prepared to accompany
him to the open-air meeting and casually remarked that the officers
had gone on. 'You may trust our captain; I have never known her
late,' was the rejoinder.
Continuing he said:--
I have been in The Army for twenty years, but have never had such
an eye-opener in all my experience. I tell you if ever I have felt
ashamed of myself and my performances, it has been since this
officer came. She's the right woman in the right place, there's no
doubt about it. She can 'sit on' a fellow without crushing the life
out of him. The whole band is changed. She's just got our chaps,
the thirty of them; and she's as true and straight as a die. The
beauty of her life and example beats all we have ever had. Makes you
feel you must be good whether you will or not.' This was intensely
interesting to me, coming as it did so spontaneously from a man not
at all in the habit of praising his Officers. After our conversation,
I began to study the character and work of that unobtrusive woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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