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 hungered for souls, she sought them everywhere. One morning, scanning
the daily paper to see if there were some call for help in its pages, she
noticed the case of a man awaiting trial for a serious offence. She
remarked to her lieutenant, 'I must try to help that man.' Straightway
she prayed, then wrote the governor of the jail asking permission to
visit the prisoner. This was granted, but the Adjutant was not allowed to
see him alone. She was conducted to a triple cage; a warder occupied one
compartment; the prisoner another; Kate Lee the third. As she gazed at
the man through the bars, to introduce herself to him, and so to
establish friendly contact and to reach his soul, seemed impossible. She
spoke to him for a considerable time and prayed, but the face before her
was like a sphinx, and he did not answer a word. Kate Lee came away from
the prison with a sad heart, feeling that she had accomplished nothing.
At the trial, the man was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years'
imprisonment. The Adjutant continued to pray for the convict, and at
last, to her great joy, she received a letter from him. The prisoner told
her that on returning to his cell, he had thought over all she had said
to him; not only had conviction of sin come to his soul, but hope. He had
asked God to forgive the past and to give him a new heart. God had
answered his prayer. Good conduct shortened the criminal's sentence, and
Kate Lee saw him discharged, placed him in the care of The Army, and
after a term at the Land Colony at Hadleigh, in Essex, he was restored to
his friends. Until the end of her life, this man corresponded with the
Adjutant, whom he always addressed as 'Dear Mother.'
If staying for a night at a house, the Adjutant endeavoured to leave some
blessing behind her, and the Spirit of God, resting upon quite
commonplace words and actions, made them beautiful and blessed to the
receivers. One woman writes, 'She billeted with me when my husband and
son were soldiering. It was such a cheer to have her presence in the
home. She wrote in a book for me her name, and "Be true to the Flag." I
treasure this very much.'
In another and different kind of home where she was the guest for a
night, the daughter of the house, a bright, talented girl, given up to
worldliness, accompanied the Adjutant to her room to make sure that all
her needs were supplied. They fell into conversation about spiritual
matters and talked on till the small morning hours, then knelt in prayer,
and the girl gave herself to God. 'She used to call to see us, but try as
we would we could never persuade her to rest for even one hour in our
home,' writes a girl from another home of comfort.
With her voice trembling with love and emotion, a woman soldier told me
the following incident:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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