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
When the Adjutant was stationed here, I was living away from home at
service, but coming back for a holiday, I found my father ill, and
stayed to nurse him. One evening I had a feeling I should bring the
Adjutant to him. He was a man who went to no place of worship and
made no profession of religion. I went to the officers' quarters,
and the lieutenant said that the Adjutant had gone out of town for
a meeting; she did not know what time she would return. The feeling
that I must get her that night grew on me, and I walked about the
streets until I saw her coming home. It was nearly midnight, and I
caught sight of her face in the light of a street lamp. She looked
like a ghost, so tired and white, and I shouldn't have had the
heart to ask her to start out again, but for the strong feeling
that had come to me. 'Certainly I will come,' she said brightly.
Well, she came and talked to father, told him the way of Salvation,
prayed with him, and he prayed, and she left him at peace with God,
and happy. An hour after she had gone, he became unconscious and
never regained his senses. He died that morning. Just caught his
soul in the nick of time, she did. That's the big thing about
Adjutant Lee that stands out for mother and me, but I couldn't
begin to tell you all the little things she did. _Aye, but she
bothered about us, she did_. I never knew the like.
The year that Kate Lee was born, the artist Dietrich gave to the world a
picture, which, if not destined to become one of the immortals of
religious art, has about it an irresistible charm for the ordinary eye.
The Saviour stands with outstretched arms saying, 'Come unto Me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden.' About Him are gathered people
representing almost every condition of need and woe. The charm lies not
so much in the central figure as in the adoring love of the sorrowing and
the sick for the One who loves them; little children cuddle about His
robe in utter contentment; a weary mother with babe at her breast, has
brought her sick daughter; husband has carried a crippled wife; a woman
'that was lost' bends at the Saviour's feet in an agony of repentance; an
aged, blind man is led by his daughter; a maniac, whose tortured soul
looks out of haggard eyes, frames a prayer with clasped hands.
When in a remote city, I first saw a print of this picture, a line from
James Russell Lowell--'His Throne is with the outcast and the
weak'--seemed its best title. But as I look at it to-day, all the
sorrowful, needy people who have spoken to me of Kate Lee, seem to gather
around that picture and I seem to hear the words, 'Aye, but He bothered
about us,' and there comes to my heart a realization of the triumph of
Jesus in this servant of His, who grew to be so like her Master. Surely
the world is heart-sick for such souls great in compassion,
self-forgetful, and triumphant in faith as was Kate Lee.
X
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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