With regard to the subject of the fourteenth chapter, the Maréchale would have preferred not to break the silence which she has maintained for a number of years, but after reading her letters and diaries I have urged her to let a brief statement be published, first because I feel that she owes something to her old comrades in the fight, and second for the sake of her own and her family’s future work. Members of the family who have been consulted, as well as other friends, desire this even more strongly than the writer does. This book consists of a few sections from a life which, like Mrs. Browning’s pomegranate, "shows within a heart blood-tinctured." To a heart of love add a spirit of fire, and you have the Maréchale. Blood and fire—that is what she was at the beginning, and that is what she will be to the end. One has often heard her say that she has never been more in her element than when, on entering some town, she has found herself confronted, in a theater or casino, by "all the devils of the place." She is happy whenever "Jesus is going to have a chance for a night." In the natural course of things her greatest battles are still before her. England has need of her, France perhaps still greater need. May it be long before the Maréchale reaches her last campaign! Meanwhile the old battle-cry, _En Avant!_ The subject of this sketch—written during a brief respite from other work—is at present far away, but I know that what she desires to give to the world is a sense of the Divine, the miracle-working power which rewards a child-like faith, and that she will be glad if every reader closes the book with a _Gloire à Dieu!_ J. S. *CONTENTS* CHAPTER I Finely Touched to Fine Issues CHAPTER II A Girl Evangelist CHAPTER III The Secret of Evangelism CHAPTER IV Christ in Paris CHAPTER V Freedom to Worship God CHAPTER VI The Soul of France CHAPTER VII Woman’s Vocation CHAPTER VIII The Renunciation of Home CHAPTER IX The Friendship of Christ CHAPTER X The Burning Question CHAPTER XI The Prodigal Son CHAPTER XII So Great Faith CHAPTER XIII Beauty for Ashes CHAPTER XIV To Thine Own Self Be True CHAPTER XV Sursum Corda! *LIST OF PORTRAITS* The Maréchale . . . _Frontispiece_ Catherine Booth . . . 32 (_From a drawing by Edward Clifford, exhibited in the Royal Academy and presented to Mrs. Booth_) The Maréchale in the Café . . . 114 (_From the painting of Baron Cederström_) The Maréchale . . . 160