In the following year he wrote: "Do not think you will ever be less dear to me than you have been. You cannot be. I love and admire you, and if you were my general to-morrow I should follow you to the last gasp and stick while there was one limb of me left." *CHAPTER VII* *WOMAN’S VOCATION* "There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free; there can be no male and female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." After the lapse of many centuries this great apostolic saying is beginning to yield up its meaning and its blessing. The Mother of the Army was one of the first to assert woman’s liberty, and her daughters entered into a sacred heritage. Having become a public speaker at fourteen, and seen the work of faith rewarded with countless signs following, the Maréchale could never harbour any secret fear that her ministry might be grieving the Spirit of God. It was impossible, however, that she should work for years without encountering many who had strong prejudices. Our Lord’s disciples "marvelled that He spake with a woman," and there are still disciples who marvel when a woman speaks for Him. In the summer of her third year in France, the Maréchale attacked the old city of Nîmes, in the largely Protestant Gard—the first of a series of campaigns which were the means of bringing a blessing to a number of the provinces of France. On her arrival she found that M. Peyron, an eminent judge, who had greatly benefited from hearing her before, had arranged a preliminary meeting of the orthodox of Nîmes—pastors and their wives and other Protestant workers—to the number of about 120. He was anxious that they should be won before her campaign began, but he had no idea that he had prepared for her one of the battles royal of her life. The meeting being thrown open, the doctrine of holiness—God’s power to keep His children from sinning—first came up, and was violently attacked by several pastors who confounded it with perfectionism. Their remarks were loudly applauded, and one lady screamed above the rest— "Let him that is without sin get up and testify." Greatly daring, the Maréchale whispered to a comrade who sat beside her, "Rise, Bisson," which he did, and in a few simple words testified, not indeed to his own perfection, but to God’s power to sanctify and keep as well as justify. After a momentary lull, the storm became fiercer than ever, and the ministry of women was now the cause of war. The Maréchale alluded to her mother’s manifesto on the subject. "We have read it," said a lady, "and we do not agree with it. Women are meant for the home. They are commanded to be silent in the churches." "Besides," cried another, "you are not old enough." The Maréchale quoted the words, "Let no man despise thy youth." "But that," retorted a pastor’s wife, "was said to a man." Thereupon the babel of voices became deafening.