The Maréchale (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)Strahan, James
Religion
The Maréchale (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)
Strahan, James
Booth-Clibborn, Catherine, 1860-1955
"It is a struggle hard and long, but it is only the struggling, who
spend their life-blood in the cause, that can claim _blood_-relationship
with the Lord Jesus. The rest are second-cousins or not even as near as
that. They don’t know Him very intimately or feel much at home with Him
when they pay Him a morning call.... He makes the entrance high and the
gate strait that it may be prized when gained—I believe that is the key
to the mystery of life, or at least to a large part of it. To let us up
to the top for the prayer of a moment and the sacrifice of nothing would
in many cases at any rate be impossible and useless. Tell me soon more
of how to climb. I am a slow learner."
Mr. Crossley’s nature had a pensive strain which the Maréchale’s
friendship helped to modify. Regarding such a matter he felt that
"speech should not go near the length of feeling," but ere long we find
him writing, "Das hallelujah Vögelein singt in meinem Herzen."
His donations to the work of the Army both at home and in France were
very generous. He gave the Maréchale many thousand pounds a year. His
liberality was part of his worship of Christ. Nothing could be finer
than the following: "I know you will be thinking it is a serious slice
off my capital. Well, it is a branch off the tree. ’They broke off
branches from the palm trees and strewed them in the way and shouted
Hosanna,’ and so do I." And again: "You are very grateful to me for
what I have been able to give you, but if you knew how indebted and
grateful I also felt to you, you would see how God makes us unequal that
we may teach ourselves by the aid and necessary services He enables us
to render." Mr. Crossley wished the Maréchale to accept a gift of
£10,000 for the maintenance of her family, that she might be personally
free from financial care, and also offered to build her a home outside
Paris, but she declined both these offers, not wishing to be in a
different position from the other officers of the Army.
In 1891 the Maréchale went to America to raise funds for the work in
France. Accompanied by her secretary, Mme. Peyron—who was her Geneva
convert Mlle. Roussel—she sailed in October by the _Columbia_ for New
York, and visited twenty-eight of the principal cities of the States and
Canada, holding sixty meetings, travelling sometimes for thirty or forty
hours at a stretch, and once with the added experience of being snowed
up for twelve hours. She was everywhere very cordially received, and
all the buildings in which she spoke were densely crowded. Ministers
offered her churches in which a woman had never spoken before. After
one meeting she received invitations from a Bishop and seventeen pastors
to address congregations on her work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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