"I remember," wrote her eldest brother, "a striking instance of this occurring in a certain northern town on a Sunday night. A crowd assembled at the doors of the theatre, composed of the lowest and roughest of the town, who, overpowering the doorkeepers, pressed into the building and took complete possession of one of the galleries, so that by the time the remainder of the theatre was occupied this portion of it represented a scene more like a crowded tap-room than the gallery of what was for the moment a place of worship. Rows of men sat smoking and spitting, others were talking and laughing aloud, while many with hats on were standing in the aisles and passages, bandying to and fro jokes and criticisms of the coarsest character. All this continued with little intermission during the opening exercises, and the more timid among us had practically given up hope about the meeting, when Miss Booth rose, and standing in front of the little table just before the footlights, commenced to sing, with such feeling and unction as it is impossible to describe with pen and ink,
'The rocks and the mountains will all flee away.
And you will need a hiding-place that day.'
There was instantaneous silence over the whole house; after singing two or three stanzas, she stopped and announced her text, 'Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like His.' While she did so nearly every head in the gallery was uncovered, and within fifteen minutes both she and every one of the fifteen hundred people present were completely absorbed in her subject, and for forty minutes no one stirred or spoke among that unruly crowd, until she made her concluding appeal, and called for volunteers to begin the new life of righteousness, when a great big navvy-looking man rose up, and in the midst of the throng in the gallery exclaimed, 'I'll make one!' He was followed by thirty others that night."
CATHERINE BOOTH
(From a portrait by Edward Clifford, exhibited at the Royal Academy
and presented to Mrs. Booth)
Well might the General's hopes regarding the young soul-winner be high and confident. "Papa," wrote Mrs. Booth, "says he felt very proud of her the other day as she walked by his side at the head of a procession with an immense crowd at their heels. He turned to her and said, 'Ah, my lass, you shall wear a crown by-and-by.'"
With what desires and prayers the mother of this Wunderkind followed such a career is indicated by her letters. "Oh, it seems to me that if I were in your place—young—no cares or anxieties—with such a start, such influence, and such a prospect, I should not be able to contain myself for joy. I should indeed aspire to be 'the bride of the Lamb,' and to follow Him in conflict for the salvation of poor, lost and miserable man.... I don't want you to make any vows (unless, indeed, the Spirit leads you to do so), but I want you to set your mind and heart on winning souls, and to leave everything else with the Lord. When you do this you will be happy—oh, so happy! Your soul will then find perfect rest. The Lord grant it you, my dear child.... I have been 'careful about many things.' I want you to care only for the one thing.... Look forward, my child, into eternity—on, and ON, and ON. You are to live for ever. This is only the infancy of existence—the school-days, the time. Then is the grand, great, glorious eternal harvest."
Whatever gifts were the dower of the young evangelist, she refused to regard herself as different in God's sight from the poorest and meanest of sinners. If God loved her, He loved all with an equal love. That conviction was the motive-power of all her evangelism. A limited atonement was to her unthinkable. How often she has made vast audiences sing her father's great hymn, "O boundless salvation, so full and so free!" When she was conducting a remarkable campaign in Portsmouth, she found herself one day among a number of the ministers of the town, one of whom in his admiration of her and her work persisted in calling her one of the elect. This led to an animated discussion on election. Katie listened for a while, but lost patience at last, and, rising, delivered herself thus: "I am not one of the elect, and I don't want to be. I would rather be with the poor devils outside than with you inside." Having discharged this bombshell she flew upstairs to her mother. "Oh!" she cried, "what have I done?" When she repeated what she had said, her mother, whose laugh was always hearty, screamed with delight. Election as commonly taught was rank poison to the Mother of the Army. The doctrine that God has out of His mere good pleasure elected some to eternal life made her wild with indignation. When her son Bramwell was staying for a time in Scotland, she wrote him: "It seems a peculiarity of the awful doctrine of Calvinism that it makes those who hold it far more interested in and anxious about its propagation than about the diminution of sin and the salvation of souls.... It may be God will bless your sling and stone to deliver His servant out of the paw of this bear of hell—Calvinism."
One naturally asks what became of Catherine's education all this time. On this subject also Mrs. Booth held strong views. When her daughter was sixteen she wrote to her: "You must not think that we do not rightly value education, or that we are indifferent on the subject. We have denied ourselves the common necessaries of life to give you the best in our power, and I think this has proved that we put a right value on it. But we put God and righteousness first and education second, and if I had life to begin over again I should be still more particular.... I would like you to learn to put your thoughts together forcibly and well, to think logically and clearly, to speak powerfully, i.e. with good but simple language, and to write legibly and well, which will have more to do with your usefulness than half the useful knowledge you would have to spend your time over at College." When the principal of a Ladies' College, who had attended Mrs. Booth's meetings and been blessed, offered to receive Catherine and educate her gratuitously, Mrs. Booth, after visiting the College and breathing the atmosphere of the place, declined the tempting offer with thanks. Some will, of course, be disposed to question the wisdom of the mother's decision. It should not be impossible to combine the noblest learning with the most fervent faith. Yet every discipline must be judged by its fruits. How many Catherine Booths have hitherto been produced by Newnham and Girton?
Long after Catherine the second had left her home-land, she continued to receive letters from her English converts, and when, after many years, she resumed her evangelistic work in England, people whom she had never seen and never heard of before would come and tell her that they had been saved through her mission at this or that place. All these testimonies were like bells ringing in her soul. One out of many may be resounded. Writing to Paris in 1896, Henry Howard, now the Chief of Staff in the Army, said: "I have certainly never forgotten your Ilkeston campaign of sixteen years ago, when God made your soul a messenger to my soul. You led me towards an open door which I am pleased to remember I went in at, and during these many years your own share in my life's transformation has often been the subject of grateful praise."