"This was the one attraction. When I went to France I said to Christ: 'I in You and You in me!' and many a time in confronting a laughing, scoffing crowd, single-handed, I have said, 'You and I are enough for them. I won't fail You, and You won't fail me.' That is something of which we have only touched the fringe. That is a truth almost hermetically sealed. It would be sacrilege, it would be desecration, it would be wrong, unfair, unjust if Divine power were given on any other terms than absolute self-abandonment. When I went to France I said to Jesus, 'I will suffer anything if You will give me the keys.' And if I am asked what was the secret of our power in France, I answer: First, love; second, love; third, love. And if you ask how to get it, I answer: First, by sacrifice; second, by sacrifice; third, by sacrifice. Christ loved us passionately, and loves to be loved passionately. He gives Himself to those who love Him passionately. And the world has yet to see what can be done on these lines."
CHAPTER IV
CHRIST IN PARIS
In the early spring of 1881 Captain Catherine Booth and her intrepid lieutenants, Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox and Elizabeth Clark, who enjoyed the privilege of her example and training, began life in Paris. Later on they were joined by Ruth Patrick, Lucy Johns and others. Soon after they were joined by the General's youngest son, Herbert Booth, who is proud of having received his first black eye in assisting his sister during those early fights, and Arthur Sydney Clibborn, who lived a life of unparalleled devotion and heroism, and later became the Maréchale's husband. Years before Canon Barnett and his band of Oxford men were attracted to Whitechapel, these fresh young English girls settled in a similar quarter of the French capital. What quixotic impulses carried them thither? They had no social or political ideals to realise. They had not been persuaded that altruism is better than egoism, that the enthusiasm of humanity is nobler than the pursuit of pleasure or the love of culture. They were not weary of the conventions of society and seeking a new sensation in slumming. They were not playing at soldiers. But they, too, had their dreams and visions. They loved Christ, and they wished to see Christ victorious in Paris. Coming into a wilderness of poverty, squalor and vice, they dared to believe that they could make the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. They had the faith which laughs at impossibilities.
The first letter Catherine received from her father after she set foot in France breathed tender affection and ardent hope. "Oh, my heart does yearn over you! How could you fear for a single moment that you would be any less near and dear to me on account of your brave going forth to a land of strangers to help me in the great purpose and struggle of my life? My darling, you are nearer and dearer than ever.... France is hanging on you to an extent fearful to contemplate, and you must regard your health, seeing that we cannot go on without you. We shall anxiously await information as to when you make a start. Everybody who has heard you and knows you feels the fullest confidence in the result. Nevertheless I shall be glad for you to get to work, seeing that I know you won't be easy in your mind until you have seen a few French sinners smashed up at the penitent form."
With her own hand Catherine raised the flag at Rue d'Angoulême 66, in Belleville. Here was a hall for six hundred, situated in a court approached by a narrow street. The bulk of the audience that gathered there night after night were of the artisan class. Some were young men of a lower type, and from these came what disturbance there was. The French sense of humour is keen, and there were many lively sallies at the expense of the speakers and singers on the platform. Every false accent, every wrong idiom, every unexpected utterance or gesture was received with an outburst of laughter. But the mirth was superficial, and the expression on the faces of the tired men, harassed women, and pale children was one of settled melancholy. Catherine instinctively felt that what they needed was a gospel of joy; certainly not the preaching of hell, for did they not live in hell? These toiling sisters and brothers were the multitudes on whom Jesus had compassion.
Meetings were held night after night, and for six months the Capitaine was never absent except on Saturdays. Those were days of fight, and she fought, to use her own phrase, like a tiger. She had to fight first her own heart. She knew her capacity, and God had done great things through her in England. The change from an audience of five thousand spellbound hearers in the circus of Leeds to a handful of gibing ouvriers in the Belleville quarter of Paris was indeed a clashing antithesis. A fortnight passed without a single penitent, and Catherine was all the time so ill that it was doubtful if she would be able to remain in the field. That fortnight was probably one of the supreme trials of her faith. The work appeared so hopeless! There was nothing to see. But for the Capitaine faith meant going on. It meant saying to her heart, "You may suffer, you may bleed, you may break, but you shall go on." She went on, believing, praying, fighting, and at last the tide of battle turned.
The beginning of what proved a memorable meeting was more than usually unpromising. One of the tormentors, a terrible woman, known as "the devil's wife," excelled herself that night. She was of immense size, and used to stand in the hall with arms akimbo and sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and with one wink of her eye would set everybody screaming and yelling. On this occasion there was not a thing that she did not turn to ridicule. The fun grew fast and furious, and some of the audience got up and began to dance. The meeting seemed to be lost; but by a master-stroke the leader turned defeat into victory. Through the din she cried, "Mes amis! I will give you twenty minutes to dance, if you will then give me twenty minutes to speak. Are you agreed?" A tall, dark, handsome ouvrier, in a blue blouse, who had been a ringleader in the disturbances, jumped up and said, "Citizens, it is only fair play;" and they all agreed. So they had their dance, and at the end of the appointed time the ouvrier, standing with watch in hand, cried, "Time up, citizens; it is the Capitaine's turn!" The bargain was kept. Everybody sat down, and an extraordinary silence filled the place. Not for twenty, but for an hour and twenty minutes the leader had the meeting in the hollow of her hand. When the audience filed out, the tall ouvrier remained behind, and Catherine went down to where he was sitting in the back of the hall. With his chiselled face and firm-set mouth, he looked like a man who could have seen one burned alive without moving a muscle.
"Thank you," said the Capitaine, "you have helped me to-night. Have you understood what I have been saying?"
"I believe that you believe what you say."