"My dear girl, my very precious girl, I know you are after my own heart. I place boundless confidence in your judgment and resolutions. Do not be afraid of anything or any one."
"You are a true heroine, a Joan of Arc, indeed."
"You must have a fearful strain upon you. Still a great part of your business is to keep yourself quiet and free from wearing care. To be cool and steady under fire is the quality of the very best soldiers. I fear I have not excelled in this direction, and it is a very difficult property in our family, seeing how full of sympathy and feeling our hearts and lives are, but God can do much for us."
Every letter from her eldest brother Bramwell, who was the Chief of Staff, was a "Well done!" from over the sea. Writing in 1885—the year of his and Stead's heroic crusade against vice—he said: "I get more and more dissatisfied with things human every day. The world is all gone mad. If it was only bad, and not mad, we could mend it, but being both I get less and less hope instead of more! We will now attend to quality more. If we could get better people surely we should go faster. I solemnly believe you are ahead of us on the Continent in this direction."
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—