She would sit at the feet of this or that teacher who spoke with an air of wisdom and authority, when in nine cases out of ten the relation of teacher and taught ought to have been reversed. As a rule, her instincts made her a swift and unerring discerner of spirits, but there were exceptional cases in which it almost seemed disloyalty to "try the spirits whether they are of God." One of her life-long friends, Mr. W. T. Stead, who went down on the ill-fated Titanic, knew both sides of her character—her lion-like boldness as well as her dove-like gentleness. He used to relate how she one day invaded the office of the Pall Mall Gazette, and summoned him with all the categorical imperiousness of her nature and her mission to quit politics and edit the War Cry. Yet he used to say to her, with a seriousness that was not altogether assumed, "You are damned by your humility!"
It is well known that the Maréchale's husband was for a time a believer in Dr. Dowie, the Scotsman who founded Zion City beside Chicago. Finding that certain doctrines such as Faith Healing, the Second Advent, the Rapture of the Saints, which were to him, as to thousands of others, of vital importance,—were being faithfully preached by one who claimed to be the second Elijah, the Forerunner of Christ, Mr. Booth-Clibborn became a member of the Christian Catholic Church. Having been a Quaker minister before his twenty years of faithful service in the Salvation Army, he also cherished the hope of perfecting Zionism by adding to it his own peace principles.
The Maréchale could not accept Dr. Dowie's claims, but in her intense desire for family unity she consented to go with her husband to see Zion City, taking her two eldest daughters, Evangeline and Victoria, then fourteen and thirteen years of age, and baby Josephine, who was but four months old, with her. They remained there four months, July to October, 1902.
The diary and letters which she wrote during that visit are psychologically and Spiritually among the most interesting human documents I have ever seen, and sufficiently indicate her attitude of mind at this time. But let us draw a veil, except for one or two incidents and extracts, over the dark anguish of soul, the torture of uncertainty, and the depths of despair which she then passed through.
She implored Dr. Dowie to take her husband and ordain him without her, but he emphatically refused to do so.
The following paragraph, taken from her diary, shows in what a painful predicament she found herself. Speaking of a friendly adviser, she says: "He said, as I was the wife, the responsibility was on my husband, and I must stand by him, even if he was in error, and God would forgive me if it was a mistake." I felt so much taken aback by the way he looked at the matter that I turned the key of my heart.
To one of her dearest friends she wrote a long letter, which was a cry out of the depths: "I am not easily given to discouragement or despair, but my position must make angels weep, if they can weep. I cannot bring myself to accept Dowie, so much in him violates the highest spiritual instincts I have.... The forcing of me outwardly does not convince me. I have yielded all along the line, and now here I am ... but I am not in despair. I have been. It seems to me as if God, who has seen the long agony, will himself open the door. I cannot go further in this direction.... I feel a fear over everything. I never was so unutterably unhappy in my life, never. Oh, will you not help me?"
One day the prophet was attacking some noted evangelists of the day. Presently he began to fulminate against the Salvation Army, and accused the General of failing to reprove the sins of the rich. The Maréchale leapt to her feet, and facing the prophet with outstretched finger and flashing eye, an image of outraged justice, exclaimed, "That is an untruth! No man has been more faithful in reproving the rich than my father and it is cowardly of you to attack a man who is not here to defend himself." The prophet visibly quailed under the withering rebuke. It was the first time any one had withstood him to the face. With an hour of thundering oratory he tried to obliterate the impression made on the vast audience, but for once he was evidently checkmated.
At length Dr. Dowie, seeing he could not overcome the Maréchale's opposition, and that her unwilling presence in the city was a disturbing factor among his people, requested her and her husband to withdraw. Mr. Booth-Clibborn, of whose absolute sincerity there can be no doubt, was keenly disappointed at having to turn his back upon Zion, which had become to him, as the Salvation Army in its early days a cause to live for, and if need be to die for.
The strain on the Maréchale had been so great that when she arrived in England she was utterly prostrated. Two dear old cousins of her husband's, the Misses Susan and Esther Bell, in Eastbourne, nursed her back to life. Then came two dark, silent years in Brussels. The Maréchale looked for a friend and found none. All the world believed that she had "joined Zion." The French papers announced that she had burned (brulé) the principles for which she had once fought. Her daughter Victoria, who was with her in those years of lonely sorrow, writes: "Gradually her strength left her. She suffered dumbly, vainly hoping for some deliverance. Was this the Maréchale who had led her army to battle and faced the howling mob with a smile on her face? Her sorrow had crushed and sapped her courage which the storm of persecution only served to quicken."