’I fear you did not fully understand my difficulty. It was not circumstances. I thought I had assured you that a bright prospect would not allure me, nor a dark one affright me, if only we are one in heart.
My only reason for wishing to defer the engagement was that you might feel satisfied in your mind that the step is right.... If you are convinced on this point, let circumstances go, and let us be one, come what may.’
This is exactly what they did, and after meeting, and together consecrating their lives to God, they solemnly pledged themselves to each other.
And now began a three-years’ engagement, in which, though often for long months at a time they never met, they remained true to each other and to God, in thought and word and deed.
Many of the beautiful letters that our Army Mother wrote to The General at this time, I am glad to tell you, have been kept, and we will look together at some of the ways in which she tried to help and cheer him.
In the first letter after their engagement she ends with these words:–
’The more you lead me up to Christ in all things, the more highly shall I esteem you; and if it be possible to love you more than I do now, the more shall I love you. You are always present in my thoughts.’
Now you must not think that, even in these early days, our General had a very easy life. He was often much perplexed and troubled, longing above all to do God’s Will for the Salvation of the people, and yet not quite sure what that Will was. At these times Catherine was of untold help to him.
Once he was very unsettled–not certain whether he should remain away in the North of England, or accept a place in London, where the two could often meet. Most girls would have said, ’Oh, come, then we shall be near to each other’; but you will see that her advice to him is just as suitable for you when you are not certain of your duty–that she does not consider her own feelings at all.
‘I wish,’ she writes, ’you prayed more and talked less about the matter. Try it, and be determined to get clear and settled views as to your course. Leave your heart before God, and get satisfied in His sight, and then do it, be it what it may. I cannot bear the idea of your being unhappy. Pray do in this as you feel in your soul it will be right. My conscience is no standard for yours.’