In later years she taught her children how to prepare for their Meetings, and some of the advice she gives is very helpful to Corps Cadets.
‘"Jesus wept,"’ she writes to her eldest girl, who was then fourteen, ’would be a nice subject for you at one of your little Meetings. And you could find some texts to show how David wept, and Daniel, and Jeremiah, etc., if you like it. But don’t take it because I say so–you must ask the Lord for your subjects.’
Later on, however, as The Salvation Army grew, Mrs. Booth felt that, though it was just as necessary to prepare, yet to speak from notes was often not helpful to either the Officer or the people, so she writes to one of her sons:–
’Get out of them! They don’t fit our work. When you get on, you don’t want them; and when you don’t, they are no good. At first, if your memory won’t serve you, just jot on a small bit of paper the size of a ticket your main divisions in large writing, but no more. Like this:–
’Day of wrath is come.
’1. God’s wrath.
’2. Just wrath.
’3. Uttermost wrath.
‘4. Eternal wrath.’
On the platform Mrs. Booth’s manner was as simple and natural as when by her own fireside; anything ‘put on’ or affected she hated.
‘If I were asked,’ she says, ’to put into one word what I consider to be the greatest hindrance to the success of Divine truth, even when spoken by sincere and real people, I should say stiffness. Simplicity is indispensable to success, naturalness in putting the truth. It seems as if people, the moment they come to religion, put on a different tone, a different look and manner–in short, become unnatural.’
But Mrs. Booth not only prepared for her Meetings by thought and study, but she prepared most of all by prayer.
‘Oh, if we could,’ she writes, ’get more of the spirit of prayer into those who love God! Few understand it at all.
’I always find an exact proportion in the results to the spirit of intercession I have had beforehand. That is why I like to be alone in lodgings.’