When called to send her children abroad, she paid to the full the heavy price; but she also saw the glorious outcome, and from her death-bed sent tenderest messages to those of distant lands and far-off nations who owned her as their Army Mother.
VII
The Worker
’What the Lord wants is, that you shall go about the business to which He sets you, not asking for an easy post, nor grumbling at a hard one.’—Mrs. Booth.
If she had not been a worker, our Army Mother would have done little with her life. The wonderful call which came to her, her great gifts, the zeal and love which filled her heart, would all have been useless had she not been willing to work, and to work hard, and to work every day.
Stop and think about this. No life accomplishes anything unless it is full of hard work–often work accompanied by much drudgery, whether it is the life of a king or of a poor man. Mrs. Booth has set us all an example in this, for she would work ceaselessly with head or hands or heart, as long as ever her health allowed her to do so. Laziness and idleness of all kinds she detested; nor could she tolerate a lazy person in her service.
She worked first of all in her home. When she spent a morning in her kitchen, the work there was perfectly done. The dinner was ready at the right time, properly cooked, good and wholesome. She allowed no waste and no extravagance. Her bread was light and beautifully baked, and when she had finished her morning’s work her kitchen was as neat as when she began. She finished everything, and put it straight as she went along.
It was the same with the children. She was alike nurse and doctor, dressmaker and tailor; she made and mended, washed and ironed for her boys and girls during their early years, and herself attended to every smallest detail of their lives. Strangers who asked where Mrs. Booth bought her children’s things, so that they could go to the same shop, could scarcely believe the reply: ‘Mamma makes all our clothes herself’–so beautifully were they cut and finished.
And when the little garments were of no further service to her, she would alter and mend them once again, and give them away. Her baby-clothes, when the last daughter had outgrown them, were given to a member of the Mission for his child.
He will never forget taking the little bundle home to his wife and turning over the tiny things. ‘I had often heard Mrs. Booth preach,’ he said, ’but those baby-clothes preached a louder sermon to me and my wife than ever her words had done. They were all darned and mended and patched, and the work–but, there, I never saw such stitches! And as we looked, and knew the hours of toil she must have put into them, rather than throw them away, as many another would have done–well, I tell you I listened to her next sermon as I had never listened before.’