Catherine Booth — a Sketch

by Mildred Duff

She knelt down in the cab, and in prayer committed to God, in a new and deeper way than ever before, her own body, and her dear ones and the work He had given her to do.

At last the cab stopped before her own door, and The General came out to meet her.

‘I shall never forget that meeting in this world, or the next,’ he says. ’I had been watching for the cab, and had run out to meet her and help her up the steps. She tried to smile on me through her tears; but, drawing me into the room, soon told me, bit by bit, what the doctor had said. I sat down speechless. She rose from her seat, and came and knelt beside me, saying: “Do you know what was my first thought? That I should not be there to nurse you in your last hour.”

’I was stunned. I felt as if the whole world were coming to a standstill. Opposite me, on the wall, was a picture of Christ on the cross. I thought I could understand it then, as never before. She talked to me like an angel; she talked as she had never talked before. I could say little or nothing. I could only kneel with her and try to pray. That very same night The General was to leave London for some great Meetings in Holland, and Mrs. Booth would not hear of his changing his plans and remaining with her.

‘The War must go on’ was her thought, even when all her family stood stunned and heart-broken around her, unwilling to leave her even for a moment.

Two years later, when but a few more days of suffering remained to her, a last message from her lips reached us as Self-Denial Week began. ’The War must go on’ was one of its sentences.

‘The War must go on’ had been as her motto, lived out in all the long, long months that lay between. Instead of immediately laying aside her work, when the doctors gave their dreadful judgment, and beginning to think only of herself, she went on with it as long as her increasing weakness allowed.

But step by step the disease grew worse. First she was forced to give up Meetings and public work. Then it became impossible for her to use her right hand, and she was therefore obliged to give up her correspondence, though she still continued to dictate her letters, and learnt also to write with her left hand.

Soon her daily drives became too tiring, and by and by she went out of the house into the little garden for the last time; and then for the concluding twelve months of her life she was a prisoner in her room, lying in constant suffering.

But during these long months the greatest joy and relief that could come to her was to hear of some fresh victory or triumph for the Kingdom of Jesus. Her interest in The Army and her love for the people were as keen as ever, and War Councils were held and new developments planned in her chamber, and much of The General’s Darkest England Scheme for the poor and outcast was thought out and decided upon beside her sick bed.