The only duty which Kate Lee really shrank from was to take up a collection for the maintenance of the Garrison. This was called the ‘Bread and Butter Box’; and the Cadets took turns to stand at the hall door after each meeting, hold the box and shake it. Kate heartily disliked this, but it was part of her duty, and she did it with a smile that brought success. In after years she became a wonderful woman, but in those early days she held the secret that made her wonderful. She walked with God. When the cadets had leisure time, the majority would engage in innocent chat of one kind and another; but you would find Kate a little withdrawn from the others, with her Bible. Yet there was nothing censorious about her. She was quick with a smile and an answer to any remark from the other cadets; but there she was, already her life was hid with ‘Christ in God.’
Captain Lucy rejoiced over her sister with trembling. She understood Kate’s willing, eager spirit, and the more she thought about her, the less did she believe her to be strong enough to take the position of an officer on field duty. So Lucy began to pray, and soon she felt inspired to act. Writing to Miss Evangeline Booth, then the Field Commissioner in London, she explained her fears for Kate, and asked if, for a year or two, her sister might be stationed with her.
The Commander was quick to see the wisdom of the suggestion, and after a few weeks Captain Lucy received orders for Penarth, in Wales, with Kate as her lieutenant. Her way lay through London, and she knocked at the home door one night. A quick, light step flew to answer it. ‘My captain!’ cried Kate. ‘My lieutenant!’ cried Lucy, as they clasped one another. Happy tears glistened in their eyes as they held each other at arms’ length to get a good view of each other in the full glory of their respective uniforms, and in the eyes of the little mother, who, learning to walk by faith, was finding the joy as well as the pain of sacrificing her treasures upon the altar of Christ.
III
Woman’s Position in the Army
We write in a matter-of-fact way that Captain Lucy and Lieutenant Kate Lee received an appointment to this or that corps, and the statement is received as it was written–without surprise or reflection. But, in truth, behind such a sentence lies one of the most notable achievements of The Salvation Army as a world force–the right to public service for women.
Looking over the fifty-five years of the life of The Army, and further back still, we can trace clearly the guiding hand of God in the formation and direction of this instrument of His choosing.
When, in the order of Divine providence, William Booth was chosen to be Founder of the Salvation Army, by strange, devious, suffering ways, God led him, chastened him, disciplined him in preparation for his great work. At the same time, Catherine Mumford, by the hand of God, was being fitted to be the Mother of The Salvation Army.
She was a delicate, retiring, but highly intelligent young woman of twenty-four years of age, when she heard her minister, in the course of a sermon, give expression to the view that women were mentally and morally inferior to men. At this suggestion Catherine Mumford felt a strong native resentment rise within her. Until that hour she had held the view that God had made men and women equal in gifts of mind and heart; now she made a thorough study of the subject in the light of the Word of God and of history, and as a result she formed a reasoned opinion from which she never swerved. In a letter, remarkable for its logic and its command of vigorous English, she set forth her views to her pastor. She admitted that prejudice and custom had relegated woman to positions inferior to those occupied by men; but argued that, given similar advantages of education and opportunity, woman is man’s equal, fitted to be his partner, and able, with great advantage to enter with him into all serious and practical counsels for the benefit of the race.
In championing the cause of her sex, Catherine Mumford found she had to take the field almost alone. Even William Booth, to whom she was then engaged, did not share her views. Mr. Booth believed that while woman carried the palm in point of affection, man was her superior in regard to intellect. Miss Mumford would not admit this for a moment; and by degrees, chiefly by the charming power of her own personality and also by argument, she wholly carried her beloved to her view-point.