The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men"

by Minnie Lindsay Rowell Carpenter

She expected to be guided to souls who needed help, and was, as the following incident shows.

Two local officers moved, with their family, from a distant corps to London where they had undertaken heavy business responsibilities. The wife was tired and anxious, and felt that now they had slipped out of a corps where they had seemed indispensable, it would be better for them to remain undiscovered. She had, in fact, decided to withdraw from the fight. When visiting, the Adjutant stumbled upon them, muddled and tired, as they sat amongst their packing cases. Her radiant face and gracious spirit soon drew out of the little woman the confession she had meant to hide. ‘When I came in,’ says the husband, ’there was the Adjutant sitting on one of the boxes chatting so happily, she had mother feeling she was needed as much as ever, and simply must be in the fight. She came just at the right moment, and we have never looked back again; that is more than ten years ago.’

The Adjutant, in order to get about quickly, used a bicycle. One of her local officers says, ’She almost lived on her wheel, and when she heard of the motor attachment she wrote and asked me to inquire about one for her so that she might go faster.’

A comrade tells that when Kate Lee was stationed in the country, she went one day to see her, unexpectedly. ’I met her carrying a large basket, and on inquiry found that it contained the proverbial loaves and fishes, which she was taking to one of her converts who was out of work. She made sure that the family had their dinner, then started the husband off to sell the fish.’

Amongst the sinners in those terrible places, where respectable people and officers of the law are unsafe, the Adjutant’s figure and face were most familiar. When after her death, Kate Lee’s photo appeared in ’The War Cry,’ the call came from many of these haunts, ’Get me that Angel’s picture, we want it down here.’ She won some of her gems in those quarters. From one locality she persuaded three women to go to one of our Homes and none returned to their evil ways.

Her visitation was often discouraging. A lieutenant tells that the Adjutant spent much time and effort upon a man and his wife who were very wicked and in wretched circumstances. They lived in apartments. The Adjutant visited them persistently, but they seemed to become more and more hardened in sin, and she did not have the joy of seeing them converted. She grieved much and was tempted to wonder whether the time spent had been wasted. One day she was asked to visit a man in the room next to that occupied by this couple. He told the Adjutant that he had looked forward to her visits next door, and always placed his ear near to the wall so as to hear her pray. Through her prayers he had sought and found salvation.

Dr. Carse, of Sunderland, says:–

I met Kate Lee in all kinds of houses, and at all hours of the day and of the night, and she was always on the one mission–seeking souls. One morning, at half-past two, I was coming out of one of the worst slums in Sunderland, and met the Adjutant and her lieutenant. They were radiant. The Adjutant had gone to settle a family brawl; had reconciled husband and wife, got them converted, and broken their whisky bottles in the gutter. I met her also in the houses of the rich, and they would have kept her there, but she never stayed after she had finished her Master’s business.

But Kate did not attempt to encompass the fruitful work of visitation merely with her lieutenant’s assistance; she organized a band of visitors at her corps, generally godly, married women, who were timid of public service. They met at the hall one or two afternoons each week, and went two and two to certain districts. The Adjutant and her lieutenant initiated these comrades into the way of getting into the homes of the people. At an appointed hour they returned to the hall and reported any special case of sickness or sorrow to the officers, who followed it up. This method was a great feeder to the corps meetings, and provided an outlet for the awakened spiritual energies of some Salvationists who hitherto had been soldiers in name only.

She hungered for souls, she sought them everywhere. One morning, scanning the daily paper to see if there were some call for help in its pages, she noticed the case of a man awaiting trial for a serious offence. She remarked to her lieutenant, ‘I must try to help that man.’ Straightway she prayed, then wrote the governor of the jail asking permission to visit the prisoner. This was granted, but the Adjutant was not allowed to see him alone. She was conducted to a triple cage; a warder occupied one compartment; the prisoner another; Kate Lee the third. As she gazed at the man through the bars, to introduce herself to him, and so to establish friendly contact and to reach his soul, seemed impossible. She spoke to him for a considerable time and prayed, but the face before her was like a sphinx, and he did not answer a word. Kate Lee came away from the prison with a sad heart, feeling that she had accomplished nothing.