Perched on the crest of a hill overlooking a seashore town, is a tiny cottage–two rooms up and two down. There are flowers in the windows and garden, and within, simplicity and sweet homeliness. The dwellers there are an old pensioner and his daughter. The daughter, a semi-invalid, keeps house. Her face is calm as a lake resting in the sunshine; her eyes blue as the sky on a spring day, and her voice musical and soothing as rippling water. Almost twenty years ago, Kate Lee conducted a battle for souls in the little town nestling below the hill. The suffering woman listened to her call to arms, at first from a distance. By degrees the full meaning of the officer’s life dawned upon her; she knew she could never be a leader; but she could, perhaps, be an armour-bearer; so she came nearer, and nearer, till she took a place at Captain Kate’s side, ready to perform any service possible.
A sufferer who triumphed had a peculiar charm for Kate Lee. This woman, caught in the furnace of affliction, had yielded herself to the fire, and found the Son of God keep company with her there, and she grew like Him.
When nerves were tingling, and body and soul were weary with sins and sorrows of the world, to no place did Kate turn her steps more readily than to the tiny house on the hill.
’Why can you love to come here? I have so little to offer you. Rich people would love to have you, and give you what I cannot,’ said her friend.
’And you can and do give me what no money in the world could buy: understanding, and love, and rest.’
On a sunny day, Kate would take a rug and a cushion, a book or some sewing, and her friend would accompany her to a little knoll, a stone’s throw from the house, which commanded a sea view for many miles. And there, mostly in silence, she would sit, and sun and rest for a day or two, and then hie back to the fight.
A mother with a child in an invalid chair, followed The Army march many a Sunday night during one summer. The band charmed the child, the sweet face of the officer soothed and strengthened the mother. One night, mother and child ventured into the meeting. At the conclusion of the first service, Adjutant Lee was shaking hands with the people as they left the hall, and urging them to return, and she beamed on the mother and child, and later, visited their home. A typical home of millions of working people, but true love reigned there, and made it a more pleasant place than many a mansion. The mother had spinal disease and her child seemed to have been born only to die. Doctor and friends had striven in vain to unlock the bands of mother love, and let the little suffering life escape, but the mother refused. If love and ceaseless care could make a child live, he should live. Mother and child nestled under the protection of a great, loving husband and father. The coming of the Adjutant to that home was like the visit of an angel; but she gathered as she gave, for the soothing atmosphere of those tiny rooms fell upon her spirit like dew. As well as love there was music. The father sat at the organ, and as he played and sang, his strong, tender spirit seemed to ring through the hymns. ‘Just one verse!’ the Adjutant would say, as she dropped in to give five minutes’ cheer.
The Adjutant lay ill in her quarters. Bronchitis had, as usual, laid her low during a foggy week. She had sent her lieutenant out on a round of work, and, feverish and weak, gave herself up to rest. There was a movement on the stairs and a face appeared at the bedroom door. It was little invalid mother. ‘How did you get here?’ the Adjutant asked. ’Through a window, and you’ll not talk. Just eat this bit of steamed fish.’ Every day, until the Adjutant was able to be about her Master’s business again, the little woman ministered to her with tender, joyful love.
‘Would you mind letting me look at your back?’ she asked the little mother, when she had come to be regarded as the dearest friend of the small family. She looked, and her eyes filled with tears. For a woman with such a back, to work, as this mother worked, to watch and wait and refuse to give up hope for love of her child, this was love indeed. Kate Lee would love sin-sick souls in this way. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, ‘you have inspired me.’ During her stay the little boy, then six years of age, definitely yielded his heart and life to the Saviour. When he was fourteen he begged to be allowed to join The Army Young People’s Band. ‘Impossible,’ said the doctor. ’But, doctor, you know how he has lived in spite of many contrary opinions, and we wish him to devote his life to The Army,’ pleaded the mother. A tall lad with purposeful face, playing in an Army band, is a joy to his Salvationist parents who carry in their hearts the faith of Kate Lee, that one day their son shall be an Army Officer.
Such were a very few of the friends of Kate Lee. Many, because of their great love for her, and conscious of her love for them, will, perhaps, feel a touch of disappointment that they are not included in the number, but the pages of our book will not stretch. As I think of them all, as I have seen them in their homes, and know of the many I have not been able to meet–I am reminded of strangely similar company, fishermen, clerks, and a company of humble, holy women who ministered to Kate Lee’s Lord and Master in the days of His flesh.