Presiding at a great meeting in City Road Chapel, London, in 1933, when the object was to inform the audience what was being done among the men of the army, the navy, and the air force by the churches, Mr. Joseph Rank opened by giving his own experience. One Sunday evening he went to hear the famous and eloquent Hugh Price Hughes, who long conducted a successful mission in London. Before he began to preach, the company sang:
“’Tis the promise of God, full salvation to give
Unto him who on Jesus, His son, will believe.
“Hallelujah, ’tis done! I believe on the Son;
I am saved by the blood of the crucified One.”
“While singing it with the rest,” said Mr. Rank, “the question came to me, ‘Can you truthfully say that?’ By the time we came to the chorus again, I had the peace that passeth understanding. I had the same warmed heart that John Wesley got, that Luther got, and that thousands of others got in the same way, through believing in Jesus Christ.”
When Catherine Booth Made the Great Decision
A Salvation Army Band led the singing and a Salvation Army officer delivered the address at one of the three meetings held in connection with the 150th anniversary of Stockwell Green Congregational Church, London, during the summer of 1946. Very special reasons lay back of the recognition of the Salvation Army on that occasion, for in that church the wife of General William Booth made the “great decision”; and in front of the speaker was the pew bearing the number 23 where Catherine Mumford always sat with her family. She was also a teacher in its Sunday School. In that church on one June day she was converted, and on another June day she was married to the Rev. William Booth, a young Methodist minister. The future years led these two young people, one a Congregationalist and the other a Methodist, in paths of Christian service beyond their utmost dreams.
Catherine had a gloriously happy memory in the hymn which led to her conversion, and rejoiced in its emphatic assurance, as expressed by Charles Wesley:
“My God, I am Thine;