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CATHERINE BOOTH: A SKETCH

CHILDHOOD

'Parents who love God best will not allow their children to learn anything which could not be pressed into His service.'--MRS. BOOTH.

The Mother of The Salvation Army was born at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, on January 17, 1829, and God gave to her the very best gift He can give to any child--a good and holy mother.

Katie Mumford, as she was then called, had no sister to play with, and of her four brothers only one lived to be a man. But her dear mother more than made up for every lack, and from her lips the little girl learned those blessed lessons which, in her turn, she has taught to us.

One lesson which Mrs. Mumford early taught her daughter was that our bodies will not live for ever. She took Katie to see the body of her infant brother who had just died; and, though she was not more than two years old at the time, Katie never forgot that first lesson. Spiritual things were even then real to her, just because they were so real to her mother. Heaven was home to her, and Jesus her best Friend, ever near to help and guide her.

Truthfulness was a second of those early lessons which remained with our Army Mother all her life. She was but four years old when Mrs. Mumford found her one evening sobbing bitterly in her little cot long after she should have been asleep. She had told a falsehood, and conscience would not let her rest. When she had sobbed out her confession, her mother talked and prayed with her, and at last left her, happy in the assurance that she was forgiven by her Heavenly Father.

After this you will not be surprised to hear that another lesson early taught to Katie by her mother was to love her Bible. She could read nicely when she was but five years old, and she loved to stand by her mother's side, and read the Bible stories aloud, with just a little help over the very long words. And this love for God's Word grew deeper every year, so that by the time she was twelve years old she had read it through eight times. In later years people often wondered how it was that Mrs. Booth knew her Bible so well, and could so quickly answer their difficulties and objections in Bible words. Much of the secret lay in this early training, and in the hours she spent in Bible study later on, when she had reached the age of some of our younger Corps Cadets.

I wish we could have seen her in those days. She had very dark hair, which curled naturally; black, flashing eyes, and such a warm heart, and strong, impetuous nature that she could do nothing by halves. Whatever it was, work or play, her whole soul had to be in it.

Since she was not at all strong, and had few girl friends, Katie did not play rough or noisy games, but her love for her dolls made her quite a little mother to them. She treated them almost like real children, and would sew and toil, and never rest till she felt she had in every way done her duty to them. She loved animals, too, especially dogs and horses, and could not bear to see any one ill-treat them. Oh, how she suffered one day, watching some poor sheep driven down the road! She watched the man beat them--she could not stop him; and at last she tore home, and flung herself down almost choking and speechless with indignation and distress.

Her mother did not check Katie for feeling so keenly. She encouraged her; for she knew that a hard, indifferent child, who can see suffering and not care or be distressed over it, would make a hard woman; and she wanted her Katie to be full of love and tenderness for all, and especially for those needing help.

When Catherine was twelve years old she became very interested in the drink question. She wrote letters about it, and sent them to different newspapers, for there was no 'War Cry' nor 'Young Soldier' in those days; and she also became the secretary of what was then called a Juvenile Temperance Society, and did all she could to get boys and girls to promise never to touch the drink.

Katie was also, like many of you, much interested in the heathen. She would go round to all her friends collecting money to pay for preachers to be sent to them; and in order to get more money she would deny herself sugar and other small luxuries. No one told Katie to do this; but you see our Army Mother herself taught us, by her example when only a child, to keep our great Self-Denial Week.

But you must not think that Catherine was perfect. Oh, no, indeed! Sometimes her schoolmates would tease her because she was so quiet, and liked to read better than to play; and at such times, instead of being patient, she would flare up into a passion, and say harsh, angry words. When the storm was over she would be, however, Oh! so sorry, and would beg her schoolfellows to forgive her.

When Katie had been at school two years, God sent her a very great trial. Instead of being able to go on learning and keeping up with the other girls, she had to return home, and for three long years to lie nearly all the time on her back, often suffering very much. She had a serious spinal complaint, and her friends sometimes doubted whether she would ever walk again.

You wonder what she did in those three years? I will tell you. When the pain would permit it, she would knit and sew. She could not, of course, hold heavy needlework; but little things, like babies' socks and hoods, pin-cushions, and so forth, she would make most beautifully, and then they would be sold to help on the work of God.

Besides her sewing, Katie read a great deal. First, as I have already told you, she read her Bible, and learnt to know God's thoughts about the world and sin, and His wishes for His people. For seven months at one time Catherine had to lie on her face on a special sort of couch made on purpose for her; but she invented a contrivance by which, even then, she could read her Bible, though still remaining in the position that the doctors wished. Then, too, she would read good books--explanations of the Bible, about Holiness, soul-saving, lives of those who have lived and worked for God, and so on. When she had read a chapter she would shut the book, and write down as much as she could remember of it. This helped her to think clearly and to remember what she read, and also to put her thoughts into words.

But she never wasted her time reading stories and novels. Later on in her life she said she was so thankful for this, for she thought that novels and silly story books made people discontented with their own homes and duties, and put wrong, hurtful ideas into their minds. Let us recollect and follow our Army Mother's example here, and not waste time on stories which are not true.

We, if we had known Katie Mumford in those three years of pain and weariness, should have pitied her very much. We might have been tempted to feel that God was hard in not letting her be strong like other girls; but we now see that all the time He was fitting her for the wonderful future before her; and when she became Mrs. Booth, the great preacher, she herself understood this.

'Being so much alone in my youth,' she said, 'and so thrown on my own thoughts and on those expressed in books, has been very helpful to me. Had I been given to gossip, and had there been people for me to gossip with, I should certainly never have accomplished what I did.'

So, you see, God was all the time giving her the very best training He could, and teaching her, as she lay there alone on her bed, what she never could have learned in the ordinary way. And He will train you, too, in the very best way for your future, if you will but determine to trust and serve Him as did Catherine Mumford.

CONVERSION AND SOUL STRUGGLES

'No soul was ever yet saved who was too idle to seek.'--MRS. BOOTH.

Perhaps you, the Corps Cadet, for whom I am especially writing this little book, have been tempted to break your vows by becoming engaged to some one who does not want to be an Officer. And you think, perhaps, that no one understands your feelings.

You will be surprised, then, to know that our Army Mother had just such a battle to fight when she was a girl.

She had a cousin, a little older than herself, who was tall and very clever. He came with his parents to stay in her home, and Katie had not seen him since they were young children. He quickly grew very fond of his cousin, and Catherine found how nice it was to have some one to give her presents and to love her as he did. At last he begged her to promise that by and by she would be engaged to him. Now Katie was very perplexed. On the one hand she loved her cousin, and did not want to grieve him, and yet in her heart she knew he was not truly given up to God, and would not help her in her soul.

'Go to the Meeting with you, Katie?' he used to say. 'Of course, I'll go anywhere to please you.' But then, while she was trying to get a blessing, he would be scratching little pictures on the back of the seat to make her laugh. Perhaps you can guess the struggle it was for Katie to decide what her answer should be. 'If you will only say "yes," and be engaged to him, I am sure you will be able to help him, and very likely get him properly saved,' the Devil would whisper. 'Break it off now, Katie; do not go another step; you know God cannot smile on it.' That was how her conscience spoke.

At last, one day as she was truly praying and seeking for light, she read the verse in 2 Corinthians vi. 14: 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.' It came to her as the voice of God.

'I will do it, Lord,' she said, after a long struggle; and she sat down, and wrote her cousin a letter, telling him just why she could never be engaged to him, and breaking it all off for ever. Then she turned back to her home duties, and did not re-open the question.

And did our Army Mother in after years regret that she had acted like this? No, indeed; she has told us that she saw plainly later on that, if just then she had chosen to follow her own feelings and wishes, instead of obeying God's command, all her life would have been altered, and she would never have done the glorious work He had planned for her. It was a hard battle at the time, and cost her many tears; but it was worth it, ten thousand times over, as we can all see to-day.

Very soon after this victory Catherine became really converted.

'What!' you say. 'Was she not converted before this?'

No. All her life she had, like many children trained to-day in Salvationist homes, felt God's Holy Spirit striving with her. Sometimes, when quite a little girl, her mother would find her crying because she felt how she had sinned against God.

But when she was about fifteen she longed to know that she was really saved.

'Don't be silly,' said the Devil in her heart. 'You have been as good as saved all your life. You have always wanted to do right. How can you expect such a sudden change as if you were a great big drunkard? It's absurd.'

And then she took hold of God in faith. 'Lord, I must be converted. I cannot rest till Thou hast changed my whole nature; do for me what Thou dost do, for the thieves and drunkards.'

But for six weeks it seemed as if God did not hear her cry. She grew more and more unhappy. All her past sins rose before her: those bursts of temper when she was at school, those wrong thoughts and feelings. Yes, the Bible was true when it said: 'The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.'

Unable to rest, she would pace her room till two o'clock in the morning, and would lie down at last, with her Bible and hymn-book under her pillow, praying that God would Himself tell her that her sins were forgiven. At last, one morning, as she woke, she opened her hymn-book, and read these words:--

My God, I am Thine, What a comfort divine, What a blessing to know that my Jesus is mine.

Now she had read and sung these lines scores of times before, but they came this morning with a new power to her soul.

'I am Thine!' 'My Jesus is mine!' she exclaimed. 'Lord, it is true!--I do believe it! My sins are forgiven. I belong to Thee!' and her whole soul was filled with light and joy. She now possessed what she had been seeking all these weeks--the assurance of Salvation! And then what do you think she did? She threw on a wrapper, and, without waiting to dress, hurried across to her mother's room, and tapped at the door.

'Come in,' said her mother's voice; and Katie, her face shining with joy, burst into the room. 'Mamma, mamma, I am a child of God! My sins are forgiven--Jesus is my Saviour!' she cried, flinging herself into her mother's arms. And this was the same Katie, who had been so shy and backward that she had never before dared to speak about her spiritual anxieties, even to her mother! Ah! what a change real conversion, or change of heart, had made.

For the next six months Katie was so happy that she felt as if she were walking on air. 'I used to tremble,' she tells us, 'and even long to die, lest I should back-slide or lose the sense of God's favour.'

But as time went on she learned, as we all have to do, to walk by faith, not by sight, and to serve and follow the Saviour whether she had happy feelings or not.

But you must not suppose, because Katie had the assurance of Salvation, that therefore she had no more fighting. No--indeed, her fighting days had only just begun.

One of her great difficulties, which many Corps Cadets will understand, was that she felt so nervous about doing anything in public. No one, of course, asked her to speak--such a thing was never dreamed of; but the lady who took the Bible Class which she attended regularly would now and then ask her to pray. 'Miss Mumford will pray,' the lady would say, when they were all kneeling together.

But Katie was too shy to begin, and sometimes they would wait for several minutes before she had courage to say a few words. 'Don't ask me to pray again,' she said one day to her leader; 'the excitement and agitation make me quite ill.'

'I can't help that,' was the very wise answer; 'you must break through your timidity; for otherwise you will be of no use to God.'

And did Katie persevere? Yes, indeed, she did. Here is an entry made some time later in the diary that she kept, which shows you how very much her experience was like yours:--

'I have not been blessed so much for weeks as I was to-night. I prayed aloud. The cross was great, but so was the reward.

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