Read Ebook: Catherine Booth — a Sketch by Duff Mildred

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'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.

My heart beat violently, but I felt some liberty.'

Though Catherine's spine difficulty was better, she was still very delicate, and at the age of eighteen every one felt sure she was going into a decline. But, sick or well, her soul grew stronger, and her desire to please and serve God better increased every day.

'I do love Thee,' she wrote in the same little diary, 'but I want to love Thee more.'

Some people, even after they are converted, are too proud to own themselves wrong, or to confess when they have sinned. Catherine was not of that sort. In one of her letters to her mother she ends with these words:--

'Pray for me, dear mother, and believe me, with all my faults and besetments, your loving child.'

Her hunger after a holy life was real and practical. She knew she must learn to live by method--that is, doing right, whether she liked it or not--and not by feelings, if she was to be of use in the world.

So at the end of the year she wrote some new resolutions; and as they may be of help to you, I will copy them for you just as she put them down:--

'I have been writing a few daily rules for the coming year, which I hope will prove a blessing to me, by the grace of God. I have got a paper of printed rules also, which I intend to read once a week. May the Lord help me to keep to them! But, above all, I am determined to search the Scriptures more attentively, for in them I have eternal life. I have read my Bible through twice during the past sixteen months, but I must read it with more prayer for light and understanding. Oh, may it be my meat and drink! May I meditate on it day and night! And then I shall bring forth fruit in season; my leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever I do shall prosper.'

She had also her own private ways of denying herself, not for the sake of earning money or praise by it, but simply because she felt it was right. One of these rules was to do without dinner, and butter at breakfast, once in the week, because she felt it helped her in her soul.

I cannot end this chapter without telling you of the one great sorrow which darkened all her early years. Some of you, I know, will enter into her feelings so well.

Her father, at one time saved and earnest about the souls of others, had grown cold and backslidden, and now never even went near a Meeting. You can fancy what agony this was to both Mrs. Mumford and her daughter. They prayed and wept in vain--he only seemed to get more indifferent. Catherine would sometimes write her feelings and her sorrow in her diary, and there we read:--

'I sometimes get into an agony of feeling while praying for my dear father. Oh, my Lord, answer prayer, and bring him back to Thyself! Never let that tongue which once delighted in praising Thee, and in showing others Thy willingness to save, be engaged in uttering the lamentations of the lost! Oh, awful thought! Lord, have mercy! Save, Oh! save him in any way Thou seest best, though it be ever so painful. If by removing me Thou canst do this, cut short Thy work, and take me Home. Let me be bold to speak in Thy name. Oh, give me true courage and liberty, and when I write to him, bless what I say to the good of his soul!'

For many years this prayer of Catherine's was not answered; but she held on, as you must do for those you love, in faith and prayer; and at last she had the unspeakable joy of seeing her dear father come back to God through one of her own Meetings which he had attended. His last years were full of peace, and were spent in serving God and rejoicing in His Salvation.

A THREE-YEARS ENGAGEMENT

'What a need there is for effort and energy; or real religion and common sense!'--MRS. BOOTH.

One Sunday, when Catherine and her mother went to the Meeting as usual, they found a 'Special' there, taking the services. He was quite different from the other Specials, and Catherine could not help noticing him with extra interest. He spoke to the people's hearts, and was not so much occupied in preaching a good sermon as in getting some one converted. But he did preach a very good sermon for all that, and chose this verse as his text--'This is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.'

A few days later Catherine and her mother were spending the evening with a friend, when the very same preacher came in, and was introduced to them as the Rev. William Booth.

Catherine knew they had one subject in common--love for souls; but before the evening ended she discovered that the young minister was quite as earnest as she was herself in fighting the Drink curse and all that was connected with it.

A few Sundays later Mr. Booth preached again in the same building, this time as the minister, or, as we should say, 'Officer in charge,' and no longer as a Special. And now you will guess that the two often met, and that, because they had so many interests in common, they soon learned to know each other well, till respect grew into friendship, and friendship into love.

Catherine was at this time twenty-two years old, and Mr. Booth was three months younger; but, though you would have said they were old enough to know their own minds, they did nothing hastily, and would enter into no engagement till they were quite sure of God's Will in the matter.

Had Catherine ever before thought of the day when she would get married? you, perhaps, ask. Oh, yes, indeed, and when but a girl of sixteen--directly, in fact, after she was saved--she settled in her own heart what sort of a man her future husband must be. First, she decided, he must be truly converted, and a total abstainer, not to please her, but from his own choice. Then he must be a man of sense, or she could never respect him; and, if they were to be happy, they must feel and think alike on all important matters.

Ah, if our women-Soldiers and Cadets to-day would but follow our Army Mother's example, there would be fewer unhappy marriages and wrecked lives!

But in her secret heart Catherine had also, girl-like, some ideas about the sort of man she would like to marry, if she might choose. He should be a minister--that was the nearest she could get to an Officer in those days; William was a name she particularly liked, and--if only he might be tall and dark! If you had been there when Katie Mumford first listened to his preaching you would have seen that he was 'tall and dark' indeed.

But though William Booth loved Catherine with a deep and holy love, which increased each time they met, yet he was very poor, and he wondered if he ought, under the circumstances, to ask her to share his lot. He wrote a letter to her, telling her how perplexed and troubled he was, and her answer shows us that, right from the very earliest days, before they were even engaged, her one desire was that his soul should prosper.

It was not the fear of poverty that frightened her, for a few days later she says:--

This is exactly what they did, and after meeting, and together consecrating their lives to God, they solemnly pledged themselves to each other.

And now began a three-years' engagement, in which, though often for long months at a time they never met, they remained true to each other and to God, in thought and word and deed.

Many of the beautiful letters that our Army Mother wrote to The General at this time, I am glad to tell you, have been kept, and we will look together at some of the ways in which she tried to help and cheer him.

In the first letter after their engagement she ends with these words:--

'The more you lead me up to Christ in all things, the more highly shall I esteem you; and if it be possible to love you more than I do now, the more shall I love you. You are always present in my thoughts.'

Now you must not think that, even in these early days, our General had a very easy life. He was often much perplexed and troubled, longing above all to do God's Will for the Salvation of the people, and yet not quite sure what that Will was. At these times Catherine was of untold help to him.

Once he was very unsettled--not certain whether he should remain away in the North of England, or accept a place in London, where the two could often meet. Most girls would have said, 'Oh, come, then we shall be near to each other'; but you will see that her advice to him is just as suitable for you when you are not certain of your duty--that she does not consider her own feelings at all.

'I wish,' she writes, 'you prayed more and talked less about the matter. Try it, and be determined to get clear and settled views as to your course. Leave your heart before God, and get satisfied in His sight, and then do it, be it what it may. I cannot bear the idea of your being unhappy. Pray do in this as you feel in your soul it will be right. My conscience is no standard for yours.'

Then she adds, lower down:--

'Oh, if you come to London, let us be determined to reap a blessed harvest. Let our fellowship be sanctified to our souls' everlasting good. My mind is made up to do my part towards it. I hope to be firm as a rock on some points. The Lord help me. We must aim to improve each other's mind and character. Let us pray for grace to do it in the best way and to the fullest extent possible.'

'Anyway,' she says, a day or two later--and ever remember her words when outside things try and distress you--'don't let the controversy hurt your soul. Live near to God by prayer.... You believe He answers prayer. Then take courage. Just fall down at His feet, and open your very soul before Him, and throw yourself right into His arms. Tell Him that if you are wrong you only wait to be set right, and, be the path rough or smooth, you will walk in it.

'Oh, you must live close to God! If you are a greater distance from Him than you were, just stop the whirl of outward things, or rather leave it, and shut yourself up with Him till all is clear and bright upwards. Do, there's a dear. Oh, how much we lose by not coming to the point. Now, at once, realize your union with Christ, and trust Him to lead you through this perplexity. Bless you. Excuse this advice. I am anxious for your soul. Look up. If God hears my prayers, He must guide you--He will guide you.'

Again, later, she writes:--

'Try and cast off the fear of man. Fix your eyes simply on the glory of God, and care not for frown or praise of man. Rest not till your soul is fully alive to God.' How truly she herself carried this out in her own Meetings you will hear later on.

'Do assure me,' she writes, 'my own dear William, that no want of energy or effort on your part shall hinder the improvement of those talents God has given you.'

So that, with his constant travelling and preaching, he might get time to read and think and learn, she suggested a little plan to him in his billets.

'Could you not,' she says, 'provide yourself with a small leather bag or case, large enough to hold your Bible and any other book you might require--pens, ink, paper and a candle? And, presuming that you generally have a room to yourself, could you not rise by six o'clock every morning, and convert your bedroom into a study till breakfast time?... I hope, my dearest love, you will consider this plan, and keep to it, if possible, as a general practice. Don't let little difficulties prevent your carrying it out.'

Did The General like this advice and counsel? Or did he feel, as some men do to-day, that women cannot judge nor understand such things?

Ah! he was wise, and only too glad to have all the help that Catherine could give him. In fact, he often wrote begging her to help him more. The outlines for addresses which she sent him weekly he valued and used, as this letter shows:--

'I have,' he writes, 'just taken hold of that sketch you sent me on "Be not deceived," and am about to make a full sermon on it. I like it much. It is admirable.

'I want a sermon on the Flood, one on Jonah, and one on the Judgment. Send me some bare thoughts, some clear, startling outlines. We must have that kind of truth which will move sinners.'

But if Catherine Mumford was anxious about the mind and work of her future husband, much more was she anxious about his soul. To her, there could be no true love without faithfulness, and where she felt it necessary, she cautioned him in the truest and tenderest way:--

'You have special need,' she writes, 'for watchfulness and for much private intercourse with God.

'My dearest love, beware how you indulge that dangerous element of character, ambition. Misdirected, it will be everlasting ruin to yourself, and perhaps to me also. Oh, my love, let nothing earthly excite it; let not the wish to be great fire it. Fix it on the Throne of the Eternal, and let it find the realization of its loftiest aspirations in the promotion of His glory, and it shall be consummated with the richest enjoyments and brightest glories of God's own Heaven.'

You wonder, perhaps, if Catherine ever wrote 'love letters,' as we call them. She never wrote the foolish and sentimental letters which say a great deal, and mean very little; but she was able to put her great love into words strong, intense, and full of tenderness.

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