Catherine Booth Part 5

'Oh, if we could,' she writes, 'get more of the spirit of prayer into those who love G.o.d! Few understand it at all.

'I always find an exact proportion in the results to the spirit of intercession I have had beforehand. That is why I like to be alone in lodgings.'

Before her Meeting she would wrestle and plead with G.o.d for hours, in tears and agony, and then would face her congregation overflowing with love and faith.

'Pray for me,' she writes during her marvellous Portsmouth campaign. 'No one knows how I feel. I think I never realized my responsibility as I did on Sunday night. I felt really awful before rising to speak. The sight almost overwhelmed me. With its two galleries, its dome-like roof and vast proportions, when crammed with people, the building presents a most imposing appearance. The top gallery is ten or twelve seats deep in front, and it was full of men. Such a sight as I have never seen on any previous occasion. Oh, how I _yearned_ over them! I felt as if it would be a small thing to die _there and then_, if that would have brought them to Jesus.'

Nothing short of men and women getting converted satisfied her.

'They say,' she writes of another campaign, 'the sinners here will "_bide some bringing down_." Well, the Lord can do it. They tell me, too, that I am immensely popular with the people. But _that_ is no comfort unless they will be saved.'

She laboured to get the truth home to the hearts of her listeners, and that is why her talking was so blessed.

'G.o.d made you responsible,' she said, 'not for delivering the truth, but for GETTING IT IN--getting it home, fixing it in the conscience as a red-hot iron, as a bolt, straight from His throne; and He has given you also the _power to do it_; and if you do not do it, _blood_ will be on your skirts. Oh, this genteel way of putting the truth! How G.o.d hates it! "If you please, dear friends, will you listen? If you please, will you be converted? Will you come to Jesus? Shall we read just this, that, and the other?" No more like apostolic preaching than darkness is like light.'

How can I show you some of the marvellous results of her preaching? In every part of our land her influence and words made themselves felt; the largest buildings were crowded with all cla.s.ses of society, and glorious cases of conversion and sanctification crowned her labours everywhere. A lady who was at some of her women's Meetings at Lye, near Birmingham, tells us:--

'The women left their work, and in all sorts of odd costumes flocked to the Meetings, some with bonnets, some with shawls fastened over their head, others with little children clinging to their necks. All, with eager, inquiring faces, took their seats and listened to the gracious words which fell from the lips of dear Mrs. Booth. And when the invitation was given, what a scene ensued! It baffles all description.

Crowding, weeping, rushing to the penitent-form came convicted sinners and repentant backsliders. When the form was filled the penitents dropped upon their knees in the aisles or in their seats, so that it was difficult to move about.'

When holding some Meetings in a Rotherhithe chapel (for The Army was only just beginning its work, and our Army Mother took Meetings in different churches and chapels up and down the land), the victories were just as glorious, and one of her Converts says:--

'There were many remarkable cases of conversion at these Meetings.

Amongst others there were the two daughters of a publican. When one sister was saved the other went to hear Mrs. Booth on purpose to ridicule the services. But she was seized with such an agonizing realization of her sins that she came down from the top of the gallery to the penitent-form, crying out aloud, "I must come! I must come!" Soon after their father gave up the public-house, and they afterwards became members of Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle.

'I have seen as many as thirty persons seeking Salvation in a single Meeting, and some years afterwards, when I looked at the register of our chapel, I found about one hundred names of those who had professed to be converted at this time.'

Our Army Mother, too, was equally straight and fearless with the rich when, later on, they also came in crowds to hear her. She had but one message and one gospel for all alike. She says, 'By G.o.d's help I will not regard the person of man, but will plainly and fearlessly declare the truth, come what may.' G.o.d honoured this spirit, and her Meetings in the West-End of London, where the great and rich live, were some of the most glorious of her life. Of one such she writes:--

'The Lord has very graciously stood by me, and given me much precious fruit. Last Sunday we had the Hall crowded, and a large proportion of gentlemen. The Lord was there in power, and twenty-one came forward--some for Salvation and some for purity. Several were most blessed cases of full surrender. We did not get away till nearly six, and we began at three. Everybody is amazed at this for the West-End! The audience is very select, we never having published a bill. Pray much, dear friend, that G.o.d may do a deep and permanent work in this Babylon. It seems as though He gave me words of fire for them, and they sat spellbound.'

You say you wish you had heard her speak? Indeed, we all wish you had: you could never have forgotten it. But several of her addresses were taken down in shorthand at the time, and are reprinted in her books, so you can get and read them; and they will bless and teach you as they have taught thousands before you.

VI

THE MOTHER

'A lady once said to me, "How have you managed to get your children converted so early?" "Oh," I said, "I have been beforehand with the Devil."'--MRS. BOOTH.

I have already told you how Mrs. Booth had the true mother spirit when but a little child, loving and tending her dolls as if they had been real babies; you will, therefore, guess that with her own children she was the best and most careful of mothers. She began early to train them in the right way, and never left them unless forced to do so.

'I cannot part with Willie,' she writes to her mother, who offered to free Mrs. Booth by taking charge of the baby for her; 'first, because I know the child's affections could not but be weaned from us; and secondly, because the next year will be the most important of his life with reference to managing his will; and in this I cannot but distrust you. I know, my darling mother, you could not wage war with his self-will so resolutely as to subdue it. And then my child would be ruined, for he must be taught implicit, uncompromising obedience.'

But long before writing this she had already claimed her boy for G.o.d and His war. 'I had from the first,' she says, 'definite longings over Bramwell, and lifted him up to G.o.d as soon as I had strength to do so, especially desiring he should be a teacher of Holiness.' These prayers began to be answered very early. The boy had a truthful and conscientious nature. Never, his mother says, does she remember his telling her a lie.

But, for all that, he needed, as do all children, training and teaching, and Mrs. Booth was too wise not to be firm. She writes therefore:

'I believe he will be a thoroughly n.o.ble lad, if I can preserve him from all evil influence. The Lord help me! I have had to whip him twice lately severely for disobedience, and it has cost me some tears. But it has done him good, and I am reaping the reward already of my self-sacrifice. The Lord help me to be faithful and firm as a rock in the path of duty towards my children!'

We know how practical our Army Mother always was; sentimental pity without help she despised. When her little son, therefore, saw and pitied a small boy with shoeless feet, his mother quickly reminded him of his little money-box.

'Would you rather keep the money for barley-sugar, Willie, or give it to the poor boy?' she asked. 'Give it to the boy,' he said at once, and so learnt his first lesson in self-denial.

When the boy was seven years old he was converted, to his mother's deepest joy. Some time before she had talked to him in a Meeting, and urged him to get saved. The boy sat still and said nothing. 'Willie, I insist,' said his mother at last. 'You must answer me. Will you give your heart to G.o.d or not? Yes or no?'

Willie looked up in her face steadily and answered back 'No.'

Mrs. Booth said no more just then, but held on in faith and prayer, and some months later, to her unutterable thankfulness, she found him squeezed in among a number of other children at the penitent-form. He had, unasked, made his way there, and was weeping and confessing his sins with all his heart.

Needless to say, he was faithfully dealt with, and the boy, now our beloved General, dates his conversion from that moment. A little later Mrs. Booth wrote of him:--

'Willie has begun to serve G.o.d, of course as a child, but still, I trust, taught of the Spirit. I feel a great increase of responsibility with respect to him. Oh! to cherish the tender plant of grace aright. Lord help!'

And as with the eldest so with the other seven. One by one they gave their hearts to the Lord as soon as they grew old enough to do so.

'She used to gather us round her,' says one of her daughters,' and pray with us. I wore then a low frock, and her hot tears would often drop upon my neck, sending a thrill through me which I can never forget.'

She would pray again and again that she might lay them in their graves rather than she should see them grow up wicked.

Mrs. Booth was very particular about the way in which her children were dressed.

Of course, there was no uniform in those days, but The Army spirit was already in The Army Mother, and she would not have any finery or show, either for herself or her children.

'Accept,' she writes to her mother, 'my warm thanks for the little frock you sent. There is only one difficulty--it is too smart. We must set an example in this direction. I feel no temptation now to decorate myself, but I cannot say the same about the children; and yet, Oh, I see I must be decided. Besides, I find it would be dangerous for their own sakes.

The seed of vanity is too deeply sown in their young hearts for me to dare to cultivate it.'

Even in her early days Mrs. Booth felt how wrong it was to spend time and money over dress:--

'I remember feeling condemned,' she says, 'when quite a child, not more than eight years old, at having to wear a lace tippet such as was fashionable in those days. From a worldly point of view it would have been considered, no doubt, very neat and consistent. But on several occasions I had good crying fits over it. Not only did I instinctively feel it to be immodest, because people could see through it, but I thought it was not such as a Christian child should wear.'

In everything to do with her home Mrs. Booth was a most practical and careful mother. She hated waste and luxury, but her children were always properly dressed and fed and cared for, and never lacked what was necessary for them.

Ladies who had been blessed by her words came to consult her about their souls, and to their surprise found the great preacher, not shut away in her study, but hard at work perhaps ironing the baby's pinafores, or cutting out a pair of trousers for one of her boys! 'I must try,' she said, when she began to live this two-fold life, 'to do all in the kitchen as well as in the pulpit to the glory of G.o.d. The Lord help me.'

He did help her, and it was this practical mother-spirit at home which gave her so much force and power on the platform.

As the children grew older, they were more away from her side, and her letters to them are suitable, not only to her actual sons and daughters, but to her spiritual grandchildren who will read this little book.

Therefore I am going to give you some extracts, which you may take as though written by our Army Mother straight to your own heart.

To one of her boys at school she wrote:--

'I do hope you are industrious, and do not lose time in play and inattention. Remember Satan steals his marches on us by _littles_--a minute now, and a minute then. Be on the look out, and don't be cheated by him!

'All your little trials will soon be over, so far as school life is concerned; and every one of them, if borne with patience, will make you a wiser and better man. Never forget my advice about not listening to _secrets_! Don't hear anything that needs to be whispered--it is sure to be bad. Choose the boys to be your companions who most love and fear G.o.d, and pray together when you can, and help each other.'

Here is a very beautiful letter written when one of her children desired to go in for some higher education, which Mrs. Booth feared might spoil the soul life:--