The Maréchale - (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)

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Title: The Maréchale - (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)
Author: Strahan, James
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Maréchale - (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)" ***

[Illustration: THE MARÉCHALE]

*THE MARÉCHALE*

(CATHERINE BOOTH-CLIBBORN)

BY
JAMES STRAHAN

AUTHOR OF "HEBREW IDEALS," "THE BOOK OF JOB," ETC.

HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

_The right of translation is reserved_

Dedicated
WITH REVERENCE AND AFFECTION TO
THÉODORE MONOD
WHO TAUGHT US TO SAY TO OUR DIVINE MASTER
"NONE OF SELF AND ALL OF THEE"

*PREFACE*

This book is the unexpected result of a brief visit which the Maréchale
paid her daughter and the writer in the spring of this year. She was
daily persuaded, not so much to talk of the past, as to live parts of
her life over again, for in her case the telling of a story is the
enacting of a drama. At a meal-time she rarely keeps her seat, though
she is apparently unconscious of leaving it and surprised that she
requires to return to it. She begins to describe an incident, to recall
a conversation, to sketch a character, and straightway she is suiting
the word to the action, the action to the word, holding the mirror up to
nature, using her brilliant dramatic gift, which is as natural to her as
singing is to birds, to call up faces, to bring back voices, to restore
scenes, which are all, whether grave or gay, summoned out of a dead past
that has suddenly, as by the wave of a magician’s wand, become once more
alive.

One day I said to her, "Have you never thought of giving all this to the
world?" She answered, "I am often asked to do so, and some day I may."
Soon after she surprised me by saying, "I have come to the conclusion
that something ought to be written now, and you must write it."

A mass of materials in English, French and German—reports, letters,
diaries, magazines, and other documents—has therefore been put at my
disposal. I have not used a tithe of what I have received, and much of
what is left is as good as what has been taken. More will ere long, I
doubt not, see the light. One of my best sources of information has
been the Maréchale’s own phenomenal memory, which I have tested times
without number, and found invariably accurate, except in dates. Events
are apt to be associated in her mind not so much with years as with
homes and children, which are much more interesting.

With regard to the subject of the fourteenth chapter, the Maréchale
would have preferred not to break the silence which she has maintained
for a number of years, but after reading her letters and diaries I have
urged her to let a brief statement be published, first because I feel
that she owes something to her old comrades in the fight, and second for
the sake of her own and her family’s future work. Members of the family
who have been consulted, as well as other friends, desire this even more
strongly than the writer does.

This book consists of a few sections from a life which, like Mrs.
Browning’s pomegranate, "shows within a heart blood-tinctured." To a
heart of love add a spirit of fire, and you have the Maréchale. Blood
and fire—that is what she was at the beginning, and that is what she
will be to the end. One has often heard her say that she has never been
more in her element than when, on entering some town, she has found
herself confronted, in a theater or casino, by "all the devils of the
place." She is happy whenever "Jesus is going to have a chance for a
night." In the natural course of things her greatest battles are still
before her. England has need of her, France perhaps still greater need.
May it be long before the Maréchale reaches her last campaign!
Meanwhile the old battle-cry, _En Avant!_

The subject of this sketch—written during a brief respite from other
work—is at present far away, but I know that what she desires to give to
the world is a sense of the Divine, the miracle-working power which
rewards a child-like faith, and that she will be glad if every reader
closes the book with a _Gloire à Dieu!_

J. S.

*CONTENTS*

CHAPTER I

Finely Touched to Fine Issues

CHAPTER II

A Girl Evangelist

CHAPTER III

The Secret of Evangelism

CHAPTER IV

Christ in Paris

CHAPTER V

Freedom to Worship God

CHAPTER VI

The Soul of France

CHAPTER VII

Woman’s Vocation

CHAPTER VIII

The Renunciation of Home

CHAPTER IX

The Friendship of Christ

CHAPTER X

The Burning Question

CHAPTER XI

The Prodigal Son

CHAPTER XII

So Great Faith

CHAPTER XIII

Beauty for Ashes

CHAPTER XIV

To Thine Own Self Be True

CHAPTER XV

Sursum Corda!

*LIST OF PORTRAITS*

The Maréchale . . . _Frontispiece_

Catherine Booth . . . 32

(_From a drawing by Edward Clifford, exhibited in the Royal Academy and
presented to Mrs. Booth_)

The Maréchale in the Café . . . 114

(_From the painting of Baron Cederström_)

The Maréchale . . . 160

(_From a photo taken in Paris, circa 1890_)

The Maréchale . . . 302

(_From a photo taken in London in 1913_)

*CHAPTER I*

*FINELY TOUCHED TO FINE ISSUES*

In the summer of 1865 William Booth, Evangelist, found his life-work.
For some time back his imagination had been more than usually active.
He could not help thinking that all his past efforts had been but
tentative solutions of a difficult problem. He felt the spur of a vague
discontent. He seemed to be groping his way towards an unrealised
ideal. At length he got the inner light he needed. While he was
conducting a series of meetings in a tent pitched on the disused Quaker
burying-ground at Baker’s Row, Whitechapel, he saw his heavenly vision
and heard his divine call. He accepted a mission which was no less real
than those of Hebrew Prophets and Christian Apostles. The words in
which he describes his vocation form part of the history of Christianity
in England. "I found my heart," he says, "strongly and strangely drawn
out on behalf of the million people living within a mile of the tent,
ninety out of every hundred of whom, they told me, never heard the sound
of the preacher’s voice from year to year. ’Here is a sphere!’ was
being whispered continually in my inward ear by an inward voice ... and
I was continually haunted with a desire to offer myself to Jesus Christ
as an apostle for the heathen of East London. The idea or heavenly
vision or whatever you may call it overcame me; I yielded to it; and
what has happened since is, I think, not only my justification, but an
evidence that my offer was accepted."

Thus it was that on a memorable June night, having ended his meeting and
after-meeting, he rushed home, tired as usual, but with a strange light
in his face which indicated an unusual glow in his heart.

"Darling," he exclaimed to his wife, "I have found my destiny!"

His unexpected words, like the touch of Ithuriel’s spear, proved the
quality of his life-mate’s womanhood. For a moment she trembled under
the test. While her husband poured out his burning words about the
heathenism of London, and expressed his conviction that it was his duty
to stop and preach to these East End multitudes, she sat gazing into the
empty fireplace. The voice of the tempter—so she imagined—whispered to
her, "This means another new departure, another start in life." She
thought of five little heads asleep on their pillows upstairs, and
remembered that she had already passed through more than one time of
domestic anxiety. But no woman living at that time was more ready for
acts of daring faith; few, if any, were so animated by scorn of
miserable aims that end in self. After silently thinking and praying
for some minutes, she said:

"Well, if you feel you ought to stay, stay. We have trusted the Lord
once for our support and we can trust Him again."

Thus the die was cast, and the day ended with one of those scenes by
which our common humanity is ennobled. "Together," he says, "we humbled
ourselves before God, and dedicated our lives to the task that it seemed
we had been praying for for twenty-five years. Her heart came over to my
heart. We resolved that this poor, submerged, giddy, careless people
should henceforth become our people and our God their God as far as we
could induce them to accept Him, and for this end we would face poverty,
persecution, or whatever Providence might permit in our consecration to
what we believed to be the way God had mapped out for us."

One feels perfectly certain that these two modern apostles would have
fulfilled their destiny even if they had stood alone; but it could
scarcely have been so ample and glorious a destiny if God had not given
them children who inherited their gifts and helped them to realise their
ideals. It is the simple truth that the ruling passion of each of their
eight sons and daughters has been the love of souls; each of them has
exulted to spend and be spent in the service of Christ, which is the
service of humanity; and if one of them has been too feeble in her
health to be a militant Salvationist, the great Captain of our salvation
accepts the will for the deed.

Among all the bold and original acts by which the breath and the flame
of a new life have been brought into the modern Church, none is more
striking, and yet none more simple and natural, than the revival, after
all these centuries, of the apostolic ministry of women. Like Philip
the Evangelist of Cæsarea, William and Catherine Booth "had four
daughters who did prophesy"; brave and gifted English girls who,
baptised with the Holy Spirit, used their dower of burning eloquence to
bring sinners to the mercy-seat. If to-day "the women that publish the
tidings are a great host," the fact illustrates the power of example.
In every new movement there must be daring pioneers and self-sacrificing
leaders. For woman’s "liberty of prophesying," as for every other form
of freedom, the price has had to be paid. The purpose of this little
book is to sketch the life of the eldest of General Booth’s four
daughter-evangelists, who was called to carry the spirit of the
Gospel—Christ’s own spirit of love—first into many of the cities of
England, and afterwards, in fulfilment of her distinctive life-work,
into France and Switzerland, Holland and Belgium. If her story could be
told as it deserves to be, it would stand out as one of the most
remarkable modern records of Christian work, for there is perhaps no one
living to-day who has seen so much of what Henry Drummond used to call
"the contemporary activities of the Holy Ghost."

Catherine Booth the elder, the Mother of the Army, was already in her
thirty-second year when she wrote her famous brochure upon _Female
Ministry_, and, not without fear and trembling, delivered her first
evangelistic address in the Bethesda Chapel at Gateshead-on-Tyne, where
her husband was minister. Little Catherine, who had been baptised in
that chapel, was in her second year when her mother began public
speaking, and in her seventh when her father found his destiny.
Probably no child ever had greater privileges than she enjoyed. Her
earthly home was a house of God and a gate of heaven; and from the first
she seemed to respond to all that was highest and best in her
environment. She was one of those happy souls who have no memory of
their conversion, who cannot recall a time when they did not heartily
love the Lord Jesus Christ.

Her father was the centre of all her childish thoughts and most vivid
recollections, and nothing could ever really dislodge him from the first
place in her affections. An interesting page from her earliest memories
may be reproduced. When she was three or four years old, her father was
a Wesleyan Pastor in Cornwall, where his ministry led to a revival in
which hundreds of souls found salvation. One night Katie was taken by
her nurse to the meeting, and, on arrival, found herself before a flight
of steps leading up to the gallery. Thinking herself quite a big girl,
she wished to climb, but nurse, fearing the crowd, snatched her up and
carried her to the top. At length they were inside, and what the child
then saw and heard remained for ever vividly impressed on her
imagination. The great building was crammed. Away down on the platform
stood her father, with her mother sitting beside him. He was leading the
singing, keeping time with his folded umbrella, and this was the chorus:

Let the winds blow high, or the winds blow low,
It’s a pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah!

How well did the eager-hearted little maid enjoy that voyage, and how
proud she was of her captain! The winds blew low and the sun shone upon
her in those days. But it could not always be fair weather. Often
since that far-off Cornish time have the winds blown high, and sometimes
the mariner has felt herself tossed, chartless and rudderless, on dark
tempestuous seas; but ever the winds have fallen, the sun has shone out
again over the waves; and to how many tens of thousands has this
daughter of music sung, with sweet variations, her father’s song—"It’s a
pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah!"

The Booth children were left in no mist of doubt as to their future.
There was an end, a point, a purpose, in their life. They grew up in an
atmosphere of decision. Many children are made timid, diffident,
ineffective by their training. They are constantly told how naughty
they are, till they begin to believe that they are good for nothing.
The Booth parents acted on a different principle. They had faith in
their children and for their children. When Katie was still a little
girl in socks, her mother would say to her, "Now, Katie, you are not
here in this world for yourself. You have been sent for others. _The
world is waiting for you._" What a phrase that was to send a little
girl to bed with! There she turned the words over and over in her own
mind. "Mother says the world is waiting for me. Oh, I must be good....
How selfish I was in taking that orange!" The lesson was worth £1000 to
a child. In the development of Katie’s mind and character her mother’s
influence was naturally very strong. The fellowship between them soon
became peculiarly intimate, and it was the mother’s joy to find her
_alter ego_ in the daughter who bore her name.

Katie’s memories of her early London life were bound up with the
Christian Mission. Hand in hand with her sister Emma, and often singing
with her "I mean with Jesus Christ to dwell, will you go?" she walked
every Sunday morning along the great road leading to Whitechapel.
Ineffaceable impressions were made on her sensitive mind by the open-air
preaching at Mile End Waste, Bethnal Green and Hackney; by the apostolic
spirit of holy enthusiasm; by the Friday morning prayer-meetings, where
the officers met alone to plead with God and wrestle in tears for more
power. All this became the warp and woof of her own spiritual life,
preparing her for her high calling. And, though she could not remember
the day of her new birth, she clearly recalled several times when she
consecrated herself, body and soul, to God. In a great whitewashed
building in the East End her father preached on "The King’s daughters
are all glorious within," and she prayed that she might have the inner
purity which would make her a child of God. From a meeting of Christian
workers she ran home to her room, shut herself in, and deliberately gave
her heart and life to Christ. She could not, perhaps, realise all that
her covenant meant, but one thing she understood—that she was called to
yield herself completely to do His will and to save souls.

There was plenty of laughter and fun in that home. The Booth children
were all born with the dramatic instinct, and the spirit of the
Christian Mission invaded the nursery. Not only were the great dramas
of the Bible—Joseph and his brothers, David and Goliath, Daniel and the
lions, and a score of others—enacted there, but the meeting and the
penitent form, the drunkard and the backslider, the hopeful and the
desperate case were all reproduced in the plays of the children. Katie
and Emma brought their babies to the meeting, and the babies generally
insisted on crying, to the despair of Bramwell or Ballington, who
stopped preaching to give the stern order, "Take the babies out of the
theatre," against which the mothers indignantly protested, "Papa would
not have stopped, papa would have gone on preaching anyhow." But the
dramatic masterpiece was Ballington dealing with an interesting
case—generally a pillow—coaxing, dragging, banging the poor reluctant
penitent to the mercy-seat and exclaiming, "Ah! this is a good case,
bless him! ... Give up the drink, brother." That is a scene which is
still sometimes re-enacted to the delight of new generations.

Jesus Himself watched the games of the children who piped and mourned in
the market-place. Life is none the less strenuous for its interludes of
mirth. Catherine, who was dramatic to the finger-tips, was very early
mastered by a sense of the sacredness of duty. The moral ideal set
before her was the highest, and her conscience was tremulously
sensitive. She was oppressed with the sense of what ought to be, and
inconsolable when she failed to attain it. A word of rebuke cut her
like a knife, and she would sometimes weep far into the night if she
thought she had put pleasure before duty. It is a great thing to make
religion real to children, and especially to give them a sense of the
obligation to please Christ in everything. Mrs. Booth found Katie ready
to go all lengths with her, and even to outrun her, in her ideas of what
was right and what was wrong for Christians. It is amusing to hear that
when the mother was going out one day to buy new frocks for her little
girls, Katie’s words to her were not "Do buy us something pretty!" but
"Mind you get something Christian!" and that when Mrs. Booth came home
with her purchases, and Katie rushed downstairs to meet her, the child’s
first inquiry was, "Are they Christian?"

But the sense of duty may become morbid if it is not transmuted by love.
Many servants of God never learn the secret which makes Christ’s yoke
easy and His burden light. They have to confess to themselves that they
cannot say, "To do Thy will, O Lord, I take delight." It would have
been strange if any of the Booth children had not learned the secret.
Catherine discovered it early, learned it thoroughly, and it became in
after years one of the hidden sources of her power. As a child she
lived in union with Christ; she practised and felt the Real Presence;
she understood that Christianity is a Divine Service transfigured by a
Divine Friendship. In Victoria Park there was a shady alley where she
was in the habit of walking, because Some One walked beside her! In
Clifton, where she lived for a time, she had a tiny upper room in which
she felt that she was never alone! That was her childhood’s religion,
which she never needed to change. She found it to be utterly
independent of time and place, form and ceremony. In the glare of
public life, in the storm of persecution, in the hour of temptation and
danger, she had always a cathedral into which she could retire that she
might find peace. She was spiritually akin with the Hebrew mystics who
lived in the secret place of the Most High, who had at all times a
pavilion from the strife of tongues. In her Neuchâtel prison she wrote
some simple words which sent a thrill through the heart of Christian
Europe:

Best Beloved of my soul,
I am here alone with Thee;
And my prison is a heaven,
Since Thou sharest it with me.

*CHAPTER II*

*A GIRL EVANGELIST*

When the heart is warm and full the lips become eloquent. Jesus expects
each of His followers to testify for Him. His redeemed ones should need
little persuasion to plead His cause. Every genuine conversion creates
a new advocate for His side. Dumbness is one of the signs of unreality
in religion. The sin of silence received due castigation, in public and
in private, from the tongues of fire which the Spirit gave to William
and Catherine Booth. Their children therefore learned that it is every
Christian’s calling to speak in season and out of season for Christ, to
press His claims upon the willing and the unwilling alike. Katie, it
appears, began among her little companions in the Victoria Park. Her
old nurse still remembers how she would gather little groups about her
and tell them of the Saviour’s love. When she was in her twelfth year,
she lived for some time with a family in Clifton, along with whom she
attended the Church of England. One Sunday evening the Vicar, who had
noticed her earnest gaze fixed on his face, sent for her that he might
have a little talk with her. He asked her what she liked best in the
Bible, and she answered "The Atonement." He was so struck by her
intelligence that he offered her a children’s class, which soon grew
large. Week by week she talked to the little ones of sin and the
Saviour. Letting story-books go, she went for their conversion. Having
to return home on her twelfth birthday—the last day on which she could
travel with a half-ticket—she told her mother of her great longing to
continue her work among children. Her mother readily consented, and
soon there was a weekly gathering of young folk in a downstairs room of
the Gore Road house. After a while Katie had the assistance of her
sister Emma, who was her junior by little more than a year. Tears were
shed, confessions made, and lives changed in that room. And there two
of the most brilliant evangelists of our time first learned to deal with
souls. They were in every way kindred spirits. Long afterwards one
finds Emma writing to Catherine: "We will always be ’special sisters.’
We were Ma’s two first girls, and were brought up side by side—and side
by side we will labour and love till we stand with our children in her
presence again before the Throne!"

Katie was thirteen when she first spoke in public. No one asked her to
do it; she yielded to an irresistible inward impulse. Her eldest
brother was conducting an open-air meeting opposite a low public-house
at the corner of Cat and Mutton Bridge in Hackney. Katie was beside
him, and whispered, "I will say a few words." Her brother was
delighted, and she delivered her message with a directness and fluency
which compelled attention and proved her a born speaker. Not very long
after, she spoke in the hearing of the General, who wrote to his wife,
"I don’t know whether I told you how pleased I was with dear Katie
speaking in the streets on Sunday morning. It was very nice and
effective. Bless her!" "From this time," says Mr. Booth in a document
of great importance, "she continued occasionally to speak in public
meetings, but it was not until she was between fourteen and fifteen,
when she was with me in Ryde, Isle of Wight, that I fully realised and
settled the question. During that time my eldest son joined us for a few
days, and, with another friend or two, held open-air meetings; on one of
these occasions Catherine accompanied them, and her brother induced her
to say a few words, which it appears fell with extraordinary power upon
the listening crowd of men and others, such as usually comprise the
visitors at these places. On their return my son described to me the
effects of her address, but, not being fully emancipated from my old
ideas of propriety, I remonstrated and urged such objections as I
presume any other mother, consecrated but not fully enlightened, might
have urged against her being thrust into such a public position at such
an early age. My son, gazing at me with great solemnity and tenderness,
said, ’Mamma, dear, you will have to settle this question with God, for
she is as surely called and inspired by Him for this particular work as
yourself.’ These words were God’s message to my soul, and helped me to
pull myself up as to the ground of my objection. I retired to my room,
and, after pouring out my heart to God, settled the question that
henceforth I would raise no barrier between any of my children and the
carrying out of His will concerning them, trying to rejoice that they,
not less than myself, should be counted worthy to suffer shame for His
name."

From that time Catherine’s path was clearly marked out. While she
continued her education, which included a special liking for French, she
gradually undertook more and more public work. Her father’s delight in
her ripening powers found frequent utterance, and her companionship with
him during the next six years of work is one of the most beautiful
things in the literature of evangelism. "William," said Mrs. Booth about
this time, "writes that he is utterly amazed at Katie; he had no idea
that she could speak as she does. He says that she is a born leader,
and will if she keeps right see thousands saved.... Praise His name
that she can stand in my stead, and bear His name to perishing souls."
After holding meetings in different parts of London, from Stratford and
Poplar to Hammersmith, Catherine began, just before she was seventeen,
to conduct evangelistic campaigns in many of the other great cities of
England, sometimes lasting three weeks or a month. The largest building
in the town densely crowded Sunday after Sunday, and frequently on week
nights as well; hundreds of people to speak to about their souls’
salvation every week; correspondence and travel; ceaseless labour and
responsibility—these things absorbed all her energies of body and mind.
She was but a frail girl, and suffered for a time from a curvature of
spine, which compelled her to lie on her back in great weakness and
pain. If she yet overcame, it is evident that she was "marvellously
helped."

In 1876 Katie was one of the speakers at the annual Conference in the
People’s Hall, Whitechapel. As she appeared on the platform, she was
described by her lifelong friend, R. C. Morgan of _The Christian_, as "a
fragile, ladylike girl of seventeen, half woman, half child, a
characteristic product of the Christian Mission, whose words fell like
summer rain upon the upturned faces of the crowd." This was the
Conference at which the epoch-making measure was adopted of appointing
women evangelists to the sole charge of stations. Miss Booth was
reserved "for general evangelistic tours."

It is interesting to glance through the numbers of the old _Christian
Mission Magazine_ and light upon brief reports of Catherine’s work. From
Hammersmith (1875): "Miss Kate Booth [age 16] spent a Sabbath with us,
preaching twice with great acceptance. A large audience was deeply
impressed, and some, we trust, were truly converted to God." From
Poplar: "Mr. Bramwell and Miss C. Booth were with us. On the Sunday and
Monday evening the hall was crowded, and some thirty souls at the two
services sought salvation.... On Easter Sunday one sister’s face was cut
with a stone, and heavy stones fell upon some on many occasions of late;
but we endure as seeing Him who is invisible." From Portsmouth: "Miss
Booth, assisted by W. Bramwell Booth, commenced a series of special
services, which God owned and blessed to the salvation of many precious
souls. In the morning Miss Booth preached, and all felt it good to be
there. Then a love-feast was conducted by W. B. Booth in the
afternoon.... In the evening Miss Booth preached in the music-hall to
upwards of three thousand people. The Spirit applied the Word with
power, and seventeen broke away from the ranks of sin and enlisted under
the banner of Jesus Christ." Again from Portsmouth, some months later:
"We had a visit from Miss Booth with her brother Mr. Bramwell, and again
the dear Lord blessed their labours in this town. Each service was
fraught with Divine power; many trembled under the Word, and anxious
ones came forward seeking forgiveness of sins, until the penitent-rail
and vestry were filled with those who, in bitterness of soul, sought
pardon and peace through Jesus."

From Limehouse (1876): "We had dear Miss Booth and her brother, and a
blessed day. In the evening she preached with wonderful power, and ten
or twelve came out for God. May they be kept faithful!" From
Portsmouth: "Miss Booth’s visit was made of the Lord a great blessing to
us all. Very few who listened to her in the morning will forget how she
pleaded with us to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Oh, may God
bless her and make her a mighty blessing, for Christ’s sake." From
Whitechapel (1877): "An earnest appeal was made at one of our Sunday
evening services by Miss Booth, from ’Run, speak to that young man.’
Although in very delicate health, the Lord blessedly assisted her. The
word was with power, and eleven souls decided for Jesus, among whom was
the converted Potman. This young man was a leader in petty and
mischievous annoyances. The genuineness of his conversion was evidenced
by his giving up the public-house work to seek more honourable
employment." From Middlesbro’ (1878): "Miss Booth visited us for five
days, and many blood-bought souls have been blessed and saved. Her
first Sunday with us was a day of power, and it will not be soon
forgotten by those present. It was a grand sight to see a large hall
filled to the door with anxious hearers, while hundreds went away; but
the grandest sight of all was to see old and young flocking to the
penitent form." From Leicester: "Miss Booth’s services may be
summarised in the statement that she had twenty-two souls the first
Sunday evening, and increasing victory thereafter right on to the end."

At Whitby there was a six weeks’ campaign, organised by Captain Cadman.
On the first Sunday "the large hall, which holds three thousand, was
well filled, and in the after service many souls were brought to Jesus."
On the second Sunday "Miss Booth was listened to with breathless
attention. In the after service we drew the net to land, having a
multitude of fishes, and among them we found we had caught a fox-hunter,
a dog-fancier, drunkards, a Roman Catholic, and many others. In the
week-night services souls were saved every night. The proprietor of the
hall had got some large bills out announcing ’Troupe of Arctic Skaters
in the Congress Hall for a week,’ but he put them off by telling them it
was no use coming, as all the town was being evangelised." The
concluding services "drew great crowds from all parts of town and
country, rich and poor, until the hall was so filled that there was no
standing room." In a Consecration meeting, "After Miss Booth’s address
we formed a large ring in the centre of the hall, which brought the
power down upon us; hundreds looked on with astonishment and tears in
their eyes, whilst others gave themselves wholly to God.... Ministers,
like Nicodemus of old, came to see by what power these miracles were
wrought, and, going back to their congregations, resolved to serve God
better, and to preach the gospel more faithfully in the future."

From Leeds: "Miss Booth in the Circus. A glorious month. Hard-hearted
sinners broken down. Best of all, our own people have been getting
blessedly near to God. On Sunday mornings love feasts from nine to
ten.... It would be impossible to give even an outline of the various
and glorious cases of conversion that have come under our notice through
the month which is past. For truly Christ has been bringing to His fold
rich and poor, young and old." From Cardiff: "The question, ’Does this
work stand?’ received a magnificent reply on Sunday. The crowds who
filled the Stuart Hall, to hear Miss Booth, were the largest any one can
remember seeing during all the four years of the Mission’s history
there." From King’s Lynn: "Miss Booth’s Mission. The town has had a
royal visit from the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. There has been a
great awakening, and trembling, and turning to the Lord. Whole families
have been saved, and whole courts have sought salvation. Our holiness
meeting will never be forgotten.... The work here rolls on gloriously.
Not only in Lynn but for miles round the town it is well known that a
marvellous work has been done and is still going forward."

All these battles and victories were naturally followed by the General
with intense interest, and as often as it was possible he was at his
daughter’s side. Mrs. Booth joined them when they were opening a
campaign together at Stockton-on-Tees, and sent her impressions to a
friend. "Pa and Katie had a blessed beginning yesterday. Theatre
crowded at night, and fifteen cases. I heard Katie for the first time
since we were at Cardiff. I was astonished at the advance she had made.
I wish you had been there, I think you would have been as pleased as I
was. It was sweet, tender, forcible, and Divine. I could only adore
and weep. She looked like an angel, and the people were melted, and
spellbound like children." The General began to call her his "Blücher,"
for she helped to win many a hard-fought battle which he might otherwise
have lost. When the rowdies threatened to take the upper hand at a
meeting, he would say, "Put on Katie, she’s our last card; if she fails
we’ll close the meeting."

"I remember," wrote her eldest brother, "a striking instance of this
occurring in a certain northern town on a Sunday night. A crowd
assembled at the doors of the theatre, composed of the lowest and
roughest of the town, who, overpowering the doorkeepers, pressed into
the building and took complete possession of one of the galleries, so
that by the time the remainder of the theatre was occupied this portion
of it represented a scene more like a crowded tap-room than the gallery
of what was for the moment a place of worship. Rows of men sat smoking
and spitting, others were talking and laughing aloud, while many with
hats on were standing in the aisles and passages, bandying to and fro
jokes and criticisms of the coarsest character. All this continued with
little intermission during the opening exercises, and the more timid
among us had practically given up hope about the meeting, when Miss
Booth rose, and standing in front of the little table just before the
footlights, commenced to sing, with such feeling and unction as it is
impossible to describe with pen and ink,

’The rocks and the mountains will all flee away.
And you will need a hiding-place that day.’

There was instantaneous silence over the whole house; after singing two
or three stanzas, she stopped and announced her text, ’Let me die the
death of the righteous and let my last end be like His.’ While she did
so nearly every head in the gallery was uncovered, and within fifteen
minutes both she and every one of the fifteen hundred people present
were completely absorbed in her subject, and for forty minutes no one
stirred or spoke among that unruly crowd, until she made her concluding
appeal, and called for volunteers to begin the new life of
righteousness, when a great big navvy-looking man rose up, and in the
midst of the throng in the gallery exclaimed, ’I’ll make one!’ He was
followed by thirty others that night."

[Illustration: CATHERINE BOOTH
(_From a portrait by Edward Clifford, exhibited at the Royal Academy
and presented to Mrs. Booth_)]

Well might the General’s hopes regarding the young soul-winner be high
and confident. "Papa," wrote Mrs. Booth, "says he felt very proud of her
the other day as she walked by his side at the head of a procession with
an immense crowd at their heels. He turned to her and said, ’Ah, my
lass, you shall wear a crown by-and-by.’"

With what desires and prayers the mother of this _Wunderkind_ followed
such a career is indicated by her letters. "Oh, it seems to me that if
I were in your place—young—no cares or anxieties—with such a start, such
influence, and such a prospect, I should not be able to contain myself
for joy. I should indeed aspire to be ’the bride of the Lamb,’ and to
follow Him in conflict for the salvation of poor, lost and miserable
man.... I don’t want you to make any vows (unless, indeed, the Spirit
leads you to do so), but I want you to set your mind and heart on
winning souls, and to leave everything else with the Lord. When you do
this you will be happy—oh, so happy! Your soul will then find perfect
rest. The Lord grant it you, my dear child.... I have been ’careful
about many things.’ I want you to care only for the _one_ thing....
Look forward, my child, into eternity—_on_, and ON, and ON. You are to
live _for ever_. This is only the infancy of existence—the school-days,
the time. Then is the grand, great, glorious eternal harvest."

Whatever gifts were the dower of the young evangelist, she refused to
regard herself as different in God’s sight from the poorest and meanest
of sinners. If God loved her, He loved all with an equal love. That
conviction was the motive-power of all her evangelism. A limited
atonement was to her unthinkable. How often she has made vast audiences
sing her father’s great hymn, "O boundless salvation, so full and so
free!" When she was conducting a remarkable campaign in Portsmouth, she
found herself one day among a number of the ministers of the town, one
of whom in his admiration of her and her work persisted in calling her
one of the elect. This led to an animated discussion on election.
Katie listened for a while, but lost patience at last, and, rising,
delivered herself thus: "I am not one of the elect, and I don’t want to
be. I would rather be with the poor devils outside than with you
inside." Having discharged this bombshell she flew upstairs to her
mother. "Oh!" she cried, "what have I done?" When she repeated what she
had said, her mother, whose laugh was always hearty, screamed with
delight. Election as commonly taught was rank poison to the Mother of
the Army. The doctrine that God has out of His mere good pleasure
elected _some_ to eternal life made her wild with indignation. When her
son Bramwell was staying for a time in Scotland, she wrote him: "It
seems a peculiarity of the awful doctrine of Calvinism that it makes
those who hold it far more interested in and anxious about its
propagation than about the diminution of sin and the salvation of
souls.... It may be God will bless your sling and stone to deliver His
servant out of the paw of this bear of hell—Calvinism."

One naturally asks what became of Catherine’s education all this time.
On this subject also Mrs. Booth held strong views. When her daughter
was sixteen she wrote to her: "You must not think that we do not rightly
value education, or that we are indifferent on the subject. We have
denied ourselves the common necessaries of life to give you the best in
our power, and I think this has proved that we put a right value on it.
But we put God and righteousness _first_ and education second, and if I
had life to begin over again I should be still more particular.... I
would like you to learn to put your thoughts together forcibly and well,
to think logically and clearly, to speak powerfully, _i.e._ with good
but simple language, and to write legibly and well, which will have more
to do with your usefulness than half the useful knowledge you would have
to spend your time over at College." When the principal of a Ladies’
College, who had attended Mrs. Booth’s meetings and been blessed,
offered to receive Catherine and educate her gratuitously, Mrs. Booth,
after visiting the College and breathing the atmosphere of the place,
declined the tempting offer with thanks. Some will, of course, be
disposed to question the wisdom of the mother’s decision. It should not
be impossible to combine the noblest learning with the most fervent
faith. Yet every discipline must be judged by its fruits. How many
Catherine Booths have hitherto been produced by Newnham and Girton?

Long after Catherine the second had left her home-land, she continued to
receive letters from her English converts, and when, after many years,
she resumed her evangelistic work in England, people whom she had never
seen and never heard of before would come and tell her that they had
been saved through her mission at this or that place. All these
testimonies were like bells ringing in her soul. One out of many may be
resounded. Writing to Paris in 1896, Henry Howard, now the Chief of
Staff in the Army, said: "I have certainly never forgotten your Ilkeston
campaign of sixteen years ago, when God made your soul a messenger to my
soul. You led me towards an open door which I am pleased to remember I
went in at, and during these many years your own share in my life’s
transformation has often been the subject of grateful praise."

*CHAPTER III*

*THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM*

After many victories at home, William and Catherine Booth began to look
abroad. They realised that "the field is the world," and they longed to
commence operations on the Continent. In the summer of 1881, with high
hopes and some natural fears, they dedicated their eldest daughter to
France. In giving her they gave their best. Delicate girl though she
was, she had become one of the greatest spiritual forces in England.
She swayed vast multitudes by something higher than mere eloquence.
Wherever she went revivals broke out and hundreds were converted. There
was a pathos and a power in her appeals which made them irresistible.

At the time of her departure she received many letters from friends whom
she had spiritually helped, and who realised how much they would miss
her in England. Nowhere had she done more good, nowhere could her
absence create a greater blank, than in her own home. Her sister Eva
wrote: "I cannot bear the thought that you are gone. You have always
understood me. I hope one day to be of some use to you, in return for
all you have done for me." And her brother Herbert wrote her: "You
cannot know how much I felt your leaving. The blow came so suddenly.
You were gone. Only God and myself know how much I had lost in you. I
can truthfully say that you have been _everything_ to me, and if it had
not been for you I should never have been where and what I am
spiritually at present. God bless you a thousand thousand times. Oh! how
I long to be of some little service to you after all you have been to
me.... Thousands upon thousands of true, loving hearts are bearing you
up at the Eternal throne, mine among them. You have a chance that men
of the past would have given their blood for, and that the very angels
in Heaven covet."

There was no _Entente Cordiale_ in those days, and at the thought of
parting with Katie, and letting her go to live in the slums of Paris,
Mrs. Booth confessed that she "felt unutterable things." In a letter to
a friend she wrote: "The papers I read on the state of Society in Paris
make me shudder, and I see all the dangers to which our darling will be
exposed!" But if her fears were great, her faith was greater. Asked by
Lady Cairns how she dared to send a girl so young and unprotected into
such surroundings, she answered, "Her innocence is her strength, and
Katie knows the Lord." And if Katie herself was asked to define
Christianity, she answered, "Christianity is heroism!" For a girl of
this spirit, was there, after all, anything so formidable in the French
people? Was there not rather a pre-established harmony between her and
the pleasant land of France, as her remarkable predilection for the
French language already seemed to indicate? Is any nation in the world
so chivalrous as the French? any nation so sensitive to the charm of
manner, the magnetic power of personality? any nation—in spite of all
its hatred of clericalism—gifted with so infallible a sense of the
beauty of true holiness? _Courage, camarade!_

What were the ideas with which Catherine began her work in Paris? What
was her plan of campaign? How did she hope to conquer? On these points
let us listen to herself. "I saw," she says, "that the bridge to France
was—making the French people believe in me. That is what the Protestants
do not understand. They preach the Bible, they write books, they offer
tracts. But that does not do the work. ’Curse your bibles, your books,
your tracts!’ cry the French. I have seen thousands of testaments given
away to very little purpose. I have seen them torn up to light cigars.
And the conviction that took shape in my mind was that, unless I could
inspire faith in me, there was no hope. Only if Jesus is lifted up in
flesh and blood, will He to-day draw all men to Him. If I cannot _give
Him_, I shall fail. France has not waited till now for religion, for
preaching, for eloquence. Something more is needed. ’I that speak unto
thee am He’—there is a sense in which the world is waiting for that
to-day. You may say that this leads to fanaticism, to all sorts of
error; and yet I always come back to it. Christ’s primary idea, His
means of saving the world, is, after all, personality. The face, the
character, the life of Jesus is to be seen in men and women. This is
the bridge to the seething masses who believe in nothing, who hate
religion, who cry ’Down with Jesus Christ!’ What sympathy I felt with
them as I listened to their angry cries against something which they had
never really seen or known. They shout ’Jesuits,’ but they have never
seen Jesus. Could they but see Him, they would still ’receive Him
gladly.’ It is the priests’ religion that has made them bitter. ’Money
to be baptised! Money to be married! Money to be buried!’ was what I
heard them mutter. Ah! they are quick to recognise the comedian in
religion, and equally quick to recognise the real thing. France is more
sensitive to disinterested love than any nation I have ever known.
France will never accept a religion without sacrifice.

"These were the convictions with which I began the work in Paris, and,
if I had to begin it over again to-day, I would go on the same lines.
When I knew what I had to do, my mind was at rest. I said, ’We will lay
ourselves out for them; they shall know where we live, they can watch us
day and night, they shall see what we do and judge us.’ And the
wonderful thing in those first years of our work in France and
Switzerland was _the flame_. We lighted it all along the line. Wherever
we went we brought the fire with us, we fanned it, we communicated it.
We could not help doing so, because it was in us, and that was what made
us sufferers. The fire had to be burning in us day and night. That is
our symbol—the fire, the fire!

Seigneur, ce que mon coeur réclame,
C’est le Feu ...
Le seul secret de la Victoire,
C’est le Feu.

We all know what the fire is. It warms and it burns; it scorches the
Pharisees and makes the cowards fly. But the poor, tempted, unhappy
world knows by whom it is kindled, and says: ’I know Thee who Thou
art—the Holy One of God!’

"That was what filled the halls at Havre and Rouen, Nîmes and Bordeaux,
Brussels and Liège. We personified Some One, and that was the
attraction. I have not the insufferable conceit to suppose that it was
anything in _me_ that drew them. What am I? Dust and ashes. But if you
have the fire, it draws, it melts; it consumes all selfishness; it makes
you love as He loves; it gives you a heart of steel to yourself, and the
tenderest of hearts to others; it gives you eyes to see what no one else
sees, to hear what others have never given themselves the trouble to
listen to. And men rush to you because you are what you are; you are as
He was in the world; you have His sympathy, His Divine love, His Divine
patience. Therefore He gives you the victory over the world; and what
is money, what are houses, lands, anything, compared with that?

"This was the one attraction. When I went to France I said to Christ:
’I in You and You in me!’ and many a time in confronting a laughing,
scoffing crowd, single-handed, I have said, ’You and I are enough for
them. I won’t fail You, and You won’t fail me.’ That is something of
which we have only touched the fringe. That is a truth almost
hermetically sealed. It would be sacrilege, it would be desecration, it
would be wrong, unfair, unjust if Divine power were given on any other
terms than absolute self-abandonment. When I went to France I said to
Jesus, ’I will suffer anything if You will give me the keys.’ And if I
am asked what was the secret of our power in France, I answer: First,
love; second, love; third, love. And if you ask how to get it, I
answer: First, by sacrifice; second, by sacrifice; third, by sacrifice.
Christ loved us passionately, and loves to be loved passionately. He
gives Himself to those who love Him passionately. And the world has yet
to see what can be done on these lines."

*CHAPTER IV*

*CHRIST IN PARIS*

In the early spring of 1881 Captain Catherine Booth and her intrepid
lieutenants, Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox and Elizabeth Clark, who
enjoyed the privilege of her example and training, began life in Paris.
Later on they were joined by Ruth Patrick, Lucy Johns and others. Soon
after they were joined by the General’s youngest son, Herbert Booth, who
is proud of having received his first black eye in assisting his sister
during those early fights, and Arthur Sydney Clibborn, who lived a life
of unparalleled devotion and heroism, and later became the Maréchale’s
husband. Years before Canon Barnett and his band of Oxford men were
attracted to Whitechapel, these fresh young English girls settled in a
similar quarter of the French capital. What quixotic impulses carried
them thither? They had no social or political ideals to realise. They
had not been persuaded that altruism is better than egoism, that the
enthusiasm of humanity is nobler than the pursuit of pleasure or the
love of culture. They were not weary of the conventions of society and
seeking a new sensation in slumming. They were not playing at soldiers.
But they, too, had their dreams and visions. They loved Christ, and
they wished to see Christ victorious in Paris. Coming into a wilderness
of poverty, squalor and vice, they dared to believe that they could make
the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. They had the faith which
laughs at impossibilities.

The first letter Catherine received from her father after she set foot
in France breathed tender affection and ardent hope. "Oh, my heart does
yearn over you! How could you fear for a single moment that you would
be any less near and dear to me on account of your brave going forth to
a land of strangers to help me in the great purpose and struggle of my
life? My darling, you are nearer and dearer than ever.... France is
hanging on you to an extent fearful to contemplate, and you must regard
your health, seeing that we cannot go on without you. We shall
anxiously await information as to when you make a start. Everybody who
has heard you and knows you feels the fullest confidence in the result.
Nevertheless I shall be glad for you to get to work, seeing that I know
you won’t be easy in your mind until you have seen a few French sinners
smashed up at the penitent form."

With her own hand Catherine raised the flag at Rue d’Angoulême 66, in
Belleville. Here was a hall for six hundred, situated in a court
approached by a narrow street. The bulk of the audience that gathered
there night after night were of the artisan class. Some were young men
of a lower type, and from these came what disturbance there was. The
French sense of humour is keen, and there were many lively sallies at
the expense of the speakers and singers on the platform. Every false
accent, every wrong idiom, every unexpected utterance or gesture was
received with an outburst of laughter. But the mirth was superficial,
and the expression on the faces of the tired men, harassed women, and
pale children was one of settled melancholy. Catherine instinctively
felt that what they needed was a gospel of joy; certainly not the
preaching of hell, for did they not live in hell? These toiling sisters
and brothers were the multitudes on whom Jesus had compassion.

Meetings were held night after night, and for six months the Capitaine
was never absent except on Saturdays. Those were days of fight, and she
fought, to use her own phrase, like a tiger. She had to fight first her
own heart. She knew her capacity, and God had done great things through
her in England. The change from an audience of five thousand spellbound
hearers in the circus of Leeds to a handful of gibing _ouvriers_ in the
Belleville quarter of Paris was indeed a clashing antithesis. A
fortnight passed without a single penitent, and Catherine was all the
time so ill that it was doubtful if she would be able to remain in the
field. That fortnight was probably one of the supreme trials of her
faith. The work appeared so hopeless! There was nothing to see. But
for the Capitaine faith meant _going on_. It meant saying to her heart,
"You may suffer, you may bleed, you may break, but you shall go on."
She went on, believing, praying, fighting, and at last the tide of
battle turned.

The beginning of what proved a memorable meeting was more than usually
unpromising. One of the tormentors, a terrible woman, known as "the
devil’s wife," excelled herself that night. She was of immense size,
and used to stand in the hall with arms akimbo and sleeves rolled up
above the elbows, and with one wink of her eye would set everybody
screaming and yelling. On this occasion there was not a thing that she
did not turn to ridicule. The fun grew fast and furious, and some of
the audience got up and began to dance. The meeting seemed to be lost;
but by a master-stroke the leader turned defeat into victory. Through
the din she cried, "Mes amis! I will give you twenty minutes to dance,
if you will then give me twenty minutes to speak. Are you agreed?" A
tall, dark, handsome _ouvrier_, in a blue blouse, who had been a
ringleader in the disturbances, jumped up and said, "Citizens, it is
only fair play;" and they all agreed. So they had their dance, and at
the end of the appointed time the _ouvrier_, standing with watch in
hand, cried, "Time up, citizens; it is the Capitaine’s turn!" The
bargain was kept. Everybody sat down, and an extraordinary silence
filled the place. Not for twenty, but for an hour and twenty minutes
the leader had the meeting in the hollow of her hand. When the audience
filed out, the tall _ouvrier_ remained behind, and Catherine went down
to where he was sitting in the back of the hall. With his chiselled
face and firm-set mouth, he looked like a man who could have seen one
burned alive without moving a muscle.

"Thank you," said the Capitaine, "you have helped me to-night. Have you
understood what I have been saying?"

"I believe that you believe what you say."

"Oh! of course I believe."

"Well, I was not sure before." With a sigh he added, "Have you time to
listen?"

"Yes, certainly."

It was midnight and they were alone. As he began in softest tones to
tell the story of his inner life, she felt the delicacy of the soul that
is hidden under the roughest exterior. He said, "I had the happiest
home in all Paris. I married the woman I loved, and after twelve months
a little boy came to our home. Three weeks after, my wife lost her
reason, and now she is in an asylum. But there was still my little boy.
He was a beautiful child. We ate together, slept together, walked and
talked together. He was all the world to me. He was the first to greet
me in the morning, and the first to welcome me in the evening when I
came home from work. This went on till the sixth year struck, and
then...." His lips twitched, and he turned his face away. His hearer
softly said, "He died." He gave a scarcely perceptible nod, and
smothered a groan. "And then," he continued, "I went to the devil.
Before the open grave in the Père Lachaise cemetery, with hundreds of my
comrades about me, I lifted my hand to heaven and cried, ’If there be a
God, let Him strike me dead!’"

"But He did not strike you dead?"

"No."

"He is very gentle and patient with us all. And now you have come here
to-night. Does it not seem to you a strange thing that you out of all
the millions of France, and I out of all the millions of England should
be all alone together here at midnight? How do you account for it?
Isn’t it because God thought of you, and loves you? ... Do you ever
pray?"

"I pray? Oh, never! Perhaps I prayed as a child, but never now."

"But I pray," said the Capitaine, and, kneeling down, she prayed a
double prayer, for herself as well as for him. She wanted this man’s
salvation for her own sake and the work’s sake. For weeks she had been
fighting and praying for a break, and she felt as if on the issue of
this wrestling for a single soul depended the whole future of the work
in France. While she prayed for his salvation from sin she was silently
praying for her own deliverance from doubt and fear and discouragement.
And both prayers were heard. When she opened her eyes, she saw his face
bathed in tears. She knew that his heart was melted, and she spoke to
him of the love of God.

"But I have hated Him. I have hated religion; I have come here to mock
you; I have called you Jesuits."

"Yet God loves you."

"But why did He allow my wife to lose her reason? Why did He take my
child if He is love?"

"I cannot answer these questions. You will know why one day. But I
know He loves you."

"Is it possible that He can forgive a poor sinner like me?"

"It is certain."

Émile was won. Some nights afterward he gave his testimony, and for
seven years he always stood by the Maréchale. He was her best helper.
When he used to get up to speak, there was immediate attention.
"Citizens," he would say, "you all know me. You have heard me many
times. This God whom I once hated I now love, and I want to speak to
you about Him."

After this, conversions became frequent. The mercy-seat was rarely
empty. One of the first French songs of Catherine’s composition
contained the most curious idioms:

Quand je suis souffrant,
Entendez mon cri, etc.
—Donnez moi Jesus.

But she sang it with such feeling that it was the means of the
conversion of a clever young governess, who became one of her most
devoted officers.

Then another striking conquest was made. One night a rough fellow,
partly drunk, approached the Capitaine and said a vile word to her in
the hearing of "the devil’s wife," who dealt him a blow that sent him
reeling across the hall crying, "You dare not touch her, she is too pure
for us!" (_Elle est trop pure pour nous!_) Catherine rushed between
them and stopped the fight. Thus "la femme du diable" was won, and from
that time she got two or three others to join her in forming Catherine’s
bodyguard, who nightly escorted her and her comrades through the Rue
d’Allemagne, which was a haunt of criminals, and saw her safe at the
door of her flat in the Avenue Parmentier.

When Baron Cederström was seeking local colour for his painting "The
Maréchale in the Café,"[1] he drove down with his wife to a meeting in
the Rue d’Angoulême. As they approached the hall, the Baroness caught
sight of some of the faces and took fright.

[1] This painting is now in the picture gallery of Stockholm. The
artist, as is well known, afterwards married Madame Patti.

"Go back, go back!" she shouted to the coachman.

The Baron tried in vain to reassure her.

"Give me my salts!" she cried, feeling as if she would faint. "I never
saw such faces in my life. They are all murderers and brigands." To
Catherine, who came out to welcome her, she exclaimed, "I am sure the
good God won’t send _you_ to Purgatory, for you have it here!"

"You have nothing to fear," was the answer; "I am here every night."
But as the Baroness was led up to the front seats, she still cast scared
looks at the people she passed.

Some of the politically dangerous classes did give trouble for a time.
Knives were displayed and some blood was shed. An excited sergeant of
police declared one night that half the cut-throats of Paris were in
that hall, and by order of the authorities it was closed. Soon,
however, the meetings were again in full swing, and when Catherine’s
eldest brother Bramwell, her comrade in many an English campaign, paid
her a flying visit three months after she left home, he was delighted
with all that he saw. "The meetings," he wrote, "are held every night.
The congregations vary from 150 to 400.... On Sunday, at three, I
attended the testimony meeting, which is only for converts and friends.
About seventy were present. Miss Booth took the centre, and gathered
round her a little company. I cannot describe that meeting. When I
heard those French converts singing that first hymn, ’Nearer to heaven,
nearer to heaven,’ I wept for joy, and during the season of prayer which
followed my heart overflowed. Here, using another tongue, among a
strange people, almost alone, this little band have trusted the Lord and
triumphed.... Then testimonies were invited.... I wept and rejoiced,
and wept again. I glorified God. Had I not heard these seventeen
people speak in their own language of God’s saving power in Paris during
those few weeks! I require all who read this to rejoice. I believe they
will. Remember how great a task it is to awaken the conscience before
Christ can be offered; to convince of sin as well as of righteousness;
to call to repentence as well as faith.... On the following night 300
were present.... Miss Booth stepped off the platform as she concluded
her address, and came down, as so many of us have seen her come down at
home, into the midst of the people. Her closing appeal seemed to go
through them. Many were deeply moved. Some of those sitting at the
back, who had evidently come largely for fun, quailed before one’s very
eyes, and seemed subdued and softened. God was working."

Later in the year the new headquarters on the Quai de Valmy were opened.
Here there was a hall for 1200. No other form of religion could draw
such an assembly of the lowest class of Parisians as nightly met in it.
The men came in their blouses, kept their caps on their heads,
and—except that they abstained from smoking, in obedience to a notice at
the door—behaved with the freedom and ease of a music-hall audience.
But the earnest way in which most of those present joined in the hymns
proved that they were not mere spectators, and it was astonishing that
many rough, unkempt, and even brutal-looking men soon learned to sing
heartily without using the book.

There were a hundred converts in the first year and another five hundred
in the second. Paris herself began to testify that a good work had been
begun in her midst. On the way to and from the hall in the Rue
d’Angoulême Catherine, who by this time had begun to be endearingly
known as the Maréchale, the highest military title in France, used often
to meet a priest, to whom she always said "Bon jour, mon père." One day
he paused and said, "Madame la Maréchale, I want to tell you that since
you began your work in this quarter the moral atmosphere of the whole
place has changed. I meet the fruits everywhere, and I can tell better
than you what you are doing." She felt that God sent her that word of
encouragement.

One of her letters of this time indicates what kind of impression her
work was making. "There is a man," she wrote, "who has attended our
meetings most regularly. He listens with breathless attention, and
sometimes the tears flow down his cheeks. He was visited, and sent me
70 francs for our work, with a message that he desired to see me. I saw
him, and he gave me 80 more, with the words ’_Sauvez la jeunesse_’!
(’Save the young!’) I found him very dark and hopeless about
himself.... The next week he again called me aside in the hall, put 50
francs into my hand, saying he hoped soon we should have a hall in every
quarter of Paris. ’Save the young people!’ he again said. I said ’Yes,
but I want to see you saved.’ ’That will come,’ he said, and left the
hall. Last Sunday afternoon, I noticed him weeping in a corner of the
hall, as our young people were witnessing for Jesus, and, after the
services, he asked if he might speak to me for two minutes; this time he
handed me 60 francs, telling me to go on praying for him. He has lived
a bad life and is troubled with the thought of the past."

It began to be commonly believed that the Maréchale could work certain
kinds of miracles. A woman who had attended the meetings, and been
blessed in her soul, became convinced that the English lady had power to
cast out devils, and one day she brought a neighbour to the physician of
souls, introducing her with the remark, "She has not only one but seven
devils." The new-comer had a frightful face. She was so drunken,
immoral and violent that nobody could live with her. Yet she, too, had
a soul. The Maréchale made her get down on her knees, put both her
hands on her head, and prayed that the devils might all be cast out.
"She’s now another woman," was the testimony soon after borne by all her
neighbours.

One of the surest indications of the success of the work in Paris is
found in the fact that, before the end of the first year there was a
general demand for a newspaper corresponding in some degree to the
English _War Cry_. That was a memorable day on which the Maréchale and
her officers sat in their Avenue Parmentier flat, like a coterie of
Fleet Street journalists, gravely discussing their new venture. It was
indicative of the holy simplicity of the editor-in-chief that she
thought at first of changing _The War Cry_ into _Amour_. She did not
realise the sensation which the cry "Amour, un sou!" would have created
in the Boulevards. Her proposal was overruled, but her second
suggestion, to call the paper _En Avant_, was received with acclamation.
This was a real inspiration. The paper duly appeared in the beginning
of 1882, and has gone on successfully ever since. The shouting of its
name in the streets set all the world and his wife a-thinking and
a-talking. What if the Man of Nazareth is after all far ahead of our
modern philosophers and statesmen, and if this handful of English girls
is come to lead us all _forward_ to true liberty, equality and
fraternity?

The reports of the work in France were received with feelings of
gratitude at home. To "My dear Kittens"—a family pet-name—her brother
Bramwell wrote: "We are more than satisfied with your progress. The
General says that so far as he can judge your rate of advance in making
people is greater than his own was at the beginning. I am sure you
ought to feel only the liveliest confidence and greatest encouragement
all the time." And to "My darling Blücher" the General himself wrote,
"I appreciate and admire and daily thank God for your courage and love
and endurance. God will and must bless you. We pray for you. I feel I
live over again in you. We all send you our heartiest greetings and our
most tender affection. Look up. Don’t forget _my_ sympathy. Don’t
trouble to answer my scrawls. I never like to see your handwriting
because I know it means your poor back. Remember me to all your
comrades."

"I feel I live over again in you." The thought was evidently habitual
in the General’s mind. "He bids me tell you," wrote Emma, "that you are
his second self." The resemblance was physical as well as spiritual.
With her tall figure, her chiselled face, her aquiline nose, her
penetrating blue eyes, Catherine became, as time went on, more and more
strikingly like her father. One of her sons, who saw her stooping over
the General the day before he died, said that the two pallid faces were
like facsimiles in marble.

*CHAPTER V*

*FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD*

In the autumn of 1883 the Maréchale suddenly leapt into fame as a
latter-day Portia, brilliantly and successfully pleading in a Swiss
law-court, before the eyes of Europe, the sacred cause of civil and
religious liberty. The land of Tell, the oldest of modern republics,
has always been regarded as a shrine of freedom. It has shown itself
hospitable to all kinds of ideas, even the newest, the strangest, the
most anti-Christian, the most anti-social. There is a natural affinity
between free England and free Switzerland.

"Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice;
They were thy chosen music, Liberty."

In the "Treaty of Friendship" between Great Britain and Switzerland,
drawn up in 1855, it was agreed that "the subjects and citizens of
either of the two contracting parties shall, provided they conform to
the laws of the country, be at liberty, with their families, to enter,
establish themselves, reside and remain in any part of the territories
of the other." Yet the presence of a few English evangelists in
Switzerland evoked a storm of persecution in which the first principles
of religious liberty were as much violated as ever they had been in the
days of the Huguenots.

When the Maréchale and some comrades accepted an urgent invitation to
Switzerland, she little thought that she would be the heroine of an
historical trial. She went to preach the gospel. She observed the laws
of the land, and respected the religious susceptibilities of its people.
When she entered Geneva, she published only one poster, and that after
it had been duly _visé_; she allowed no processions, banners or brass
bands in the streets. Her only crime was that she sought to gain the
ears of those who never entered a place of worship, and that she
marvellously succeeded.

If good order was not always maintained at her meetings, it was not her
fault, but that of the authorities who refused to do their duty. History
repeats itself. As in ancient Thessalonica during the visit of St.
Paul, so in modern Geneva, some citizens, "moved with jealousy, took
unto themselves certain vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a
crowd set the city on an uproar." The ringleaders of the disturbance
were paid by noted traffickers in vice, who were themselves often seen
in the meetings inciting the audience to riot. One of the first
converts, a student, confessed that he had got twenty francs a night,
and as much whisky as he could drink, to make a row.

The Department of Justice and Police chanced at that time to have as its
president a Councillor of State, M. Heridier, who thought it right not
to punish the offenders but to banish their victims. In a sitting of
the Grand Council he said, "We have been petitioned to call out a
company of gendarmerie to protect these foreigners, and to prevent
brawls and rows. I will not consent to take such a step. There are
already eight police agents in these places every evening who have a
very hard time of it.... These agents might be doing more useful work
elsewhere, and I am just about to withdraw them." That meant handing
over the strangers to the tender mercies of the mob. It was a gross
breach of the laws of hospitality and chivalry as well as of the
constitution of a free country. The city of Calvin did not know the day
of its visitation.

The Maréchale and her comrades began their meetings in the Casino on
December 22, 1882. The hall was crowded, and soon there was raging a
great battle between the powers of light and darkness. A disturbance
had evidently been organised. A band of students in coloured caps, who
had come early and taken possession of the front of the galleries and
other prominent positions, were on their worst behaviour. The first
hymn was interrupted by cries and ribald songs, and the prayer which
followed was almost drowned. But the Maréchale was never more calm and
confident than when facing such music. At every slight lull in the
storm, she uttered, in clear, penetrating tones, some pointed words
which pierced many a heart. Within an hour she not only had subdued her
audience but was inviting those who desired salvation to come forward to
the penitent form. Scoffers of half an hour ago left their places,
trembling under the sense of guilt, and as they knelt down the Maréchale
sang, in soft notes, the hymn:

Reviens, reviens, pauvre pécheur,
Ton Père encore t’attend;
Veux-tu languir loin du bonheur,
Et pécher plus longtemps?

O! reviens à ton Sauveur,
Reviens ce soir,
Il veut te recevoir,
Reviens à ton Sauveur!

A strange influence stole over the meeting, hushing the crowd into
profound silence, and the Spirit did His work in many hearts.

The Maréchale conducted a similar service the following night, and on
Christmas Eve she faced an audience of 3000 in the Salle de la
Reformation. Its composition was entirely to her mind, for she was
never so inspired with divine pity and power as when she was confronting
the worst elements of a town. The theatres, the cabarets, the dancing
saloons, the drinking dens, and the rendezvous of prostitution had
poured their contents into the hall. Socialists who had found refuge in
Geneva—men of many nationalities—came _en masse_. A large part of the
audience were so entirely strangers to the idea of worship or of a
Divine Being, that the sound of prayer called forth loud derisive
laughter, with questions and cries of surprise and scorn.

But the soldiers of Christ, clad in armour of light, were more than a
match for the powers of darkness. Many a winged word found its mark,
and the after-meeting in the smaller hall, into which three hundred were
crowded, was pervaded by a death-like stillness, in which many sought
and found salvation. Some of the ringleaders of the disturbance had
pushed their way into this room; but they remained perfectly quiet,
evidently subdued and over-awed, with an expression on their faces of
intense interest, which showed that they felt they were in presence of a
reality in religion which they had not before encountered. The
Maréchale sang her own hymn "Je viens à Toi, dans ma misère," and many
joined in the chorus:

Ote tous mes péchés!
Agneau de Dieu, je viens a Toi,
Ote tous mes péchés.

One of those who were melted by the words wrote: "I was like the
demoniac of Gadara. I may say I was possessed; I was chained for fifteen
years to a frightful life.... It was then that you came. I was at
first astonished; then remorse seized me. Then followed a frightful
torment in my soul—a real hell. I resolved to put an end to it one way
or another. Yet I thought I would go and hear you once more. I had been
in darkness and anguish since the day of the first meeting. No word had
I been able to recall of that day’s teaching, except the words of the
sacred song ’Ote tous mes péchés’ (Take all my sins away). These
sounded in my heart and brain through the day and the sleepless
night—these and these only. Bowed down with grief and despair, again I
came to the Reformation Hall, and to the after-meeting. The first
sounds which fell on my ear were again those very words, ’Ote tous mes
péchés,’ and then you spoke on the words, ’Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be white as snow’; you seemed to speak to me alone,
to regard me alone—and I felt it was God who had sent me there to hear
those words."

Hundreds of such letters were written. Evidence came from all sides of
blessing received in many homes, of wild sons reclaimed, of drunkards
and vicious men transformed by the power of God, of light and joy
brought into families over which a cloud had hung. Not only anarchists
and prodigals, but students of theology and the children of pastors had
their lives transformed. In a meeting for women only, at which 3000
were present, the daughter of Pastor Napoleon Roussel began the new
life. Her brother had been one of the converts in the first meeting in
the Reformation Hall. Mlle. Roussel was to be the Maréchale’s secretary
for five years, and accompany her in a great American tour. A divinity
student who attended a "night with Jesus" on New Year’s Eve, wrote: "I
passed a long night of watch, which I shall never forget. Since then I
am ever happy, and can say ’Glory to God’ every hour of the day."

But as the tide of Divine blessing rose, the tide of human hatred also
rose, and in the beginning of February the "exercises" of the Army were
by Cantonal decree forbidden. A week later, the Maréchale, with a young
companion, Miss Maud Charlesworth, now Mrs. Gen. Ballington Booth, was
expelled from the Canton of Geneva. During her six weeks in the city
she had been used to bring about probably the greatest revival which it
had witnessed since the days of the Reformers.

One of the most eminent lawyers of Geneva, Edmond Pictet, who had
himself been greatly blessed during those stirring weeks, helped her to
draw up an Appeal (_Recours_) to the Grand Council. He found, however,
that she needed but little help, and often remarked that with the warm
heart of an evangelist she combined the lucid intelligence of an
advocate. When the Council of State had deputed two or three of its
members to hear her on the subject of her Appeal, she came back to
Geneva under a safe-conduct to meet them. In the course of the
interview, at which the British Consul in the city was present, the
leading Councillor said, "You are a young woman; it is not in accordance
with our ideas and customs that young women should appear in public. We
are scandalised (_froissés_) by it." The rejoinder which he received
was so remarkable a defence of "the Prophesying of Women" that we give
it in full.

"Listen to me, I beg of you, sir. It is contrary, you tell me, to your
sense of what is right and becoming that young women should preach the
Gospel. Now, if Miss Charlesworth and I had come to Geneva to act in
one of your theatres, I have no doubt we should have met with sympathy
and approval from your public. We could have sung and danced on your
stage; we could have dressed in a manner very different from, and much
less modest than, that in which you see us dressed; we could have
appeared before a miscellaneous audience, men and women, young and old,
and of every class; members of the Grand Council, M. Herdier himself and
others, would have come to see us act; we should have got money; Geneva
would have paid ungrudgingly in that case; and you would all have sat
and approved; you would have clapped your hands and cheered us; you
would have brought your wives and daughters to see us, and they also
would have applauded. There would have been nothing to _froisser_ you,
no immorality in all that, according to your ideas and customs. The
noise (_bruit_) we should have thus made would not have caused our
expulsion. But when women come to try and save some of the forty or
fifty thousand of your miserable, scoffing, irreligious population who
never enter any place of worship, when they come with hearts full of
pity and love for the ignorant and sinful, and stand up to tell the glad
tidings of salvation to these rebels, this mob, among whom many accept
the tidings with eager joy—then you cry out that this is unseemly and
immodest. You would not bring your wives and daughters to hear us speak
of Jesus, though you would bring them to hear us if we danced and sang
upon the stage of your theatre. Now you have expelled us; but still
there are those multitudes in Geneva who are dark, lost, unsaved; and
you know it. There they are; they exist. What will you do with them?
Say—what will you do? Are they not a danger? Does not their lost
condition cry out against you?"

The Councillor was not only silenced, but sank into his chair in a state
of temporary lapse. For the moment, at least, the reality of the
picture presented to him had touched his heart.

Nevertheless the Maréchale’s Appeal was rejected, and M. Pictet wrote to
her: "The wretched storm of anger and prejudice which you witnessed and
which your friends deplore so much, has not blown over by any means. I,
for one, despair of ever seeing my fellow-citizens properly understand
what religious liberty and respect of other people’s opinion
mean,—therefore the only course left to the Army seems to be the one
indicated in St. Matthew x. 23! _You_ have done your duty, you cannot
be expected to do more than Paul and Barnabas did (Acts xiii. 51)."

Meantime the enemies of righteousness rejoiced. The theatrical paper of
Geneva complimented the authorities upon the expulsion. "Our theatre,"
it said, "has lost a formidable rival, and the crowd is beginning to
find its way back to us."

At that critical time it was not only the civil but the spiritual
leaders who were weighed and found wanting. Injustice could scarcely
have been pushed so far had not the Churches sanctioned it by their
attitude of silence or open hostility. Many religious people took the
side of the persecuting government and the godless populace. The
bitterest pamphlet against the _Armée du Salut_ was written by Madame la
Comtesse de Gasparin, whom the delighted mob hailed as "a Christian if
ever there was one." But the most strange and humiliating fact of all
was that the Swiss branch of the Evangelical Alliance resolved, after
due deliberation, to refrain from uttering a single word in defence of
religious liberty. No wonder that a number of its most influential
members sorrowfully withdrew from its fellowship.

Banished from Geneva, the Evangelists found refuge for a time in
Neuchâtel. Coming on the scene just after the authorities had forbidden
evening meetings, the Maréchale gave notice of a morning one to be held
the next day. The hall was filled, and the meetings went on every
morning and afternoon, all through the week.

At six o’clock on Sunday morning the roaring of a crowd of roughs coming
up the street reached the ears of those who had already gathered inside
the hall. While the noise grew louder and louder, the Maréchale said to
her officers, "Wait here and pray; I will go and meet them." On
stepping outside the door, she was at once surrounded by rough fellows
in their shirt sleeves, armed with sticks and forks and stones, who
began to demand what she wanted in their town, and poured upon her the
senseless accusations of the tap-rooms.

"Go away!" cried one, "we’ve got our pastors."

"My friend," was the reply, "you don’t do them much credit."

"Here is my god!" (_Voilà mon dieu!_), said another, pulling out his
pipe and brandishing it in the Maréchale’s face.

"You will need another when you come to die."

"You want our money!" shouted a third.

"What do you say? You say that again! Say it! You dare not, you do not
believe it, you know that it is a lie." And taking this man by the
shirt collar, the Maréchale led him into the hall and up to the front
seat, where he sat listening most attentively for two hours. Two rows of
penitents sought pardon at the close of the meeting.

In June the Grand Council of Nauchâtel voted for the suppression of the
_Armée du Salut_; and Zurich and Canton du Vaud soon followed suit. It
then became clear that the only hope of getting these unconstitutional
decrees rescinded lay in disobeying them. Jurists who were consulted
held that this was the best way to compel the authorities to retrace
their steps. Many Swiss converts were ready to suffer for conscience’
sake, but the Maréchale resolved that she would herself, as a subject of
Queen Victoria, assert her right to worship God on Swiss soil. In a new
form she would raise the Apostle’s question, "Is it lawful for you to
scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?" The interest of the
situation was heightened by the fact that it was now a woman’s question.
All the spirit of the modern world was in the Maréchale’s bold
declaration, "I am a British citizen."

After working for some months in the south of France, she returned to
Nauchâtel and deliberately infringed the Cantonal decree. On the
afternoon of Sunday, September 9, she conducted a meeting at Prise-Imer,
in the Jura forest, some five miles above the lake. In a letter to
England she described the scene. "It was a day never to be forgotten.
Long before the hour the people met, and we had upwards of 500 who had
come out of Nauchâtel to praise God. The weather was beautiful. After
so much trouble, fatigue and a long journey, we could meet to talk of
the things of God. Hearts and voices rose together, and it cheered me
much to look into the faces of our brave soldiers. There was no
mistaking their zeal and determination to go forward."

While the hymn "Come, Thou burning Spirit, come" was being sung under
the tall pine trees, a sentinel who had been stationed on the outskirts
of the forest announced that the Prefect in his carriage, attended by
sixteen policemen, was approaching. The Maréchale gave the news to the
audience, and called on everybody to be calm and confident.

"Take no notice. We shall have a glorious meeting all the same."

The gendarmes found the congregation kneeling, and formed a ring round
it, the Prefect himself taking his stand close to the Maréchale. He and
his followers were all overawed. For over two hours they listened as
men spellbound. They heard the Maréchale pray for the Government, for
the nation of Switzerland, for themselves. They heard her speak of the
end and aim of the _Armée du Salut_—"to save the lost, to make all
thieves, drunkards, outcasts, and plagues of society peaceful and loyal
citizens, through the power of Jesus to lead the nations to God." Then
they heard the testimonies of converted criminals, one of whom told of
his three years’ imprisonment. Pointing to a plain-clothes detective,
he said, "That policeman over there knows me; he took me to jail; but
now I am a changed man." No wonder that the Prefect of Police was
profoundly impressed. At the end of the service, he took out his
warrant with trembling hands, and stammered—

"I have here ... I ought..."

"Yes, I know. You have a decree for my arrest. Why didn’t you give it
me before?"

"Well, I could not."

"Yes, a higher Power than man was here to restrain you."

He could not withhold his tribute of admiration. "This is a magnificent
work, if it does but last. You do nothing but good. I beseech you not
to hold me responsible for this act. I, like others, had judged you
without seeing or hearing you."

He had, however, to obey his orders. The Maréchale and Captain Becquet,
one of her officers, were put under arrest. As they were leaving that
pleasant place, she exclaimed, "How strange that we are not to be
allowed to worship God in these beautiful woods! What a pity to see them
standing silent and unused!" To some of those who heard her voice that
Sunday evening, the spot was for ever holy ground. In the audience was
a young Switzer, Constant Jeanmonod, one of nature’s gentlemen, who
found salvation on that day, gave himself body and soul to God, and
afterwards became one of the Maréchale’s most devoted friends and
comrades in many a hard campaign. He is now at the head of the work in
Belgium.

The Maréchale and Captain Becquet were brought down to Nauchâtel and
conducted to the house of M. Comtesse, President of the Council of
State, who said to them, "You are my prisoners, and it is my duty to
have you locked up this night." The Maréchale, however, had just
received a telegram begging her to attend the funeral of a brave young
Geneva convert, who had breathed a dying request that she should speak
at his grave-side. She asked permission to fulfil this sacred duty, and
was liberated on bail of 6000 francs.

Next morning a service was held in the garden of the farmhouse near
Geneva where Charles Wyssa had died, and there the Maréchale found a
lifelong friend. Mrs. Josephine Butler was present, and gave a brief
address which lived long in the memory of those who heard it. Having
spoken of her profound sympathy with the work of the _Armée du Salut_ in
Switzerland, she made a moving reference to the fact that she had lost
her only and dearly-loved daughter, whom she had named Evangeline in the
hope that her life would be dedicated to evangelisation. One fatal
evening, when, the mother returned home after a long journey, her little
daughter came running downstairs to meet and welcome her. In her
extreme eagerness to see her mother again, the child forgot all danger,
slipped over the staircase balustrade, and was taken up crushed and
unconscious. In less than an hour her gentle spirit had fled.

"At the coffin of that child," said Mrs. Butler, "I consecrated my life
to the relief of my suffering and oppressed brothers and sisters. My
great desire was that she should become a preacher of the Word of God.
And now," added the mother, throwing her arms round the Maréchale, "by
another new coffin I have found my long-lost daughter, an Evangelist
chosen and blessed of God." When the Maréchale had daughters of her
own, she called the eldest Catherine Evangeline and the youngest
Josephine.

From that garden the company moved to the churchyard, where the
Maréchale spoke on the beautiful words, "Who are these which are arrayed
in white robes, and whence came they?" Just as John Wyssa, the younger
brother of Charles, was throwing a handful of earth on the coffin, and
murmuring the words "_Au revoir, mon frère_," the Mayor of the Commune
approached in order to arrest Miss Booth. At this juncture Col.
Clibborn interposed, saying, "Sir! this is a funeral." He was a coarse,
brutal fellow, very different from the Prefect of Police in Neuchâtel.
The mayor not heeding was putting his hand upon Miss Booth’s arm, when
she turned upon him with flashing eyes, and said, "Hands off! this is
holy ground! Don’t you see that we are in the presence of the dead? I
finish this service, and then will speak with you."

When the funeral rites were ended, the Mayor thought his turn was at
last come. He was about to proceed with the arrest, when the Maréchale
still objected.

"You can’t arrest me!"

The Mayor stared in bewilderment.

"I say you can’t arrest me!"

"May I ask why?"

"Because with the best will in the world I can’t go to two prisons in
two Cantons at the same time. I am due in Nauchâtel."

The Mayor saw that she was right, and retired crestfallen.

The Maréchale returned to Nauchâtel and surrendered to her bail. The
iron gates of the grim jail closed upon her. The imprisonment was
shared by her faithful lieutenant, Kate Patrick, who refused to leave
her.

It was twelve days before the trial came on. The Maréchale was in
delicate health, and frequently became sick. The hunger-striking and
forcible feeding of these latter days would soon have killed her. She
tried to eat, but had little appetite, and what little she had was
destroyed by the garlic in the food. Mice disturbed her nights and in
the early morning the odours which came from the passages were
insupportable. The only way in which she could get any relief was by
putting her face between the iron bars of the window and breathing the
air which came up from the lake. She was always thankful that her face
was thin and just went through the cold bars.

One morning at five or six o’clock she was awakened by happy voices
singing dear familiar choruses outside the prison walls. She was very
ill, but she dragged herself from her hard bed to the window, waved her
hand, and cried "Amen!" Then she attached her handkerchief to a bar,
and let it flutter like a flag. The signal was received with shouts of
"Amen, Maréchale—be of good cheer—hold on—hallelujah!"

As the time passed, she was thrown in upon herself, and went through a
great soul-struggle. She had lately been the victim of a stinging
article, grossly ignorant and cruelly unjust, which had appeared in a
religious paper, written, rumour said, by the wife of a Swiss pastor.
It had accused her of unwomanliness, immodesty, and vanity. She made
the painful discovery that she could not yet say, "None of these things
move me." The poisoned arrows had gone deep, forcing tears from her
eyes and attacking her peace of mind. Chancing to notice a little slate
hanging on the wall of her cell, she took it down and began to write on
it all the accusations which her enemies might bring against her, asking
herself as she did so, "Could you write your name and say you accept
that, and that?" Her conscience compelled her to answer "No, there are
some things which I could not endure." She was appalled as she thought
of more and greater trials which God might ask her to undergo. He might
deprive her of health. He might send her to Japan. He might take away
her reputation and make it impossible for her to defend herself. Could
she bear such things? No, she could not yet sign her name under the
terrible words she wrote. With sorrow she put the slate back in its
place, and for two days it hung against the wall with its list of cruel
things which she could not accept. But during those days she pondered
and prayed. She rebuked her doubts and fears. How could she ever
distrust her Lord, who had led her with such infinite tenderness? How
imagine that He would ever lay upon her more than He would give her
power to bear? She soon crept up close to His arms, and realised that
nothing was really unbearable except doubt. Taking her slate down, she
read over again all that she might be called upon to suffer, and signed
"Catherine Booth." Then the Angels of God filled the prison cell; the
peace and joy of heaven flooded her soul; and from that hour her
communion with her Lord was so sweet that she kissed the walls of her
dungeon before she was led forth to her trial.

On that day (September 19) she wrote her exquisite prison song, "Best
beloved of my soul," and sent it to her father. It was sung, while she
was still in prison, at a great meeting for prayer, in Exeter Hall, at
which Mrs. Butler spoke. It was first written in French, the language
in which she now habitually thought, and translated by herself into
English. The latter is well-known, and many readers will be glad to
have the French.

O Toi que mon âme adore,
Je ne suis pas seule ici,
Car je T’y retrouve encore,
Et je suis au ciel ainsi,

Ma vie est à Ton service,
Je T’appartiens sans retour;
Corps et âme en sacrifice,
Je Te suivrai nuit et jour.

Combattons dans la souffrance,
Et les yeux baignés de pleurs;
Bien près est la délivrance,
Voici l’Homme de douleurs!

Sa voix chasse ma tristesse,
Mon chagrin s’est dissipé;
Je chante avec allégresse,
Mon cachot est transformé!

Au milieu de la tempête
Rien ne peut troubler ma paix;
Son amour que rien n’arrête
Peut me garder à jamais.

Le combat est dur, terrible,
L’enfer rugit contre nous;
Mais l’Armée est invincible:
Avec Dieu nous vaincrons tout.

During the twelve days of her imprisonment the Maréchale received many
letters of sympathy and good cheer from Swiss friends, whose words
proved to her how deep and real had been the work of the _Armée du
Salut_ in the country. One of the most interesting was signed by
seventy-two mothers, who bore glad testimony to the conversion of their
sons and daughters, and two more were signed by a number of wives
praising God for the conversion of their husbands.

More intimate letters came to Catherine from home, all breathing warm
love, tender solicitude, and ardent hope that good would come out of
evil. "I quite see with you," wrote her mother, "as to God’s hand being
in all this, and it appears that when communities or nations get sodden
in sin and darkness, there is no way of arousing them but by such a
flashing of the truth in their midst as will provoke persecution. God
wants the attention of the people, and this is the best way to secure
it, no doubt.... Perhaps you are right about pleading your own cause,
only you should have some one at your elbow who knows the law. You will
not be up on points of law, I fear, otherwise I have no doubt that God
will give you what you should say. I feel it a great thing to have a
child in prison for Jesus’ sake; there could be only one greater, namely
to be there myself; but one would hardly have thought it possible in
this age. How true that the devil hates real saints as much as ever he
did, and that the spirit of persecution only needs the real presence of
the Spirit of God to call it forth.... That the Lord comfort and keep
you and reveal _Himself_ to you more and more and make you a mother of
nations, prays your loving and sympathising mother.

"Catherine Booth."

The next letter admirably reveals both the father’s and the General’s
heart. With the deepest concern for his beloved daughter there is
combined a lively sense of the fact that his enemies are overreaching
themselves and doing him and his cause the greatest possible service. He
wrote: "My darling, no one can tell the anxieties we have all gone
through concerning you during this week.... We were awakened by
telegraph messenger with a wire from Geneva to say ’Blücher detained
till trial. Patrick with her—cared for.’ The last sentence fills us
with relief. We interpret it to mean Patrick is with you as your
secretary or maid, and you have all your wants supplied and no
_hardships_.... Enclosed is this morning’s _Times_. All the papers
have notices of it, so that it is flying all over the world. _If you do
not suffer in your health, I don’t care_. It will all work for good.
But your health is of more importance to me in my estimation than all
Switzerland. If you can only get assurance of this! I am all uncertain
whether this will reach you. There will be a storm directly and no
mistake if these Swiss go on at this rate. We all send you _all_ our
heart’s love and heaps of prayers and sympathy. God bless and keep you!
Remember me to Lieut. Patrick.

"Your affectionate father,
"William Booth."

Mrs. Bramwell Booth, who as Miss Florence Soper had been one of the
Maréchale’s first comrades in Paris, wrote her: "I feel as if you had
mounted away to a land where I can call you ’Katie’ no more. But I will
say, and I do say in my heart of innermost hearts, my Saint Catherine,
counted worthy to suffer.... If only I could beseech you to remember
that your health is everything. This is the dawning of a glorious
morning in your work—the forerunner of a glorious victory. Will you
send some word through Patrick of the whole _truth_—just let me
know—-just your Flo—if it is as bad as a prison cell, and is it doing
your body the _least_ bit of harm? ... I wish you could know, in your
solitude, how we all love you—I wish the breezes over the lake could
bring you some whispers of what we have said of you. The glorious God
is our God for ever and ever, and His chariots of fire are with you—His
invisible army is around you. Your own Flo. 20. 9. ’83."

Her sister Emma, who was now at the head of the Training School at the
Congress Hall, wrote: "What can be said at such times compared with what
is felt? I will not attempt to write. I am praying. All hearts here
hold you up ceaselessly—your example is before us! In the night and the
day I am with you—in your sorrow I find your joy in what is to come out
of all. ’They know not what they do,’ and out of their very efforts to
hinder and stop God’s work shall it spread beyond restraint. The loss
is great, my precious sister, but the reward will be infinitely greater,
and in both you will have been allowed to share. It would have been
easier to be with you, but I’ll fight harder than ever in my corner
here. Filled with deepest sympathy and yearning desire for His kingdom
to come in Switzerland! Devotedly, Emma. PS. It is your back I most
tremble for—your poor back! I wonder if you have pillows. Bless your
dear little Pattie [Miss Patrick]. Oh, each moment I am with you!
JESUS is—He does love and choose and will honour you!"

Among those who wrote to the prisoner was George Railton,[1] whom she
regarded almost as an elder brother. He had lived with the family
during her childhood, and when she was a girl of twelve and onwards she
used to get up at six in the morning—slipping downstairs on her bare
feet in order not to awaken mother—to have a Bible lesson with him. She
always regarded the talks in those morning hours as among the great
formative influences in her life. Railton, who became the General’s
first commissioner, watched her career with profound and affectionate
interest. He wrote on September 25: "Dear Maréchale Prisoner, I have
just come from that tremendous prayer meeting [in Exeter Hall, held as a
protest against her imprisonment], one of the biggest and best this
world has ever seen.... The way the volleys burst out at the right time
and went ringing all round the Hall sounded splendid. And the sight of
thousands standing up to give themselves to God, hundreds and hundreds
for foreign service, and all for service somewhere, was magnificent....
My impression is that as they [the Swiss] have outraged law all along
they may very likely do it when it comes to sentence.... God only knows
what is coming next, but anyhow we shall win."

[1] Since these pages were written, this remarkable man has died—as he
wished—with his armour on, and been "promoted to glory."

Towards the end of her imprisonment Catherine wrote: "God will open the
door for us through this storm. My will is God’s. All I want is to
accomplish His desire for the world. Do not worry at all. Jesus is
here. There is such wonderful victory ahead that all my cry is, Lord,
make us _equal to it_!—ready in every way! Ever fighting, in jail as
well as on the field, following on to know Him. I have been looking at
that wonderful sight—Calvary. I must ever live in sight of it."

The trial took place at Boudry on Saturday the 25th and Monday the 27th
September. It excited the greatest interest in Switzerland and far
beyond it. The _Journal de Genève_ said: "This prosecution at Boudry
has an immense political significance in the highest sense of that word,
and the decision, whatever it may be, will take its place in the history
of Republican rights." Even the most sanguine scarcely hoped for the
acquittal of the accused. But the unexpected happened, and the triumph
of righteousness was a woman’s triumph.

The Public Prosecutor spent much time in proving that Salvationists were
mountebanks and fanatics. A young Englishwoman had flung an insult in
the face of the Grand Council, accusing them of violating the
constitution. Her contempt for the law was the more surprising as the
English never rebel against the law, however unjust it may be (!). If
the _Armée du Salut_ was not suppressed they would have to enlarge their
asylums. Christ, who was, perhaps, the most religious man who ever
lived, favoured private rather than public prayer. Silent communion
with God was better than getting up and shouting "I am saved!" While
the accused placed herself above the law, the Queen of England was
obliged to submit to Acts of Parliament. Having not only ignored, but
deliberately violated the decree, the _Salutistes_ must bear the
consequences, and no doubt they would be happy to receive the crown of
martyrdom!

On the second day of the trial, after a speech in the defence by M.
Monnier, the Maréchale rose to plead her own cause. Though she had
passed twelve days in prison, and sat many hours in the suffocating
atmosphere of a crowded court-house, she overcame her exhaustion, her
spirit subduing the frail body. She had been accustomed to face great
crowds since she was sixteen, and she was never more completely master
of herself or her audience than she was in that critical hour. Her
voice was never clearer, nor her manner more commanding. Her brother
Herbert, who was in the court, said he was amazed at her power. As she
pleaded the cause of religious liberty, her hearers felt that she had
not come to be judged but for judgment upon them all. Some extracts
will serve to indicate the quality of her speech.

"What is the need of the _Armée du Salut_? Allow me to read a passage
from one of your own journals: ’Cantonal Governments will see with alarm
the flood of demoralisation rising menacingly higher and higher; and
instead of seeking to destroy the causes of this deluge, they only take
away the remaining dams.’ It is needless to enlarge on the necessity
for an _Armée du Salut_ in the face of these facts.

"The Prosecutor has said, in speaking of the work, that it moved the
entire population, and that there must be a cause for this. He has
reason to say so. I agree with him; there must be a cause, far deeper
than any that has been mentioned here to-day. It is at this cause that
we strike—which exists in the heart of man.

"As to our aim, we are trying to bring these people who outrage your
laws, who fight against God, to the feet of Him who alone can change
them, to the only hope that exists for them, the Saviour of the world.
We work, we live, we suffer to do this. This is our one hope and
object—to bring the world to the great Deliverer, Jesus Christ.

"Ah! The question of all questions, the question which every
intelligent man ought to face, is—What are we to do with the masses? If
they are not reached by the power of the Gospel, a day will come when
they will turn round against you, occasioning terrible trouble and
disorder, and awful will be the consequences. Then, gentlemen, you will
have reason to regret your action in this matter. If these disturbers
are capable of manifesting such hatred, such rage against citizens who
pray to God, they will also be capable of manifesting the same
rebellious spirit against any other opinions, or any other law, which
may not please them.

"We have not made the people like this. Bear in mind that we have not
created this terrible state of barbarism, which was let loose around
that hall, and which has made my heart bleed many times in witnessing.
Who is responsible for this? We cannot be, for we have only been in
your town a few months.

"Although we have suffered terribly through misrepresentations that have
been wilfully circulated about us, we are not discouraged! We know that
truth and justice will soon triumph. I love Switzerland all the more for
what we have endured (_Applause_). A little while and Switzerland will
love us. We shall win thousands to righteousness, peace and heaven.

"The Prosecutor referred to the Queen saying that even she was subject
to the decrees of Parliament, but that I placed myself above her in
refusing to become subject to the decrees of the Grand Council. There
is no parallel between Her Majesty and myself. No act has been passed
to forbid her praying in a wood, or I think Her Majesty would have
something to say on that subject (_Sensation_).

"One word in conclusion. You may punish us; you may imprison us; you
may prosecute us as long as you are permitted; but what you cannot do is
to stop this work—to suppress it. Beware what you do for your country’s
sake, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Take care that in banishing us you do
not banish the light, that you do not banish Jesus Christ, and in that
great day when you are called to give an account you be found guilty of
fighting against God."

Such pleading was irresistible. The jury had not the courage to enforce
the law. To their honour, they let themselves be swayed by
considerations of equity. They found that while the accused had
violated the decree she had not acted with "culpable intention." In
consequence of this verdict she was acquitted. The sentence was
received by her friends in the court with a burst of fervent "Amens."
And the Maréchale deserved the thanks of every Swiss patriot. By her
bold and successful claim of right she had made history. At a time when
the old Republic was forgetful of its noblest traditions, untrue to
itself, she restored its ideal. She vindicated for every man and woman
freedom to worship God according to their conscience. She brought back
to the hills and valleys of Switzerland the crown rights of the
Redeemer.

No one appreciates or speaks more enthusiastically to-day than the
Maréchale of the devotion and bravery of her comrades, Colonel Clibborn
first and foremost, and spiritual children at this time.

*CHAPTER VI*

*THE SOUL OF FRANCE*

It is not easy to reach the ideal and spiritual elements of character
which are masked by the light laughter or the polite scorn of the
typical Frenchman, who believes, or pretends to believe, that religion
is only for priests and women. At the opening of a new hall in the Rue
Oberkamff, a big fellow shook his fist in the Maréchale’s face and said,
"An Englishman may accept religion—a German—or a heathen, but a
Frenchman—never!" "O God, if You exist, save my soul, if I have one!"
was the prayer of another man, who had attended the meetings for some
time, and who indicated with a strange pathos the bewildered state of
mind into which many of the educated, as well as the ignorant, had sunk.
"Let there be no mistake," said a French writer, Louise de Croisilles;
"it is by no means unnatural that the Army should have taken root in
India, or even under Africa’s burning sun, but that it should be
accepted in Paris, the centre of free-thought and unbelief, that is a
thing incredible."

Nevertheless the Frenchman suffers from "the malady of the ideal," even
as other men. His heart is restless until it rests in God, and it is
sheer faithlessness to say that he cannot be won by the grace of God.
If he is sceptical, it is because he has no conception of the
fascinating loveliness of Christianity; if he is a scoffer, it is
because he has never come in contact with human lives which suggest to
him the infinite goodness of God.

After the Maréchale’s great legal victory, which was really a triumph of
the Gospel over its enemies, she returned to Paris and quietly resumed
her tasks. She was in nowise changed, though public opinion regarding
her was undoubtedly changed. She had become a person of note. Editors
of newspapers and magazines sent reporters to her meetings at the Quai
de Valmy, or at the new headquarters in the Rue Auber, and found piquant
accounts of her sayings and doings to be excellent copy. Visitors to the
city came to hear her. Artists begged for the honour of painting her
portrait for the Salon, an honour which she steadily refused. The son
of Garibaldi invited her to visit Italy, where, he said, she would be
welcomed and not treated as she had been in Switzerland. None of these
things, however, moved her. As she had promised God in her prison that
she would never be depressed by the calumnies of men, so now she prayed
that she might never be elated by their praises. With a stronger faith
and a more ardent hope, she plunged again into absorbing work. One sees
that she worked with her imagination; that she obeyed her intuitions;
that she proved the originality and inventiveness of love; and her
efforts were so rewarded that 1884 was her _annus mirabilis_, at the end
of which she wrote: "Can you imagine the bewilderment that comes over me
when I sit down to convey some idea of the wonderful way in which God
has led and helped us during the year? ... It is not too much to say
that during the past twelve months we have passed from the position of a
small and almost unknown mission to that of a great spiritual power,
recognised and felt throughout France and Switzerland."

A series of fresh inspirations contributed to this result. The first of
these was the visitation of the cafés of Paris. One winter night the
Maréchale and two young comrades, Blanche Young and Kate Patrick, went
out with shawls on their heads, and made their way to one of the
boulevard cafés. The leader passed the door, and passed it again. She
turned to her lieutenants and said, "You have never known your Maréchale
till now; you see what a coward she is!"

[Illustration: THE MARÉCHALE IN THE CAFÉ
(From the painting of Baron Cederström,
now in the Picture Gallery of Stockholm)]

"No, no, no!" they both protested.

At last she put her hand on the door, pushed it open, and went in. A
man in a white apron was selling drink. Going up to him, she said, "May
I sing something?"

He stared open-mouthed.

Trembling from head to foot, she repeated, "I should like to sing
something."

"Very well!"

She began:

"Le ciel est ma belle patrie,
Les anges y font leur séjour;
Le soldat qui lutte et qui prie
Y sera bientôt à son tour."

While she sang, Blanche chimed in with her guitar and her second voice.
As they proceeded, the smoking, drinking, and card-playing ceased, and
every face was turned towards them. They sang on:

"En marche, en marche,
Soldats, vers la patrie!
En marche, en marche,
Soldats, vers la patrie!"

When they had finished the hymn, the Maréchale thanked her audience,
adding that they could hear her again at Rue Auber Hall; and that she
knew a Friend, of whom she wished to tell them. As she and her comrades
turned to walk out, the man in the white apron bowed, as if they had
done him a service.

"May I come another time?" said the Maréchale.

"Certainly, Mademoiselle!"

They visited sixteen cafés that night, and when she got home she felt
she had never been happier in her life, never nearer to Jesus. She had
tried in her own way to obey His command, "Let your light shine before
men." Since then, thousands and thousands of cafés have been visited,
and much good has thus been done. Let one case stand for many.

There used to be a well-known resort in Paris called the Café de
l’Enfer, the windows and walls of which were painted with lurid scenes
representing hell. There rouged and powdered singing girls entertained
people of the dare-devil type, who sat drinking and smoking at little
tables. From an open coffin a grim skeleton stared at everybody, and
prizes were given for the most audacious witticisms about death. The
more outrageous the blasphemies were, the louder were the roars of
applause with which they were received.

But the Maréchale and her young lieutenants, "armed in complete
steel"—the panoply of God—were not afraid of the gates of hell. Having
obtained permission to sing, they mounted the _estrade_, and rendered
some of their most attractive part-songs. The café orchestra at once
took up the airs as if it had been paid to do so. The songs of Paradise
were well received even in those regions, and then the Maréchale,
stepping forward, made a little speech:

"You are very clever here. You _play_ very well. But it is a rôle that
you play. Your laughter is not real; I can tell you the source of true
laughter and true joy. This is not life, it is death; I can tell you
what real life is. This is not peace, it is an effort to drown care and
forget trouble; I can tell you the secret of peace. Let me give you my
address, where you can hear us sing again."

It required as much moral courage to deliver that speech as to face all
the jurists of Helvetia.

When the Maréchale was leaving, she passed a lovely girl, in whose ear
she whispered, "What are you doing here? you ought to be in bed."

"Who will give _me_ a supper or a bed?" the girl plaintively asked.

"_I_ will!" exclaimed the Maréchale; "come with me, quick!"

She hailed a cab, put the girl in, and drove away. The poor child,
eighteen years of age, had a sad tale to tell. She had noble blood in
her veins, and her mother and she had both been cruelly wronged. The
Maréchale led her to Christ and ultimately secured for her a position in
one of the best colleges of America, where she was universally
respected. Not long after she was installed there, she sent the
Maréchale 500 francs, with the pathetic message, "Save another, as you
saved me."

The Maréchale’s methods naturally gave offence to those who had not the
courage to adopt them. Late one night she and some comrades were
standing at the door of a theatre while it was emptying. One of her
young officers cried in clear, penetrating tones, "Prepare to meet thy
God!" The words seemed to send an electric shock through the gay crowd.
Thereupon a gentleman came forward to the Maréchale and said:

"Mademoiselle, you are evidently young girls of good family, and I am
scandalised to see you here at this hour. I, too, occupy myself with
preaching, but I am shocked at your behaviour."

"Really?" she replied, "and I am scandalised that you are scandalised.
You profess to believe the Gospel. How are you to get these indifferent
tens of thousands to hear of the Saviour? They won’t come to listen to
you. What more natural and more in accord with the principles of Jesus,
than to go to them and compel them to hear?"

Ten minutes after, the gentleman returned and slid a five-franc piece
into her hand, saying:

"It is you who are right!"

It was impossible for young girls to be in the boulevards towards
midnight without being sometimes molested. But the leader would
instruct her soldiers thus: "If they say the vilest things in the world
to you, remember that is only the outside. Think of their souls which
cost so dear to Christ. Say one or two sentences that will remain with
them, and pass on."

More than once she proved this method of dealing to be very effective.
In a corner of one of the boulevards a "gentleman" approached her and
asked for a rendezvous. She looked at him in silence, which he took for
consent.

"Where?" he asked, taking out his pencil and note-book.

"_Devant le Trône de Dieu!_" (Before the Throne of God!)

The man took to his heels, and ran.

That went all over France. One day the same sword will pierce the
conscience of every roué in the universe.

The Maréchale’s second original idea was to begin a series of
_Conférences_ (Meetings) in the fashionable Lecture Hall of the
Boulevard des Capucines. Her increasing popularity only deepened her
sense of duty to the city of her adoption, and suggested to her the
possibility of bringing Christ to the Boulevards as well as to the
Villette. She could not live in gay Paris without profoundly pitying
the thoughtless, infidel Rich, for whom it is proverbially so hard to
enter the kingdom of heaven. Her idea of attacking the central
stronghold of the world’s fashion and pleasure was a daring one for a
woman, especially for a woman of the Maréchale’s youthful years. About
this time she read the _Life of Napoleon_, and found in his astonishing
career many lessons for an evangelist. She was especially struck by his
faith in his star, and his contempt for "_ce bête de mot, impossible_."
She knew that she had something better to trust than a star, and
stronger reason for holding that all things are possible.

Her new plan of campaign was great alike in its conception and its
execution. From the very first the Conférences for men were
astonishingly successful, and they were renewed year after year. The
audiences were very different from a Keswick or Northfield congregation,
in which the preaching is mostly to the converted. Perhaps the best
parallel to the Maréchale’s Conférences is to be found in Professor
Drummond’s Sunday evening meetings for students (men only) in the
Oddfellows Hall, Edinburgh, which, by a strange coincidence, began in
the same year. Having enjoyed the friendship of both these evangelists,
and listened to them many scores of times, I have often been forcibly
struck by their likeness to each other, and for power to rivet the
attention and inspire the confidence of cultivated men of the world I
have met nobody to compare with them.

When the Maréchale came to hold her first Conférence, the proprietor of
the hall entered her ante-room and advised her to deliver a sort of
ethical lecture, rather than speak of salvation, as it was the worldly
fashionable public who would assemble, and he was afraid they would not
be pleased if they heard too much of religion. But they listened with
rapt attention while she spoke on the text "Without God and without hope
in the world." Of the second Conférence Galignani’s Messenger said,
"The subject, ’The Greatest Sin,’ was treated with a force of religious
arguments which made a visible impression on many persons in the
audience. The attention was deep and respectful. The Hall was crowded,
and the doors were vainly besieged by a numerous crowd, the greater part
of whom remained outside the open windows to hear the address." Another
leading journal said, "She has profoundly astonished the citizen
sceptic, who has been out of the habit of being astonished for a long
time."

Her brother Ballington was present at a later meeting, and described the
impression made on himself as one who did not know French. "I had to
cover my face more than once while our Maréchale spoke. Her words,
though in a foreign language, yet seemed understandable. The Spirit
does not confine Himself to words alone. He speaks through the
countenance, and eyes, and hands—He fills the Temples of His children.
Three things struck me in that meeting: first, the rapt attention and
interest of the audience, and there seemed few who were not impressed at
the close; second, the manner in which the people remained in the
after-meeting on to the end; third, the utter amazement, and yet perfect
solemnity of the congregation, when some sinner came up through the
aisles to seek peace, even rising as though to make sure that what they
saw was a fact." Then he adds—and one notes the beautiful transition—"I
was also present and took part in meetings at Paris in which the very
poorest were attending by hundreds, and at which I saw men of the vilest
caste and life getting saved." No small part of the Maréchale’s charm
lay in her flexibility and adaptability—her Pauline habit of becoming
all things to all men—to the rich and to the poor, to the wise and to
the unwise—that she might win some.

At a later time the Maréchale delivered somewhat similar addresses in
other cities of France such as Nîmes, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen,
Lyons—and she was everywhere astonished to find that the French, who
seem the most thoughtless, are yet among the most thoughtful people in
the world. The result of such Conférences as these cannot be tabulated.
For one thing, they made the Maréchale more than ever a mother-confessor
and spiritual director. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed to her
at private interviews of which no record was kept, and in letters, one
of which may be given as containing the secret of the Maréchale’s
power—her possession of Christ’s Spirit—a second as showing the abyss of
doubt from which many of her hearers had to be rescued, and some others
as indicating the wonderful success which often attended her efforts.

The first runs as follows: "I am glad you accept my request to visit my
home. You will consider the intention in asking you to come under my
roof, like One before you, who had the noblest Heart which ever beat for
mankind. It is because this Great Heart has possessed yours to the
degree of rendering you like Himself, that you have profoundly moved me
and made me better. Certainly I will speak with you on these vital
subjects, but I need more and more the moral and spiritual atmosphere of
the meetings: this opens the heart and at the same time deadens the
opposition of the mind. Oh, if the latter could hold its peace! ... I
have lived much in solitude, and naturally these problems have been
always with me. I may say that the Infinite has tortured me for twenty
years: lately I have arrived at the conclusion that one can know
nothing. So I shall be glad to speak with you and at length."

A second correspondent wrote: "Your marvellous faith, your simple and
powerful eloquence so deeply moved me that I cannot but thank you. I
thank you as an artist, as a sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great
characters; I thank you as a man blasé, sceptical, benumbed and
deadened. As a child I adored Jesus, and now, after having thought much
and suffered infinite pains which you cannot understand, I have said
adieu to faith and also adieu to hope! I have become one of those you
call sceptics. Ah! do not say ’terrible’ sceptic, but unfortunate,
pitiable, unhappy sceptic. You are, Madame, a great, beautiful,
generous heart, and if ever earnest good wishes have been worth
anything, I have cherished them for you, your work, and those who fight
by your side. You will believe me, an unbeliever, who envies you,
admires you, and ideally loves you."

A third of her hearers wrote succinctly: "Two of your meetings have
sufficed to destroy infidel convictions of twenty years’ standing."

A fourth, after testifying to his respect and confidence, said: "What
your soul yearns for is conversion. You would like me to add, I am
converted. I cannot say that I am. But you have made an incredible
impression on me, and you have made me love the Christ I never loved."
He evidently could not rest there, and soon he sent a second letter,
describing with thankfulness how one night, in prayer and agonising
mental controversy, he had received a manifestation of the Holy Spirit,
which had finally slain his doubt and made him a believer in God.

The twofold purpose of the Conférences was to conquer the feelings and
tastes, the etiquette and conventionality, of people of the world, and
to awaken faith in unbelievers. One day a very bad man thrust some
bank-notes into the Maréchale’s hand, saying while he did so:

"I believe in nothing."

"You believe in nothing, and yet you give me these bank-notes!"

He replied, "I believe in you, and I wish you had a hall in every town
and hamlet and village in my country."

"Pull out your watch," she said. "I believe in your watch, I believe
that it keeps time, but I do not believe in its maker! ... I am
naturally just as great a lover of ease and comfort as you are. The
motive power—_la force motrice_—of my life, the spring upon which
everything turns, is the love of Christ. You believe in me; believe in
Him who has made me what I am."

The Maréchale’s third new departure was perhaps the most important of
all—the founding of an École Militaire, or school for cadets, somewhat
similar to the Military School at Clapton, over which her sister Emma at
that time presided. When Catherine first went to France, a very noted
Protestant pastor said to her, "You will never get three Frenchwomen to
live together in peace." But at the Training Home, Avenue Lumière 3, in
the Villette, where the Maréchale lived all the year round with her
officers, there were as many as forty or fifty young women—among whom,
at one time, a Princess’s daughters were side by side with scullery
maids—and the harmony, the love, the spirit of "never mind me," which
prevailed was one of the miracles of the work in France.

To the training of company after company of young cadets—French, Swiss,
English, Belgian, German, Italian and Russian—the Maréchale gave a great
deal of her time and strength, her pattern being ever our Lord’s own
training of the Twelve. All obeyed her joyfully and without question.
She realised intuitively that the highest thing in training is not
discipline, but something which discipline follows as light follows the
sun. That something is the spirit, the atmosphere, which men and women
are brought into and which transforms them. In the École Militaire it
was the selflessness of people who did not care what became of them.
Where that spirit takes possession of any one, there is no need to say
to him, "You shall do this or that." The law of the spirit of life
makes him obedient without constraint.

The spirit of the Maréchale’s leadership is somewhat expressed in
Garibaldi’s call to arms often quoted by her. His followers understood
his motives, realised his disinterestedness, saw that rewards and
honours were nothing to the man who was seeking the Liberty of Italy.
Therefore they loved him so much that they would have died for him.
There was no marked difference between the Staff and the Field, and yet
there was discipline, obedience, devotion such as the world has scarcely
ever seen equalled.

That was the spirit which the Maréchale sought to impart to the École
Militaire. Everything else—how to study the Bible, how to conduct
meetings, how to use the voice, how to deal with souls—was subordinated
by her to the one thing needful—the spirit of sacrifice. "We are
sometimes told," she once wrote, "that our uniforms, our young women
speaking in public, our tambourines and our processions bring contempt
upon religion. It is a mistake. That which is the laughing-stock of
the world and of hell is a religion without sacrifice. People will
never believe in Christians who, while professing to be disciples of Him
who had not where to lay His head, live in luxury, seek first the
comfort of their family, the health and position of their children, and
let their souls perish for lack of that Gospel which they profess to
believe. _There_ is the secret of the unbelief of France; that is what
makes the young who are in search of the truth cry ’Comedy!’ On the
other hand, those faces which radiate the light from on high, those
young people who rise up to give themselves to God instead of the world,
those men and women who declare, with a sincerity which leaves no room
for doubt, that they consecrate their life to God for the saving of
souls, are more eloquent than the most beautiful discourses."

The faces of officers and cadets who surrounded the Maréchale on her
platform undoubtedly constituted a large element of her power. Renée
Gange, the Socialist, wrote a fine appreciation of her and her comrades,
in which she confesses that what she finds "remarkable among these young
girls, pretty as well as plain, is the complete absence of the ordinary
feminine expression.... In looking with searching, scrutinising eye at
the faces enveloped in this ugly bonnet, we have not deciphered the
least vestige of this expression, neither timidity, nor awkwardness, nor
restlessness, nor the consciousness that people are thinking of them.
Nothing. These faces are the free faces of free creatures."

One day a French Baron, who had received a great blessing at the
Maréchale’s Conférences, said to her in the great hall at the Rue Auber,
"What you lack here is pictures; for instance, the saints. Those
beautiful faces, with their sweet celestial expressions, diffuse a
sentiment of reverence and quietness, and they would form such a
beautiful background to you. You should have the Virgin, and Saint
Francis, and many others. That is what you lack in all your halls:
could we not do something?"

"Baron," said the Maréchale, "will you come here next Sunday evening?"

"Yes, certainly. Are you going to speak?" He never lost a chance of
hearing her.

"Yes; be sure you do not miss it."

Next Sunday evening she marshalled her little group of officers. She
filed them in, men on one side, women on the other. She stood in the
midst of them and spoke. At the end of the meeting the Baron came
forward.

"Maréchale," he said, "you have no need of pictures. Those figures!
those faces! _they_ are your pictures."

Her friend Frank Crossley was greatly struck by this incident. He
wrote: "I was specially interested in the remark upon inspired faces. I
once heard Rendel Harris say of the biblical critics, that they might
tear the volume into shreds, but never could rub off the light of God
from the faces of His people."

One of the cadets of the École Militaire was Constance Monod, daughter
of the great Protestant preacher whose hymn, "Oh, the bitter shame and
sorrow," is known everywhere. Having received salvation and rich
spiritual blessings from attending the Maréchale’s meetings, she became
one of her most devoted officers and warmest friends. She was one day
put up to speak to a very rough audience of lewd, low men, and one of
the roughest and lewdest of them said, with tears in his eyes:

"Oh, what extraordinary purity in that face!"

That was the expression which gave so many of the cadets their power in
the cafés and in the slums. It was what they were, far more than what
they said, that did the work.

Among the new cadets there was always a great heart-searching. Were
they sure of their vocation? Had they a due sense of the seriousness,
the sacredness, the responsibility, the opportunity of the call to work
and fight for God? If they were not right there, everything was wrong.
But if they had really left the world, and come to learn to know GOD, He
revealed Himself to them, and it was marvellous how rapidly they grew in
that heart-knowledge which is always so much deeper than head-knowledge.

Whenever troubles and difficulties arose, the Maréchale’s method was not
to evade them, but to grip things at the bottom. An invitation to "come
and have a cup of tea" would lead to earnest talk and prayer, by which
she nipped many an evil in the bud. These "personals," as such
interviews were called, were remembered ever afterwards with gratitude.

The conquest of self, the triumph of the spirit of love, was illustrated
in small matters as well as in great. One day a Frenchman, François,
refused to clean the boots of another cadet, who was a German.

"I clean a German’s boots? Never! never!" The Maréchale quietly said:

"The boots will be cleaned."

"Never by me!"

"By you."

"Well, not now, let them wait!"

The whole day passed, and the boots were not cleaned. The Maréchale
knew what François suffered inwardly, and got him alone in the evening.

"Jesus died for the Germans," she said.

His lips remained tightly pressed. He suffered, and she suffered with
him. After a moment’s silence he burst into a torrent.

"We have endured too much! Think of the siege of Paris. That beast of
a Bismarck! Oh! our country has suffered. Clean a German’s boots?
Never!"

He raved. The Maréchale was quiet and listened for a time. Then she
said:

"All that may be true; but you are going to have a greater victory over
the Germans than ever the Germans won over you. The triumph which they
had over France was a flea-bite in comparison."

She got his ear, and talked to him of the highest things. The victory
which Jesus won on Calvary over Pilate and the Priests and Judas, this
must be François’ victory.

"Go back to your trade unless you can win this victory. This makes an
apostle of François, and nothing else. These boots are only a detail,
but they have brought to light something in you that is hindering the
great victory."

And so they talked. She would not force him. Next morning she gave a
lecture, at the end of which he came into her room and sat down. There
was a moment’s silence, and then he collapsed, falling all of a heap and
sobbing like a child.

"Maréchale," he said, "I will clean the boots!"

Such training inside the École made the cadets ready for any conflict
outside, and the triumph of the spirit of love was in some instances a
preparation for death. The first of the Maréchale’s cadets to win the
martyr’s crown was Louis Jeanmonod.

He was a Swiss youth, finely built, nearly six foot, and twenty-one
years of age; a true soldier, devoted, courageous, tender-hearted. His
months of training were almost over, and in the last three weeks he
developed wonderfully. He visited the cafés with great success, singing
and speaking, holding his auditors in breathless silence. He had great
power in convicting people, and often his opponents would become his
friends and ask him to continue to speak to them.

On a January night in 1885 he was guarding the door of the Hall at the
Quai de Valmey, when one of the roughs ran at him head foremost and
butted him violently in the stomach. Louis managed to shut the door, and
next day went on bravely with his work, even selling the _En Avant_ in
the evening, till the pain became very severe. The doctor found that a
quantity of blood had already settled in his lungs, and soon after
pronounced his case beyond all human skill.

Louis was for a time delirious, but he had never in his past life played
the fool, and he uttered no word that his mother would not have wished
to hear. He always seemed to be starting on a campaign. Were the caps,
the bags, and everything else ready? Oh! what glorious times were
coming!

When the delirium passed, and his mind became calm, his pallid face
shone with a strange light. As soon as the Maréchale came to his
bedside, he saluted and said—

"Amen, Maréchale, amen!"

What were his thoughts of the ruffian who had dealt the deadly blow? He
had only a single thought—"One day he will be saved." Detectives came
to receive the dying man’s description of the assailant. A message from
them to this effect was conveyed to Louis, who answered it in a single
word:

"_Jamais!_" (Never!)

But he described the guilty man to the Maréchale, that she might know
him and pray for him.

Seeking her hand when the end drew near, he said—

"Oh, I love so much to hold your fingers."

"Jesus will take your hands, Louis, and guide you into the port."

"I will—let myself—be guided—by Him."

The Maréchale prayed, and with the spirit of Saint Stephen in his breast
and the words "It is too beautiful!" on his lips, he went to be with
Christ. Belleville and the Villette were stirred to the depths by a
martyr’s funeral, and at the grave Théodore Monod spoke words which
moved the hearts of all.

The young Maréchale who gathered round her men and women of this stamp—a
willing people in the day of the Lord’s power, ready for everything,
faithful unto death—evidently possessed high qualities of leadership,
and ere long the spirit of the École Militaire was to be found in every
station of the Army throughout France and Switzerland. Speaking at one
of the General’s great meetings in Scotland, Professor Henry Drummond
said that after travelling all over the South of Europe, visiting many
cathedrals and hearing famous orators, he had landed at Marseilles, and
felt more of the presence and power of Christ in the Salvation Army
meeting-place of that town than he had experienced in all his
wanderings. The General repeated this to the Maréchale, and she found
that the meeting which had so profoundly impressed the Professor had
been conducted by a young officer, Mlle. Dormois, who had recently left
the Training School in Paris.

That the authorities at home praised God for the Maréchale’s work
scarcely needs saying. Her father’s appreciation found expression in
every letter. Here are brief extracts from three of them.

"My dear girl, my very precious girl, I know you are after my own heart.
I place boundless confidence in your judgment and resolutions. Do not
be afraid of anything or any one."

"You are a true heroine, a Joan of Arc, indeed."

"You must have a fearful strain upon you. Still a great part of your
business is to keep yourself quiet and free from wearing care. To be
cool and steady under fire is the quality of the very best soldiers. I
fear I have not excelled in this direction, and it is a very difficult
property in our family, seeing how full of sympathy and feeling our
hearts and lives are, but God can do much for us."

Every letter from her eldest brother Bramwell, who was the Chief of
Staff, was a "Well done!" from over the sea. Writing in 1885—the year
of his and Stead’s heroic crusade against vice—he said: "I get more and
more dissatisfied with things human every day. The world is all gone
mad. If it was only bad, and not mad, we could mend it, but being both
I get less and less hope instead of more! We will now attend to quality
more. If we could get _better_ people surely we should go faster. I
solemnly believe you are ahead of us on the Continent in this
direction."

In the following year he wrote: "Do not think you will ever be less dear
to me than you have been. You cannot be. I love and admire you, and if
you were my general to-morrow I should follow you to the last gasp and
stick while there was one limb of me left."

*CHAPTER VII*

*WOMAN’S VOCATION*

"There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free;
there can be no male and female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
After the lapse of many centuries this great apostolic saying is
beginning to yield up its meaning and its blessing. The Mother of the
Army was one of the first to assert woman’s liberty, and her daughters
entered into a sacred heritage. Having become a public speaker at
fourteen, and seen the work of faith rewarded with countless signs
following, the Maréchale could never harbour any secret fear that her
ministry might be grieving the Spirit of God. It was impossible,
however, that she should work for years without encountering many who
had strong prejudices. Our Lord’s disciples "marvelled that He spake
with a woman," and there are still disciples who marvel when a woman
speaks for Him.

In the summer of her third year in France, the Maréchale attacked the
old city of Nîmes, in the largely Protestant Gard—the first of a series
of campaigns which were the means of bringing a blessing to a number of
the provinces of France. On her arrival she found that M. Peyron, an
eminent judge, who had greatly benefited from hearing her before, had
arranged a preliminary meeting of the orthodox of Nîmes—pastors and
their wives and other Protestant workers—to the number of about 120. He
was anxious that they should be won before her campaign began, but he
had no idea that he had prepared for her one of the battles royal of her
life.

The meeting being thrown open, the doctrine of holiness—God’s power to
keep His children from sinning—first came up, and was violently attacked
by several pastors who confounded it with perfectionism. Their remarks
were loudly applauded, and one lady screamed above the rest—

"Let him that is without sin get up and testify."

Greatly daring, the Maréchale whispered to a comrade who sat beside her,
"Rise, Bisson," which he did, and in a few simple words testified, not
indeed to his own perfection, but to God’s power to sanctify and keep as
well as justify.

After a momentary lull, the storm became fiercer than ever, and the
ministry of women was now the cause of war. The Maréchale alluded to
her mother’s manifesto on the subject.

"We have read it," said a lady, "and we do not agree with it. Women are
meant for the home. They are commanded to be silent in the churches."

"Besides," cried another, "you are not old enough."

The Maréchale quoted the words, "Let no man despise thy youth."

"But that," retorted a pastor’s wife, "was said to a man."

Thereupon the babel of voices became deafening.

"Pretty and prepossessing girls," a matron was heard to say, "should not
show themselves in public."

"If you do speak," said a pastor, skilled in distinctions, "you should
speak to women only, and not before men."

All through the storm the central figure was quiet and self-possessed.
But she was thinking hard. The idea of a distinction in sex had never
come before her as a speaker; it was new and strange to her. When she
at length spoke again, she put the result of her thinking into a simple,
memorable, unanswerable dictum:

"But there is no sex in soul."

Perhaps somebody had said the same thing before, but it was none the
less original on her part. Then she expanded the truth:

"The needs of a man’s soul are the same as a woman’s, and vice versa.
You do not get up and say there are so many men and so many women in a
meeting. They all need salvation, pardon, purity, peace; all the gifts
and graces of the Spirit are for men and women alike. Of course," she
continued, "if any woman is so light and frivolous that she makes such a
distinction, that certainly proves that she has no vocation to be an
evangelist, and I should send her home by the next train."

She felt that the atmosphere of the room was horrible. Religious
controversies, like religious wars, create a more frightful spirit than
any other quarrels. Instead of prolonging the discussion, the Maréchale
sank on her knees and began to pray. She had won by prayer many
victories which were remembered after long years. When she was a child
of fourteen, she attended a meeting of her mother’s at Ryde in the Isle
of Wight. She sat far back beside the door, listening till the address
was ended, and then she heard her mother ask if some brother or sister
would pray. As nobody responded, and the silence became too oppressive
to bear, Katie rose and poured out her heart to God in tones of
passionate earnestness, seeking for a victory ere the meeting ended.
When she got home, she was folded in her mother’s arms and covered with
kisses; and forty years after, when she was herself conducting a mission
at Ryde, a saintly lady of ninety-two told her that no prayer lived in
her memory like that child’s prayer.

It was such a prayer—long, intense, passionate—that the Maréchale prayed
among the orthodox of Nîmes. That night the eldest daughter of M.
Peyron, a beautiful, worldly girl, was won for Christ. At seven o’clock
on the following morning two pastors, MM. Challand and Babut, along with
M. Peyron, awoke the Maréchale. They had come to say, for themselves
and others, how they deplored the scene of the preceding night, and to
beg forgiveness.

On Sunday morning the campaign proper was begun in the Alcasar, which
was packed, and the wives of several pastors were among those who came
in tears to the penitent form. Albin Peyron, junior, who is to-day the
leader of the Army in Switzerland, began the new life at a "Night with
Jesus" which was held after that meeting. In his youth he was the
founder of _La Petite Armée_, which did much good work among the
children of Nîmes and other towns of Southern France.

While the Maréchale was always at home in crowds, she loved quiet
interviews with individuals if possible still more. In many of these
talks the subject was the victory of faith. During one of her
_tournées_, she was conducting meetings in a theatre at Cannes. On a
lovely September evening she was walking towards the sea, lost in
admiration of the sunset. Fatigued with her Sunday morning’s work, she
was seeking a little repose. She observed a priest slowly proceeding
towards the hill on which stood a little Catholic church. His
appearance struck her; he looked at once so distinguished and so sad.
An inner voice said to her, "Speak to that priest." "I cannot," she
said, "he would think me mad." But the voice said the same words a
second time, and then she instantly obeyed. Hurrying towards the
priest, she said—

"Good-evening, _mon père_. I presume you are going to the church on the
hill. May I accompany you, for I would speak with you on spiritual
subjects?"

Uncovering his head, and bowing with great respect, he answered,
"Certainly, madame."

They walked on for a little in silence. Then she said—

"What must I do to be saved, my father?"

"Keep the ten commandments," he answered at once.

"But the rich young man who came to Jesus could say with his hand on his
heart that he had kept them all, and yet had no assurance of salvation.
He was in great trouble. _He_ said, ’What must I do to be saved?’"

"Oh, then you must take the holy Eucharist very often."

"But those who take it, my father, are they saved from sinning? Are
they not the victims of the power of evil, the same as others?"

"Oh! yes, madame, but then there is the Confessional."

"But does not the same thing apply to the Confessional, my father? You
must know that there are tens of thousands in France who confess, but
fall again the next day. They have not found rest. Is not Christ ready
to save us if we are ready to be saved?"

"Alas! madame, we shall sin always, always, to the very end of our
lives."

"But, my father, were not St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St.
Catherine of Siena, Fénelon and many others, delivered from the slavery
of sin and self? They attained to something definite—to holiness."

He turned with vehemence and said, raising his voice—

"Ah! madame, but those were extraordinary lives. Those people were
saints."

"No, my father, they were men and women like you and me. What God did
for St. Augustine or St. Catherine of Siena, can He not do it for me if
I am ready to fulfil the conditions which He lays down? What does
religion do, what is it worth, if it cannot deliver us from sin?"

He did not answer. He was silently thinking.

She went on, "Is Christ a Saviour, yes or no?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, He is!"

"Has He saved _you_, my father?"

They stood still for a moment, and he turned his face away, with a look
of poignant sadness. Then followed a confession—one of the deepest, most
heartfelt cries she had ever listened to—ending with the words, "Alas,
alas! all the days of my life I sin, and I expect to sin to my latest
breath."

The Maréchale was profoundly moved, and felt that she stood upon holy
ground. At last she spoke—

"Then Calvary is the greatest fiasco the world has ever seen."

Stretching out his hand, he said, "Oh, madame, do not say that; it is
blasphemy."

"But, my father, we are in the presence of facts, not fancies. You have
left what men prize most. You have lived up to your light. And what do
I find? Torment instead of rest, conflict instead of assurance, bondage
instead of deliverance. Surely, my father, Jesus did not come to
increase our burdens, but to relieve them. You remember His word, ’Come
unto me and I will give you rest.’ He said, ’My yoke is easy and my
burden is light.’ Are these theories to be preached in pulpits, or are
they realities?"

By this time they stood on the summit of the hill, and she said—

"You are going to preach to-night, _mon père_?"

"Yes."

"Would you like that we should go down the hill together and resume our
conversation?"

"It would be a great pleasure, madame."

He preached one of the best sermons she had ever heard, partly inspired,
she could not help thinking, by their intimate talk. As the
congregation moved out, she stepped into a Confessional box to wait for
him. She saw him turning this way and that with a look of
disappointment, and, stepping out, said to him—

"I am here, _mon père_."

They began to descend the hill together. "My father," she said, "I
greatly enjoyed your sermon. But how can you show others the way of
deliverance if you have not found it yourself? How can you unbind if
you are not unbound? How can you heal if you are not healed? How, my
father? Do you not see that all this is only from the head, not from
the life, the heart?"

"It is true! But I try, oh, my God, I try!"

"But it does not come in that way—by our struggles."

"Then how?" he exclaimed in a tone of despair.

"Does He not say, ’Abide in me, and ask what you will, and it shall be
done unto you’? Does not St. Paul testify, ’I can do all things through
Christ which strengthened me.’ How many have given praise to Him who is
’able to save to the uttermost’ and ’able to present us faultless’! Put
Him to the proof. If any one has the right to salvation, surely you
have."

They paused under a tree in the stillness of evening, and, while he
stood with bowed head, she knelt beside him and prayed.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME*

Early in 1887 the Maréchale became the wife of Mr. Arthur Sydney
Clibborn, an Irish gentleman of Quaker extraction, lineally descended
from Barclay of Ury, the hero of one of Whittier’s finest poems.
Brought up in Bessbrook, which was called the model town from the fact
that there was no public-house, police barracks or pawnshop in it, he
renounced excellent business prospects in answer to a call which first
came to him through a simple, earnest Quaker minister, "Sydney, will
thee not come with us?" The visit of some representatives of
Salvationism to Bessbrook turned the current of his thoughts in a new
direction, making him exclaim, "Here is primitive Quakerism, primitive
Wesleyanism, primitive Christianity!" As he had spent some years at
school in Switzerland, and become proficient in French and German, he
was sent by General Booth to assist the Maréchale in France, and acted
as her chief of staff until their marriage.

He was a man of great courage, and received a medal from the French
President for saving life from drowning. As a servant of God he would,
one cannot but think, have made a splendid Huguenot or Covenanter. His
heroic ideal was the persecuted Quaker whose blood he had in his veins.
In the Salvation Army’s early days of conflict he was the bravest of the
brave. He was stoned and covered with mud in the streets of Geneva. He
was pursued by a Parisian mob that howled "Down with Jesus Christ!" His
life was attempted many times, and he was condemned to death by the
Nihilists under the seal of the Paris headquarters; but he never went
out of his way to avoid death or use carnal weapons.

Mr. Booth-Clibborn has been specially used of God in removing the
difficulties of those troubled with intellectual doubt and in opening
the eyes of a large number who were in spiritual darkness.

The Maréchale was now obliged to leave the Training Home, where her _vie
apostolique_ among her beloved officers and cadets, whose every conflict
and danger she shared, had often seemed to her like life in an earthly
paradise. But whatever new duties and cares came to her in her little
home in the Rue d’Allemagne, she never allowed them to interfere with
her vocation. In the course of fourteen years God gave her five sons
and five daughters, among whom life was infinitely sweet to her, yet all
her public activities were maintained, while her passion for souls
burned with a clear and steady flame.

Loyalty to Christ now assumed a new aspect, and the conditions of
discipleship an added stringency. A great sentence in the
Gospel—"Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or
lands, for my sake, and the Gospel’s, but he shall receive an
hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and
mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to
come eternal life"—burned itself into the Maréchale’s soul, and she
never doubted that she received her _centuple_ just because she paid the
price.

When she went to any of the towns of France to undertake a difficult
campaign, it was impossible for her to do her duty unless she fixed her
whole mind and heart upon the work. Having to deal with the mass of sin
concentrated in a large mixed audience such as she had to face in these
towns, and knowing, as she used to say, that every person had a skeleton
in the cupboard, she felt that she must become, as it were, the
scapegoat to bear the sins of these people. There was a sense in which
she had to be like Christ in this respect, and so co-operate and suffer
with Him (Col. i. 24). She must go and set herself apart to lift up
hands to God in favour of the city. She must say to every
preoccupation, every earthly tie, "Stand thou there while I go yonder to
pray." She must _live_ for that town and that people for six weeks, or
two or three months. She might do a certain kind of work without giving
her _life_, but it would not be of the apostolic kind. To get the
hundredfold of which Christ spoke she must leave father and mother, home
and child. In some very real way she must sacrifice and suffer. She
had felt this from her childhood, and she now saw it more clearly than
ever; there was always a price to pay. The secret of success in such
cases was the consciousness of a vocation and a passionate love too, and
the personal dealing with the Christ of Calvary.

[Illustration: THE MARÉCHALE
(From a photograph by Fred. Boissonnas, Paris, circa 1880)]

How hard it became for the Maréchale to accept this cross may be
indicated by a touching scene depicted by her secretary, Miss Gugelman,
who is now one of the bravest soldiers of salvation in India.

"’Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.’ How clearly this was illustrated
when, at a late hour one evening, just at the close of her month’s
meetings in Paris, the Maréchale bent over her little ones’ cots to bid
them good-bye before starting on her three-months’ tour through France
and Switzerland. Evangeline, the eldest, had kept awake, for she knew
that her mamma was going away. The little arms were flung round the
warrior-mother’s neck, when, raising her sweet tear-stained face, little
Evangeline stammered, ’_Maman_, stay with me, or take me with you on
your _tournées_.’ Our leader’s all too human tears filled her eyes; she
kissed the little pleader, and then wrapped her up in a blanket, and
brought her into the study to see us off. It was painfully clear to us
who were watching her, that the leaving of her little ones for the war’s
sake was a heavy cross to the Maréchale. Thank God, she shirks it not.
Suppressing her feelings, she went out into the cold and damp, and
started her long all-night journey."

That was in February 1894, and later in the same year she had two of the
finest campaigns of her life—at Havre and Rouen. The turbulent
beginning at Havre was graphically described by her friend the Princess
Malzoff, who accompanied the Maréchale in order to have a taste of the
_vie apostolique_. "There was a great tumult in the ’Lyre Havraise.’
The Maréchale had come to publish the word of love and salvation. An
immense crowd forced itself into the hall, and who would have dared
believe that they had all come simply to present the world with the most
scandalous, the most vulgar and odious spectacle that one can imagine?
When the Maréchale rose with great dignity and calm ... she could not
make herself heard. Every word was interrupted; one could see that it
was a prepared stroke. One might imagine oneself to be in an asylum. But
she did not let herself be discouraged; she persevered; she walked
straight into the midst of the infuriated crowd. She did not tame these
wild beasts, but she came out victorious all the same. Tall, beautiful,
calm, sustained by her divine conviction and with the strength of a
great heart, she came back again and again—our admirable Maréchale! ...
In the midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a few _élite_ souls
felt a noble enthusiasm for this young woman who battled alone against a
hostile and wicked crowd. They came to grasp her hand, to express their
admiration for her and their shame for those who had broken the simplest
laws of hospitality, politeness and civilisation. Blessed be our
Maréchale; in her the whole _Armée du Salut_ was personified that night
in its strength, its faith, its persevering love."

Tributes to "the Maréchale under fire" were extorted from all the
reporters. After two or three meetings the atmosphere was changing and
the tide of battle turning, when tidings came from Paris, that
Augustine, the Maréchale’s little son of two summers, was alarmingly
ill. Then came an indescribable mental conflict, which ended in her
deciding to remain at least another night and hope for better news in
the morning. She called her officers for prayer, and that night spoke
with a power and tenderness which held the vast audience as with a
spell; after which she had Havre for six weeks in the hollow of her
hand.

Next morning she received a reassuring wire from home, and, sitting
alone on the beach, she wrote a hymn that gives perfect expression to
the thought of the _Greater Love_—a hymn that has endeared itself in
France as much to Catholics as to Protestants. It begins:

Qui quitte famille et terre
Pour mon Nom, pour suivre mes pas;
Qui quitte enfants, père ou mère,
Reçoit le centuple ici-bas.

When this hymn was sung in the "Lyre Havraise" a night or two afterwards
by one of the Maréchale’s young comrades, Mme. Jeanmonod, who had a
beautiful soprano voice, it was received with a burst of sympathetic
applause, and had to be sung over and over again, till the audience knew
it.

Then there was a great harvest of souls to reap. A letter written at
the time gives an idea of the intensity of spirit with which the leader
threw herself into the work.

"Meeting superb! Nothing of its kind since the days of Geneva and
Nîmes, and even better in a sense than that, as the infidels rush to
hear me. Perfect order and people pleading to get in. In these first
audiences it has been too risky and excitable to allow any to speak but
me. They applaud everything, that is, when I have finished speaking,
and I never felt more free and regardless of man’s opinion. I am
stronger with the rough element alone in my weakness, so much stronger
as I throw myself on them. Yes, I am filled with the life and power of
God for this town. This hour may never come again. My soul is on the
full stretch.... Do you know what the ’Centuple’ is for me? That my
children shall become apostles! Oh, I claim that of God, and do you
know there is an assurance in my heart."

In addition to the nightly crowds at the Casino, the Maréchale held
afternoon meetings for women only, at which she spoke on such subjects
as "The Role of Woman," "The Mother of Jesus," "The White Robe."
Nothing impressed Havre more than the midnight suppers she gave to the
_filles perdues_ of the town, not a few of whom were constrained to
abandon the life of sin. And so generous were the rich citizens in
their offerings that at the close of the campaign the Maréchale was at
length able to realise one of her cherished ideas—the foundation of a
Rescue Home in Paris.

After Havre, the Maréchale had a short breathing-space at home, and then
Rouen had to be faced. Again the shadow of the Cross fell upon little
hearts and lives. Victoire, who was nearly five, pleaded with
upstretched arms, "Don’t go, mother! stay with us!" (_Ne pars pas,
Maman! Reste avec nous!_) Evangeline, who had just turned six, had
learned the lesson of separation, and, throwing her arms around her
mother, said, "Maman, if you do go to Rouen, will some souls be saved
that would not be saved if you did not go?"

"Yes; most likely so."

"Then go, Maman!"

And Maman went.

While the good Catholic of Rouen was shocked, the man in the street was
amused, at the idea of worshipping God in the _Théâtre Français_ instead
of the stately cathedral, and between them they contrived to make the
thing impossible. What, they asked, could be more grotesque than
preaching and singing hymns on the stage? At the opening meeting the
Maréchale herself obtained a fairly good hearing, but a hostile element
was present which every now and then convulsed the audience with
laughter by some comical exclamation; and when one of her comrades
attempted to close the meeting with prayer, the rout was complete.
Prayer in a theatre was the limit, and next day the Maréchale was
informed by the Mayor that he must pacify the public by terminating
these proceedings.

The great Casino, at the corner of the square in which Joan of Arc was
burned, was then secured, and the Maréchale began to deliver a series of
addresses on "The Holy Mother of Jesus," "Nineteenth Century Miracles,"
"Confession," "Restitution," "The Saints," "The Pater Noster," "My
Credo," "The Altar." The crowds that filled the hall to overflowing
were amazed to find that these subjects were all dealt with quite
unecclesiastically, and with such an exclusive application to the
individual heart and life that sacerdotalism became, as it were,
non-existent, while the sinner and the Saviour were made manifest and
left face to face. The people who came with minds alert left with
hearts melted and consciences aroused. Soon there were great numbers of
souls seeking spiritual help, and the Maréchale announced that she would
meet the convicted and anxious in one of the rooms of the Casino. No
fewer than four hundred sought private interviews in that place, which
thus became a confessional of the simple, primitive order. Not by
priestly absolution, but through personal contact with the one High
Priest and Mediator, was sin remitted and salvation won.

So many Catholics were converted that the head of one of the seminaries
thought it necessary to preach against the _Armée du Salut_. An
influential abbé, on the other hand, said: "I cannot, of course, agree
with the Salvationists, but I am absolutely convinced of their
sincerity, and I am certain they are far nearer salvation than the
majority of Catholics." The _curé_ of the largest _paroisse_ attended
one day in his _soutane_, gave an offering for the mission, and bought
the publications at the door. When the Maréchale was about to speak to
women alone on the Holy Mother, two priests expressed their desire to be
present, and she had them concealed behind a curtain. At the end they
were deeply moved, and assured her they had not heard a single word with
which they were not in heartiest agreement. Such was the deep spiritual
impression made upon the town that a newspaper was published containing
nothing but accounts of her meetings and the work going on in the
Casino.

During all her years in France the Maréchale never posed as a Protestant
and never attacked Catholicism. Creeds, ceremonies, penances,
pilgrimages—these things were to her neither here nor there. She always
went for the real, and she found in Christ not only true divinity but
perfect humanity. Her sermon on the Virgin melted thousands of Catholic
hearts, and her fundamental doctrine of sacrifice never failed to evoke
a response from the Latin races. She was an eager student—so far as the
"apostolic life" permitted—of the writings of Catherine of Siena, Thomas
à Kempis, Madame Guyon and Fénelon, claiming kinship with all who loved
the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth.

Thus she had great power over Catholics as well as Protestants and
infidels. One of her most devoted officers, M. le Roux, had, after a
brilliant career as a Catholic student, completed his preparation for
the priesthood and received the tonsure, when he came under her
influence and found his life completely changed. And the following
letter received from a lady-professor in Rouen indicates the kind of
impression which was made on many Catholic minds.

"Dear Maréchale, I wish to do what I have not yet dared to do when face
to face with you—that is, to express the pleasure which I have found in
your charming Conférences. They have moved and troubled me to such an
extent, have thrown such light in my heart and mind, that I ask myself
what is going on within me. Your addresses, so simple and yet so high,
so suited to your hearers, so consecutive, have influenced me more than
all the beautiful sermons of the monks. You have made me understand
that God asks something else from us than outward practices and empty
ceremonial, and I feel that you have renewed a faith in me that had
nearly disappeared. You have made me taste, thanks to your deep
convictions and the warmth of your speech, one of the purest joys I have
ever known.... Be blessed a thousand times, Maréchale, for having
revealed my religion to be under a new light, for having shaken this
apathy which rendered me incapable of every generous impulse, for having
made me more sensitive to the sufferings of others. Be blessed in your
children, who one day I hope will reward you nobly for all your
sacrifices. Be blessed in humanity, the great family which you have
elected to live for and which is the object of your care."

Does such a revival as this leave solid and lasting results? Let one
case out of many be presented as evidence that it does. M. Matter was a
distinguished engineer and an officer in the French army. Extracts from
two of his letters tell what the Rouen campaign did for him.

"Beloved Maréchale, Three years ago tonight a poor man entered the
Casino through what appeared mere chance. He was burdened with sorrow,
keenly conscious of his sins, but never dreaming of asking the _Armée du
Salut_—which did not even excite his curiosity—to help him, hardly
believing any more in the possibility of salvation for him. God
inspired you; the Holy Spirit made your words penetrate even underneath
the breastplate of sin which covered my poor heart. Two days after I
was born to a new life. From that moment God has strengthened,
protected and directed me. I seek to love Him with all my heart, and I
treasure a deep and loving gratitude to you."

And six years later: "I have made a pilgrimage at night in the deserted
streets to the Casino where God found me and where you were His
ambassador."

This gentleman is now well known all over France for his work among
criminals and drunkards, and his services have been recognised by the
French government. He gets into personal touch with hundreds of
convicts in order to speak to them of the love of God, and down in the
Ardèche he has a Home for four hundred little waifs, mostly the children
of criminals, whom he calls the Maréchale’s grandchildren, he himself
being her spiritual son.

The last time she visited him in Paris, they were engaged in eager and
intimate talk, when he said, "Do you see that ivory pipe? I have
engraved on it the day of my conversion at Rouen; but since that time I
have never had any inclination to smoke it. And do you see that pile of
letters? These are from my boys in prison. Let me read one of them to
you." Then he read the words of a convict who spoke of prison walls
lighted up with the glory of Christ’s presence. And he added, "Do you
remember you said to me when I was in despair over my past life, ’These
hands, which have done so much evil, will bring blessing and salvation
where I can never go.’ Your words have literally come true."

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST*

One night a little card was placed on the _table d’hôte_ of the Hôtel
Meurice, in the Rue de Rivoli, intimating to the guests that the
Maréchale would speak at an informal meeting in the salon after dinner.
Among those who came to see and hear her was a little Russian lady with
deep and thoughtful hazel eyes. She was the celebrated Princess Nancy
(properly Anastasia) Malzoff of the Russian court. One of the Czarinas
died in her arms. She was a friend of King Edward VII, and her
brilliant wit made her a welcome figure in every court of Europe. She
spoke eight languages.

She was now well advanced in life, and thought she had known everybody
worth knowing and seen everything worth seeing in the world. But that
evening was the beginning of a new life of peace and joy such as she had
never dreamed of. From the moment the Maréchale opened her lips, she
was fascinated, first by the speaker, and then still more by the
message. Next morning she came in her carriage to the Villette. The
Maréchale was scarcely well enough to receive her, but she would not
take a "No." When she entered the Maréchale’s room, she threw herself
by the bedside and exclaimed, "Oh! tell me, how did you get to know
Him?"

This was the commencement of a seven years’ friendship, and during all
that time she was never out of reach without writing the Maréchale every
second day.

The Princess was a member of the orthodox Greek Church. Her mother had
married her off at sixteen, and she had eleven children by the time she
was twenty-eight. When she found that her husband had become
unfaithful, she dismissed him with an emphatic "C’est fini!" and for
more than a quarter of a century she had never seen him.

The Maréchale listened with deep sympathy to the story of her life, and
then said, "You must forgive him, if you would be forgiven."

"Never, never!"

"Yes, if you want Christ, forgive him. Never mind what he has done, you
must forgive him."

The Princess could not. A struggle went on in her mind for six weeks.
She began to come to the meetings at the Rue Auber, but she had no
peace. The Maréchale opened the question again.

"Come now, I want you to write and invite him to meet you at your hotel,
to dine with him, and to forgive him."

A terrible inner controversy ensued, and the Princess became ill over
it. One can scarcely imagine what it all meant to her, and yet
thousands have to go through the same.

Calling one day, the Maréchale found her in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Princess, how dare you smoke like this?"

"Well, I am surrounded by a thousand devils, blue, black and yellow.
You have been neglecting me."

A ceaseless conflict was raging in her breast, and ere they parted that
day she wrote a letter and said she would send it.

The Maréchale called again, and found that the letter had not been sent.
Then the crisis came.

"Princess, you are lost. If you do not forgive, your heavenly Father
will not forgive you."

"I cannot, I cannot."

She was in agony of soul.

"Princess," said the Maréchale, "are you perfect? From the little I
know of you I should think you have a very bad temper."

"It is true, it is true."

"Your sins have not been his, but they are sins before God, and have
caused suffering to others. If you want God to forgive your bad temper,
you must forgive him."

The Maréchale prayed, and bade her look to the Cross and see how Christ
forgave. Then she told her again what to do.

"Darling, you are to invite him to your apartments; you are to have a
sweet little dinner for him and flowers on the table, and when he comes
you are to kiss him."

"But I cannot!"

"Yes, you will; and remember it is no forgiveness unless you kiss him.
Forgiveness means kissing. Forgive him, and I know peace will come."

"Very well, I will, I will!"

The Maréchale chanced to be leaving Paris for a time, and said—

"You will send me a wire when you have done it."

The Princess invited her husband. He made a long night journey. She
kissed him and forgave him. Next day the Maréchale received a wire
which made her dance for joy. It ran: "_Tout s’est passé comme vous
l’avez dit, et la paix du Christ m’inonde: Malzoff_" (All is done as you
said, and the peace of Christ floods my soul.)

Her husband died after a few months, and her thankfulness for what she
had done was profound.

The last years of her own life were beautiful. In a letter which she
wrote to General Booth in regard to her friend’s health she said: "I owe
a great deal to the Maréchale. She has given me a treasure greater than
all the treasures of this world—she has given me a living Christ; she
has put Him not near me, but in me, in my soul, and the gratitude I feel
for that blessing is great." An article from her pen on the Army’s work
in Paris contains these words: "The Salle Auber is to me now a holy
place. I feel the presence of Christ there—Christ who has personally
become a living Saviour to me since the Maréchale brought me to Him and
committed me to His Divine arms."

Hundreds of letters, the last of which was written in St. Petersburg on
the day before her death, reveal an intensely ardent nature, and prove
that the heart which truly loves never grows old. We translate a few
extracts.

"I will use all my moral forces to prove to you that our mutual
affection has advanced me in the path of holiness which you opened to me
the very first moments I heard you speak. God had pity upon me and sent
you on my _via dolorosa_ to open to me a new horizon, a new heaven. He
carried my heart to you with an intensity of which I did not think
myself capable."

"I have found in you two beings equally precious to me—the first is a
friend I love like a dearly beloved daughter; the second the Maréchale
of my Salvation, whose work, vocation and power I admire—that moral
power which you only in the whole world exercise over me. If I had
known you earlier, you would have made a saint of me."

"Not any affection in the world, not even my children’s, can replace
yours for me. What does it matter though everybody loves me if you do
not?"

"I know that it is because I have not yet renounced my ’self,’ my
’_moi_,’ that your absence makes me suffer, but I cannot help it—it is
beyond my power. I know also that the day my ’self’ will be chased
away—which is doubtful—I shall love no one, for to love one must be a
self, one must have one’s _own_ heart."

"I doubt if there are any others who bear you such a deep, complete,
living, warm and luminous affection. Not that you do not deserve it,
but all natures are not alike, and you know the fault of mine. I cannot
love by halves."

"’Love wisely,’ some one advises. That word ’wise’ hurts me. I do not
want to be wise in my love for you. I prefer to love madly, and that is
what I do, and you feel it, don’t you? Wisdom to the devil when it is a
question of the heart."

"I cannot believe that He must detach us from everything to attach us to
Himself—that would make me very sad. On the contrary I feel that it is
only human love, disinterested love, but deep and living, which can make
us understand Divine love. It is only through human experience that we
can appreciate His great, His mighty, His eternal love for us. All the
life of Jesus is filled with that palpable love for His creatures, and
that is why He is so near to us. Let me therefore love you without
detachment, and the more I love you the more I will love Him."

One of her letters is peculiarly interesting: "I will see the Emperor in
these days, and I will seek strength to speak to him. You see, my
darling, speaking is not enough, one must in such a case pour out one’s
soul and feel that a superior force guides one and speaks for one."

It turned out as she hoped. One night she was at the Palace in St.
Petersburg. After dinner the Czar came and seated himself beside her.
Soon they were deep in intimate conversation. She began telling him
what her new-found friend in Paris had done for her. She talked wisely
as he listened attentively. At length he said—

"But, Nancy, _you_ have always been good, always right."

"No," she answered; "till now I have never known the Christ. She has
made Him real to me, brought Him near to me, and He has become what He
never was before—my personal Friend."

*CHAPTER X*

*THE BURNING QUESTION*

It was the often expressed wish of Mrs. Josephine Butler that the
Maréchale might be able to join her crusade against the infamous White
Slave Traffic. In one of her earliest letters to her friend she said:
"Dearest Catherine, the wicked party, as you know, have triumphed in the
elections in Switzerland, and the Geneva government has passed that evil
Law which our friends were trying to stop.... How nice it would be if
you and I could _stand up together_ in Geneva, and denounce their
wickedness and proclaim the Saviour. I should love to do so." At a
later time she wrote of her young friend, "Oh, I sometimes think if she
were in the work of our Federation, what a harvest she might bring us
in, or rather bring in for God!"

The Maréchale regarded the wish of that saintly and chivalrous woman as
involving a kind of sacred trust. Her own heart was early and deeply
troubled by the darker aspects of our modern civilisation. When she and
her two brave comrades, Florence Soper and Adelaide Cox, took their
first flat in Paris, they were shocked to learn that they had as their
nearest neighbours—above and beneath, to the right and to the
left—families unconsecrated by any marriage tie; and in the course of
their ordinary work they found themselves hourly confronted by all the
devils of vice. The lurid facts, of which most Christians, happily for
their own peace of mind, know little or nothing, were burned into the
souls of these noble women, each of whom dedicated herself to a battle
_à outrance_ against this most appalling form of evil. And have they
not faithfully kept their vow? Are there any living Englishwomen who
have done so much to protect our innocent children and raise our fallen
sisters as these three, who first toiled and suffered and prayed
together thirty years ago in the Villette of Paris?

In redeeming her pledge, the Maréchale not only gave midnight suppers to
the _filles déchues_ of the great cities in which she conducted her
campaigns, not only founded Rescue Homes in Paris, Nîmes, Lyons and
Brussels, but endeavoured to make the problem of purity a national
question, to be dealt with in a statesmanlike manner by every patriotic
citizen.

She frequently addressed great meetings of the men of Paris and other
cities on this subject, making irresistible appeals to the heart and
conscience. It was astonishing how she carried the most critical
audiences along with her, though now and then an indignant hearer would
leap to his feet and dash out of the hall or theatre in which her
meeting was held.

She steadily refused to believe that nothing could be done for the
_morale_ of Frenchmen, and her faith in the innate chivalry of the
people was amply justified. The respect with which she was heard was a
tribute not only to the personal magnetism of a consecrated life, but to
the Christian ideal of chastity. She was often told by journalists that
any one else, man or woman, daring to utter half the home truths to
which she gave expression would have been hissed out of the town.
Explain it as one will, when she pleaded the sacred cause of womanhood,
men applauded to their own hurt. "Gentlemen," she would exclaim, "I am
not French, but I love your nation. I have made your country mine, and
I realise what France might be but for the worm which gnaws at the root
of your national life. It makes me shudder to think—it makes me
literally sick to see—how many thousands of my sisters, and your
sisters, in your beautiful city are ministers of vice. So many, your
policemen tell me, under twenty, so many under seventeen, so many under
fifteen, and there are even those known to the police who are not in
their teens. Gentlemen, they do not sin alone, for we are all
_solidaires_. They are like your own girls, your wives, your sweet
little daughters. They have hearts, they have brains, they are
intelligent, they would make beautiful mothers, our comrades in life’s
journey, helping us and sharing our burdens. And, alas, what have you
made of them? Any nation which can look at _that_ going on in its
cities day by day and night by night, without a word, without a
protest—which can see this splendid asset, woman, who should bear its
sons and daughters, sacrificed and sold to vice, disease, and early
death,—that nation is on the decline. Do not tell me that a man worthy
of the name can be silent in face of these stupendous facts. Such a man
is not a Frenchman.

"I am told that things have always been so, and will always be so. I
hear it said on every hand that this vice is a necessity. That some
women—that the daughters of the poor—should be sacrificed is regarded as
inevitable. Well, then, gentlemen, as you say it is for the public
utility, follow your reasoning to its own logical conclusion, be just to
these poor creatures; do not despise them, do not call them lost,
fallen, prostitutes; be honest and acknowledge them; allow them to stand
at least on the same level as our soldiers who sacrifice themselves for
their country. Far from being ashamed of them, honour them for their
service to our sons and our nation.

"But you say ’it is only _une fille_,’ and one of your senators has
publicly said that ’we are come to a fine pass if _an honest man_ cannot
buy himself _une bonne fortune_.’ Only a _fille_! Your mothers were
once only _filles_, your wives were only _filles_, and what are your own
daughters? Wherein lies the difference?

"An honest _man_! I am not a nun; I am not a man-hater stalking through
the world. I revere man. He is half a god. Look at his works in every
domain—the king of creation, given that wonderful command to subdue and
rule, having everything under his feet. When he rises to his destiny,
and becomes a co-worker with God, and puts his life and example—that
wonderful miracle called influence—on the side of righteousness, he
rises to the sublime. The sum of happiness, of pure joy and peace, that
one good man can bring to the little group at home, and then to the
community, to the city, to the world, cannot be estimated. And the sum
of misery, the curse, the blight that one man can bring to a woman, to
children, to every one he touches—that, too, cannot be estimated. An
_honest man_! He does not even stop where the cows and horses do. He
goes a thousand miles beneath them! And yet the indulgence of the
passions is no more a necessity than the drinking of alcohol is a
necessity for an infant of a year old. It is society that awakens those
evil desires, and they unfold themselves under the influence of a
baneful education.

"Gentlemen, you say that a bad woman is worse than a bad man. Have you
ever reflected that the wrongs done to her are far deeper? Have you
realised that her make-up is a thousand times more delicate and complex
than yours, and that as a consequence this sin makes shorter work of
her? Her despair is blacker and she is reckless. You take from her the
hope of ever having a little home of her own, of ever having a real
husband, of ever hearing herself called mother. You have done that
before she can realise what you have done. She does not wait, does not
estimate. The realisation comes to her later on in life. And when it
comes, is it any wonder that she flies to drink and becomes a demon?
Would not I? Would not you?

"Say all that you please against woman. Reckon up the sins on your side
and on hers. Still your page is black as ink compared with hers. Think
of the generous, the absolute, the totally blind ways she loves.

’Woman’s heart runs down to love
As rivers run to seas.’

"You have your life, your work, your amusements; but love is her whole
existence. She is created in that way. That makes your sin in
deceiving a trusting heart infinitely greater.

"You may go and have a good marriage afterwards, and be proud of your
charming wife’s sweet looks, but does not the vision of another, a pale
face sometimes flit across your mind? And when you look at your little
cot, do you not see another baby face—another little life you have never
owned, of which you are the author, and which is equally yours before
God? A woman’s heart has been broken, and there will be retribution."

While the Maréchale stood alone, pleading as a woman the cause of woman,
her audiences of educated Frenchmen were sometimes so deeply stirred and
convicted that they would rock and sob under the power of emotion; and
when they rose at the end to sing a hymn that she wrote as a young
girl—a hymn which has been translated into many languages—

Ote tous mes péchés!
Ote tous mes péchés!
Agneau de Dieu, je viens à toi,
Ote tous mes péchés,

the words and music would sweep over the audience like a wave, sending
many away with consciences tortured and faces bathed in tears.

One morning, after such a meeting, there was a ring at the Maréchale’s
door, and a lady was ushered into her presence. Coming forward without
a word, she took the Maréchale’s face between her hands, and warmly
embraced her in the French fashion by kissing both her cheeks. The
Maréchale inquired what was the meaning of this sweet affection.

"Oh!" said the stranger, "you have restored to me my husband. He was
listening to you last night, and when he came home he fell at my feet
and begged me to pardon him, vowing that he would never again be untrue
to me."

That was but one of the many fruits of these addresses.

Sometimes the Maréchale would read to _élite_ audiences a letter which a
man of high social standing wrote to a charming young girl whom he ought
to have made his wife. Having met her at Carnival, he awoke in her
heart an adoring love, deceived her with a promise of marriage, put a
ring on her finger, and after three years abandoned her and her baby
boy. The Maréchale took the letter to an eminent jurist and senator,
who confessed that for cold-blooded cruelty he had never seen anything
to equal it; but he sorrowfully added—such are the laws of Christian
lands—that nothing could be done to right the wrong. The letter ran as
follows—

"LITTLE MARIE,

"Once again I must ask pardon for all the harm I have done you. I hope,
however, that you will be strong in trouble, stronger than you have been
up to the present. This will be a very great consolation to me. I owe
many thanks for the resolutions that the good little Marie made
yesterday, in spite of her heart and all her feelings. Believe that I
shall never forget it, and that it cost me much before deciding to break
your ideal—but, as I told you, I prefer to be sincere. As long as my
heart was free from other passion I always considered you as the best
friend I possessed. If I was not completely happy, it was that living
without love was not to live—but you, poor little Marie, you suffered!

"You are worth a hundred times more than I, and precisely on account of
that we could not understand each other. You who are so good—too
good—permeated with the most delicate sentiments, you could not conquer
an ambitious man, for I am very ambitious.

"Whilst you dreamed of a simple, quiet life with me, you must understand
that violent passions, riches, and a luxurious life are for me
essential. In a word, our ideals are completely different, and it is a
divorce of souls which I have accomplished in leaving you. Fate made us
meet, and fate separates us. Don’t have any ill-feeling towards me. My
dream now is to create for myself quite a new life made up of goodness,
of love, and above all faithfulness in a serious affection.

"I sacrifice you, it is true, but if it were otherwise, think of the
torture you would have inflicted on me. Is it not better to separate,
each of us keeping a good memory of what made our union? Think also how
my life is insupportable in this muddle now that I love truly.

"You are good, Marie; be courageous now. The sacrifice that I ask of you
is enormous, I know, but do it for love of me, and I will be eternally
obliged to you.

"You will put all your tenderness in the little Gustave, whom I shall
never forget, and above all remember that he who loves well chastises
well. Au revoir—au revoir!

"Once again pardon me, and don’t suffer too much by your exile. My only
hope is that Gustave will recompense you largely for all the suffering
you have endured, so little merited during these long years.

"I remain,
"Your devoted——."

Marie was human, and when the marriage day drew near there was a fierce
flaming-up of resentment in her young heart. She thought of making a
scene at the church and spoiling the bridegroom’s joy. Her brother
fanned her burning sense of wrong, and promised to back her up if she
would seek revenge. But the Maréchale pleaded with her, the love of the
Crucified constrained her, and on the morning of the wedding she wrote
the following pathetic little note: "He is to be married to-day. The
wedding bells are ringing.... It is all over, dear Maréchale, and I am
on my knees in my little room. All is well; the peace of Christ is in
my heart, and I have the victory." This is no romance, but a bit of
real life. Which of us would have done as little Marie did? She did not
know it, but she was worthy that morning of the ministry of angels—the
shining ones who have never sinned and never suffered.

Sometimes the Maréchale would tell her audience a story to prove what
wells of love there still are in the hearts of the most abandoned.
During a three months’ campaign at Lyons, resulting in one of the most
remarkable revivals in which she ever took part, she was giving a
midnight supper. Her officers had gone to the most notorious houses and
left a card containing the words: "A lady who is devoted to the cause of
women desires to speak to them on subjects which deeply interest them,
in —— Hall, at twelve to-night. Supper, music and singing."

The city had been moved, and the rich demonstrated their sympathy with
this effort. Having had frequent experiences of the risks attending
midnight gatherings, the Maréchale enlisted the interest of the police,
who on this occasion gave her all possible assistance.

Late in the evening the table was covered with damask cloths and adorned
with flowers. A supper of roast beef, vegetables, fruit and black coffee
was prepared. Towards midnight the piano began to be played, that those
who entered the hall might be welcomed with cheerful music.

Some girls came in laughing, and quickly went out again, evidently
thinking there must be some deception. They did not believe that
banquets were spread for nothing. Sometimes it was very difficult to
convince them that the thing was not a farce.

Presently a horrible old hag appeared—it would be difficult to imagine a
more ugly, repulsive woman. Coming up to the Maréchale she said—

"You are the Holy Virgin. I know it. _Oui, vous êtes la Sainte Vierge,
je le sais_."

The Maréchale did not know what to say, so much was she taken aback.

"You are the Holy Virgin," the old woman repeated.

"Come along and have a talk with me," said the Maréchale, "and take
supper. I am delighted to see you."

The woman laughed. "No, no, no, it isn’t me that you want—_Ce n’est pas
moi qu’il vous faut_."

"Yes, it is you. I am happy, believe me I am so happy, to see you. It
is you whom I want. Do sit down."

At last, with great difficulty, she was persuaded to be seated. But she
stayed only a minute. The Maréchale turned to speak to somebody, and
the old woman darted out of the hall. She was gone like a flash.

"We won’t see _her_ again, Maréchale," said one of the officers.

The Maréchale began to blame herself. Why did she not inspire the poor
creature with confidence? Why could one not make her feel at rest? Why
had she run away? She had seemed to suspect something. It was a sore
disappointment.

After some waiting, the girls began to come, and the tables filled up,
but every time the door opened the Maréchale turned her eye towards it
in the hope of seeing her old woman return. A gloom had been cast over
her spirit because that woman had gone out, not believing that she was
welcome, thinking she was too old and too ugly.

The beautiful grace, "Nous Te benissons," was sung, prayer was offered,
and sweet music filled the air while the plates were handed round. Some
of the guests were pretty and some ugly, some young and some old, some
clad in rags and some dressed in the height of fashion. Some poor
famished creatures asked for a plate of meat four or five times, while
others, having already supped, merely touched a little fruit with their
dainty fingers and sipped a cup of black coffee.

The supper was nearly ended, and the Maréchale was preparing to speak,
when the door burst open, and in came our old woman, with a pretty young
girl, fair as a lily, on one arm, and a dark one, equally young and
beautiful, on the other. Up she came to the "Holy Virgin," with her
dear old face radiant.

"_Voilà_! I have gone and found them. It’s _these_ that you want! For
me it is too late, but show them _the other side of the medal_."

The Maréchale could not speak. Her eyes filled with tears. The words
cut her through. The woman did not know what an act she had done, nor
what an unforgettable phrase—_le revers de la médaille_—she had used.

"I have spent a long time in seeking them," she said. "I _am_
pleased—_Je suis contente_."

"And I, too, am happy," said the Maréchale, "but especially because you
have come."

"_Moi!_! for me it is finished. For me it is too late. But these—they
are young, they are pretty, they have life before them. It is these
that you want!"

The three sat down, the Maréchale taking the old woman next to her. And
she never served a cup of coffee with such pleasure in her life.

In after years she would sometimes tell the story of that old woman on a
Sunday morning to an English congregation, and then ask the searching
question, "Which of you has ever spent two hours day or night seeking
for a lost soul as she did?"

*CHAPTER XI*

*THE PRODIGAL SON*

Baron X, the eldest son of the Baron of that name, was born at Bordeaux,
and brought up in a family of strict Catholic traditions. He studied at
the Collêge de Tivoli and the Lycée, but he cared for little except
sport and pleasure. After he had wasted much of his father’s substance
in riotous living, he was informed that his allowance would be entirely
cut off unless he went abroad for a time. Leaving home in disgrace, he
sailed for New York, and was beginning to taste the bitterness of exile,
when, chancing one day to enter a big restaurant, he was astonished to
meet his cousin, the Viscount of X., who, having inherited a fortune of
two million francs, was making haste to squander it. Falling upon each
other’s necks, they at once became companions in pleasure. Giving
themselves up to all kinds of insanity, they spent immense sums in a few
months.

Baron X was afraid to give himself a single moment of reflection on the
enormity of his errors. He was inwardly miserable, and found that
everybody else who was pursuing pleasure was as unhappy as himself. One
night, at a dance in Montreal, he said to the queen of the ball, admired
by everybody for her beauty and charm—

"Would that I could find out how to enjoy myself again!"

She answered, "If _I_ seem to be gay, I have no reason for being so.
Oh, how I suffer!"

The young man felt that existence became more and more mechanical, the
days succeeding one another in an endless monotony of unsatisfying
amusements. He seemed to be living in a bad dream.

After a while he returned to France, and one evening he was sitting, sad
at heart, on the balcony of the _Café de la Paix_, wondering to what
place of pleasure he should turn his steps, when some Salvationist girls
came to offer their journal to the customers. They were greeted with
the usual pleasantries. Baron X asked the waiter if he knew who these
people were.

"Oh, yes, Monsieur, they are the _Salutistes_, and if you want to have a
good laugh, you have only to go to the Rue Auber, which is quite near
by; they have a hall there where you could spend a good evening."

His curiosity awakened, Baron X went to the place indicated, taking a
_fille de joie_ with him. The fair-haired young man and his companion
sat at the bottom of the hall laughing. That evening there were
"testimonies," which somehow arrested Baron X’s attention. He could not
help asking himself how these young people seemed so happy. Then a
young officer read the words, "The wages of sin is death, but the free
gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord," and
delivered an address which was not correct in language, but extremely
incisive. Baron X said to himself, "He knows my history, and speaks to
me." As he went out, he bought some publications which were exposed for
sale at the door, and spent the night in reading them. He came next
evening alone, and a great spiritual conflict began. He continued to
come, and one night remained behind, being in an agony of soul. Sobbing
aloud, he confessed that he had led a wild and wicked life, dishonoured
his name, and broken his mother’s heart. At one o’clock in the morning
he gave himself to God.

The Maréchale saw that he was afraid of himself in Paris, and opened her
doors to him. For six months he lived partly at her house and partly at
the headquarters in the Rue Auber. She soon came to know him through and
through, and was struck by his simplicity and absolute sincerity. He
had broken completely with the past, and never had one _arrière pensée_.
He was ready for any sacrifice and for the humblest service.

One day a police agent came to tell the Maréchale that she had somebody
living in her house and wearing the uniform of the _Armée de Salut_, who
was passing himself off as the son of Baron X. She called Baron X, and,
while the two men stared at each other, said, "This is the son of Baron
X." The official apologised and withdrew.

Baron X had written to tell his parents of his conversion, but received
no answer. After six months the Maréchale had to begin a _tournée_ at
Bordeaux, and told Baron X that she would seize the opportunity to go
and visit his parents. He was overjoyed. He hoped for much, and said
he would pray.

When the Maréchale, clad in uniform, drew near to the gates of the
Baron’s château, a complete stranger stopped her and exclaimed, "My poor
child, what are you going to do in that house?" She only smiled and
walked on, but the question came back to her mind afterwards.

Ringing the bell, she was shown into a luxurious room, and presently the
Baron, the Baroness, and their daughter appeared. She was received as
stiffly as if she had been the representative of the Queen, and found it
hard to begin. Making an effort, she said they had probably learned
from their son that a wonderful change had taken place in his life. She
was happy to be able to confirm it. For six months she and her officers
had witnessed his life, and had noticed nothing in word or look or act
inconsistent with this marvellous change.

There was no answer. The parents and daughter simply stared at their
visitor. She continued—

"I know that his life has been bad, but I thought that you would be glad
to hear of his conversion."

Then the Baroness could no longer contain herself. A torrent of words
fell from her lips. She depicted the scandalous life of her son, who had
been a real prodigal in every sense of the word, gambling away their
wealth, bringing his mistress into their house, and disgracing their
name.

"But," said the Maréchale, "that was before his change. Do not bring up
what he once was. Think of what he is now. He has been living among my
children, and I can trust him to go in and out with them. I know
something of real conversions, and I think I can judge. I assure you
that he has become a new man, with new desires, new aspirations, a new
nature."

These assurances only led to another realistic description of his sins.

"But," pleaded the Maréchale, "that was when he was Saul; now he is
Paul."

They stared and did not comprehend the meaning of her words.

"Let him come back to the Catholic Church," said the Baron. That his
son should profess to have been saved outside the holy Mother Church was
evidently a last blow to his pride.

"That is surely a secondary matter," said the Maréchale. "Considering
what a sinner he has been, you should not mind by whom the change has
come. He has been converted in the _Armée du Salut_, but there is only
one God and one Saviour. Catholic and Protestant are alike if they have
no life."

But the Baroness drew herself up in her beautiful robe, and said—

"Let him come back to the Catholic Church, or he will never receive
another sou from us."

The Maréchale saw that it was time to end the interview.

"Very well, Baroness," she said, rising, "I will be your son’s mother.
I will buy your son clothes and boots."

With that she left their house disappointed and weary, having spent
hours under their roof pleading their son’s cause, but they had never
offered her so much as a cup of tea.

On her return to Paris, she called Baron X. His face fell when she began
to speak. She bade him be brave, described to him her interview with
his people, and ended by saying, "I will be a mother to you, and you
shall never lack for anything."

He worked on with her in Paris for some months, and then he received a
telegram, "Come quickly, father dying." The Maréchale rushed him off,
and he afterwards gave her an account of his eventful journey.

When he got home, he found the house silent, every sound muffled without
and within.

"Am I too late?" he asked.

"No, hush! He has been asking for you all the time. Come quickly."

Upstairs he went to his father’s room. Entering, he saw two thin white
hands on the coverlet, and heard a voice—

"Is it my son?"

"Yes, father!"

With one bound he was at the bed-side, and fell on his knees. With
breath coming thick and fast, his father said faintly—

"Oh, my son, your religion is better than mine. Forgive your old father
for not forgiving you."

Holding his hand, his son spoke to him of the Saviour, and sang to him
some of the choruses he had learned in the Army. Father and son were a
thousand miles away from Catholicism and Protestantism. They were
simply in the presence of the Saviour. With words of salvation in his
ears, and filial arms around him, the old Baron passed away.

Himself now Baron X, he came into his fortune. However bad an eldest son
has been, he cannot, by French law, be disinherited.

For the next four years Baron X was an officer in the _Armée du Salut_.
In Paris and Nîmes, England and Belgium he worked with ardour for the
salvation of souls. He was with the Maréchale in her Brussels
campaign.[1]

[1] Described in chap. xiii.

He married Mlle. Babut, the daughter of the well-known pastor in Nîmes.
As a girl she had been brilliantly clever, but very wilful, closing her
heart to all who sought to influence her for good. When the Maréchale
came to Nîmes she went, like everybody else, to the meetings, taking
with her girl friends whom she excited to mock and laugh. But a strange
power seized her. In vain she tried to escape by ridiculing what she
heard. "One evening," to use her own words, "the Maréchale—directed by
God—turned her eyes full on me and said, ’Young woman, you have not the
right to waste your life.’ Clear, pointed, cutting like a sword, this
truth penetrated me, and with it the conviction, ’I ought to yield to
God here and now.’" Three months later she was in the Training Home in
Paris.

The Baron X and his wife afterwards became missionaries in Madagascar.
They gave themselves heart and soul to the work. When Baron X’s health
began to fail, they returned home, and he continued to labour for Christ
as long as he had any strength left. His end came in 1911. Pastor
Babut said he had been attending death-beds for fifty years, but had
never seen anything so beautiful as the Baron’s latter end.

"Courage," said some one to the dying man.

"Courage? I do not need it when heaven is open to me."

"Do you see the Lord Jesus near you?"

"But I am with Him!"

"God has used you to work for Him."

"All I have done counts for nothing, only the immense grace and love of
God remain."

*CHAPTER XII*

*SO GREAT FAITH*

It was mid-winter, and the ground was covered with snow. There was no
little anxiety at the Villette. Forty hungry mouths had to be filled at
the École Militaire, and there was nothing for dinner. The simple fact
was that the cash-box was empty, and it was difficult not to have a
heavy heart. But the maxim of a _Salutiste_ is "Keep believing!" God
had never forsaken the Maréchale when she trusted in Him. Depression
and melancholy she regarded as lack of faith. She bade her secretary
call a _fiacre_. When they got in, the officer said—

"You have the fare, Maréchale?"

"No!"

"But——-"

"The Lord have mercy upon you! Where is your faith? Get down on your
knees and pray!"

The officer instantly obeyed. They both prayed—it was real prayer—and
their hearts became lighter.

The _fiacre_ drew up at the gate of a beautiful house in the Champs
Elysées. It had to be kept waiting, for there was no money to pay the
_cocher_.

The Maréchale was ushered into a luxurious apartment, and was soon
talking with a Russian Countess about her soul. They had never met
before, but they found common ground.

"I too," said the Countess, "adore the Christ! Come and see.... Look,
the Christ!"

They stood before a beautiful picture of the thorn-crowned Redeemer.

"I adore Him!" she repeated.

"But it is one thing," said the Maréchale, "to adore Him here in these
charming surroundings, and another thing to adore Him amidst the filth,
the immorality and the misery of the Villette, where I live night and
day among the poor and the dying, and where I have devoted young
comrades who have left comfortable homes and bright prospects, and are
now labouring for Christ and receiving nothing for it. What is your
adoring Christ compared with theirs?"

The Countess was silent, and evidently felt bad. She had suddenly
received a new ray of light upon the adoration of Jesus, and, realising
that deeds are better than words, she left the room for a minute, to
return with an offering of 500 francs.

It was by such gifts that the Army was maintained on the Continent. The
Maréchale, it is somewhat strange to discover, was not only the apostle
but the financier of the _Armée du Salut_ in France. Others, of course,
could administer the funds, but on her fell the burden of replenishing
the exchequer. As years passed and the work extended, the task became
more and more heavy. Officers had to be supported, the rent of houses
and halls paid, the Training Home, the Rescue Homes, the Orphanages, the
Homes of Rest maintained, and to meet all this outlay the Maréchale
toiled, travelled, and wrote countless letters. Those who adored the
Christ sent her their gifts from many lands.

While there were many generous supporters of the Army in France and
Switzerland, the largest contributions came from the home-country. We
have noted that the General did not like to see Catherine’s
hand-writing, because he thought of her weak spine. Yet in one day she
and her secretary would sometimes write over a hundred letters with
their own hands, which at the end were too cramped to go on with more.
Experience had taught her the value of a personal application. Many a
well-wisher who would have given £5 in response to a typewritten letter,
did much better on receiving a warm appeal in the leader’s own
handwriting. She even made it a rule to write receipts herself.

Lean months tested the spirit of the Training Home. Though there was
nothing to eat but a plate of cabbage-soup and a potato, the cadets
never murmured. "_C’est la vie apostolique_," they cheerfully said one
to another. And it was easy to bear any hardship when their leader
shared it with them. One who was an officer with her for years wrote:
"In all things she was our example. If you wished to incur her
displeasure, you had but to give her something to eat which the workers
did not have. As she was in delicate health, sometimes those around her
would try to get a little luxury to tempt her appetite or strengthen
her. They would be met with the answer: ’Whatever is this? It is not
for me, I hope, because, though it is very good of you, I did not want
it, and will not have anything of the sort.’ Then she would share it
all round."

Whenever it became known that the exchequer was almost empty, the
officers and cadets knew that this was a call to prayer. On one occasion
the rents of the Rue Auber and Quai de Valmy halls were due; there was
nothing to meet them; and there were but three days of grace. These
were days of agony. All the officers who had anything to spare gave it.
The children in the orphanage gave three francs and ten centimes. But
when the best had been done, not a tithe of the necessary 3000 francs
was in hand.

Everybody met for prayer. The Maréchale spoke on the words, "Though the
fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ... the
flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the
stalls: yet will I rejoice in the Lord." She rang the changes on that
"rejoice," asking, "Are we _there_?" Yes, they were all there—anxious
for nothing, but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving telling God
their needs.

At such times the leader of the little band felt that God had to take
care of His name, His honour; He _had_ to send what was required. Who
will call such a faith in question? Did not the German people say of
Luther, "Look, there is the man who gets from God whatever he asks?"
When the Maréchale was travelling with her secretary in a third-class
carriage in the West of France, the poor people got in with their
baskets of vegetables, and one of them said in a loud whisper, "Take
care what you say; these people when they pray get from God all they
want."

To return. On the morning of the last day of grace the Maréchale
received a letter from Scotland containing a draft for £100, a "God
bless you," and nothing more. She never knew what kind human heart had
been moved to send the letter. But she never doubted that God had sent
it.

Such occurrences were not solitary. Here is the testimony of M.
Grandjean, who was for years one of the Maréchale’s best officers. "I
think with gratitude to God of the difficult days in which our faith was
severely tested, when I was cashier in Quai de Valmy, and I had not a
shilling, and we had to pay the 6000 francs for rents and other
expenses. I shall never forget my overwhelming joy when one night I
appealed to the cadets who could pray with faith, and when five or six
of us prayed with me in the little kitchen of the Quai de Valmy. The
next day the Maréchale received by the first post a cheque of 6000
francs from some one who did not know that we were in need."

In one of her _tournées_ the Maréchale was labouring down in the South
of France. Though she was in the greatest need and had a heavy heart,
she went on with her meetings, when a lady who had been wonderfully
blessed, and two of whose children had been saved through her ministry,
was moved to give her a thankoffering of 5000 francs. Having to travel
all night on the way back to Paris, and finding herself alone among a
lot of working-men the Maréchale put the money in her bosom and prayed,
"Now keep Thy little one," but did not dare to sleep.

Among the Army’s unfailing supporters in France were the Maréchale’s
personal friends. One of the dearest of these was Madame de Bunsen, née
Waddington, who wrote _In Three Legations_. They first met in Cannes,
where the Maréchale was conducting a campaign in the theatre; and a
great bundle of letters, partly in French and partly in English,
testifies to the warmth of their friendship. Madame de Bunsen once
persuaded the Maréchale to rest for some weeks in her castle on the
Rhine; and another time she tried to induce her to visit Florence, but
the Maréchale could never quite get over the feeling that taking
holidays was backsliding.

Another of her constant supporters was Mr. Frank Crossley, that
high-souled man of business whose _Life_ has been admirably written by
Rendel Harris. Soon after the Maréchale went to France he wrote to
express his "ardent sympathy" with her work. "I have," he said, "met
and known well several Christian workers—D. L. Moody, Miss Ellice
Hopkins, Miss Mittendorff, and others—but I will tell you that perhaps
none of these have created the same impression that you have done."

In one of her last letters she wrote "Tell me, how is it that what seems
so far off to us is near to you." She was a beautiful soul and found
peace in Christ.

he received hundreds of letters from him, and they are very interesting
reading. What chiefly attracted him to the Maréchale was her intimacy
with Christ, which was the reward, as he saw, of self-sacrifice. His
words on this theme go very deep.

"It is a struggle hard and long, but it is only the struggling, who
spend their life-blood in the cause, that can claim _blood_-relationship
with the Lord Jesus. The rest are second-cousins or not even as near as
that. They don’t know Him very intimately or feel much at home with Him
when they pay Him a morning call.... He makes the entrance high and the
gate strait that it may be prized when gained—I believe that is the key
to the mystery of life, or at least to a large part of it. To let us up
to the top for the prayer of a moment and the sacrifice of nothing would
in many cases at any rate be impossible and useless. Tell me soon more
of how to climb. I am a slow learner."

Mr. Crossley’s nature had a pensive strain which the Maréchale’s
friendship helped to modify. Regarding such a matter he felt that
"speech should not go near the length of feeling," but ere long we find
him writing, "Das hallelujah Vögelein singt in meinem Herzen."

His donations to the work of the Army both at home and in France were
very generous. He gave the Maréchale many thousand pounds a year. His
liberality was part of his worship of Christ. Nothing could be finer
than the following: "I know you will be thinking it is a serious slice
off my capital. Well, it is a branch off the tree. ’They broke off
branches from the palm trees and strewed them in the way and shouted
Hosanna,’ and so do I." And again: "You are very grateful to me for
what I have been able to give you, but if you knew how indebted and
grateful I also felt to you, you would see how God makes us unequal that
we may teach ourselves by the aid and necessary services He enables us
to render." Mr. Crossley wished the Maréchale to accept a gift of
£10,000 for the maintenance of her family, that she might be personally
free from financial care, and also offered to build her a home outside
Paris, but she declined both these offers, not wishing to be in a
different position from the other officers of the Army.

In 1891 the Maréchale went to America to raise funds for the work in
France. Accompanied by her secretary, Mme. Peyron—who was her Geneva
convert Mlle. Roussel—she sailed in October by the _Columbia_ for New
York, and visited twenty-eight of the principal cities of the States and
Canada, holding sixty meetings, travelling sometimes for thirty or forty
hours at a stretch, and once with the added experience of being snowed
up for twelve hours. She was everywhere very cordially received, and
all the buildings in which she spoke were densely crowded. Ministers
offered her churches in which a woman had never spoken before. After
one meeting she received invitations from a Bishop and seventeen pastors
to address congregations on her work.

The reporters everywhere found her and her utterances good copy. "She
was not able to see representatives of the press in New York, although
they came by dozens," as one learns from the Boston man who claimed to
be "her first American interviewer." He found that "her life in France
has given a Gallic twist to this Englishwoman’s tongue. She is quite as
French in manner as her staff-captain, Madame Peyron, the dark-eyed
Frenchwoman who travels with her."

One morning she got a great reception from the divinity students of
Yale, to whom she spoke at length on the qualifications necessary for
"saving souls," namely, the possession of a pure heart and the baptism
of the Holy Spirit. "When she had finished her address she said she was
willing to answer any questions they might have to ask, and for half an
hour the students and several of the professors poured a host of
questions upon her that would have embarrassed and muddled the
clearest-brained ministers of the country under similar circumstances.
She, however, showed that she had answered questions before, and gave
answers that brought both laughter and applause, for her wit is keenly
cultivated."

It is interesting to see her through Yale eyes. "Her face is a study the
like of which an artist or a sculptor might seek for years without
finding. In repose it reminds one of the pictures of the Madonnas of
Michael Angelo, but when she speaks its earnestness is so intense that
it is almost stern. Her voice is one that any actress might well covet
for its depth and strength. It is the equal of the great Bernhardt’s,
and yet it is sweet and soft, and has none of the harshness of the
masculine tone. Her accent is something charming, for it has all the
attractiveness of the English tongue made even more sweet by long
familiarity with the French language. From her long acquaintance with
the lower classes, the socialists and all free-thinkers of France, she
has acquired that fiery directness and ease and attractiveness in her
speaking which is so characteristic of French oratory and so fascinating
to Americans. It is no injustice to this remarkable woman to say that,
had she chosen the stage for her rôle in life, her name would have
certainly been as famous in that profession as it is to-day as the
Maréchale of the French Salvation Army."

In America she had the immense happiness of being reunited with her
brother Ballington, who, being a year older than herself, had been her
chum in childhood, and his wife, _née_ Maud Charlesworth, who had been
her brave girl-comrade in the first days of persecution in Switzerland.

In the end of January, 1892, the Maréchale returned to France, after an
absence of three months and a half. America had given her $60,000 for
her work, and memories of unlimited kindness.

*CHAPTER XIII*

*BEAUTY FOR ASHES*

"You have added a new word to the French language," said M. Sarcey, the
famous critic, to the Maréchale; "I mean the word ’Salutiste.’" In 1881
there was not a single Salvationist in France or Switzerland. After
fifteen years there were 220 stations and outposts, over 400 officers,
headquarters in five cities, and four weekly papers.

But these bare facts only feebly indicate what the Maréchale did for
France. In a moment of depression at the thought of French infidelity,
the Princess Malzoff once remarked to her—

"The French have no soul."

"How dare you," asked the Maréchale, "say such a thing?"

Her friend replied with charming inconsistency, "But you have found the
soul of France!"

That was perhaps the highest tribute ever paid to her.

If one asks some Frenchman who knew the Maréchale in those days how she
won the heart of France, one gets the answer, "But it is natural—she has
the French temperament; and, besides, _elle aime la France_." If one
asks some convert of hers how she found the soul of France, the reply
is, "Ah! she brought us the Christ, who is victorious everywhere." Both
questions were answered together by one who, speaking for many, said,
"She bought us at the price of tears and sacrifice."

When she was at the zenith of her power in France, an admirable
appreciation of her was written[1] by one of the saints of the modern
calendar, Miss Frances E. Willard. We extract a few sentences. "She
inherits, it is said, beyond any other of the endowed and consecrated
eight children of the General and Mrs. Booth, their special gifts,
graces, and grace.... The Maréchale’s career already fulfils her
father’s prophecy that women will, if once left free in their action,
develop administrative powers fully equal and oftentimes superior to
those of men.... ’I love France,’ she said to me, with sparkling eyes:
’it is a great and wonderful country, and I love its people every bit as
much as ever I loved my own. I have become familiar with its peasants in
the provinces; have sat down with the French women who clatter about in
sabots; have shared their chestnuts with them, heard of their sorrows as
well as their joys, and, believe me, the human heart is just the same in
France as it is everywhere; and if you classify the saints whose
histories have come down to us, France would occupy the front rank. The
nation that has produced a Lacodaire, a Pascal, a Fénelon, and a Madame
Guyon, does not lack the germs of spiritual life.’"

[1] _The Review of the Churches_, Feb. 1894.

In 1896, however, her career in France came to an end. She received the
command to go and devote herself to the work of the Army in Holland, and
loyally prepared to obey.

Catholics and Protestants alike were dismayed at the news. One of her
dearest friends, the Catholic scholar M. Lassaire, whose exquisite
translation of the four Gospels had the honour of being put upon the
Index Expurgatorius, came to her and said—

"You ought not to leave us. God has given you the ear of the nation as
it is given only once in a hundred years."

"But I am commanded."

"If the angel Gabriel descended from heaven and bade you go, you ought
not to leave France!"

Théodore Monod, whose own family had been greatly blessed through the
Maréchale, deeply sympathised with her, and grieved over her departure
almost as if she had been his own daughter, but tried to comfort her by
saying, "You leave us your hymns!"

The day on which the Maréchale left France was one of the two or three
dark days of her life. She felt somewhat like the young Scottish Queen
who said as she gazed at the receding shores of Calais—

"Adieu! mon charmant pays de France,
Adieu! te quitter c’est mourir."

And yet she believed in her heart that God would work out His gracious
purpose, which no circumstances can ever alter.

That she loved France with a deep, pure, passionate love does not need
to be said. How France appreciated her in return may be indicated not
only by M. Sarcey’s emphatic dictum, "The devil take the country where
she was born! she is French in her soul," but by any letter taken at
random from hundreds which she received from men and women of France.

The following extract, faithfully translated, shows the calibre of the
people whom the Maréchale was able to reach, as well as the warm,
generous style in which the Latin races habitually express themselves.

"The evening in which you spoke of the scene on Calvary and the words of
the penitent thief, ’Remember me,’ that simple story, told by a
believing soul, had more effect upon me than all the theses, quotations
and theological arguments of all the doctors I have ever heard. That
expression, that attitude, that conviction, that certitude, that
assurance, that _living faith_ which affirmed itself before me in an
apostle, a new disciple of Christ, and that melodious voice, completed
my transformation. I believed that I was the penitent thief and you the
Christ who said to me, ’When I am in Heaven I will remember thee,’ and
that affirmation transported me....

"I marvel at the courage with which you endure fatigue, mockery,
journeys, labours of all kinds to conquer for truth and light the
millions of _savages_ who are still in France, plunged in the darkness
of error and superstition. Permit me to express once again my sincere
admiration, and to offer you in the name of my country (I am perhaps a
little presumptuous to speak in the name of France, but I have the
right, as much as the other ten millions of citizens)—in the name of my
country, and in the name of civilisation, my warm gratitude. Deign to
accept the homage ... of a very humble soldier and disciple of Christ."

Swiss love, too, was now deep and strong, as will be sufficiently proved
by a single letter, which enclosed a thankoffering.

"Dear Maréchale—(How much that word contains of affection, admiration,
and veneration, I cannot express),—These thousand francs fulfil their
end where they do the most good and give you the greatest pleasure. You
always think of yourself last, if you think of yourself at all; that is
why others must think of you. I would have liked to relieve you, dear
Maréchale, you particularly and personally. But you are devoured by the
zeal of your divine work, and all goes that way. Be it so! God will
relieve you directly by His hand. He will, but do not forget yourself
entirely, I beg of you. Care for yourself, for the sake of those who
love you, and who need your help, and who find so much happiness in your
heavenly affection.... In the love of Christ, your devoted, A.S."

In the end of that year the Maréchale needed words of good cheer, and
they were not lacking. Her sister Eva was one of her comforters,
sending many tender messages across the Atlantic. Just after Christmas
Day—Eva’s own birthday—she wrote: "I cannot say how much you have been
in my thoughts. I wished I could have popped in and had a sister’s
birthday kiss and a good talk, but the Lord came very near to me, and I
was cheered that His birthday found me very busy on mine seeking the
poor lost souls of men. The years pass, but then what matters? Every
day brings us nearer our Eternal home, does it not, and then we will
live and love together for ever and ever, all of us. Dear, darling
Katie, I don’t like to hear you say the year has been a sad one. You
are treasured by us all, by God and the world, and how much you have
done for the Kingdom as well.... There are some fond memories I
treasure which have to do with you and me, when I made you laugh and
gave you baked potatoes! I will write again soon. Till then and for
ever after always the same, Eva."

Commissioners E.D. and Lucy Booth-Hellberg—the General’s youngest
daughter—who took over the command of the Army in France and
Switzerland, wrote in their first Annual Report (1896): "One of the last
links in the long chain of desperate efforts for the salvation of
France, put forth with undiminished love and faith by the Maréchale, was
the Lyons campaign, which lasted for six weeks during the months of
January and February. Supported by a number of believing and
hard-working officers, she conducted a series of truly remarkable
meetings in the _Salle Philharmonique_, which was filled on every
occasion with an attentive and largely sympathetic audience. The
results of the campaign were most encouraging and of a decidedly
permanent nature. The local corps, which up till then had led a very
struggling existence, received a powerful lift and is now in a healthy
condition. Furthermore a considerable amount of prejudice against our
work was removed and a number of friends and sympathisers were made, the
immediate result of which was the establishment of a Rescue Home for
women in that city." Later on Lucy wrote to the Maréchale, "Darling,
your love for France is wonderful; you cannot understand it."

Had the Maréchale been sent to another of the Latin races—for example,
the Italians or the Spaniards—her gifts might still have been used to
the highest advantage. She once conducted a brief campaign in a great
hall at Turin. At the beginning she encountered a storm of opposition.
While she dedicated the child of one of her former officers, her voice
was drowned in an uproar which turned the solemn service into a fiasco.
The audience got completely out of hand, and, as a final stroke of
devilry, a troop of students, headed by a big fellow with an evil,
cynical face, came marching up the aisle, shouting, yelling and
brandishing sticks. The ringleader had made a bet that he would kiss
the Maréchale. Her officers began to think it was high time to close
the meeting. But she was not near the end of her resources. Giving her
familiar order, "Leave them to me, and pray!" she stepped to the edge of
the platform, and, when the leader was within a foot of her, fixed her
eyes on his face, raised her finger, and sang—[2]

Si tu savais comme Il t’aime,
Sans tarder tu viendrais à Lui,
Tu viendrais à l’heure même,
Tu viendrais dès aujourd’hui.

[2] This hymn was composed by one of her officers, M. Grandjean. The
tune was one of the sweetest operatic airs of the day.

The clear, sweet notes went vibrating through the great hall, and Italy
knows the power of song. The ringleader stood staring as if he had been
petrified, and his followers did not advance another step. While the
Maréchale sang on, she was heard in breathless silence. Then she spoke
for an hour. The after-meeting lasted till midnight, and the leader of
the students, completely broken down and sobbing like a child, said,
"Oh, stay with us, you will make angels of us all!"

In Holland, where the Maréchale laboured six years, she was heavily
handicapped by the fact that most of her speaking had to be done through
an interpreter. She had not that Open Sesame to the heart of a
people—the mastery of its language. She learned, however, to sing
beautifully in Dutch, and the translation of her addresses was admirably
done by her secretary. If she could not deny that her heart was still
in the Rue Auber of Paris, she repressed her tears and took her new
task—a very tangled one—resolutely in hand, doing some deep and lasting
spiritual work in Amsterdam and other towns, where she sometimes had as
many as forty or fifty penitents in one night.

She was lacking in what a statesman called "Batavian grace," being cast
in a very different mould, yet she came ere long to feel quite at home
among the warm-hearted Dutch people. She had taught Paris to sing her
hymn, "_Aimez toujours, et malgrez tout aimez toujours_," and now she
put the lesson into practice in Holland. Preaching and living the
gospel of love, she had many tokens of success among all classes. Best
of all, she awoke in others the wistful desire to imitate her example.
One of Queen Wilhelmina’s cabinet ministers brought his daughter, a
thoughtful young girl, to a meeting conducted by the Maréchale, and when
those who were willing to give themselves to Christ and His service were
invited to show it in some way, up went the hand of this eager girl.
Her father at once whisked her out of the meeting. But the deed was
done, and now there is no one who is doing a nobler work among the poor
and sunken classes of Holland than Miss Rose Pierson. Of that happy day
in her life she wrote long afterwards: "When I first heard the Maréchale
speak I was a girl of seventeen. I remember still every word she spoke.
I know it was a revelation to me what a reality Christ could be to a
soul. I believe that was what impressed me—her perfect assurance of
Christ’s presence and her own ardent love of souls."

Holland gave the Maréchale two of her most efficient secretaries, Miss
Van der Werken and Miss de Zwaan, who ideally fulfilled all the
requirements of the office—ability and willingness to nurse a babe, make
a cup of tea, write a letter, cook a decent dinner, talk in two or three
languages, keep the door of a hall, preach a sermon, and generally make
the best of everything!

It is possible that the Maréchale’s exile from France deepened and
enriched her nature, drawing out stops not so often used before,
especially the _vox humana_—the voice of sympathy with all human pain
and sorrow. At the same time she began to have a more tragic sense of
the world’s sin, which prompted one of her strangest and yet most
characteristic impulses, and issued in what was in some ways the most
remarkable of all her campaigns.

One midnight, while she lay awake in Amsterdam, she heard a clear inner
voice saying to her, "Go to Brussels; go in sackcloth and ashes; go and
tell of sin; let everything in your person speak of sin and awaken
conscience; then proclaim, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the
sin of the world."

Without waiting to take counsel with flesh and blood, she went with her
nurse-secretary Swaan and her babe Frida, the child of peace, to
Brussels, and hired for three weeks the most beautiful hall in the city,
the Salle de la Grande Harmonic—the same in which fair women and brave
men danced on the eve of Waterloo.

When she at length divulged to one of her comrades the fact that she was
to appear in sackcloth and ashes, he answered—

"You cannot! never!"

"I must, it is so commanded."

So a _robe de bure_ was made for her—a single-seamed garment of the
coarse brown stuff worn by monks, with a hole cut out for the neck and
two for the arms, and a hempen rope for the waist.

Before the opening meeting she had intimate dealings with her officers.
"It is necessary," she said, "that one die for the people. I want to
bring that thoughtless, frivolous city into touch with God. I wish your
faces to speak of another world. It is your minds and hearts that I
seek. If you are going to think of your own people and your own
concerns, if you are going to be preoccupied with a hundred and one
things, go back at once. I am going to live these three weeks as if
they were the last on earth. I have left home and little ones and am
going to exist for this town. If Christ laid down His life for us, we
have got to lay down our lives for the salvation of Brussels." There
were heart-searchings and confessions and tears among the officers;
fresh alliances were made with God; and the Maréchale believed that this
was one of the secrets of the wonderful success of that campaign.

On the evening of the first meeting, she clothed herself in the _robe de
bure_, and put real ashes on her head. But if ever the devil in person
attacked any poor soul, the Maréchale felt herself so assailed in those
moments when the great hall was filling and she was waiting. What shafts
of ridicule were hurled at her as by a spiritual foe! Could any dress
he more ridiculous, any realism more contemptible? How comical was that
assumption of the rôle of prophet! What a miserable fiasco the whole
performance would prove! She was seized with a paralysing fear, and
when Antomarchi—her "St. Francis"—came to announce that the audience was
ready, he found her white as a sheet and shaking from head to foot.

"Have I made a mistake?" she asked.

"No! Maréchale, go on! go on! it is all right!"

"Tell them to sing and pray, and then I will come."

Her soul gathered strength from the strains of her own hymn, "_O toi!
bien-aimé fils de l’homme_," with the chorus—

Viens, Jésus t’appelle;
Ne sois plus rebelle.
Viens au bien-aimé Fils de Dieu,
Crois en sa tendresse éternelle—

as well as from the succeeding silence in which she knew that faithful
hearts were praying for her. The clouds vanished, the fear of men was
gone, and only the awe of the unseen world remained upon her spirit.

Slowly she walked onto the platform, not raising her eyes from the
ground. The audience seemed petrified by the strange apparition. After
a moment of deathly silence, her clear, penetrating voice sounded
through the hall.

"’He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief ... and we esteemed Him not. _Nous n’en avons fait aucun
cas_.’

"If I wear mourning to-night, it is the better to express the feelings
which are in the depths of my heart. Your people, who are capable of
great things, are going to their ruin. On all hands there are nameless
miseries, despairing cries of women and children without defence and
exposed to shame and the most frightful misery, and why? Because you
have made Him—Christ—of no account. I mourn your sins, the sins of your
country; the drunkenness, the debauchery, the selfishness, the wrongs
which are seen everywhere; your rejection of the Christ of God, the
Saviour of the world. This fills me with sorrow, and this, unless it is
forsaken, will bring upon you the judgments of God."

Thus she unburdened her soul, and thus began not a three weeks’ but a
two months’ campaign, which from the first moment—in so strange contrast
to the tumultuous openings at Havre and Rouen—was marked by a beautiful
reverence and solemnity. The services of the police were never required
during the whole time. Four or five evening meetings were held every
week, besides afternoon gatherings, _salon_ meetings, and midnight
suppers. All Brussels was moved. An eminent statesman said to the
Maréchale, "Everybody has been ridiculed here except you. Ridicule
kills everything; you have killed ridicule."

In the full tide of the mission she wrote to her father: "Most
marvellously is God working here in Brussels. Last night I had the
concert-hall crowded and a great number were turned back at the door.
The silence, the attention is unbroken, and there is conviction among
all kind of persons. Worldly and Catholic papers speak beautifully of
us. Four journals have given leading articles to me. Praise God, it is
all His work! This morning I had a conversation with a senator who is
at the head of the party of progress here, and he says that the movement
is the most remarkable "the city has seen for a hundred years and that
the effects are profound and astonishing." Another senator has sent me
£20. I feel more than ever now I ought to continue and push the battle.
We shall be able to do something extraordinary and put Belgium on a new
footing."

The first senator referred to in the letter was M. le Jeune, who said to
the Maréchale—

"The bar, the artist world, society, Catholic and Protestant—they have
all come to hear you. You are universal, Madame."

"Yes," she answered, "the Christ is universal."

During these two months she had daily interviews with men and women
crushed under the burden of all kinds of sin—a burden that weighed so
heavily on her own spirit that sometimes, instead of delivering an
address, she could only fall on her knees and cry to God to forgive all
the sins that come from the heart of man—murders, adulteries, thefts,
uncleanness, lies, blasphemies—all of which had been confessed to her.

It was a time of wonderful spiritual blessing for all her comrades, who,
like her, literally "lived for the people." One of them said, "We have
grown as much with you in these weeks as in twenty years."

To a thousand men of the _élite_ of Brussels she delivered an
address—which was afterwards published—on "The Greatest Injustice of the
Century." It was a woman’s mournful, tender, passionate protest against
man’s sins in a city which had its twelve thousand so-called _filles de
joie_, many of them of the tenderest years. One of her audience, a
typical Brussels man of the world, covering his face with a hand on
which flashed a diamond ring, and shaking with great sobs of anguish,
cried, "I am a leper—damned already!" "Madame," said an editor, "they
would hiss anybody else who said these things to them. They bear them
from you, because they feel you love them."

One day she received an invitation to dine with a dozen anarchists. Her
comrades told her of the danger of bombs, etc., but she went, and, many
years after when asked by an English Divine, "How did you get into such
society?" she answered, "Extremes meet."

"So you are come to talk to us," said Elisée Recluse[3] with a smile,
"of justification by faith and sanctification by faith," etc.

[3] Exiled from France as an anarchist, he had become a Professor in
Brussels. He had been trained as a Protestant Pastor. He was the
greatest geographer of modern times, the writer of _Une nouvelle
géographie universelle_ (19 vols.).

"Oh, no, no! I do not talk of doctrines. They never troubled me in my
life. I care only for realities. You have suffered; I too have
suffered. Let us begin there, and compare notes. Some of you have been
in prison; I have been in prison. You have been exiled; so have I. You
have wept over the injustice and cruelties of the world; so have I wept,
so do I weep."

And thus they found common ground, agreeing in their diagnosis of the
diseases of society; differing only as to the remedy. "You believe in
anarchy," said the Maréchale. "One of your number said at one of my
meetings that anarchy is the most beautiful of all religions. I know a
more excellent way—a shorter cut to making the world better. You fling
your bombs to destroy life; how can people be converted when their heads
are gone? Christ said ’Follow me to Calvary!’ He shed His _own_ blood.
No one else’s. He bids us save the world by denying ourselves and
taking up the Cross."

That evening Elisée Recluse drove her in his carriage to her meeting at
the _Salle Harmonie_, and in her little ante-room they prayed together.

A Brussels sculptor begged the Maréchale to pose for him in her _robe de
bure_, but she declined. Renée Gange, the heroine of the Belgian
socialists, after passionately embracing her before a thousand eyes,
published a charming pen-and-ink portrait of "this enigmatic woman,"
comparing her to a serene, calm statue that _almost_ smiles. "The fine
and slender figure of the Maréchale will long remain one of the most
curious, the most strange apparitions in the midst of our society of
money-makers and machine-constructors."

The prophet, the mystic, the saint will always be a mystery to the art
and science, not to speak of the sin and selfishness, of the world. This
truth was finely expressed by a writer in _L’Art moderne_ of Brussels.
"The Maréchale does not seek to ’demonstrate’ anything. I have seen her
shrug her shoulders a little and smile when some one wished to reason or
discuss with her. She could do it, for she is intelligent and
_merveilleusement intuitive_. But her faith does not ’demonstrate’
itself. It lives and expands itself. It affirms itself. And those
who, now numerous, have some psychological tact have felt that this
woman obeyed something more powerful than herself. Perhaps she is the
happy and unconscious instrument of an expansive force too much ignored,
too little recognised and obeyed, as necessary for our preservation as
the law of self-preservation itself.... Her addresses are neither
weighed nor balanced. But they have the colour, the life, the strong
suggestiveness, the moving sincerity of an inspiration come from one
knows not where, from above us, from outside us—mysterious impulses of
things eternal."

*CHAPTER XIV*

*TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE*

In the year 1902 the Maréchale and her husband severed their connection
with the Salvation Army. Concerning the causes that led to this, it is
their united wish that nothing should be said that would interrupt the
good feeling that has always existed, and still exists between them and
thousands of their old and dearly loved comrades in that organization.

There are those who have misjudged the Maréchale in this matter, as
having taken this step for personal advantage, and without due regard to
its effect on her father and his work. How little do they know the
truth. To one who has read the correspondence of those days, and all
other days since, who has watched within the inner circle of the home,
overhearing the most confidential conversations, nothing could be so
shocking a contravention of the truth as to accuse this devoted daughter
either of parental disregard, or self-willed unconcern for the welfare
of the Kingdom of Christ. This step cost heart’s blood to the
Maréchale.

"Katie," said the General in Victoria Station, when she was starting on
her second journey to France, "you have remarkable instincts; follow
them, and you will never go wrong." Twenty years after, her friend
Mlle. Constance Monod, the daughter of the great French preacher, wrote
to her, "I would beseech you to trust yourself, trust your divine
instinct, which God has developed so, so wonderfully in you."

Heredity, training and experience had combined to give her the instincts
of a prophetic soul-winner. The grace of God had imparted to her a
spirit of wisdom and revelation. Her intuitions were at once her
strength and her safety. Her instinctive love of the true, the
beautiful, and the good, her instinctive hatred of the false, the
sordid, and the selfish, formed the touchstone to which she brought
everything in the moral, social and religious life of France. Great
numbers of the _élite_ of Paris and other cities, who were technically
far better educated than she, came and sat at her feet, because they
bowed to the authority of the Christ-Spirit in her. And her instincts
of sympathy with poor, sick, suffering souls drew multitudes who were
outside the pale of the Church to the Saviour.

She always maintained that she went on her mission as a simple English
girl, doing only what any other girl, with the same opportunities and
the same faith, might have done. There is a divine power in a woman’s
instincts of purity and righteousness which puts the baseness of men to
shame. That power, many believe, will be the chief factor in the
salvation of the modern Church and modern society. Ours is an age which
needs Deborahs and Huldahs with their divine instincts. The Song of
Songs tells how a simple Hebrew girl, tempted by the glory of the world,
but strong in her passion of holy love, merited the wonderful
ascription, "Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, _terrible as an army
with banners_." If the Christian womanhood of the twentieth century
rises to that level, the future of the Kingdom of God will be far more
glorious than its past.

The Maréchale’s instincts for the beautiful in nature and in art
doubtless constituted no small part of her charm for the Latin races.
She looked at all the glory of heaven and earth with a poet’s eyes.
During her early crowded life of evangelism in England, her father once
took her on a tour through the Trossachs of Scotland, and the memory of
that vision of beauty at the age of sixteen ever afterwards haunted her
like a passion. "Let me stay here!" she said to the General, whose
reply, calling a soldier to arms, equally remained in her memory: "Men
are more interesting than scenery." If she scarcely ever took holidays
in after life, it was not that she did not sometimes sigh for the wings
of a dove that she might fly away and be at rest. There was a lifelong
conflict between the natural and the ascetic in her.

She had never had time to cultivate any art except music, but her sense
of everything lovely in form and colour and sound was exquisite, and she
became without study a supreme artist in at least one department. At
the time of the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, there was a
grand Exhibition of all that women can do in the modern world. A
deputation waited on the Maréchale and begged her to give an address
along with two other well-known lady speakers. She agreed to come,
provided she should be allowed to choose her own subject. Consent was
readily given, and she delivered an address in French upon what Christ
has done for Woman and what Woman for Christ. She gave no thought to
the manner of delivery; she merely realised that she had a golden
opportunity of proclaiming her Saviour to a magnificent audience. She
had never in her life received a lesson in elocution, and to have done
so might have seemed to her wicked backsliding. But she was awarded the
palm of eloquence.

If her scholastic education was somewhat defective, she was wonderfully
guided by her instincts in her later self-education. During her
American tour she was taken one day by three white-haired professors to
see the greatest library in the States. Her unsophisticated mind was
bewildered by all that mass of learning. "Surely," she said, "it must
strike despair into the minds of the students!"

One of her guides questioned her about her own favourite books.

"Well," she answered, "I have never been a reader; I think I have only
two."

"What might they be?"

"One of them you know."

"Yes, the Bible; what is the second?"

"The Heart of Man. I am always at it, on land and sea, in the streets
and in railway carriages, morning, noon and night. It helps me with my
first book better than any commentary."

She came to know the Bible with a thoroughness which not one man in ten
thousand ever attains. Her spiritual instinct seized, and her
extraordinary memory retained, the vital and the essential. She never
studied the Bible in the ordinary way, sitting down with lexicon and
concordance. There was no time for that in her busy life. She took her
spiritual food from the Bible as the bee sips honey from flowers. The
Bible was her companion and she read it for pleasure. She absorbed and
assimilated it without effort. That she knew much of it by heart was of
less importance than the fact that it became part of herself. Therein
lay her power of expounding and applying it. "Nothing," said Dr. Munroe
Gibson after listening to her nightly for a week, "charmed our people
more than her expositions of Scripture."

The truths by which she lived came to her intuitively. Her religion did
not consist of commandments and dogmas. It was life, light, liberty,
and above all love. Alike in what she accepted and what she rejected,
she acted instinctively—she could do no other. She had an aversion to
religious controversy. Arguments made little or no impression upon her
mind. She might sometimes be overwhelmed with theological doctrines,
the truth of which she could neither affirm nor deny, but in the end she
would emerge with the naïve remark, "I am a very simple child, and I
must have a child’s religion." She always held that Christ’s religion
is for the multitude, and that the multitude are children. The essence
of Christianity can be assimilated by boys and girls who do not know how
to read and write, and they may become saints and saviours. A glance at
the Maréchale’s well-used Bible suffices to prove that for her the heart
of the Old Testament is in Hosea, the prophet of love, and Isaiah the
prophet of atonement, while the heart of the New Testament is in the
story of the returning prodigal or the penitent Magdalene.

Genius is never easy to understand. Its weakness is often related to
its strength. It has what the French call the defects of its qualities.
A great part of the Maréchale’s power certainly lay in her childlike
humility. As a soul-winner she never gave the impression of
condescending. She did not need to stoop; by nature and by grace she
was meek and lowly in heart. What drew multitudes of poor sinners to
her was their assurance that she would hear with human sympathy their
tales of sin and sorrow. At one of her midnight suppers a French lady
said to her, "I have been here all these years trying to bring these
poor girls together. How is it that you succeed where I fail, in
getting them to open their hearts to you?"

"Perhaps," said the Maréchale, "it is because I do not make them feel
that there is a difference between them and me."

With her humility there was bound up a certain measure of self-distrust.
In her, as in her father, whom she resembled so strongly in spirit as
well as in features, there was an extraordinary combination of
confidence and diffidence. It used to be said by those who knew the
General most intimately that, while he commanded an Army, he was
apologetic to his cook. And if the Maréchale had a splendid moral
courage, as her manner of dealing with hostile crowds abundantly proved,
she had also a womanly timidity in which there lay a certain subtle
danger. So long as she had faith in her God-given instincts, and in the
individual guidance of the Holy Spirit, she was unconquerable, but if
anything undermined them her power was for the time being paralysed. For
the criticisms of the world she cared little or nothing, but the real
love and understanding of her comrades was as the breath of life to her.
From them she was always eager to learn, and sometimes she let the
judgment of others obscure her spiritual and womanly intuitions.

She would sit at the feet of this or that teacher who spoke with an air
of wisdom and authority, when in nine cases out of ten the relation of
teacher and taught ought to have been reversed. As a rule, her
instincts made her a swift and unerring discerner of spirits, but there
were exceptional cases in which it almost seemed disloyalty to "try the
spirits whether they are of God." One of her life-long friends, Mr. W.
T. Stead, who went down on the ill-fated _Titanic_, knew both sides of
her character—her lion-like boldness as well as her dove-like
gentleness. He used to relate how she one day invaded the office of the
_Pall Mall Gazette_, and summoned him with all the categorical
imperiousness of her nature and her mission to quit politics and edit
the _War Cry_. Yet he used to say to her, with a seriousness that was
not altogether assumed, "You are damned by your humility!"

It is well known that the Maréchale’s husband was for a time a believer
in Dr. Dowie, the Scotsman who founded Zion City beside Chicago.
Finding that certain doctrines such as Faith Healing, the Second Advent,
the Rapture of the Saints, which were to him, as to thousands of others,
of vital importance,—were being faithfully preached by one who claimed
to be the second Elijah, the Forerunner of Christ, Mr. Booth-Clibborn
became a member of the Christian Catholic Church. Having been a Quaker
minister before his twenty years of faithful service in the Salvation
Army, he also cherished the hope of perfecting Zionism by adding to it
his own peace principles.

The Maréchale could not accept Dr. Dowie’s claims, but in her intense
desire for family unity she consented to go with her husband to see Zion
City, taking her two eldest daughters, Evangeline and Victoria, then
fourteen and thirteen years of age, and baby Josephine, who was but four
months old, with her. They remained there four months, July to October,
1902.

The diary and letters which she wrote during that visit are
psychologically and Spiritually among the most interesting human
documents I have ever seen, and sufficiently indicate her attitude of
mind at this time. But let us draw a veil, except for one or two
incidents and extracts, over the dark anguish of soul, the torture of
uncertainty, and the depths of despair which she then passed through.

She implored Dr. Dowie to take her husband and ordain him without her,
but he emphatically refused to do so.

The following paragraph, taken from her diary, shows in what a painful
predicament she found herself. Speaking of a friendly adviser, she
says: "He said, as I was the wife, the responsibility was on my husband,
and I must stand by him, even if he was in error, and God would forgive
me if it was a mistake." I felt so much taken aback by the way he
looked at the matter that I turned the key of my heart.

To one of her dearest friends she wrote a long letter, which was a cry
out of the depths: "I am not easily given to discouragement or despair,
but my position must make angels weep, if they can weep. I cannot bring
myself to accept Dowie, so much in him violates the highest spiritual
instincts I have.... The forcing of me outwardly does not convince me.
I have yielded all along the line, and now here I am ... but I am not in
despair. I have been. It seems to me as if God, who has seen the long
agony, will himself open the door. I cannot go further in this
direction.... I feel a fear over everything. I never was so unutterably
unhappy in my life, never. Oh, will you not help me?"

One day the prophet was attacking some noted evangelists of the day.
Presently he began to fulminate against the Salvation Army, and accused
the General of failing to reprove the sins of the rich. The Maréchale
leapt to her feet, and facing the prophet with outstretched finger and
flashing eye, an image of outraged justice, exclaimed, "That is an
untruth! No man has been more faithful in reproving the rich than my
father and it is cowardly of you to attack a man who is not here to
defend himself." The prophet visibly quailed under the withering
rebuke. It was the first time any one had withstood him to the face.
With an hour of thundering oratory he tried to obliterate the impression
made on the vast audience, but for once he was evidently checkmated.

At length Dr. Dowie, seeing he could not overcome the Maréchale’s
opposition, and that her unwilling presence in the city was a disturbing
factor among his people, requested her and her husband to withdraw. Mr.
Booth-Clibborn, of whose absolute sincerity there can be no doubt, was
keenly disappointed at having to turn his back upon Zion, which had
become to him, as the Salvation Army in its early days a cause to live
for, and if need be to die for.

The strain on the Maréchale had been so great that when she arrived in
England she was utterly prostrated. Two dear old cousins of her
husband’s, the Misses Susan and Esther Bell, in Eastbourne, nursed her
back to life. Then came two dark, silent years in Brussels. The
Maréchale looked for a friend and found none. All the world believed
that she had "joined Zion." The French papers announced that she had
burned (_brulé_) the principles for which she had once fought. Her
daughter Victoria, who was with her in those years of lonely sorrow,
writes: "Gradually her strength left her. She suffered dumbly, vainly
hoping for some deliverance. Was this the Maréchale who had led her
army to battle and faced the howling mob with a smile on her face? Her
sorrow had crushed and sapped her courage which the storm of persecution
only served to quicken."

Her children had starvation staring them in the face; another terrible
illness, brought on by household care, laid her low; her spirit was
exhausted by the torturing strain of years; and she could hold out no
longer. In a "blind faith, without conviction," she was received into
Zion Church. Broken on the wheel of life, stretched too long upon the
rack of this tough world, she accepted—like Savonarola and Galileo, like
Cranmer and Jeanne d’Arc—an alien creed, without her reason being
convinced or her heart won.

But—again like those—not for long. Her deliverance came in a startling
fashion. Soon after her removal with her family to Paris, her husband
began to suffer from the effects of a neglected influenza which settled
in his knee. True to his principles, he refused to see a doctor. When
he was at the brink of death, the Maréchale brought in a physician in
the guise of a friend. The sick man’s case was at first pronounced to
be hopeless, but three of the finest surgeons of Paris were hastily
summoned, performed four operations, and saved his life, leaving him,
however, crippled for the rest of his days.

The dismissal of Mr. Booth-Clibborn followed as a matter of course. He
had violated the strictest laws of Zion by accepting the aid of surgery.
Two of his own converts, now followers of Dr. Dowie, invaded the sick
room, and handed him the fateful document. Some time afterward he
wrote: "Dowie was a good man at one time. So was the devil. Dowie fell
through the same sin—Pride." In addition to a statement which was
published in four countries, he has recently borne the following
conclusive testimony: "The Maréchale would never have had anything to do
with Dr. Dowie but for me. When she came near him it was on every
occasion unwillingly. She suffered unutterable anguish, pain and grief,
from the fact that from the first all her instincts, as well as the
consciousness of her true religious interest, were against Dr. Dowie’s
spiritual personality, his ways, his claims, his style of government.
If, in a kind of despair, she went with me into it, though she was in it
she was not of it. It was never sought, it was endured. The only
comfort in the enduring was the possibility of doing a little good
meanwhile to people in it, and of ultimately helping in the opening of
my eyes."

*CHAPTER XV*

*SURSUM CORDA!*

All the Maréchale’s hearers remember her penetrating gaze. No one ever
encountered her eyes and saw them shift. Thousands have felt as if she
were looking through all disguises into their very souls, and her
tapering index finger has often made the bravest quail. "All through the
night," wrote a convicted sinner, "I saw her finger pointing straight at
me." And one feels certain that her look was never more direct, never
more searching, than when it was turned inward. She has always had a
passion for seeing things as they are, especially the things of the
spirit.

We are not surprised, therefore, at her often repeated words: "This
experience has taught me the folly of violating God-given instinct, and
allowing the inner light of God’s Holy Spirit to be darkened by man.
When I compare myself with what I was in the past, in many respects it
seems as if that person was dead!"

Drawn by the cords of love, held by ties too sacred to be broken, worn
by years of poverty and sickness, and moving at last in a kind of
trance, more dead than alive, one of God’s truest and bravest servants
blindly stumbled on till she found herself, for a time of agony, in a
spiritual prison-house from which there seemed to be no escape.

Her greatest danger lay in a kind of fatalistic submission, which would
have meant permanent disloyalty to her own ideals and convictions, as
well as the abandonment of her vocation. She read the letters of Père
Didon, whose heroic acceptance of his destiny influenced her in the
direction of sinking her individuality. And one cannot understand the
exquisite torture of her position unless one realises that her mind had
often been made an arena of conflict between the apparently
irreconcilable claims of the domestic and the apostolic life. And yet,
Father Hyacinth once said to her in Paris, "You are the only woman I
have ever met who has reconciled the vocation of a mother with that of
an apostle." It may be appropriate to say here that the prayers of both
father and mother have been answered in the conversion of their ten
children, who have of their own free will consecrated themselves to the
service of Christ. Four sons and three daughters are already engaged in
active evangelistic work, and have been used of God for the conversion
of many souls.

To bring the Maréchale back to liberty, God used the voices of nature,
of children and of friends.

She had always had a poet’s sensitive ear for earth’s thousand voices of
praise, and, sitting in a garden on a spring morning, she wrote: "The
past, whoever was right or wrong, shall be buried. Let the dead bury
their dead. Leave it, and this beautiful spring-tide let us begin again.
The crocuses and snowdrops in this lovely garden all say, ’New
Resurrection life!’"

Her own children’s voices called her back into the thick of the old
spiritual battle. "Now for the children," she wrote; "they must all see
some salvation work, and they will feel the glow of the heavenly fire.
It will warm them, and say something far more than all the Bible lessons
in the world." Her eldest daughters, at that time girls of sixteen and
fifteen, but with a wisdom far beyond their years, literally pushed her
into the war, and if ever she was unable to go they buckled on their
armour and took her place. "Mother writes me," says Victoria in her
journal, "that Evangeline held a beautiful meeting on Sunday because she
herself was too ill to go. Poor mother, it is difficult for her to keep
up her courage." This diarist of fifteen thus philosophises on the
meaning of her mother’s sorrow. "Everybody can understand why God lets
people of the world, the infidels, the self-seekers, the indifferent,
suffer. It is to bring them to Himself through disappointments in the
world, in themselves, and in others. But why He allows His children
that love Him, those whose greatest wish is to serve Him—why He allows
them to suffer is a mystery. Perhaps it is to bring them into still
closer communion with Himself, so that they may become one with Him—His,
body, soul and spirit, without reserve."

The Maréchale’s friends helped to bring her back to her predestined work
of soul-winning.

During a time of awful silence, in which she never received a call and
rarely a letter, she had not courage to visit any of her old comrades in
Paris. Once, in her great sorrow, she wanted to get away to some
sympathising friend and open her heart. At first she could think of no
one, but suddenly she remembered a humble working woman, and, taking the
train to Paris, she wearily climbed to the fifth story of a house in the
Villette, sat down in this woman’s little room, and burst into a flood
of tears. Her friend tried to comfort her and, not quite understanding
this passionate grief, made her lie down in her own bed while she
prepared for her a delicious little French meal.

Twenty years before, on a dark winter night, the Maréchale was passing
along the Seine embankment on the way to her place of meeting on the
Quai de Valmy. She noticed a girl gazing at the dark, cold waters, and
a voice told her that she was meditating suicide. Touching her arm she
said—

"Don’t look at those black, cruel waters. Come with me and have a nice
cup of coffee. You seem to be in trouble."

The girl, whose face was dark and sullen, looked at her suspiciously,
and did not speak. The Maréchale gently pleaded with her to come and
hear a lady sing.

"She sings beautifully, and you will find light and warmth and comfort,
and you will have a good cup of coffee. Do come with me."

The girl at length consented and came. She heard the Maréchale herself
sing. She sat right through the service without opening her lips and
with a hard look on her face. At the end the Maréchale went down beside
her, asked if she had enjoyed the meeting, and said a word to her about
the goodness of God. At the mention of the name of God, the girl burst
into passionate speech.

"God! Don’t talk to me of God! I hate Him. What has He done for me?
Why did He take my mother? He doesn’t care for me. If He did He would
not have let me be born in prison. What have I done to deserve such a
life as this? It isn’t my fault."

But, while the Maréchale talked with her and prayed with her, the girl’s
heart was softened. She began to attend the meetings, and soon gave her
heart to the Lord Jesus. Born in a prison, and saved from suicide in
the Seine, she became in turn her rescuer’s best comforter in an hour of
supreme sorrow.

When the Maréchale at length plucked up heart to revisit England, after
a long absence and silence, her steps were directed to the home of a
dear friend and kindred spirit in South London. It was in early
girlhood that Mrs. Holman of Jerviston was first attracted to the
Maréchale. Her mother had, as Lady Mayoress, invited Miss Booth, before
the work began in France, to address a drawing-room meeting in her
house, and the indelible impressions made on a receptive mind on that
day proved an inspiration to a lifetime of quiet and devoted service of
Christ. But so timid and dejected had the Maréchale become that she
dreaded the reception that might await her even in the home of a
lifelong friend! She trembled as she dragged herself across Streatham
Common. She sat down on a seat and—her ruling passion strong as
ever—spoke to a beggar about his soul, feeling a certain new kinship
with all outcasts and pariahs. When she stood before her friend’s door
she scarcely had courage to ring the bell, and if she had been told to
go to the kitchen and have a cup of tea with the servants, she would
have answered quite simply, "Yes, I will go." But Mr. Holman himself
opened the door, and his hearty welcome and the outflow of a perfect
sympathy at once cast all her fears to the winds. Her friends were
ministering angels to her. They nursed her back to health, dried her
tears, and made her smile. Their little daughter—now one of the
sweetest singers in London—carolled to her every morning and awoke "the
hallelujah bird" again in her own breast. And God Himself was meanwhile
doing for her what even the best of friends could not do—giving her the
Resurrection Life, re-animating her hope, baptising her afresh with the
Spirit, not of fear, but of power and of love, breaking all shackles and
making her free—free from the ensnaring fear of man, free to obey the
Divine call she had received even as a child—woman’s Pentecostal call to
prophesy for Christ, her one and only Master.

_Aller An fang ist schwer_, and the difficulties which the Maréchale
encountered at the resumption of her work were enough to make any but
the stoutest heart faint. If she had in the past shown a bravery
transcending that of even the bravest all this was of small account
compared to the heroism now required of her. In the past she had the
help of her own people, her spiritual children, and a strong
organization back of her. Now she was utterly alone, thousands all over
the world had an erroneous conception of the entire situation, and many
even believed she had made shipwreck of her faith. Her daughter
Victoria stands out during that lonely period of beginnings. With
remarkably clear judgment, discernment and sympathy she cheered and
inspired her mother with her own enthusiastic hopefulness and vivid
faith.

The greatest service anyone could render the Maréchale was to bid her go
on, fulfil her destiny, believe that God would again mightily use and
bless her. It might seem a small thing to say, "Be of good cheer," yet
it was one of those "little nothings" for which she was ever afterwards
profoundly grateful. I remember her coming one evening into my Chelsea
study in a mood of depression, baffled by life’s insoluble mysteries.
Wondering what would lighten for her the burden and the weary weight, I
took down Browning and began to read "Rabbi ben Ezra," which was new to
her. From the opening words—

The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was planned—

to the magnificent close, that inspired _Sursum Corda_ thrilled her as a
message direct from the great Heart of God. Only in one thing did she
venture to differ from the poet. "He sees his heaven beyond," she said;
"I want mine down here in the salvation of souls."

As soon as she resumed her work, she had her reward in signs following
everywhere. Doors opened to her, first in England, then in Scotland,
Ireland and Wales. She brought the breath of life into many churches,
rekindled the zeal of many workers for Christ, and broke the chains
which had bound multitudes of souls to an evil past.

Her own experience had given her, as a physician of souls, perhaps a
deeper sympathy, a surer insight, a greater power to grapple with every
form of evil than ever she had before. It became her mission to save
people from themselves by convincing them that only one thing is
entirely worth doing—living like Christ by letting Christ live in them.
There are certainly few evangelists who have changed the whole current
of so many lives in our country. Young ladies about to pass within
convent walls have found a more excellent way by receiving the living
Christ into their hearts. Actors and singers have consecrated their
gifts to Christ and His kingdom. Young men of the world have heard the
call of God and resolved to enter the ministry or go to the
mission-field. God’s gift of life has revealed to many questioning eyes
its glorious possibilities. Multitudes who had no faith have heard
another say that she has faith for them—a faith which has somehow
dispelled the mists of doubt and error and brought them into the
sunlight of Divine love.

At the same time her ever-deepening knowledge of her two books, the
Bible and the Heart of Man, have made her a unique preacher to
preachers. One night at Keswick, in the summer of 1907, a brilliant
young Scottish minister, who was a member of a large house-party of
clergymen attending the annual Convention, came home late for supper.

"Excuse me," he said, as he sat down, "but I could not tear myself away
from the open-air meeting in the Square. I never heard such speaking in
my life. I stood transfixed. The preacher was the daughter of General
Booth, and I never knew the English language was such a magnificent
weapon until to-night. Her preaching was extraordinary."

Next day, through Dr. Harry Guinness, who was her host, she was invited
to address that house-party. Another preacher who was present has
recorded his impressions. "After tea we all gathered our chairs in a
circle round her as she opened up some sacred chapters in her life.
Hour after hour sped. No one thought of moving to go to the Tent
meetings. There we sat spellbound, through a long evening, feeling we
had never come across such a being before. This was the first of many
such meetings, to which as many outsiders were invited as the large
drawing-room could hold. What evenings these were! Highland worthies
sat gazing at her with open-mouthed wonder, held by her witchery, her
strange tales from actual life, by her wisdom and pathos. Her voice,
rich and sweet, sometimes fell to dreamy cadences, and sometimes rose to
the bugling of a gale. It thrilled people and it melted them. Her eyes
were wonderful. Sometimes they rested on one person in the audience
with a soft and appealing look; then they gleamed and blazed with holy
passion. Her long arms with their fine tapering fingers—how they helped
to express her mind! But it was the face that was the great exponent,
and as emotions played on her own mobile features she also touched the
deep chords of every minister’s heart. What struck us most was the
access she won to the hearts of penitents. The mother-love in her was
so deep and real that we all felt as if we, too, could give her our
sacred confidences. A favourite word of hers was from St. Augustine,
’Love, and do as you like,’ and every man in our company felt she was a
living illustration of it. Her beautiful and choice language, simple,
fresh, exquisitely fitting, and used with superb ease and mastery, was a
constant amazement. She never attempted addresses or expositions, but
her talks, for no other name would she apply, were now and again gemmed
with texts which came as with a flash of diamonds, flaming."

Thus she revealed herself to men who know that the care of all cares is
the "cure" of souls—_cura curarum cura animarum_. She warned them that
the "apostolic life," the most Christ-like of all vocations, is only for
those who are willing to "fill up that which is lacking of the
sufferings of Christ." Prayer and fasting, love and sacrifice, real
asceticism combined with joyful enthusiasm are the conditions of success
in the never-ending warfare with evil. The world will always be a broad
field of battle. But the living Christ gives so much of His real
presence that His service is liberty and His rewards are sure. No
breath of human praise can compare with the fervent and life-long
gratitude which souls rescued from the powers of darkness bear to their
deliverer. Since the Maréchale laid aside the French language—-perhaps
only for a time—and resumed her mother-tongue, she has received
literally thousands of English letters from both continents testifying
to blessings received through her ministry. I here give a few carefully
selected extracts from these letters with a few words of introduction.

One Sunday morning, as the Maréchale was about to address a large
congregation, the minister whispered to her: "You see those two young
ladies in black, if you can do anything with them, it would be a
miracle."

In one of the after-meetings of the mission, the Maréchale approached
the elder of these ladies and ventured to speak with her, but intense
reserve on her part made conversation impossible. A cloud of utter
despair seemed to have settled on her spirit. The look in her eyes
revealed sorrow too deep for words.

This is her story:

"At twelve o’clock one night I was returning home from business with my
mother and only sister. I found the body of my father hanging in the
corridor! I was so horrified that for a moment I could not move, then,
recovering my presence of mind, I put out the lights and called my
mother and sister to another door, just in time to prevent them seeing
the sight. _But I can never forget it!_

"Then my mother’s health broke down, and for four years I faithfully
watched and cared for her.

"During this second painful trial I received the startling news that my
dearest and only brother had met with a serious accident while driving
his own automobile. On arriving at the hospital in all haste I was met
with the words, ’Too late.’ He was gone! The scene which followed is
too terrible for me to speak of. We adored him! The effects of the
shock hastened my mother’s death. We said good-bye to her, and oh, the
recollection of it haunts me still.

"After my mother’s death my sister and I left the house of tragedy,
broken down with sorrow and grief. These blows were beyond my powers of
endurance. In vain did I seek some ray of comfort. Then I grew
careless! Wine began to get a hold on me; and I sank into depths of
despair, of which you only know. I really thought there was no God, and
contemplated ending my own existence.

"Through it all the Lord was looking down in tender compassion and love.
He sent you at this critical time in my sad career.

"When I look back on the past I can only praise God for what He has done
for me, through you.

"I am now conscious of the fact that He has washed and redeemed me
through the precious blood. Jesus is very dear to me. He is the Lily
of the Valley, the fairest of ten thousand to my soul. The pleasures of
the world have henceforth no attraction for me, in Him I can overcome
all temptations."

The following is from a gentleman in America, who, for thirty-five
years, had never entered a church. He happened to hear the Maréchale
once, and, rushing into the vestry, he broke down utterly and told her
the tragical story of his life.

He was an illegitimate child, and his mother often used to beat him
until the blood ran. As a lad he struggled hard to be good, and,
although he was sometimes led astray through the drink, he always
shunned anything of an immoral character.

He married a sweet German girl, and by honest labour obtained a very
good position in New York, where he was esteemed by all who knew him.

At this juncture he met the French woman who ruined his life. He told
the Maréchale between his sobs that his wife naturally refused to have
him back. Remorse and anguish of mind had driven him twice to attempt
suicide, but he was miraculously rescued. In January, 1914, he writes:

"Dear Maréchale and honored Spiritual Mother:

"It was with joy that I received your dear letter. God has indeed been
wonderfully good to me, an undeserving sinner! He has rolled away the
stone from a heart heavy with sin and sorrow. I thank Him daily for His
mercy, and wonder how I could ever have lived so long without Him. No
wonder I failed and would have been lost, had I not found Him at last
through you, dear Maréchale. Life has a new meaning for me. It is a
pleasure to live now, and before it was a curse. The musicians are
playing ragtime while I am writing this, but God is playing another
melody in my heart. I thank Him for the opportunity I have here to do
good. God has indeed changed me. He has given me great power over the
minds of my men. The change which, with His help, I have been able to
effect in their natures in two short weeks is wonderful to see. I am
happy, very happy.

"There is surely a devil, for he has sorely tempted me, but I shake him
off like a feather, smiling happily in my God-given strength. I say to
him, ’I fear you not, for I belong to Christ Jesus forever.’

"I am indeed in an unholy place. It is given over to the devil in every
form, but what matters, I belong to Christ for all time.

"In prayer and humility I thank and greet thee, Beloved Maréchale."

A beautiful girl in society writes the following:

"All night long I have whispered your name over and over again to
myself, saying, ’You have given me life, Maréchale, do you hear me?
LIFE!!!!’ I was dying of remorse and fear. I shudder when I think of
what would have become of me if I had not come to you. I used to say to
myself, ’Oh, well, what’s the use, I have sinned beyond recall, so why
not sin again, and again, and again? I am destined for Hell anyway, I
may just as well get there as fast as I can’—that is what you have saved
me from.

"I wonder how many times I have prayed ’Let me forget, only let me
forget,’ and the more I would pray, the more I would remember, and the
more I would remember the more terrified I would get, until life seemed
to slip away from me, and I would fall down, down, down, into a
bottomless pit of horror.... And now I LIVE!!!! Oh, Maréchale (how I
love that name, it sounds like music to me!) My mother gave life to my
poor miserable body, but you gave life to my soul. My mother would not
mind me loving you so if she knew that you gave me back to her."

Again she writes: "I have lived alone, absolutely alone. God only knows
how utterly alone I have been! But now I have Him, a _Some One who
cares_! Is it not wonderful, Maréchale, I am no longer alone for I have
my Christ? The warm thing that flames in my soul is the _knowledge that
He loves me_! Now I know why all these years I have searched with empty
hands for something. I have it now, I _LIVE!!!!_"

A young gentleman whose life was transformed through attending the
meetings held by the Maréchale’s family in Keswick writes from Beyrout,
Syria:

"Oh! what a responsibility it is for us to be the ambassadors of Christ,
to represent Him to those who do not know Him, to be His Images! If it
were not for us Christians, who so often stand in His way, Christ might
have a chance. Some of the college men are meeting daily in my room to
pray and I wish you could hear them praying in English, Arabic, Turkish,
Armenian and even Abyssinian. You would not understand the words, but
you could never mistake the spirit.

"To-day I invited a man whom I know is in the hold of a terrible vice.
He came, and during the half hour he looked as though he had made a
mistake in coming, but, before he left, he had led in prayer for
strength to overcome temptation.

"Don’t you think America is a fine country? And yet, with all its great
resources, opportunities and phenomenal progress, it is a very wicked
country in many parts. Races, nations and individuals may prosper and
succeed in plans for betterment and still be without the realisation of
God,—they may be ’Good but Godless.’"

[Illustration: THE MARÉCHALE
(_From a photograph taken at the Gainsborough Studio,
Oxford Street, London, W., in_ 1913)]

With the tribute of one grateful heart this sketch may fitly close.

"I have been used in the past in the conversion of hundreds of souls,
but I made a _compromise_ and it has spelt ruin to my soul. No one
knows how vile I have been, meriting desertion by God and man.... I had
resolved to end my existence, but somehow I was brought to that meeting
to hear about that Russian lady. Even then I _determined_ you should
not influence me, but God somehow through you gripped my life. I saw
myself in the true light as (I say the words not in their usual sense) a
’blasted hypocrite.’ Don’t forget to echo and re-echo the words that
reached me, ’Compromise with the world spells ruin.’ That burnt into my
soul.... I remember while you spoke a big lump rising in my throat, and
just as you were closing your address the thought came, ’I wonder if she
would understand.’ Ay, more, I remember how you received me that day.
God bless you. I came out of hell. I have a clear sky. I want to let
you know that the consciousness of forgiveness of the past has come with
almost an overwhelming force, and an awful load has gone. No daughter
ever loved mother more than I love you, I know that. Why is it? Because
God made you the means of my salvation. My heart just bursts with love
and gratitude. So I am yours, and at that last great day you will see
it if I come through at last.... Dear one, have you ever thought of
this—some one by a gallant effort rescues lives from fire or shipwreck;
the world applauds and honours the deliverer. You (by the grace of God)
rescued me from shipwreck of soul. Christ will own it before His Father
and all the countless multitudes."

THE END

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Maréchale - (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)" ***

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