4 October: Boreham on Catherine Booth

A Soldier Lady
The anniversary of the death of Catherine Booth recalls one of the most vivid and colourful periods in English history. The 19th century was essentially a century of commanding and dynamic personalities. There were giants in those days. But among all the outstanding and creative forces that then sprang into being, not one was more remarkable, in respect of her character, her influence, and her achievements than the winsome yet queenly little lady who is popularly known, as the Mother of the Salvation Army.

The story of her birth is extraordinary. As a young woman, her mother Sarah, after a disastrous love affair, fell into a deep depression, took it into her head that she had sinned beyond redemption, and spent months on end in bed bemoaning her forlorn condition. It chanced that a young wheelwright, an eloquent preacher, visited the district. Sarah's father, although having very little faith in movements of the kind, was prepared to clutch at any straw and urged his unhappy daughter to go to hear him. Sarah immediately fell under his spell, and, before the bewildered father realised which way the wind was blowing, the wheelwright and Sarah were engaged! He stormed and pleaded to no avail. Sarah ran away from home and married her preacher. And the result was—Catherine Booth!

How poor Catherine came to achieve the dominating position in the public life of England that she afterwards occupied is one of the mysteries and miracles of history. She said on her deathbed that she had never in her life known a single day in which she was free from pain: her childhood was shadowed by the curvature of her spine; her early womanhood consisted of a long, brave fight against incipient consumption; in maturity she bore her illustrious husband eight children in 12 years; and in the Autumn of life, she became a victim of the cancer that slew her soon after she was 60. From earliest infancy she was a sensitive, sympathetic, spiritually-minded little thing. Stories of the sufferings of the slaves always brought tears to her eyes. The sight of a drunken man profoundly affected her.

Like Perfect Words To Perfect Music Set
Catherine and William Booth were 22 when they first met. He was a pawnbroker's assistant in South London, with a flair for delivering evangelistic addresses to any crowds that he could muster. He was tall, angular, gawky; his somewhat unattractive appearance being redeemed only by his fine and lustrous eyes. A metropolitan boot manufacturer, impressed by the young man's obvious fervour and talent, offered him £1 a week to give up pawnbroking for preaching. It was at this delicate juncture that the two young people first cast eyes at each other. It was on Good Friday, 1852, which happened also to be William's birthday, that the pair fell hopelessly in love. Catherine could not easily convince her virgin soul that it was right and proper for a girl of her age to feel towards any young man as she felt towards William. William had no scruples of that kind; his cogitations followed quite another channel. How on earth was he to keep a wife on £1 a week? But it was the old story. Neither bolts nor bars...! They became betrothed a week or two later; and, after three interminable years, were married. The result is woven into the web of history.

The most arresting fact about their union is the precision with which their outstanding individualities blended and harmonised. Both were very great; yet their separate greatnesses never clashed. In the nature of things, it was necessary that he, as the autocratic commander of a huge organisation, should be authoritative, self-assertive, dictatorial. It was imperative that his word should be law and that he should realise this. It might be supposed that the ideal wife for such a man would be a clinging, shrinking, devoted little thing who would implicitly subserviate her will to his. But Catherine's will was as strong as her husband's. She had a mind of her own, and never hesitated to give it expression. She and he often differed; and most people, reading today the record of these good-natured discussions will feel that she had the best of it. She was every inch a woman, dainty, and refined and of infinite sweetness and charm. Her husband and children worshipped everything that pertained to her.

Loved At Home And Honoured Abroad
Yet there was always something tremendous about her. Her intellect was so keen, her eloquence so persuasive, and her authority so absolute that she could hold spellbound the immense multitudes that thronged to hear her closely-reasoned orations. In argument, her tongue was like a rapier. At times in which the country was stirred by some moral issue, a word from her always seemed to bring the matter to finality: there was nothing more to be said.

Who that was in London on October 14, 1890, can forget the incredible scenes that marked her funeral? It was a day of universal grief. The whole nation mourned: the people saluted in her one of the mightiest forces of the age. To the piety of a Santa Teresa she added the passion of a Josephine Butler, the purposefulness of an Elizabeth Fry, and the practical sagacity of a Frances Willard. The greatest in the land revered her, trusted her, consulted her, deferred to her. The letters that passed between her and Queen Victoria are remarkable in themselves. Mr. Gladstone attached the greatest weight to her judgment and convictions. Bishop Lightfoot, one of the most distinguished scholars of his time, has testified to the powerful influence which she exerted over him. And, whilst the loftiest honoured her, the lowliest loved her. She sleeps beneath a simple stone in Abney Park, London; and on that stone is inscribed the secret of her valuable and victorious life: More than conqueror through Him that loved us.

F W Boreham

Image: Catherine Booth