the exaltation of Christ amongst all
men.
For so great a work he must needs have a helpmeet, and he was to find
her when she was still physically as weak and unlikely for the great
task as he was, and as entirely severed from all existing organisations.
Catherine Mumford, like himself, innocent of any unkind feeling towards
her Church, had been excluded from it, simply because she would not
pledge herself to keep entirely away from the Reform party.
Unable really at the time to do more than teach a class in the Sunday
School, and occasionally visit a sick person, she nevertheless, by the
fervour of her action, made herself a power that was felt, and threw all
her influence on the side of any whole-hearted religious or temperance
effort. The anxiety of both these two young people not to allow any
thought for their own happiness to interfere with their duty to God and
to their fellows delayed their marriage for years; and when they did
marry it was with the perfect resolve on both sides to make everything
in their own life and home subordinate to the great work to which they
had given themselves.
[Illustration: CATHERINE BOOTH
Born January 17th, 1829. Died October 4th, 1890.]
Neither of them at the time dreamed of Mrs. Booth's speaking in public,
much less that they were together to become the liberators of woman from
the silence imposed on her by almost every organisation of Christ's
followers. Having known both of them intimately during the years in
which The Salvation Army was being formed, I can positively contradict
the absurdly exaggerated statement that The General would have had
little or no success in life but for the talents and attractive ministry
of Mrs. Booth. She was a helpmeet in the most perfect sense, never, even
when herself reduced to illness and helplessness, desiring to absorb
either time or attention that he could give to the great War in which
she always encouraged him as no other ever could. Remaining to her
latest hour a woman of the tenderest and most modest character, she
shrank from public duty, and merely submitted so far as she felt
"constrained," for Christ's sake, to association with anything that she
was convinced ought to be done to gain the ears of men for the Gospel,
however contrary it might be to her own tastes and wishes. Perhaps her
most valuable contribution to the construction of The General's life was
her ability to explain to him opinions and tastes differing widely fr
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