{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_53446/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_53446","id":"gutenberg_53446","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53446","summary":null,"tags":["Booth-Clibborn, Catherine, 1860-1955","Category: Biographies","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: THE MARECHALE]\n\n\n\n\n                            *THE MARECHALE*\n\n                       (CATHERINE BOOTH-CLIBBORN)\n\n\n                                   BY\n                             JAMES STRAHAN\n\n           AUTHOR OF \"HEBREW IDEALS,\" \"THE BOOK OF JOB,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n                           HODDER & STOUGHTON\n                                NEW YORK\n                        GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                          COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY\n                        GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY\n\n                 _The right of translation is reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                               Dedicated\n                    WITH REVERENCE AND AFFECTION TO\n                             THEODORE MONOD\n               WHO TAUGHT US TO SAY TO OUR DIVINE MASTER\n                     \"NONE OF SELF AND ALL OF THEE\"\n\n\n\n\n                               *PREFACE*\n\n\nThis book is the unexpected result of a brief visit which the Marechale\npaid her daughter and the writer in the spring of this year.  She was\ndaily persuaded, not so much to talk of the past, as to live parts of\nher life over again, for in her case the telling of a story is the\nenacting of a drama.  At a meal-time she rarely keeps her seat, though\nshe is apparently unconscious of leaving it and surprised that she\nrequires to return to it.  She begins to describe an incident, to recall\na conversation, to sketch a character, and straightway she is suiting\nthe word to the action, the action to the word, holding the mirror up to\nnature, using her brilliant dramatic gift, which is as natural to her as\nsinging is to birds, to call up faces, to bring back voices, to restore\nscenes, which are all, whether grave or gay, summoned out of a dead past\nthat has suddenly, as by the wave of a magician's wand, become once more\nalive.\n\nOne day I said to her, \"Have you never thought of giving all this to the\nworld?\"  She answered, \"I am often asked to do so, and some day I may.\"\nSoon after she surprised me by saying, \"I have come to the conclusion\nthat something ought to be written now, and you must write it.\"\n\nA mass of materials in English, French and German--reports, letters,\ndiaries, magazines, and other documents--has therefore been put at my\ndisposal.  I have not used a tithe of what I have received, and much of\nwhat is left is as good as what has been taken.  More will ere long, I\ndoubt not, see the light.  One of my best sources of information has\nbeen the Marechale's own phenomenal memory, which I have tested times\nwithout number, and found invariably accurate, except in dates.  Events\nare apt to be associated in her mind not so much with years as with\nhomes and children, which are much more interesting.\n\nWith regard to the subject of the fourteenth chapter, the Marechale\nwould have preferred not to break the silence which she has maintained\nfor a number of years, but after reading her letters and diaries I have\nurged her to let a brief statement be published, first because I feel\nthat she owes something to her old comrades in the fight, and second for\nthe sake of her own and her family's future work.  Members of the family\nwho have been consulted, as well as other friends, desire this even more\nstrongly than the writer does.\n\nThis book consists of a few sections from a life which, like Mrs.\nBrowning's pomegranate, \"shows within a heart blood-tinctured.\" To a\nheart of love add a spirit of fire, and you have the Marechale.  Blood\nand fire--that is what she was at the beginning, and that is what she\nwill be to the end.  One has often heard her say that she has never been\nmore in her element than when, on entering some town, she has found\nherself confronted, in a theater or casino, by \"all the devils of the\nplace.\" She is happy whenever \"Jesus is going to have a chance for a\nnight.\"  In the natural course of things her greatest battles are still\nbefore her. England has need of her, France perhaps still greater need.\nMay it be long before the Marechale reaches her last campaign!\nMeanwhile the old battle-cry, _En Avant!_\n\nThe subject of this sketch--written during a brief respite from other\nwork--is at present far away, but I know that what she desires to give\nto the world is a sense of the Divine, the miracle-working power which\nrewards a child-like faith, and that she will be glad if every reader\ncloses the book with a _Gloire a Dieu!_\n\nJ. S.\n\n\n\n\n                               *CONTENTS*\n\n                               CHAPTER I\n\nFinely Touched to Fine Issues\n\n                               CHAPTER II\n\nA Girl Evangelist\n\n                              CHAPTER III\n\nThe Secret of Evangelism\n\n                               CHAPTER IV\n\nChrist in Paris\n\n                               CHAPTER V\n\nFreedom to Worship God\n\n                               CHAPTER VI\n\nThe Soul of France\n\n                              CHAPTER VII\n\nWoman's Vocation\n\n                              CHAPTER VIII\n\nThe Renunciation of Home\n\n                               CHAPTER IX\n\nThe Friendship of Christ\n\n                               CHAPTER X\n\nThe Burning Question\n\n                               CHAPTER XI\n\nThe Prodigal Son\n\n                              CHAPTER XII\n\nSo Great Faith\n\n                              CHAPTER XIII\n\nBeauty for Ashes\n\n                              CHAPTER XIV\n\nTo Thine Own Self Be True\n\n                               CHAPTER XV\n\nSursum Corda!\n\n\n\n\n                          *LIST OF PORTRAITS*\n\n\nThe Marechale . . . _Frontispiece_\n\n\nCatherine Booth . . . 32\n\n(_From a drawing by Edward Clifford, exhibited in the Royal Academy and\npresented to Mrs. Booth_)\n\n\nThe Marechale in the Cafe . . . 114\n\n(_From the painting of Baron Cederstroem_)\n\n\nThe Marechale . . . 160\n\n(_From a photo taken in Paris, circa 1890_)\n\n\nThe Marechale . . . 302\n\n(_From a photo taken in London in 1913_)\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER I*\n\n                    *FINELY TOUCHED TO FINE ISSUES*\n\n\nIn the summer of 1865 William Booth, Evangelist, found his life-work.\nFor some time back his imagination had been more than usually active.\nHe could not help thinking that all his past efforts had been but\ntentative solutions of a difficult problem.  He felt the spur of a vague\ndiscontent.  He seemed to be groping his way towards an unrealised\nideal. At length he got the inner light he needed. While he was\nconducting a series of meetings in a tent pitched on the disused Quaker\nburying-ground at Baker's Row, Whitechapel, he saw his heavenly vision\nand heard his divine call.  He accepted a mission which was no less real\nthan those of Hebrew Prophets and Christian Apostles.  The words in\nwhich he describes his vocation form part of the history of Christianity\nin England.  \"I found my heart,\" he says, \"strongly and strangely drawn\nout on behalf of the million people living within a mile of the tent,\nninety out of every hundred of whom, they told me, never heard the sound\nof the preacher's voice from year to year.  'Here is a sphere!' was\nbeing whispered continually in my inward ear by an inward voice ... and\nI was continually haunted with a desire to offer myself to Jesus Christ\nas an apostle for the heathen of East London.  The idea or heavenly\nvision or whatever you may call it overcame me; I yielded to it; and\nwhat has happened since is, I think, not only my justification, but an\nevidence that my offer was accepted.\"\n\nThus it was that on a memorable June night, having ended his meeting and\nafter-meeting, he rushed home, tired as usual, but with a strange light\nin his face which indicated an unusual glow in his heart.\n\n\"Darling,\" he exclaimed to his wife, \"I have found my destiny!\"\n\nHis unexpected words, like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, proved the\nquality of his life-mate's womanhood.  For a moment she trembled under\nthe test.  While her husband poured out his burning words about the\nheathenism of London, and expressed his conviction that it was his duty\nto stop and preach to these East End multitudes, she sat gazing into the\nempty fireplace.  The voice of the tempter--so she imagined--whispered\nto her, \"This means another new departure, another start in life.\"  She\nthought of five little heads asleep on their pillows upstairs, and\nremembered that she had already passed through more than one time of\ndomestic anxiety.  But no woman living at that time was more ready for\nacts of daring faith; few, if any, were so animated by scorn of\nmiserable aims that end in self.  After silently thinking and praying\nfor some minutes, she said:\n\n\"Well, if you feel you ought to stay, stay. We have trusted the Lord\nonce for our support and we can trust Him again.\"\n\nThus the die was cast, and the day ended with one of those scenes by\nwhich our common humanity is ennobled.  \"Together,\" he says, \"we humbled\nourselves before God, and dedicated our lives to the task that it seemed\nwe had been praying for for twenty-five years. Her heart came over to my\nheart.  We resolved that this poor, submerged, giddy, careless people\nshould henceforth become our people and our God their God as far as we\ncould induce them to accept Him, and for this end we would face poverty,\npersecution, or whatever Providence might permit in our consecration to\nwhat we believed to be the way God had mapped out for us.\"\n\n\nOne feels perfectly certain that these two modern apostles would have\nfulfilled their destiny even if they had stood alone; but it could\nscarcely have been so ample and glorious a destiny if God had not given\nthem children who inherited their gifts and helped them to realise their\nideals.  It is the simple truth that the ruling passion of each of their\neight sons and daughters has been the love of souls; each of them has\nexulted to spend and be spent in the service of Christ, which is the\nservice of humanity; and if one of them has been too feeble in her\nhealth to be a militant Salvationist, the great Captain of our salvation\naccepts the will for the deed.\n\nAmong all the bold and original acts by which the breath and the flame\nof a new life have been brought into the modern Church, none is more\nstriking, and yet none more simple and natural, than the revival, after\nall these centuries, of the apostolic ministry of women.  Like Philip\nthe Evangelist of Caesarea, William and Catherine Booth \"had four\ndaughters who did prophesy\"; brave and gifted English girls who,\nbaptised with the Holy Spirit, used their dower of burning eloquence to\nbring sinners to the mercy-seat. If to-day \"the women that publish the\ntidings are a great host,\" the fact illustrates the power of example.\nIn every new movement there must be daring pioneers and self-sacrificing\nleaders.  For woman's \"liberty of prophesying,\" as for every other form\nof freedom, the price has had to be paid.  The purpose of this little\nbook is to sketch the life of the eldest of General Booth's four\ndaughter-evangelists, who was called to carry the spirit of the\nGospel--Christ's own spirit of love--first into many of the cities of\nEngland, and afterwards, in fulfilment of her distinctive life-work,\ninto France and Switzerland, Holland and Belgium. If her story could be\ntold as it deserves to be, it would stand out as one of the most\nremarkable modern records of Christian work, for there is perhaps no one\nliving to-day who has seen so much of what Henry Drummond used to call\n\"the contemporary activities of the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nCatherine Booth the elder, the Mother of the Army, was already in her\nthirty-second year when she wrote her famous brochure upon _Female\nMinistry_, and, not without fear and trembling, delivered her first\nevangelistic address in the Bethesda Chapel at Gateshead-on-Tyne, where\nher husband was minister.  Little Catherine, who had been baptised in\nthat chapel, was in her second year when her mother began public\nspeaking, and in her seventh when her father found his destiny.\nProbably no child ever had greater privileges than she enjoyed. Her\nearthly home was a house of God and a gate of heaven; and from the first\nshe seemed to respond to all that was highest and best in her\nenvironment.  She was one of those happy souls who have no memory of\ntheir conversion, who cannot recall a time when they did not heartily\nlove the Lord Jesus Christ.\n\nHer father was the centre of all her childish thoughts and most vivid\nrecollections, and nothing could ever really dislodge him from the first\nplace in her affections.  An interesting page from her earliest memories\nmay be reproduced.  When she was three or four years old, her father was\na Wesleyan Pastor in Cornwall, where his ministry led to a revival in\nwhich hundreds of souls found salvation. One night Katie was taken by\nher nurse to the meeting, and, on arrival, found herself before a flight\nof steps leading up to the gallery. Thinking herself quite a big girl,\nshe wished to climb, but nurse, fearing the crowd, snatched her up and\ncarried her to the top.  At length they were inside, and what the child\nthen saw and heard remained for ever vividly impressed on her\nimagination.  The great building was crammed.  Away down on the platform\nstood her father, with her mother sitting beside him. He was leading the\nsinging, keeping time with his folded umbrella, and this was the chorus:\n\n    Let the winds blow high, or the winds blow low,\n    It's a pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah!\n\nHow well did the eager-hearted little maid enjoy that voyage, and how\nproud she was of her captain!  The winds blew low and the sun shone upon\nher in those days.  But it could not always be fair weather.  Often\nsince that far-off Cornish time have the winds blown high, and sometimes\nthe mariner has felt herself tossed, chartless and rudderless, on dark\ntempestuous seas; but ever the winds have fallen, the sun has shone out\nagain over the waves; and to how many tens of thousands has this\ndaughter of music sung, with sweet variations, her father's song--\"It's\na pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah!\"\n\nThe Booth children were left in no mist of doubt as to their future.\nThere was an end, a point, a purpose, in their life.  They grew up in an\natmosphere of decision.  Many children are made timid, diffident,\nineffective by their training.  They are constantly told how naughty\nthey are, till they begin to believe that they are good for nothing.\nThe Booth parents acted on a different principle.  They had faith in\ntheir children and for their children.  When Katie was still a little\ngirl in socks, her mother would say to her, \"Now, Katie, you are not\nhere in this world for yourself.  You have been sent for others.  _The\nworld is waiting for you._\"  What a phrase that was to send a little\ngirl to bed with!  There she turned the words over and over in her own\nmind.  \"Mother says the world is waiting for me.  Oh, I must be good....\nHow selfish I was in taking that orange!\"  The lesson was worth L1000 to\na child.  In the development of Katie's mind and character her mother's\ninfluence was naturally very strong.  The fellowship between them soon\nbecame peculiarly intimate, and it was the mother's joy to find her\n_alter ego_ in the daughter who bore her name.\n\nKatie's memories of her early London life were bound up with the\nChristian Mission. Hand in hand with her sister Emma, and often singing\nwith her \"I mean with Jesus Christ to dwell, will you go?\" she walked\nevery Sunday morning along the great road leading to Whitechapel.\nIneffaceable impressions were made on her sensitive mind by the open-air\npreaching at Mile End Waste, Bethnal Green and Hackney; by the apostolic\nspirit of holy enthusiasm; by the Friday morning prayer-meetings, where\nthe officers met alone to plead with God and wrestle in tears for more\npower.  All this became the warp and woof of her own spiritual life,\npreparing her for her high calling.  And, though she could not remember\nthe day of her new birth, she clearly recalled several times when she\nconsecrated herself, body and soul, to God.  In a great whitewashed\nbuilding in the East End her father preached on \"The King's daughters\nare all glorious within,\" and she prayed that she might have the inner\npurity which would make her a child of God.  From a meeting of Christian\nworkers she ran home to her room, shut herself in, and deliberately gave\nher heart and life to Christ.  She could not, perhaps, realise all that\nher covenant meant, but one thing she understood--that she was called to\nyield herself completely to do His will and to save souls.\n\nThere was plenty of laughter and fun in that home.  The Booth children\nwere all born with the dramatic instinct, and the spirit of the\nChristian Mission invaded the nursery.  Not only were the great dramas\nof the Bible--Joseph and his brothers, David and Goliath, Daniel and the\nlions, and a score of others--enacted there, but the meeting and the\npenitent form, the drunkard and the backslider, the hopeful and the\ndesperate case were all reproduced in the plays of the children.  Katie\nand Emma brought their babies to the meeting, and the babies generally\ninsisted on crying, to the despair of Bramwell or Ballington, who\nstopped preaching to give the stern order, \"Take the babies out of the\ntheatre,\" against which the mothers indignantly protested, \"Papa would\nnot have stopped, papa would have gone on preaching anyhow.\"  But the\ndramatic masterpiece was Ballington dealing with an interesting\ncase--generally a pillow--coaxing, dragging, banging the poor reluctant\npenitent to the mercy-seat and exclaiming, \"Ah! this is a good case,\nbless him! ... Give up the drink, brother.\"  That is a scene which is\nstill sometimes re-enacted to the delight of new generations.\n\nJesus Himself watched the games of the children who piped and mourned in\nthe market-place.  Life is none the less strenuous for its interludes of\nmirth.  Catherine, who was dramatic to the finger-tips, was very early\nmastered by a sense of the sacredness of duty. The moral ideal set\nbefore her was the highest, and her conscience was tremulously\nsensitive. She was oppressed with the sense of what ought to be, and\ninconsolable when she failed to attain it.  A word of rebuke cut her\nlike a knife, and she would sometimes weep far into the night if she\nthought she had put pleasure before duty.  It is a great thing to make\nreligion real to children, and especially to give them a sense of the\nobligation to please Christ in everything.  Mrs. Booth found Katie ready\nto go all lengths with her, and even to outrun her, in her ideas of what\nwas right and what was wrong for Christians.  It is amusing to hear that\nwhen the mother was going out one day to buy new frocks for her little\ngirls, Katie's words to her were not \"Do buy us something pretty!\" but\n\"Mind you get something Christian!\" and that when Mrs. Booth came home\nwith her purchases, and Katie rushed downstairs to meet her, the child's\nfirst inquiry was, \"Are they Christian?\"\n\nBut the sense of duty may become morbid if it is not transmuted by love.\nMany servants of God never learn the secret which makes Christ's yoke\neasy and His burden light.  They have to confess to themselves that they\ncannot say, \"To do Thy will, O Lord, I take delight.\"  It would have\nbeen strange if any of the Booth children had not learned the secret.\nCatherine discovered it early, learned it thoroughly, and it became in\nafter years one of the hidden sources of her power.  As a child she\nlived in union with Christ; she practised and felt the Real Presence;\nshe understood that Christianity is a Divine Service transfigured by a\nDivine Friendship.  In Victoria Park there was a shady alley where she\nwas in the habit of walking, because Some One walked beside her!  In\nClifton, where she lived for a time, she had a tiny upper room in which\nshe felt that she was never alone!  That was her childhood's religion,\nwhich she never needed to change.  She found it to be utterly\nindependent of time and place, form and ceremony.  In the glare of\npublic life, in the storm of persecution, in the hour of temptation and\ndanger, she had always a cathedral into which she could retire that she\nmight find peace.  She was spiritually akin with the Hebrew mystics who\nlived in the secret place of the Most High, who had at all times a\npavilion from the strife of tongues.  In her Neuchatel prison she wrote\nsome simple words which sent a thrill through the heart of Christian\nEurope:\n\n    Best Beloved of my soul,\n      I am here alone with Thee;\n    And my prison is a heaven,\n      Since Thou sharest it with me.\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER II*\n\n                          *A GIRL EVANGELIST*\n\n\nWhen the heart is warm and full the lips become eloquent.  Jesus expects\neach of His followers to testify for Him.  His redeemed ones should need\nlittle persuasion to plead His cause.  Every genuine conversion creates\na new advocate for His side.  Dumbness is one of the signs of unreality\nin religion.  The sin of silence received due castigation, in public and\nin private, from the tongues of fire which the Spirit gave to William\nand Catherine Booth.  Their children therefore learned that it is every\nChristian's calling to speak in season and out of season for Christ, to\npress His claims upon the willing and the unwilling alike. Katie, it\nappears, began among her little companions in the Victoria Park.  Her\nold nurse still remembers how she would gather little groups about her\nand tell them of the Saviour's love.  When she was in her twelfth year,\nshe lived for some time with a family in Clifton, along with whom she\nattended the Church of England.  One Sunday evening the Vicar, who had\nnoticed her earnest gaze fixed on his face, sent for her that he might\nhave a little talk with her.  He asked her what she liked best in the\nBible, and she answered \"The Atonement.\"  He was so struck by her\nintelligence that he offered her a children's class, which soon grew\nlarge.  Week by week she talked to the little ones of sin and the\nSaviour. Letting story-books go, she went for their conversion.  Having\nto return home on her twelfth birthday--the last day on which she could\ntravel with a half-ticket--she told her mother of her great longing to\ncontinue her work among children.  Her mother readily consented, and\nsoon there was a weekly gathering of young folk in a downstairs room of\nthe Gore Road house.  After a while Katie had the assistance of her\nsister Emma, who was her junior by little more than a year.  Tears were\nshed, confessions made, and lives changed in that room.  And there two\nof the most brilliant evangelists of our time first learned to deal with\nsouls.  They were in every way kindred spirits.  Long afterwards one\nfinds Emma writing to Catherine: \"We will always be 'special sisters.'\nWe were Ma's two first girls, and were brought up side by side--and side\nby side we will labour and love till we stand with our children in her\npresence again before the Throne!\"\n\nKatie was thirteen when she first spoke in public.  No one asked her to\ndo it; she yielded to an irresistible inward impulse.  Her eldest\nbrother was conducting an open-air meeting opposite a low public-house\nat the corner of Cat and Mutton Bridge in Hackney.  Katie was beside\nhim, and whispered, \"I will say a few words.\"  Her brother was\ndelighted, and she delivered her message with a directness and fluency\nwhich compelled attention and proved her a born speaker.  Not very long\nafter, she spoke in the hearing of the General, who wrote to his wife,\n\"I don't know whether I told you how pleased I was with dear Katie\nspeaking in the streets on Sunday morning.  It was very nice and\neffective.  Bless her!\"  \"From this time,\" says Mr. Booth in a document\nof great importance, \"she continued occasionally to speak in public\nmeetings, but it was not until she was between fourteen and fifteen,\nwhen she was with me in Ryde, Isle of Wight, that I fully realised and\nsettled the question. During that time my eldest son joined us for a few\ndays, and, with another friend or two, held open-air meetings; on one of\nthese occasions Catherine accompanied them, and her brother induced her\nto say a few words, which it appears fell with extraordinary power upon\nthe listening crowd of men and others, such as usually comprise the\nvisitors at these places. On their return my son described to me the\neffects of her address, but, not being fully emancipated from my old\nideas of propriety, I remonstrated and urged such objections as I\npresume any other mother, consecrated but not fully enlightened, might\nhave urged against her being thrust into such a public position at such\nan early age.  My son, gazing at me with great solemnity and tenderness,\nsaid, 'Mamma, dear, you will have to settle this question with God, for\nshe is as surely called and inspired by Him for this particular work as\nyourself.'  These words were God's message to my soul, and helped me to\npull myself up as to the ground of my objection.  I retired to my room,\nand, after pouring out my heart to God, settled the question that\nhenceforth I would raise no barrier between any of my children and the\ncarrying out of His will concerning them, trying to rejoice that they,\nnot less than myself, should be counted worthy to suffer shame for His\nname.\"\n\nFrom that time Catherine's path was clearly marked out.  While she\ncontinued her education, which included a special liking for French, she\ngradually undertook more and more public work.  Her father's delight in\nher ripening powers found frequent utterance, and her companionship with\nhim during the next six years of work is one of the most beautiful\nthings in the literature of evangelism. \"William,\" said Mrs. Booth about\nthis time, \"writes that he is utterly amazed at Katie; he had no idea\nthat she could speak as she does.  He says that she is a born leader,\nand will if she keeps right see thousands saved....  Praise His name\nthat she can stand in my stead, and bear His name to perishing souls.\"\nAfter holding meetings in different parts of London, from Stratford and\nPoplar to Hammersmith, Catherine began, just before she was seventeen,\nto conduct evangelistic campaigns in many of the other great cities of\nEngland, sometimes lasting three weeks or a month.  The largest building\nin the town densely crowded Sunday after Sunday, and frequently on week\nnights as well; hundreds of people to speak to about their souls'\nsalvation every week; correspondence and travel; ceaseless labour and\nresponsibility--these things absorbed all her energies of body and mind.\nShe was but a frail girl, and suffered for a time from a curvature of\nspine, which compelled her to lie on her back in great weakness and\npain.  If she yet overcame, it is evident that she was \"marvellously\nhelped.\"\n\nIn 1876 Katie was one of the speakers at the annual Conference in the\nPeople's Hall, Whitechapel.  As she appeared on the platform, she was\ndescribed by her lifelong friend, R. C. Morgan of _The Christian_, as \"a\nfragile, ladylike girl of seventeen, half woman, half child, a\ncharacteristic product of the Christian Mission, whose words fell like\nsummer rain upon the upturned faces of the crowd.\"  This was the\nConference at which the epoch-making measure was adopted of appointing\nwomen evangelists to the sole charge of stations.  Miss Booth was\nreserved \"for general evangelistic tours.\"\n\nIt is interesting to glance through the numbers of the old _Christian\nMission Magazine_ and light upon brief reports of Catherine's work. From\nHammersmith (1875): \"Miss Kate Booth [age 16] spent a Sabbath with us,\npreaching twice with great acceptance.  A large audience was deeply\nimpressed, and some, we trust, were truly converted to God.\"  From\nPoplar: \"Mr. Bramwell and Miss C. Booth were with us.  On the Sunday and\nMonday evening the hall was crowded, and some thirty souls at the two\nservices sought salvation.... On Easter Sunday one sister's face was cut\nwith a stone, and heavy stones fell upon some on many occasions of late;\nbut we endure as seeing Him who is invisible.\"  From Portsmouth: \"Miss\nBooth, assisted by W. Bramwell Booth, commenced a series of special\nservices, which God owned and blessed to the salvation of many precious\nsouls.  In the morning Miss Booth preached, and all felt it good to be\nthere.  Then a love-feast was conducted by W. B. Booth in the\nafternoon....  In the evening Miss Booth preached in the music-hall to\nupwards of three thousand people.  The Spirit applied the Word with\npower, and seventeen broke away from the ranks of sin and enlisted under\nthe banner of Jesus Christ.\"  Again from Portsmouth, some months later:\n\"We had a visit from Miss Booth with her brother Mr. Bramwell, and again\nthe dear Lord blessed their labours in this town.  Each service was\nfraught with Divine power; many trembled under the Word, and anxious\nones came forward seeking forgiveness of sins, until the penitent-rail\nand vestry were filled with those who, in bitterness of soul, sought\npardon and peace through Jesus.\"\n\nFrom Limehouse (1876): \"We had dear Miss Booth and her brother, and a\nblessed day. In the evening she preached with wonderful power, and ten\nor twelve came out for God. May they be kept faithful!\"  From\nPortsmouth: \"Miss Booth's visit was made of the Lord a great blessing to\nus all.  Very few who listened to her in the morning will forget how she\npleaded with us to present our bodies a living sacrifice.  Oh, may God\nbless her and make her a mighty blessing, for Christ's sake.\"  From\nWhitechapel (1877): \"An earnest appeal was made at one of our Sunday\nevening services by Miss Booth, from 'Run, speak to that young man.'\nAlthough in very delicate health, the Lord blessedly assisted her.  The\nword was with power, and eleven souls decided for Jesus, among whom was\nthe converted Potman.  This young man was a leader in petty and\nmischievous annoyances.  The genuineness of his conversion was evidenced\nby his giving up the public-house work to seek more honourable\nemployment.\"  From Middlesbro' (1878): \"Miss Booth visited us for five\ndays, and many blood-bought souls have been blessed and saved.  Her\nfirst Sunday with us was a day of power, and it will not be soon\nforgotten by those present.  It was a grand sight to see a large hall\nfilled to the door with anxious hearers, while hundreds went away; but\nthe grandest sight of all was to see old and young flocking to the\npenitent form.\"  From Leicester: \"Miss Booth's services may be\nsummarised in the statement that she had twenty-two souls the first\nSunday evening, and increasing victory thereafter right on to the end.\"\n\nAt Whitby there was a six weeks' campaign, organised by Captain Cadman.\nOn the first Sunday \"the large hall, which holds three thousand, was\nwell filled, and in the after service many souls were brought to Jesus.\"\nOn the second Sunday \"Miss Booth was listened to with breathless\nattention.  In the after service we drew the net to land, having a\nmultitude of fishes, and among them we found we had caught a fox-hunter,\na dog-fancier, drunkards, a Roman Catholic, and many others.  In the\nweek-night services souls were saved every night.  The proprietor of the\nhall had got some large bills out announcing 'Troupe of Arctic Skaters\nin the Congress Hall for a week,' but he put them off by telling them it\nwas no use coming, as all the town was being evangelised.\"  The\nconcluding services \"drew great crowds from all parts of town and\ncountry, rich and poor, until the hall was so filled that there was no\nstanding room.\"  In a Consecration meeting, \"After Miss Booth's address\nwe formed a large ring in the centre of the hall, which brought the\npower down upon us; hundreds looked on with astonishment and tears in\ntheir eyes, whilst others gave themselves wholly to God....  Ministers,\nlike Nicodemus of old, came to see by what power these miracles were\nwrought, and, going back to their congregations, resolved to serve God\nbetter, and to preach the gospel more faithfully in the future.\"\n\nFrom Leeds: \"Miss Booth in the Circus. A glorious month.  Hard-hearted\nsinners broken down.  Best of all, our own people have been getting\nblessedly near to God.  On Sunday mornings love feasts from nine to\nten.... It would be impossible to give even an outline of the various\nand glorious cases of conversion that have come under our notice through\nthe month which is past.  For truly Christ has been bringing to His fold\nrich and poor, young and old.\"  From Cardiff: \"The question, 'Does this\nwork stand?' received a magnificent reply on Sunday.  The crowds who\nfilled the Stuart Hall, to hear Miss Booth, were the largest any one can\nremember seeing during all the four years of the Mission's history\nthere.\"  From King's Lynn: \"Miss Booth's Mission.  The town has had a\nroyal visit from the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.  There has been a\ngreat awakening, and trembling, and turning to the Lord. Whole families\nhave been saved, and whole courts have sought salvation.  Our holiness\nmeeting will never be forgotten....  The work here rolls on gloriously.\nNot only in Lynn but for miles round the town it is well known that a\nmarvellous work has been done and is still going forward.\"\n\nAll these battles and victories were naturally followed by the General\nwith intense interest, and as often as it was possible he was at his\ndaughter's side.  Mrs. Booth joined them when they were opening a\ncampaign together at Stockton-on-Tees, and sent her impressions to a\nfriend.  \"Pa and Katie had a blessed beginning yesterday.  Theatre\ncrowded at night, and fifteen cases.  I heard Katie for the first time\nsince we were at Cardiff.  I was astonished at the advance she had made.\nI wish you had been there, I think you would have been as pleased as I\nwas.  It was sweet, tender, forcible, and Divine.  I could only adore\nand weep.  She looked like an angel, and the people were melted, and\nspellbound like children.\"  The General began to call her his\n\"Bluecher,\" for she helped to win many a hard-fought battle which he\nmight otherwise have lost.  When the rowdies threatened to take the\nupper hand at a meeting, he would say, \"Put on Katie, she's our last\ncard; if she fails we'll close the meeting.\"\n\n\"I remember,\" wrote her eldest brother, \"a striking instance of this\noccurring in a certain northern town on a Sunday night.  A crowd\nassembled at the doors of the theatre, composed of the lowest and\nroughest of the town, who, overpowering the doorkeepers, pressed into\nthe building and took complete possession of one of the galleries, so\nthat by the time the remainder of the theatre was occupied this portion\nof it represented a scene more like a crowded tap-room than the gallery\nof what was for the moment a place of worship.  Rows of men sat smoking\nand spitting, others were talking and laughing aloud, while many with\nhats on were standing in the aisles and passages, bandying to and fro\njokes and criticisms of the coarsest character.  All this continued with\nlittle intermission during the opening exercises, and the more timid\namong us had practically given up hope about the meeting, when Miss\nBooth rose, and standing in front of the little table just before the\nfootlights, commenced to sing, with such feeling and unction as it is\nimpossible to describe with pen and ink,\n\n    'The rocks and the mountains will all flee away.\n    And you will need a hiding-place that day.'\n\nThere was instantaneous silence over the whole house; after singing two\nor three stanzas, she stopped and announced her text, 'Let me die the\ndeath of the righteous and let my last end be like His.'  While she did\nso nearly every head in the gallery was uncovered, and within fifteen\nminutes both she and every one of the fifteen hundred people present\nwere completely absorbed in her subject, and for forty minutes no one\nstirred or spoke among that unruly crowd, until she made her concluding\nappeal, and called for volunteers to begin the new life of\nrighteousness, when a great big navvy-looking man rose up, and in the\nmidst of the throng in the gallery exclaimed, 'I'll make one!'  He was\nfollowed by thirty others that night.\"\n\n[Illustration: CATHERINE BOOTH\n(_From a portrait by Edward Clifford, exhibited at the Royal Academy\nand presented to Mrs. Booth_)]\n\nWell might the General's hopes regarding the young soul-winner be high\nand confident. \"Papa,\" wrote Mrs. Booth, \"says he felt very proud of her\nthe other day as she walked by his side at the head of a procession with\nan immense crowd at their heels.  He turned to her and said, 'Ah, my\nlass, you shall wear a crown by-and-by.'\"\n\nWith what desires and prayers the mother of this _Wunderkind_ followed\nsuch a career is indicated by her letters.  \"Oh, it seems to me that if\nI were in your place--young--no cares or anxieties--with such a start,\nsuch influence, and such a prospect, I should not be able to contain\nmyself for joy.  I should indeed aspire to be 'the bride of the Lamb,'\nand to follow Him in conflict for the salvation of poor, lost and\nmiserable man....  I don't want you to make any vows (unless, indeed,\nthe Spirit leads you to do so), but I want you to set your mind and\nheart on winning souls, and to leave everything else with the Lord.\nWhen you do this you will be happy--oh, so happy!  Your soul will then\nfind perfect rest.  The Lord grant it you, my dear child....  I have\nbeen 'careful about many things.'  I want you to care only for the _one_\nthing....  Look forward, my child, into eternity--_on_, and ON, and ON.\nYou are to live _for ever_.  This is only the infancy of existence--the\nschool-days, the time.  Then is the grand, great, glorious eternal\nharvest.\"\n\nWhatever gifts were the dower of the young evangelist, she refused to\nregard herself as different in God's sight from the poorest and meanest\nof sinners.  If God loved her, He loved all with an equal love.  That\nconviction was the motive-power of all her evangelism. A limited\natonement was to her unthinkable. How often she has made vast audiences\nsing her father's great hymn, \"O boundless salvation, so full and so\nfree!\"  When she was conducting a remarkable campaign in Portsmouth, she\nfound herself one day among a number of the ministers of the town, one\nof whom in his admiration of her and her work persisted in calling her\none of the elect.  This led to an animated discussion on election.\nKatie listened for a while, but lost patience at last, and, rising,\ndelivered herself thus: \"I am not one of the elect, and I don't want to\nbe.  I would rather be with the poor devils outside than with you\ninside.\"  Having discharged this bombshell she flew upstairs to her\nmother. \"Oh!\" she cried, \"what have I done?\"  When she repeated what she\nhad said, her mother, whose laugh was always hearty, screamed with\ndelight.  Election as commonly taught was rank poison to the Mother of\nthe Army.  The doctrine that God has out of His mere good pleasure\nelected _some_ to eternal life made her wild with indignation.  When her\nson Bramwell was staying for a time in Scotland, she wrote him: \"It\nseems a peculiarity of the awful doctrine of Calvinism that it makes\nthose who hold it far more interested in and anxious about its\npropagation than about the diminution of sin and the salvation of\nsouls....  It may be God will bless your sling and stone to deliver His\nservant out of the paw of this bear of hell--Calvinism.\"\n\n\nOne naturally asks what became of Catherine's education all this time.\nOn this subject also Mrs. Booth held strong views.  When her daughter\nwas sixteen she wrote to her: \"You must not think that we do not rightly\nvalue education, or that we are indifferent on the subject.  We have\ndenied ourselves the common necessaries of life to give you the best in\nour power, and I think this has proved that we put a right value on it.\nBut we put God and righteousness _first_ and education second, and if I\nhad life to begin over again I should be still more particular....  I\nwould like you to learn to put your thoughts together forcibly and well,\nto think logically and clearly, to speak powerfully, _i.e._ with good\nbut simple language, and to write legibly and well, which will have more\nto do with your usefulness than half the useful knowledge you would have\nto spend your time over at College.\"  When the principal of a Ladies'\nCollege, who had attended Mrs. Booth's meetings and been blessed,\noffered to receive Catherine and educate her gratuitously, Mrs. Booth,\nafter visiting the College and breathing the atmosphere of the place,\ndeclined the tempting offer with thanks. Some will, of course, be\ndisposed to question the wisdom of the mother's decision.  It should not\nbe impossible to combine the noblest learning with the most fervent\nfaith.  Yet every discipline must be judged by its fruits.  How many\nCatherine Booths have hitherto been produced by Newnham and Girton?\n\n\nLong after Catherine the second had left her home-land, she continued to\nreceive letters from her English converts, and when, after many years,\nshe resumed her evangelistic work in England, people whom she had never\nseen and never heard of before would come and tell her that they had\nbeen saved through her mission at this or that place.  All these\ntestimonies were like bells ringing in her soul.  One out of many may be\nresounded.  Writing to Paris in 1896, Henry Howard, now the Chief of\nStaff in the Army, said: \"I have certainly never forgotten your Ilkeston\ncampaign of sixteen years ago, when God made your soul a messenger to my\nsoul.  You led me towards an open door which I am pleased to remember I\nwent in at, and during these many years your own share in my life's\ntransformation has often been the subject of grateful praise.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER III*\n\n                       *THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM*\n\n\nAfter many victories at home, William and Catherine Booth began to look\nabroad.  They realised that \"the field is the world,\" and they longed to\ncommence operations on the Continent. In the summer of 1881, with high\nhopes and some natural fears, they dedicated their eldest daughter to\nFrance.  In giving her they gave their best.  Delicate girl though she\nwas, she had become one of the greatest spiritual forces in England.\nShe swayed vast multitudes by something higher than mere eloquence.\nWherever she went revivals broke out and hundreds were converted.  There\nwas a pathos and a power in her appeals which made them irresistible.\n\nAt the time of her departure she received many letters from friends whom\nshe had spiritually helped, and who realised how much they would miss\nher in England.  Nowhere had she done more good, nowhere could her\nabsence create a greater blank, than in her own home.  Her sister Eva\nwrote: \"I cannot bear the thought that you are gone.  You have always\nunderstood me.  I hope one day to be of some use to you, in return for\nall you have done for me.\"  And her brother Herbert wrote her: \"You\ncannot know how much I felt your leaving.  The blow came so suddenly.\nYou were gone.  Only God and myself know how much I had lost in you.  I\ncan truthfully say that you have been _everything_ to me, and if it had\nnot been for you I should never have been where and what I am\nspiritually at present. God bless you a thousand thousand times. Oh! how\nI long to be of some little service to you after all you have been to\nme....  Thousands upon thousands of true, loving hearts are bearing you\nup at the Eternal throne, mine among them.  You have a chance that men\nof the past would have given their blood for, and that the very angels\nin Heaven covet.\"\n\nThere was no _Entente Cordiale_ in those days, and at the thought of\nparting with Katie, and letting her go to live in the slums of Paris,\nMrs. Booth confessed that she \"felt unutterable things.\"  In a letter to\na friend she wrote: \"The papers I read on the state of Society in Paris\nmake me shudder, and I see all the dangers to which our darling will be\nexposed!\"  But if her fears were great, her faith was greater.  Asked by\nLady Cairns how she dared to send a girl so young and unprotected into\nsuch surroundings, she answered, \"Her innocence is her strength, and\nKatie knows the Lord.\"  And if Katie herself was asked to define\nChristianity, she answered, \"Christianity is heroism!\"  For a girl of\nthis spirit, was there, after all, anything so formidable in the French\npeople?  Was there not rather a pre-established harmony between her and\nthe pleasant land of France, as her remarkable predilection for the\nFrench language already seemed to indicate?  Is any nation in the world\nso chivalrous as the French? any nation so sensitive to the charm of\nmanner, the magnetic power of personality? any nation--in spite of all\nits hatred of clericalism--gifted with so infallible a sense of the\nbeauty of true holiness?  _Courage, camarade!_\n\nWhat were the ideas with which Catherine began her work in Paris?  What\nwas her plan of campaign?  How did she hope to conquer? On these points\nlet us listen to herself.  \"I saw,\" she says, \"that the bridge to France\nwas--making the French people believe in me. That is what the\nProtestants do not understand.  They preach the Bible, they write books,\nthey offer tracts.  But that does not do the work.  'Curse your bibles,\nyour books, your tracts!' cry the French.  I have seen thousands of\ntestaments given away to very little purpose.  I have seen them torn up\nto light cigars.  And the conviction that took shape in my mind was\nthat, unless I could inspire faith in me, there was no hope.  Only if\nJesus is lifted up in flesh and blood, will He to-day draw all men to\nHim.  If I cannot _give Him_, I shall fail.  France has not waited till\nnow for religion, for preaching, for eloquence. Something more is\nneeded.  'I that speak unto thee am He'--there is a sense in which the\nworld is waiting for that to-day.  You may say that this leads to\nfanaticism, to all sorts of error; and yet I always come back to it.\nChrist's primary idea, His means of saving the world, is, after all,\npersonality.  The face, the character, the life of Jesus is to be seen\nin men and women.  This is the bridge to the seething masses who believe\nin nothing, who hate religion, who cry 'Down with Jesus Christ!'  What\nsympathy I felt with them as I listened to their angry cries against\nsomething which they had never really seen or known.  They shout\n'Jesuits,' but they have never seen Jesus.  Could they but see Him, they\nwould still 'receive Him gladly.'  It is the priests' religion that has\nmade them bitter. 'Money to be baptised!  Money to be married! Money to\nbe buried!' was what I heard them mutter.  Ah! they are quick to\nrecognise the comedian in religion, and equally quick to recognise the\nreal thing.  France is more sensitive to disinterested love than any\nnation I have ever known.  France will never accept a religion without\nsacrifice.\n\n\"These were the convictions with which I began the work in Paris, and,\nif I had to begin it over again to-day, I would go on the same lines.\nWhen I knew what I had to do, my mind was at rest.  I said, 'We will lay\nourselves out for them; they shall know where we live, they can watch us\nday and night, they shall see what we do and judge us.'  And the\nwonderful thing in those first years of our work in France and\nSwitzerland was _the flame_. We lighted it all along the line.  Wherever\nwe went we brought the fire with us, we fanned it, we communicated it.\nWe could not help doing so, because it was in us, and that was what made\nus sufferers.  The fire had to be burning in us day and night.  That is\nour symbol--the fire, the fire!\n\n    Seigneur, ce que mon coeur reclame,\n      C'est le Feu ...\n    Le seul secret de la Victoire,\n      C'est le Feu.\n\nWe all know what the fire is.  It warms and it burns; it scorches the\nPharisees and makes the cowards fly.  But the poor, tempted, unhappy\nworld knows by whom it is kindled, and says: 'I know Thee who Thou\nart--the Holy One of God!'\n\n\"That was what filled the halls at Havre and Rouen, Nimes and Bordeaux,\nBrussels and Liege.  We personified Some One, and that was the\nattraction.  I have not the insufferable conceit to suppose that it was\nanything in _me_ that drew them.  What am I? Dust and ashes.  But if you\nhave the fire, it draws, it melts; it consumes all selfishness; it makes\nyou love as He loves; it gives you a heart of steel to yourself, and the\ntenderest of hearts to others; it gives you eyes to see what no one else\nsees, to hear what others have never given themselves the trouble to\nlisten to.  And men rush to you because you are what you are; you are as\nHe was in the world; you have His sympathy, His Divine love, His Divine\npatience.  Therefore He gives you the victory over the world; and what\nis money, what are houses, lands, anything, compared with that?\n\n\"This was the one attraction.  When I went to France I said to Christ:\n'I in You and You in me!' and many a time in confronting a laughing,\nscoffing crowd, single-handed, I have said, 'You and I are enough for\nthem. I won't fail You, and You won't fail me.'  That is something of\nwhich we have only touched the fringe.  That is a truth almost\nhermetically sealed.  It would be sacrilege, it would be desecration, it\nwould be wrong, unfair, unjust if Divine power were given on any other\nterms than absolute self-abandonment. When I went to France I said to\nJesus, 'I will suffer anything if You will give me the keys.'  And if I\nam asked what was the secret of our power in France, I answer: First,\nlove; second, love; third, love.  And if you ask how to get it, I\nanswer: First, by sacrifice; second, by sacrifice; third, by sacrifice.\nChrist loved us passionately, and loves to be loved passionately.  He\ngives Himself to those who love Him passionately.  And the world has yet\nto see what can be done on these lines.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER IV*\n\n                           *CHRIST IN PARIS*\n\n\nIn the early spring of 1881 Captain Catherine Booth and her intrepid\nlieutenants, Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox and Elizabeth Clark, who\nenjoyed the privilege of her example and training, began life in Paris.\nLater on they were joined by Ruth Patrick, Lucy Johns and others.  Soon\nafter they were joined by the General's youngest son, Herbert Booth, who\nis proud of having received his first black eye in assisting his sister\nduring those early fights, and Arthur Sydney Clibborn, who lived a life\nof unparalleled devotion and heroism, and later became the Marechale's\nhusband. Years before Canon Barnett and his band of Oxford men were\nattracted to Whitechapel, these fresh young English girls settled in a\nsimilar quarter of the French capital.  What quixotic impulses carried\nthem thither?  They had no social or political ideals to realise.  They\nhad not been persuaded that altruism is better than egoism, that the\nenthusiasm of humanity is nobler than the pursuit of pleasure or the\nlove of culture.  They were not weary of the conventions of society and\nseeking a new sensation in slumming.  They were not playing at soldiers.\nBut they, too, had their dreams and visions.  They loved Christ, and\nthey wished to see Christ victorious in Paris. Coming into a wilderness\nof poverty, squalor and vice, they dared to believe that they could make\nthe desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. They had the faith which\nlaughs at impossibilities.\n\nThe first letter Catherine received from her father after she set foot\nin France breathed tender affection and ardent hope.  \"Oh, my heart does\nyearn over you!  How could you fear for a single moment that you would\nbe any less near and dear to me on account of your brave going forth to\na land of strangers to help me in the great purpose and struggle of my\nlife?  My darling, you are nearer and dearer than ever....  France is\nhanging on you to an extent fearful to contemplate, and you must regard\nyour health, seeing that we cannot go on without you.  We shall\nanxiously await information as to when you make a start.  Everybody who\nhas heard you and knows you feels the fullest confidence in the result.\nNevertheless I shall be glad for you to get to work, seeing that I know\nyou won't be easy in your mind until you have seen a few French sinners\nsmashed up at the penitent form.\"\n\nWith her own hand Catherine raised the flag at Rue d'Angouleme 66, in\nBelleville. Here was a hall for six hundred, situated in a court\napproached by a narrow street.  The bulk of the audience that gathered\nthere night after night were of the artisan class.  Some were young men\nof a lower type, and from these came what disturbance there was.  The\nFrench sense of humour is keen, and there were many lively sallies at\nthe expense of the speakers and singers on the platform.  Every false\naccent, every wrong idiom, every unexpected utterance or gesture was\nreceived with an outburst of laughter.  But the mirth was superficial,\nand the expression on the faces of the tired men, harassed women, and\npale children was one of settled melancholy.  Catherine instinctively\nfelt that what they needed was a gospel of joy; certainly not the\npreaching of hell, for did they not live in hell?  These toiling sisters\nand brothers were the multitudes on whom Jesus had compassion.\n\nMeetings were held night after night, and for six months the Capitaine\nwas never absent except on Saturdays.  Those were days of fight, and she\nfought, to use her own phrase, like a tiger.  She had to fight first her\nown heart.  She knew her capacity, and God had done great things through\nher in England. The change from an audience of five thousand spellbound\nhearers in the circus of Leeds to a handful of gibing _ouvriers_ in the\nBelleville quarter of Paris was indeed a clashing antithesis.  A\nfortnight passed without a single penitent, and Catherine was all the\ntime so ill that it was doubtful if she would be able to remain in the\nfield.  That fortnight was probably one of the supreme trials of her\nfaith. The work appeared so hopeless!  There was nothing to see.  But\nfor the Capitaine faith meant _going on_.  It meant saying to her heart,\n\"You may suffer, you may bleed, you may break, but you shall go on.\"\nShe went on, believing, praying, fighting, and at last the tide of\nbattle turned.\n\nThe beginning of what proved a memorable meeting was more than usually\nunpromising. One of the tormentors, a terrible woman, known as \"the\ndevil's wife,\" excelled herself that night.  She was of immense size,\nand used to stand in the hall with arms akimbo and sleeves rolled up\nabove the elbows, and with one wink of her eye would set everybody\nscreaming and yelling.  On this occasion there was not a thing that she\ndid not turn to ridicule.  The fun grew fast and furious, and some of\nthe audience got up and began to dance.  The meeting seemed to be lost;\nbut by a master-stroke the leader turned defeat into victory.  Through\nthe din she cried, \"Mes amis!  I will give you twenty minutes to dance,\nif you will then give me twenty minutes to speak.  Are you agreed?\"  A\ntall, dark, handsome _ouvrier_, in a blue blouse, who had been a\nringleader in the disturbances, jumped up and said, \"Citizens, it is\nonly fair play;\" and they all agreed.  So they had their dance, and at\nthe end of the appointed time the _ouvrier_, standing with watch in\nhand, cried, \"Time up, citizens; it is the Capitaine's turn!\"  The\nbargain was kept.  Everybody sat down, and an extraordinary silence\nfilled the place.  Not for twenty, but for an hour and twenty minutes\nthe leader had the meeting in the hollow of her hand.  When the audience\nfiled out, the tall _ouvrier_ remained behind, and Catherine went down\nto where he was sitting in the back of the hall.  With his chiselled\nface and firm-set mouth, he looked like a man who could have seen one\nburned alive without moving a muscle.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said the Capitaine, \"you have helped me to-night.  Have you\nunderstood what I have been saying?\"\n\n\"I believe that you believe what you say.\"\n\n\"Oh! of course I believe.\"\n\n\"Well, I was not sure before.\"  With a sigh he added, \"Have you time to\nlisten?\"\n\n\"Yes, certainly.\"\n\nIt was midnight and they were alone.  As he began in softest tones to\ntell the story of his inner life, she felt the delicacy of the soul that\nis hidden under the roughest exterior.  He said, \"I had the happiest\nhome in all Paris.  I married the woman I loved, and after twelve months\na little boy came to our home.  Three weeks after, my wife lost her\nreason, and now she is in an asylum.  But there was still my little boy.\nHe was a beautiful child.  We ate together, slept together, walked and\ntalked together.  He was all the world to me.  He was the first to greet\nme in the morning, and the first to welcome me in the evening when I\ncame home from work.  This went on till the sixth year struck, and\nthen....\"  His lips twitched, and he turned his face away.  His hearer\nsoftly said, \"He died.\"  He gave a scarcely perceptible nod, and\nsmothered a groan.  \"And then,\" he continued, \"I went to the devil.\nBefore the open grave in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, with hundreds of my\ncomrades about me, I lifted my hand to heaven and cried, 'If there be a\nGod, let Him strike me dead!'\"\n\n\"But He did not strike you dead?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"He is very gentle and patient with us all. And now you have come here\nto-night.  Does it not seem to you a strange thing that you out of all\nthe millions of France, and I out of all the millions of England should\nbe all alone together here at midnight?  How do you account for it?\nIsn't it because God thought of you, and loves you? ... Do you ever\npray?\"\n\n\"I pray?  Oh, never!  Perhaps I prayed as a child, but never now.\"\n\n\"But I pray,\" said the Capitaine, and, kneeling down, she prayed a\ndouble prayer, for herself as well as for him.  She wanted this man's\nsalvation for her own sake and the work's sake.  For weeks she had been\nfighting and praying for a break, and she felt as if on the issue of\nthis wrestling for a single soul depended the whole future of the work\nin France.  While she prayed for his salvation from sin she was silently\npraying for her own deliverance from doubt and fear and discouragement.\nAnd both prayers were heard. When she opened her eyes, she saw his face\nbathed in tears.  She knew that his heart was melted, and she spoke to\nhim of the love of God.\n\n\"But I have hated Him.  I have hated religion; I have come here to mock\nyou; I have called you Jesuits.\"\n\n\"Yet God loves you.\"\n\n\"But why did He allow my wife to lose her reason?  Why did He take my\nchild if He is love?\"\n\n\"I cannot answer these questions.  You will know why one day.  But I\nknow He loves you.\"\n\n\"Is it possible that He can forgive a poor sinner like me?\"\n\n\"It is certain.\"\n\nEmile was won.  Some nights afterward he gave his testimony, and for\nseven years he always stood by the Marechale.  He was her best helper.\nWhen he used to get up to speak, there was immediate attention.\n\"Citizens,\" he would say, \"you all know me.  You have heard me many\ntimes.  This God whom I once hated I now love, and I want to speak to\nyou about Him.\"\n\nAfter this, conversions became frequent. The mercy-seat was rarely\nempty.  One of the first French songs of Catherine's composition\ncontained the most curious idioms:\n\n    Quand je suis souffrant,\n    Entendez mon cri, etc.\n      --Donnez moi Jesus.\n\nBut she sang it with such feeling that it was the means of the\nconversion of a clever young governess, who became one of her most\ndevoted officers.\n\nThen another striking conquest was made. One night a rough fellow,\npartly drunk, approached the Capitaine and said a vile word to her in\nthe hearing of \"the devil's wife,\" who dealt him a blow that sent him\nreeling across the hall crying, \"You dare not touch her, she is too pure\nfor us!\" (_Elle est trop pure pour nous!_)  Catherine rushed between\nthem and stopped the fight.  Thus \"la femme du diable\" was won, and from\nthat time she got two or three others to join her in forming Catherine's\nbodyguard, who nightly escorted her and her comrades through the Rue\nd'Allemagne, which was a haunt of criminals, and saw her safe at the\ndoor of her flat in the Avenue Parmentier.\n\nWhen Baron Cederstroem was seeking local colour for his painting \"The\nMarechale in the Cafe,\"[1] he drove down with his wife to a meeting in\nthe Rue d'Angouleme.  As they approached the hall, the Baroness caught\nsight of some of the faces and took fright.\n\n\n[1] This painting is now in the picture gallery of Stockholm. The\nartist, as is well known, afterwards married Madame Patti.\n\n\n\"Go back, go back!\" she shouted to the coachman.\n\nThe Baron tried in vain to reassure her.\n\n\"Give me my salts!\" she cried, feeling as if she would faint.  \"I never\nsaw such faces in my life.  They are all murderers and brigands.\"  To\nCatherine, who came out to welcome her, she exclaimed, \"I am sure the\ngood God won't send _you_ to Purgatory, for you have it here!\"\n\n\"You have nothing to fear,\" was the answer; \"I am here every night.\"\nBut as the Baroness was led up to the front seats, she still cast scared\nlooks at the people she passed.\n\nSome of the politically dangerous classes did give trouble for a time.\nKnives were displayed and some blood was shed.  An excited sergeant of\npolice declared one night that half the cut-throats of Paris were in\nthat hall, and by order of the authorities it was closed.  Soon,\nhowever, the meetings were again in full swing, and when Catherine's\neldest brother Bramwell, her comrade in many an English campaign, paid\nher a flying visit three months after she left home, he was delighted\nwith all that he saw.  \"The meetings,\" he wrote, \"are held every night.\nThe congregations vary from 150 to 400....  On Sunday, at three, I\nattended the testimony meeting, which is only for converts and friends.\nAbout seventy were present.  Miss Booth took the centre, and gathered\nround her a little company.  I cannot describe that meeting.  When I\nheard those French converts singing that first hymn, 'Nearer to heaven,\nnearer to heaven,' I wept for joy, and during the season of prayer which\nfollowed my heart overflowed.  Here, using another tongue, among a\nstrange people, almost alone, this little band have trusted the Lord and\ntriumphed....  Then testimonies were invited.... I wept and rejoiced,\nand wept again.  I glorified God.  Had I not heard these seventeen\npeople speak in their own language of God's saving power in Paris during\nthose few weeks!  I require all who read this to rejoice. I believe they\nwill.  Remember how great a task it is to awaken the conscience before\nChrist can be offered; to convince of sin as well as of righteousness;\nto call to repentence as well as faith....  On the following night 300\nwere present....  Miss Booth stepped off the platform as she concluded\nher address, and came down, as so many of us have seen her come down at\nhome, into the midst of the people.  Her closing appeal seemed to go\nthrough them.  Many were deeply moved.  Some of those sitting at the\nback, who had evidently come largely for fun, quailed before one's very\neyes, and seemed subdued and softened.  God was working.\"\n\nLater in the year the new headquarters on the Quai de Valmy were opened.\nHere there was a hall for 1200.  No other form of religion could draw\nsuch an assembly of the lowest class of Parisians as nightly met in it.\nThe men came in their blouses, kept their caps on their heads,\nand--except that they abstained from smoking, in obedience to a notice\nat the door--behaved with the freedom and ease of a music-hall audience.\nBut the earnest way in which most of those present joined in the hymns\nproved that they were not mere spectators, and it was astonishing that\nmany rough, unkempt, and even brutal-looking men soon learned to sing\nheartily without using the book.\n\nThere were a hundred converts in the first year and another five hundred\nin the second. Paris herself began to testify that a good work had been\nbegun in her midst.  On the way to and from the hall in the Rue\nd'Angouleme Catherine, who by this time had begun to be endearingly\nknown as the Marechale, the highest military title in France, used often\nto meet a priest, to whom she always said \"Bon jour, mon pere.\"  One day\nhe paused and said, \"Madame la Marechale, I want to tell you that since\nyou began your work in this quarter the moral atmosphere of the whole\nplace has changed.  I meet the fruits everywhere, and I can tell better\nthan you what you are doing.\"  She felt that God sent her that word of\nencouragement.\n\nOne of her letters of this time indicates what kind of impression her\nwork was making. \"There is a man,\" she wrote, \"who has attended our\nmeetings most regularly.  He listens with breathless attention, and\nsometimes the tears flow down his cheeks.  He was visited, and sent me\n70 francs for our work, with a message that he desired to see me.  I saw\nhim, and he gave me 80 more, with the words '_Sauvez la jeunesse_'!\n('Save the young!')  I found him very dark and hopeless about\nhimself....  The next week he again called me aside in the hall, put 50\nfrancs into my hand, saying he hoped soon we should have a hall in every\nquarter of Paris.  'Save the young people!' he again said.  I said 'Yes,\nbut I want to see you saved.'  'That will come,' he said, and left the\nhall.  Last Sunday afternoon, I noticed him weeping in a corner of the\nhall, as our young people were witnessing for Jesus, and, after the\nservices, he asked if he might speak to me for two minutes; this time he\nhanded me 60 francs, telling me to go on praying for him.  He has lived\na bad life and is troubled with the thought of the past.\"\n\nIt began to be commonly believed that the Marechale could work certain\nkinds of miracles.  A woman who had attended the meetings, and been\nblessed in her soul, became convinced that the English lady had power to\ncast out devils, and one day she brought a neighbour to the physician of\nsouls, introducing her with the remark, \"She has not only one but seven\ndevils.\"  The new-comer had a frightful face.  She was so drunken,\nimmoral and violent that nobody could live with her.  Yet she, too, had\na soul.  The Marechale made her get down on her knees, put both her\nhands on her head, and prayed that the devils might all be cast out.\n\"She's now another woman,\" was the testimony soon after borne by all her\nneighbours.\n\nOne of the surest indications of the success of the work in Paris is\nfound in the fact that, before the end of the first year there was a\ngeneral demand for a newspaper corresponding in some degree to the\nEnglish _War Cry_. That was a memorable day on which the Marechale and\nher officers sat in their Avenue Parmentier flat, like a coterie of\nFleet Street journalists, gravely discussing their new venture.  It was\nindicative of the holy simplicity of the editor-in-chief that she\nthought at first of changing _The War Cry_ into _Amour_.  She did not\nrealise the sensation which the cry \"Amour, un sou!\" would have created\nin the Boulevards.  Her proposal was overruled, but her second\nsuggestion, to call the paper _En Avant_, was received with acclamation.\nThis was a real inspiration.  The paper duly appeared in the beginning\nof 1882, and has gone on successfully ever since.  The shouting of its\nname in the streets set all the world and his wife a-thinking and\na-talking.  What if the Man of Nazareth is after all far ahead of our\nmodern philosophers and statesmen, and if this handful of English girls\nis come to lead us all _forward_ to true liberty, equality and\nfraternity?\n\nThe reports of the work in France were received with feelings of\ngratitude at home. To \"My dear Kittens\"--a family pet-name--her brother\nBramwell wrote: \"We are more than satisfied with your progress.  The\nGeneral says that so far as he can judge your rate of advance in making\npeople is greater than his own was at the beginning.  I am sure you\nought to feel only the liveliest confidence and greatest encouragement\nall the time.\"  And to \"My darling Bluecher\" the General himself wrote,\n\"I appreciate and admire and daily thank God for your courage and love\nand endurance.  God will and must bless you.  We pray for you.  I feel I\nlive over again in you. We all send you our heartiest greetings and our\nmost tender affection.  Look up.  Don't forget _my_ sympathy.  Don't\ntrouble to answer my scrawls.  I never like to see your handwriting\nbecause I know it means your poor back.  Remember me to all your\ncomrades.\"\n\n\"I feel I live over again in you.\"  The thought was evidently habitual\nin the General's mind.  \"He bids me tell you,\" wrote Emma, \"that you are\nhis second self.\"  The resemblance was physical as well as spiritual.\nWith her tall figure, her chiselled face, her aquiline nose, her\npenetrating blue eyes, Catherine became, as time went on, more and more\nstrikingly like her father.  One of her sons, who saw her stooping over\nthe General the day before he died, said that the two pallid faces were\nlike facsimiles in marble.\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER V*\n\n                        *FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD*\n\n\nIn the autumn of 1883 the Marechale suddenly leapt into fame as a\nlatter-day Portia, brilliantly and successfully pleading in a Swiss\nlaw-court, before the eyes of Europe, the sacred cause of civil and\nreligious liberty.  The land of Tell, the oldest of modern republics,\nhas always been regarded as a shrine of freedom.  It has shown itself\nhospitable to all kinds of ideas, even the newest, the strangest, the\nmost anti-Christian, the most anti-social. There is a natural affinity\nbetween free England and free Switzerland.\n\n    \"Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,\n    One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice:\n    In both from age to age thou didst rejoice;\n    They were thy chosen music, Liberty.\"\n\n\nIn the \"Treaty of Friendship\" between Great Britain and Switzerland,\ndrawn up in 1855, it was agreed that \"the subjects and citizens of\neither of the two contracting parties shall, provided they conform to\nthe laws of the country, be at liberty, with their families, to enter,\nestablish themselves, reside and remain in any part of the territories\nof the other.\"  Yet the presence of a few English evangelists in\nSwitzerland evoked a storm of persecution in which the first principles\nof religious liberty were as much violated as ever they had been in the\ndays of the Huguenots.\n\nWhen the Marechale and some comrades accepted an urgent invitation to\nSwitzerland, she little thought that she would be the heroine of an\nhistorical trial.  She went to preach the gospel.  She observed the laws\nof the land, and respected the religious susceptibilities of its people.\nWhen she entered Geneva, she published only one poster, and that after\nit had been duly _vise_; she allowed no processions, banners or brass\nbands in the streets.  Her only crime was that she sought to gain the\nears of those who never entered a place of worship, and that she\nmarvellously succeeded.\n\nIf good order was not always maintained at her meetings, it was not her\nfault, but that of the authorities who refused to do their duty. History\nrepeats itself.  As in ancient Thessalonica during the visit of St.\nPaul, so in modern Geneva, some citizens, \"moved with jealousy, took\nunto themselves certain vile fellows of the rabble, and gathering a\ncrowd set the city on an uproar.\"  The ringleaders of the disturbance\nwere paid by noted traffickers in vice, who were themselves often seen\nin the meetings inciting the audience to riot.  One of the first\nconverts, a student, confessed that he had got twenty francs a night,\nand as much whisky as he could drink, to make a row.\n\nThe Department of Justice and Police chanced at that time to have as its\npresident a Councillor of State, M. Heridier, who thought it right not\nto punish the offenders but to banish their victims.  In a sitting of\nthe Grand Council he said, \"We have been petitioned to call out a\ncompany of gendarmerie to protect these foreigners, and to prevent\nbrawls and rows.  I will not consent to take such a step.  There are\nalready eight police agents in these places every evening who have a\nvery hard time of it....  These agents might be doing more useful work\nelsewhere, and I am just about to withdraw them.\"  That meant handing\nover the strangers to the tender mercies of the mob.  It was a gross\nbreach of the laws of hospitality and chivalry as well as of the\nconstitution of a free country.  The city of Calvin did not know the day\nof its visitation.\n\nThe Marechale and her comrades began their meetings in the Casino on\nDecember 22, 1882. The hall was crowded, and soon there was raging a\ngreat battle between the powers of light and darkness.  A disturbance\nhad evidently been organised.  A band of students in coloured caps, who\nhad come early and taken possession of the front of the galleries and\nother prominent positions, were on their worst behaviour.  The first\nhymn was interrupted by cries and ribald songs, and the prayer which\nfollowed was almost drowned.  But the Marechale was never more calm and\nconfident than when facing such music.  At every slight lull in the\nstorm, she uttered, in clear, penetrating tones, some pointed words\nwhich pierced many a heart.  Within an hour she not only had subdued her\naudience but was inviting those who desired salvation to come forward to\nthe penitent form.  Scoffers of half an hour ago left their places,\ntrembling under the sense of guilt, and as they knelt down the Marechale\nsang, in soft notes, the hymn:\n\n    Reviens, reviens, pauvre pecheur,\n      Ton Pere encore t'attend;\n    Veux-tu languir loin du bonheur,\n      Et pecher plus longtemps?\n\n    O! reviens a ton Sauveur,\n      Reviens ce soir,\n    Il veut te recevoir,\n      Reviens a ton Sauveur!\n\nA strange influence stole over the meeting, hushing the crowd into\nprofound silence, and the Spirit did His work in many hearts.\n\nThe Marechale conducted a similar service the following night, and on\nChristmas Eve she faced an audience of 3000 in the Salle de la\nReformation.  Its composition was entirely to her mind, for she was\nnever so inspired with divine pity and power as when she was confronting\nthe worst elements of a town.  The theatres, the cabarets, the dancing\nsaloons, the drinking dens, and the rendezvous of prostitution had\npoured their contents into the hall. Socialists who had found refuge in\nGeneva--men of many nationalities--came _en masse_.  A large part of the\naudience were so entirely strangers to the idea of worship or of a\nDivine Being, that the sound of prayer called forth loud derisive\nlaughter, with questions and cries of surprise and scorn.\n\nBut the soldiers of Christ, clad in armour of light, were more than a\nmatch for the powers of darkness.  Many a winged word found its mark,\nand the after-meeting in the smaller hall, into which three hundred were\ncrowded, was pervaded by a death-like stillness, in which many sought\nand found salvation.  Some of the ringleaders of the disturbance had\npushed their way into this room; but they remained perfectly quiet,\nevidently subdued and over-awed, with an expression on their faces of\nintense interest, which showed that they felt they were in presence of a\nreality in religion which they had not before encountered.  The\nMarechale sang her own hymn \"Je viens a Toi, dans ma misere,\" and many\njoined in the chorus:\n\n    Ote tous mes peches!\n    Agneau de Dieu, je viens a Toi,\n    Ote tous mes peches.\n\nOne of those who were melted by the words wrote: \"I was like the\ndemoniac of Gadara. I may say I was possessed; I was chained for fifteen\nyears to a frightful life....  It was then that you came.  I was at\nfirst astonished; then remorse seized me.  Then followed a frightful\ntorment in my soul--a real hell.  I resolved to put an end to it one way\nor another. Yet I thought I would go and hear you once more.  I had been\nin darkness and anguish since the day of the first meeting.  No word had\nI been able to recall of that day's teaching, except the words of the\nsacred song 'Ote tous mes peches' (Take all my sins away).  These\nsounded in my heart and brain through the day and the sleepless\nnight--these and these only.  Bowed down with grief and despair, again I\ncame to the Reformation Hall, and to the after-meeting.  The first\nsounds which fell on my ear were again those very words, 'Ote tous mes\npeches,' and then you spoke on the words, 'Though your sins be as\nscarlet, they shall be white as snow'; you seemed to speak to me alone,\nto regard me alone--and I felt it was God who had sent me there to hear\nthose words.\"\n\nHundreds of such letters were written. Evidence came from all sides of\nblessing received in many homes, of wild sons reclaimed, of drunkards\nand vicious men transformed by the power of God, of light and joy\nbrought into families over which a cloud had hung. Not only anarchists\nand prodigals, but students of theology and the children of pastors had\ntheir lives transformed.  In a meeting for women only, at which 3000\nwere present, the daughter of Pastor Napoleon Roussel began the new\nlife.  Her brother had been one of the converts in the first meeting in\nthe Reformation Hall.  Mlle. Roussel was to be the Marechale's secretary\nfor five years, and accompany her in a great American tour.  A divinity\nstudent who attended a \"night with Jesus\" on New Year's Eve, wrote: \"I\npassed a long night of watch, which I shall never forget. Since then I\nam ever happy, and can say 'Glory to God' every hour of the day.\"\n\nBut as the tide of Divine blessing rose, the tide of human hatred also\nrose, and in the beginning of February the \"exercises\" of the Army were\nby Cantonal decree forbidden.  A week later, the Marechale, with a young\ncompanion, Miss Maud Charlesworth, now Mrs. Gen. Ballington Booth, was\nexpelled from the Canton of Geneva.  During her six weeks in the city\nshe had been used to bring about probably the greatest revival which it\nhad witnessed since the days of the Reformers.\n\nOne of the most eminent lawyers of Geneva, Edmond Pictet, who had\nhimself been greatly blessed during those stirring weeks, helped her to\ndraw up an Appeal (_Recours_) to the Grand Council.  He found, however,\nthat she needed but little help, and often remarked that with the warm\nheart of an evangelist she combined the lucid intelligence of an\nadvocate.  When the Council of State had deputed two or three of its\nmembers to hear her on the subject of her Appeal, she came back to\nGeneva under a safe-conduct to meet them.  In the course of the\ninterview, at which the British Consul in the city was present, the\nleading Councillor said, \"You are a young woman; it is not in accordance\nwith our ideas and customs that young women should appear in public.  We\nare scandalised (_froisses_) by it.\"  The rejoinder which he received\nwas so remarkable a defence of \"the Prophesying of Women\" that we give\nit in full.\n\n\"Listen to me, I beg of you, sir.  It is contrary, you tell me, to your\nsense of what is right and becoming that young women should preach the\nGospel.  Now, if Miss Charlesworth and I had come to Geneva to act in\none of your theatres, I have no doubt we should have met with sympathy\nand approval from your public.  We could have sung and danced on your\nstage; we could have dressed in a manner very different from, and much\nless modest than, that in which you see us dressed; we could have\nappeared before a miscellaneous audience, men and women, young and old,\nand of every class; members of the Grand Council, M. Herdier himself and\nothers, would have come to see us act; we should have got money; Geneva\nwould have paid ungrudgingly in that case; and you would all have sat\nand approved; you would have clapped your hands and cheered us; you\nwould have brought your wives and daughters to see us, and they also\nwould have applauded.  There would have been nothing to _froisser_ you,\nno immorality in all that, according to your ideas and customs.  The\nnoise (_bruit_) we should have thus made would not have caused our\nexpulsion.  But when women come to try and save some of the forty or\nfifty thousand of your miserable, scoffing, irreligious population who\nnever enter any place of worship, when they come with hearts full of\npity and love for the ignorant and sinful, and stand up to tell the glad\ntidings of salvation to these rebels, this mob, among whom many accept\nthe tidings with eager joy--then you cry out that this is unseemly and\nimmodest.  You would not bring your wives and daughters to hear us speak\nof Jesus, though you would bring them to hear us if we danced and sang\nupon the stage of your theatre. Now you have expelled us; but still\nthere are those multitudes in Geneva who are dark, lost, unsaved; and\nyou know it.  There they are; they exist.  What will you do with them?\nSay--what will you do?  Are they not a danger? Does not their lost\ncondition cry out against you?\"\n\nThe Councillor was not only silenced, but sank into his chair in a state\nof temporary lapse.  For the moment, at least, the reality of the\npicture presented to him had touched his heart.\n\nNevertheless the Marechale's Appeal was rejected, and M. Pictet wrote to\nher: \"The wretched storm of anger and prejudice which you witnessed and\nwhich your friends deplore so much, has not blown over by any means.  I,\nfor one, despair of ever seeing my fellow-citizens properly understand\nwhat religious liberty and respect of other people's opinion\nmean,--therefore the only course left to the Army seems to be the one\nindicated in St. Matthew x. 23!  _You_ have done your duty, you cannot\nbe expected to do more than Paul and Barnabas did (Acts xiii. 51).\"\n\nMeantime the enemies of righteousness rejoiced.  The theatrical paper of\nGeneva complimented the authorities upon the expulsion. \"Our theatre,\"\nit said, \"has lost a formidable rival, and the crowd is beginning to\nfind its way back to us.\"\n\nAt that critical time it was not only the civil but the spiritual\nleaders who were weighed and found wanting.  Injustice could scarcely\nhave been pushed so far had not the Churches sanctioned it by their\nattitude of silence or open hostility.  Many religious people took the\nside of the persecuting government and the godless populace.  The\nbitterest pamphlet against the _Armee du Salut_ was written by Madame la\nComtesse de Gasparin, whom the delighted mob hailed as \"a Christian if\never there was one.\"  But the most strange and humiliating fact of all\nwas that the Swiss branch of the Evangelical Alliance resolved, after\ndue deliberation, to refrain from uttering a single word in defence of\nreligious liberty.  No wonder that a number of its most influential\nmembers sorrowfully withdrew from its fellowship.\n\nBanished from Geneva, the Evangelists found refuge for a time in\nNeuchatel.  Coming on the scene just after the authorities had forbidden\nevening meetings, the Marechale gave notice of a morning one to be held\nthe next day.  The hall was filled, and the meetings went on every\nmorning and afternoon, all through the week.\n\nAt six o'clock on Sunday morning the roaring of a crowd of roughs coming\nup the street reached the ears of those who had already gathered inside\nthe hall.  While the noise grew louder and louder, the Marechale said to\nher officers, \"Wait here and pray; I will go and meet them.\"  On\nstepping outside the door, she was at once surrounded by rough fellows\nin their shirt sleeves, armed with sticks and forks and stones, who\nbegan to demand what she wanted in their town, and poured upon her the\nsenseless accusations of the tap-rooms.\n\n\"Go away!\" cried one, \"we've got our pastors.\"\n\n\"My friend,\" was the reply, \"you don't do them much credit.\"\n\n\"Here is my god!\" (_Voila mon dieu!_), said another, pulling out his\npipe and brandishing it in the Marechale's face.\n\n\"You will need another when you come to die.\"\n\n\"You want our money!\" shouted a third.\n\n\"What do you say?  You say that again! Say it!  You dare not, you do not\nbelieve it, you know that it is a lie.\"  And taking this man by the\nshirt collar, the Marechale led him into the hall and up to the front\nseat, where he sat listening most attentively for two hours. Two rows of\npenitents sought pardon at the close of the meeting.\n\nIn June the Grand Council of Nauchatel voted for the suppression of the\n_Armee du Salut_; and Zurich and Canton du Vaud soon followed suit.  It\nthen became clear that the only hope of getting these unconstitutional\ndecrees rescinded lay in disobeying them.  Jurists who were consulted\nheld that this was the best way to compel the authorities to retrace\ntheir steps.  Many Swiss converts were ready to suffer for conscience'\nsake, but the Marechale resolved that she would herself, as a subject of\nQueen Victoria, assert her right to worship God on Swiss soil.  In a new\nform she would raise the Apostle's question, \"Is it lawful for you to\nscourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?\"  The interest of the\nsituation was heightened by the fact that it was now a woman's question.\nAll the spirit of the modern world was in the Marechale's bold\ndeclaration, \"I am a British citizen.\"\n\nAfter working for some months in the south of France, she returned to\nNauchatel and deliberately infringed the Cantonal decree.  On the\nafternoon of Sunday, September 9, she conducted a meeting at Prise-Imer,\nin the Jura forest, some five miles above the lake.  In a letter to\nEngland she described the scene.  \"It was a day never to be forgotten.\nLong before the hour the people met, and we had upwards of 500 who had\ncome out of Nauchatel to praise God.  The weather was beautiful.  After\nso much trouble, fatigue and a long journey, we could meet to talk of\nthe things of God. Hearts and voices rose together, and it cheered me\nmuch to look into the faces of our brave soldiers.  There was no\nmistaking their zeal and determination to go forward.\"\n\nWhile the hymn \"Come, Thou burning Spirit, come\" was being sung under\nthe tall pine trees, a sentinel who had been stationed on the outskirts\nof the forest announced that the Prefect in his carriage, attended by\nsixteen policemen, was approaching.  The Marechale gave the news to the\naudience, and called on everybody to be calm and confident.\n\n\"Take no notice.  We shall have a glorious meeting all the same.\"\n\nThe gendarmes found the congregation kneeling, and formed a ring round\nit, the Prefect himself taking his stand close to the Marechale.  He and\nhis followers were all overawed.  For over two hours they listened as\nmen spellbound.  They heard the Marechale pray for the Government, for\nthe nation of Switzerland, for themselves.  They heard her speak of the\nend and aim of the _Armee du Salut_--\"to save the lost, to make all\nthieves, drunkards, outcasts, and plagues of society peaceful and loyal\ncitizens, through the power of Jesus to lead the nations to God.\"  Then\nthey heard the testimonies of converted criminals, one of whom told of\nhis three years' imprisonment.  Pointing to a plain-clothes detective,\nhe said, \"That policeman over there knows me; he took me to jail; but\nnow I am a changed man.\"  No wonder that the Prefect of Police was\nprofoundly impressed.  At the end of the service, he took out his\nwarrant with trembling hands, and stammered--\n\n\"I have here ... I ought...\"\n\n\"Yes, I know.  You have a decree for my arrest.  Why didn't you give it\nme before?\"\n\n\"Well, I could not.\"\n\n\"Yes, a higher Power than man was here to restrain you.\"\n\nHe could not withhold his tribute of admiration.  \"This is a magnificent\nwork, if it does but last.  You do nothing but good.  I beseech you not\nto hold me responsible for this act.  I, like others, had judged you\nwithout seeing or hearing you.\"\n\nHe had, however, to obey his orders.  The Marechale and Captain Becquet,\none of her officers, were put under arrest.  As they were leaving that\npleasant place, she exclaimed, \"How strange that we are not to be\nallowed to worship God in these beautiful woods! What a pity to see them\nstanding silent and unused!\"  To some of those who heard her voice that\nSunday evening, the spot was for ever holy ground.  In the audience was\na young Switzer, Constant Jeanmonod, one of nature's gentlemen, who\nfound salvation on that day, gave himself body and soul to God, and\nafterwards became one of the Marechale's most devoted friends and\ncomrades in many a hard campaign.  He is now at the head of the work in\nBelgium.\n\nThe Marechale and Captain Becquet were brought down to Nauchatel and\nconducted to the house of M. Comtesse, President of the Council of\nState, who said to them, \"You are my prisoners, and it is my duty to\nhave you locked up this night.\"  The Marechale, however, had just\nreceived a telegram begging her to attend the funeral of a brave young\nGeneva convert, who had breathed a dying request that she should speak\nat his grave-side.  She asked permission to fulfil this sacred duty, and\nwas liberated on bail of 6000 francs.\n\nNext morning a service was held in the garden of the farmhouse near\nGeneva where Charles Wyssa had died, and there the Marechale found a\nlifelong friend.  Mrs. Josephine Butler was present, and gave a brief\naddress which lived long in the memory of those who heard it.  Having\nspoken of her profound sympathy with the work of the _Armee du Salut_ in\nSwitzerland, she made a moving reference to the fact that she had lost\nher only and dearly-loved daughter, whom she had named Evangeline in the\nhope that her life would be dedicated to evangelisation.  One fatal\nevening, when, the mother returned home after a long journey, her little\ndaughter came running downstairs to meet and welcome her.  In her\nextreme eagerness to see her mother again, the child forgot all danger,\nslipped over the staircase balustrade, and was taken up crushed and\nunconscious.  In less than an hour her gentle spirit had fled.\n\n\"At the coffin of that child,\" said Mrs. Butler, \"I consecrated my life\nto the relief of my suffering and oppressed brothers and sisters. My\ngreat desire was that she should become a preacher of the Word of God.\nAnd now,\" added the mother, throwing her arms round the Marechale, \"by\nanother new coffin I have found my long-lost daughter, an Evangelist\nchosen and blessed of God.\"  When the Marechale had daughters of her\nown, she called the eldest Catherine Evangeline and the youngest\nJosephine.\n\nFrom that garden the company moved to the churchyard, where the\nMarechale spoke on the beautiful words, \"Who are these which are arrayed\nin white robes, and whence came they?\"  Just as John Wyssa, the younger\nbrother of Charles, was throwing a handful of earth on the coffin, and\nmurmuring the words \"_Au revoir, mon frere_,\" the Mayor of the Commune\napproached in order to arrest Miss Booth.  At this juncture Col.\nClibborn interposed, saying, \"Sir! this is a funeral.\"  He was a coarse,\nbrutal fellow, very different from the Prefect of Police in Neuchatel.\nThe mayor not heeding was putting his hand upon Miss Booth's arm, when\nshe turned upon him with flashing eyes, and said, \"Hands off! this is\nholy ground! Don't you see that we are in the presence of the dead?  I\nfinish this service, and then will speak with you.\"\n\nWhen the funeral rites were ended, the Mayor thought his turn was at\nlast come.  He was about to proceed with the arrest, when the Marechale\nstill objected.\n\n\"You can't arrest me!\"\n\nThe Mayor stared in bewilderment.\n\n\"I say you can't arrest me!\"\n\n\"May I ask why?\"\n\n\"Because with the best will in the world I can't go to two prisons in\ntwo Cantons at the same time.  I am due in Nauchatel.\"\n\nThe Mayor saw that she was right, and retired crestfallen.\n\nThe Marechale returned to Nauchatel and surrendered to her bail.  The\niron gates of the grim jail closed upon her.  The imprisonment was\nshared by her faithful lieutenant, Kate Patrick, who refused to leave\nher.\n\nIt was twelve days before the trial came on. The Marechale was in\ndelicate health, and frequently became sick.  The hunger-striking and\nforcible feeding of these latter days would soon have killed her.  She\ntried to eat, but had little appetite, and what little she had was\ndestroyed by the garlic in the food.  Mice disturbed her nights and in\nthe early morning the odours which came from the passages were\ninsupportable.  The only way in which she could get any relief was by\nputting her face between the iron bars of the window and breathing the\nair which came up from the lake.  She was always thankful that her face\nwas thin and just went through the cold bars.\n\nOne morning at five or six o'clock she was awakened by happy voices\nsinging dear familiar choruses outside the prison walls.  She was very\nill, but she dragged herself from her hard bed to the window, waved her\nhand, and cried \"Amen!\"  Then she attached her handkerchief to a bar,\nand let it flutter like a flag. The signal was received with shouts of\n\"Amen, Marechale--be of good cheer--hold on--hallelujah!\"\n\nAs the time passed, she was thrown in upon herself, and went through a\ngreat soul-struggle. She had lately been the victim of a stinging\narticle, grossly ignorant and cruelly unjust, which had appeared in a\nreligious paper, written, rumour said, by the wife of a Swiss pastor.\nIt had accused her of unwomanliness, immodesty, and vanity.  She made\nthe painful discovery that she could not yet say, \"None of these things\nmove me.\"  The poisoned arrows had gone deep, forcing tears from her\neyes and attacking her peace of mind.  Chancing to notice a little slate\nhanging on the wall of her cell, she took it down and began to write on\nit all the accusations which her enemies might bring against her, asking\nherself as she did so, \"Could you write your name and say you accept\nthat, and that?\"  Her conscience compelled her to answer \"No, there are\nsome things which I could not endure.\"  She was appalled as she thought\nof more and greater trials which God might ask her to undergo.  He might\ndeprive her of health.  He might send her to Japan.  He might take away\nher reputation and make it impossible for her to defend herself.  Could\nshe bear such things?  No, she could not yet sign her name under the\nterrible words she wrote.  With sorrow she put the slate back in its\nplace, and for two days it hung against the wall with its list of cruel\nthings which she could not accept.  But during those days she pondered\nand prayed.  She rebuked her doubts and fears.  How could she ever\ndistrust her Lord, who had led her with such infinite tenderness?  How\nimagine that He would ever lay upon her more than He would give her\npower to bear?  She soon crept up close to His arms, and realised that\nnothing was really unbearable except doubt.  Taking her slate down, she\nread over again all that she might be called upon to suffer, and signed\n\"Catherine Booth.\"  Then the Angels of God filled the prison cell; the\npeace and joy of heaven flooded her soul; and from that hour her\ncommunion with her Lord was so sweet that she kissed the walls of her\ndungeon before she was led forth to her trial.\n\nOn that day (September 19) she wrote her exquisite prison song, \"Best\nbeloved of my soul,\" and sent it to her father.  It was sung, while she\nwas still in prison, at a great meeting for prayer, in Exeter Hall, at\nwhich Mrs. Butler spoke.  It was first written in French, the language\nin which she now habitually thought, and translated by herself into\nEnglish.  The latter is well-known, and many readers will be glad to\nhave the French.\n\n    O Toi que mon ame adore,\n    Je ne suis pas seule ici,\n    Car je T'y retrouve encore,\n    Et je suis au ciel ainsi,\n\n    Ma vie est a Ton service,\n    Je T'appartiens sans retour;\n    Corps et ame en sacrifice,\n    Je Te suivrai nuit et jour.\n\n    Combattons dans la souffrance,\n    Et les yeux baignes de pleurs;\n    Bien pres est la delivrance,\n    Voici l'Homme de douleurs!\n\n    Sa voix chasse ma tristesse,\n    Mon chagrin s'est dissipe;\n    Je chante avec allegresse,\n    Mon cachot est transforme!\n\n    Au milieu de la tempete\n    Rien ne peut troubler ma paix;\n    Son amour que rien n'arrete\n    Peut me garder a jamais.\n\n    Le combat est dur, terrible,\n    L'enfer rugit contre nous;\n    Mais l'Armee est invincible:\n    Avec Dieu nous vaincrons tout.\n\n\nDuring the twelve days of her imprisonment the Marechale received many\nletters of sympathy and good cheer from Swiss friends, whose words\nproved to her how deep and real had been the work of the _Armee du\nSalut_ in the country.  One of the most interesting was signed by\nseventy-two mothers, who bore glad testimony to the conversion of their\nsons and daughters, and two more were signed by a number of wives\npraising God for the conversion of their husbands.\n\nMore intimate letters came to Catherine from home, all breathing warm\nlove, tender solicitude, and ardent hope that good would come out of\nevil.  \"I quite see with you,\" wrote her mother, \"as to God's hand being\nin all this, and it appears that when communities or nations get sodden\nin sin and darkness, there is no way of arousing them but by such a\nflashing of the truth in their midst as will provoke persecution.  God\nwants the attention of the people, and this is the best way to secure\nit, no doubt....  Perhaps you are right about pleading your own cause,\nonly you should have some one at your elbow who knows the law. You will\nnot be up on points of law, I fear, otherwise I have no doubt that God\nwill give you what you should say.  I feel it a great thing to have a\nchild in prison for Jesus' sake; there could be only one greater, namely\nto be there myself; but one would hardly have thought it possible in\nthis age.  How true that the devil hates real saints as much as ever he\ndid, and that the spirit of persecution only needs the real presence of\nthe Spirit of God to call it forth....  That the Lord comfort and keep\nyou and reveal _Himself_ to you more and more and make you a mother of\nnations, prays your loving and sympathising mother.\n\n\"Catherine Booth.\"\n\nThe next letter admirably reveals both the father's and the General's\nheart.  With the deepest concern for his beloved daughter there is\ncombined a lively sense of the fact that his enemies are overreaching\nthemselves and doing him and his cause the greatest possible service. He\nwrote: \"My darling, no one can tell the anxieties we have all gone\nthrough concerning you during this week....  We were awakened by\ntelegraph messenger with a wire from Geneva to say 'Bluecher detained\ntill trial. Patrick with her--cared for.'  The last sentence fills us\nwith relief.  We interpret it to mean Patrick is with you as your\nsecretary or maid, and you have all your wants supplied and no\n_hardships_....  Enclosed is this morning's _Times_.  All the papers\nhave notices of it, so that it is flying all over the world.  _If you do\nnot suffer in your health, I don't care_.  It will all work for good.\nBut your health is of more importance to me in my estimation than all\nSwitzerland.  If you can only get assurance of this!  I am all uncertain\nwhether this will reach you.  There will be a storm directly and no\nmistake if these Swiss go on at this rate. We all send you _all_ our\nheart's love and heaps of prayers and sympathy.  God bless and keep you!\nRemember me to Lieut. Patrick.\n\n\"Your affectionate father,\n       \"William Booth.\"\n\nMrs. Bramwell Booth, who as Miss Florence Soper had been one of the\nMarechale's first comrades in Paris, wrote her: \"I feel as if you had\nmounted away to a land where I can call you 'Katie' no more.  But I will\nsay, and I do say in my heart of innermost hearts, my Saint Catherine,\ncounted worthy to suffer.... If only I could beseech you to remember\nthat your health is everything.  This is the dawning of a glorious\nmorning in your work--the forerunner of a glorious victory.  Will you\nsend some word through Patrick of the whole _truth_--just let me\nknow---just your Flo--if it is as bad as a prison cell, and is it doing\nyour body the _least_ bit of harm? ... I wish you could know, in your\nsolitude, how we all love you--I wish the breezes over the lake could\nbring you some whispers of what we have said of you.  The glorious God\nis our God for ever and ever, and His chariots of fire are with you--His\ninvisible army is around you.  Your own Flo. 20. 9. '83.\"\n\nHer sister Emma, who was now at the head of the Training School at the\nCongress Hall, wrote: \"What can be said at such times compared with what\nis felt?  I will not attempt to write.  I am praying.  All hearts here\nhold you up ceaselessly--your example is before us!  In the night and\nthe day I am with you--in your sorrow I find your joy in what is to come\nout of all.  'They know not what they do,' and out of their very efforts\nto hinder and stop God's work shall it spread beyond restraint.  The\nloss is great, my precious sister, but the reward will be infinitely\ngreater, and in both you will have been allowed to share.  It would have\nbeen easier to be with you, but I'll fight harder than ever in my corner\nhere.  Filled with deepest sympathy and yearning desire for His kingdom\nto come in Switzerland!  Devotedly, Emma.  PS.  It is your back I most\ntremble for--your poor back!  I wonder if you have pillows.  Bless your\ndear little Pattie [Miss Patrick].  Oh, each moment I am with you!\nJESUS is--He does love and choose and will honour you!\"\n\nAmong those who wrote to the prisoner was George Railton,[1] whom she\nregarded almost as an elder brother.  He had lived with the family\nduring her childhood, and when she was a girl of twelve and onwards she\nused to get up at six in the morning--slipping downstairs on her bare\nfeet in order not to awaken mother--to have a Bible lesson with him.\nShe always regarded the talks in those morning hours as among the great\nformative influences in her life.  Railton, who became the General's\nfirst commissioner, watched her career with profound and affectionate\ninterest.  He wrote on September 25: \"Dear Marechale Prisoner, I have\njust come from that tremendous prayer meeting [in Exeter Hall, held as a\nprotest against her imprisonment], one of the biggest and best this\nworld has ever seen....  The way the volleys burst out at the right time\nand went ringing all round the Hall sounded splendid.  And the sight of\nthousands standing up to give themselves to God, hundreds and hundreds\nfor foreign service, and all for service somewhere, was magnificent....\nMy impression is that as they [the Swiss] have outraged law all along\nthey may very likely do it when it comes to sentence....  God only knows\nwhat is coming next, but anyhow we shall win.\"\n\n\n[1] Since these pages were written, this remarkable man has died--as he\nwished--with his armour on, and been \"promoted to glory.\"\n\n\nTowards the end of her imprisonment Catherine wrote: \"God will open the\ndoor for us through this storm.  My will is God's.  All I want is to\naccomplish His desire for the world.  Do not worry at all.  Jesus is\nhere. There is such wonderful victory ahead that all my cry is, Lord,\nmake us _equal to it_!--ready in every way!  Ever fighting, in jail as\nwell as on the field, following on to know Him. I have been looking at\nthat wonderful sight--Calvary.  I must ever live in sight of it.\"\n\nThe trial took place at Boudry on Saturday the 25th and Monday the 27th\nSeptember. It excited the greatest interest in Switzerland and far\nbeyond it.  The _Journal de Geneve_ said: \"This prosecution at Boudry\nhas an immense political significance in the highest sense of that word,\nand the decision, whatever it may be, will take its place in the history\nof Republican rights.\"  Even the most sanguine scarcely hoped for the\nacquittal of the accused.  But the unexpected happened, and the triumph\nof righteousness was a woman's triumph.\n\nThe Public Prosecutor spent much time in proving that Salvationists were\nmountebanks and fanatics.  A young Englishwoman had flung an insult in\nthe face of the Grand Council, accusing them of violating the\nconstitution.  Her contempt for the law was the more surprising as the\nEnglish never rebel against the law, however unjust it may be (!).  If\nthe _Armee du Salut_ was not suppressed they would have to enlarge their\nasylums.  Christ, who was, perhaps, the most religious man who ever\nlived, favoured private rather than public prayer.  Silent communion\nwith God was better than getting up and shouting \"I am saved!\"  While\nthe accused placed herself above the law, the Queen of England was\nobliged to submit to Acts of Parliament.  Having not only ignored, but\ndeliberately violated the decree, the _Salutistes_ must bear the\nconsequences, and no doubt they would be happy to receive the crown of\nmartyrdom!\n\nOn the second day of the trial, after a speech in the defence by M.\nMonnier, the Marechale rose to plead her own cause.  Though she had\npassed twelve days in prison, and sat many hours in the suffocating\natmosphere of a crowded court-house, she overcame her exhaustion, her\nspirit subduing the frail body. She had been accustomed to face great\ncrowds since she was sixteen, and she was never more completely master\nof herself or her audience than she was in that critical hour.  Her\nvoice was never clearer, nor her manner more commanding.  Her brother\nHerbert, who was in the court, said he was amazed at her power. As she\npleaded the cause of religious liberty, her hearers felt that she had\nnot come to be judged but for judgment upon them all.  Some extracts\nwill serve to indicate the quality of her speech.\n\n\"What is the need of the _Armee du Salut_? Allow me to read a passage\nfrom one of your own journals: 'Cantonal Governments will see with alarm\nthe flood of demoralisation rising menacingly higher and higher; and\ninstead of seeking to destroy the causes of this deluge, they only take\naway the remaining dams.'  It is needless to enlarge on the necessity\nfor an _Armee du Salut_ in the face of these facts.\n\n\"The Prosecutor has said, in speaking of the work, that it moved the\nentire population, and that there must be a cause for this.  He has\nreason to say so.  I agree with him; there must be a cause, far deeper\nthan any that has been mentioned here to-day.  It is at this cause that\nwe strike--which exists in the heart of man.\n\n\"As to our aim, we are trying to bring these people who outrage your\nlaws, who fight against God, to the feet of Him who alone can change\nthem, to the only hope that exists for them, the Saviour of the world.\nWe work, we live, we suffer to do this.  This is our one hope and\nobject--to bring the world to the great Deliverer, Jesus Christ.\n\n\"Ah!  The question of all questions, the question which every\nintelligent man ought to face, is--What are we to do with the masses? If\nthey are not reached by the power of the Gospel, a day will come when\nthey will turn round against you, occasioning terrible trouble and\ndisorder, and awful will be the consequences. Then, gentlemen, you will\nhave reason to regret your action in this matter.  If these disturbers\nare capable of manifesting such hatred, such rage against citizens who\npray to God, they will also be capable of manifesting the same\nrebellious spirit against any other opinions, or any other law, which\nmay not please them.\n\n\"We have not made the people like this. Bear in mind that we have not\ncreated this terrible state of barbarism, which was let loose around\nthat hall, and which has made my heart bleed many times in witnessing.\nWho is responsible for this?  We cannot be, for we have only been in\nyour town a few months.\n\n\"Although we have suffered terribly through misrepresentations that have\nbeen wilfully circulated about us, we are not discouraged!  We know that\ntruth and justice will soon triumph. I love Switzerland all the more for\nwhat we have endured (_Applause_).  A little while and Switzerland will\nlove us.  We shall win thousands to righteousness, peace and heaven.\n\n\"The Prosecutor referred to the Queen saying that even she was subject\nto the decrees of Parliament, but that I placed myself above her in\nrefusing to become subject to the decrees of the Grand Council.  There\nis no parallel between Her Majesty and myself.  No act has been passed\nto forbid her praying in a wood, or I think Her Majesty would have\nsomething to say on that subject (_Sensation_).\n\n\"One word in conclusion.  You may punish us; you may imprison us; you\nmay prosecute us as long as you are permitted; but what you cannot do is\nto stop this work--to suppress it. Beware what you do for your country's\nsake, for Jesus Christ's sake.  Take care that in banishing us you do\nnot banish the light, that you do not banish Jesus Christ, and in that\ngreat day when you are called to give an account you be found guilty of\nfighting against God.\"\n\nSuch pleading was irresistible.  The jury had not the courage to enforce\nthe law.  To their honour, they let themselves be swayed by\nconsiderations of equity.  They found that while the accused had\nviolated the decree she had not acted with \"culpable intention.\"  In\nconsequence of this verdict she was acquitted.  The sentence was\nreceived by her friends in the court with a burst of fervent \"Amens.\"\nAnd the Marechale deserved the thanks of every Swiss patriot.  By her\nbold and successful claim of right she had made history.  At a time when\nthe old Republic was forgetful of its noblest traditions, untrue to\nitself, she restored its ideal.  She vindicated for every man and woman\nfreedom to worship God according to their conscience.  She brought back\nto the hills and valleys of Switzerland the crown rights of the\nRedeemer.\n\nNo one appreciates or speaks more enthusiastically to-day than the\nMarechale of the devotion and bravery of her comrades, Colonel Clibborn\nfirst and foremost, and spiritual children at this time.\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER VI*\n\n                          *THE SOUL OF FRANCE*\n\n\nIt is not easy to reach the ideal and spiritual elements of character\nwhich are masked by the light laughter or the polite scorn of the\ntypical Frenchman, who believes, or pretends to believe, that religion\nis only for priests and women.  At the opening of a new hall in the Rue\nOberkamff, a big fellow shook his fist in the Marechale's face and said,\n\"An Englishman may accept religion--a German--or a heathen, but a\nFrenchman--never!\"  \"O God, if You exist, save my soul, if I have one!\"\nwas the prayer of another man, who had attended the meetings for some\ntime, and who indicated with a strange pathos the bewildered state of\nmind into which many of the educated, as well as the ignorant, had sunk.\n\"Let there be no mistake,\" said a French writer, Louise de Croisilles;\n\"it is by no means unnatural that the Army should have taken root in\nIndia, or even under Africa's burning sun, but that it should be\naccepted in Paris, the centre of free-thought and unbelief, that is a\nthing incredible.\"\n\nNevertheless the Frenchman suffers from \"the malady of the ideal,\" even\nas other men. His heart is restless until it rests in God, and it is\nsheer faithlessness to say that he cannot be won by the grace of God.\nIf he is sceptical, it is because he has no conception of the\nfascinating loveliness of Christianity; if he is a scoffer, it is\nbecause he has never come in contact with human lives which suggest to\nhim the infinite goodness of God.\n\nAfter the Marechale's great legal victory, which was really a triumph of\nthe Gospel over its enemies, she returned to Paris and quietly resumed\nher tasks.  She was in nowise changed, though public opinion regarding\nher was undoubtedly changed.  She had become a person of note.  Editors\nof newspapers and magazines sent reporters to her meetings at the Quai\nde Valmy, or at the new headquarters in the Rue Auber, and found piquant\naccounts of her sayings and doings to be excellent copy. Visitors to the\ncity came to hear her.  Artists begged for the honour of painting her\nportrait for the Salon, an honour which she steadily refused.  The son\nof Garibaldi invited her to visit Italy, where, he said, she would be\nwelcomed and not treated as she had been in Switzerland.  None of these\nthings, however, moved her.  As she had promised God in her prison that\nshe would never be depressed by the calumnies of men, so now she prayed\nthat she might never be elated by their praises. With a stronger faith\nand a more ardent hope, she plunged again into absorbing work.  One sees\nthat she worked with her imagination; that she obeyed her intuitions;\nthat she proved the originality and inventiveness of love; and her\nefforts were so rewarded that 1884 was her _annus mirabilis_, at the end\nof which she wrote: \"Can you imagine the bewilderment that comes over me\nwhen I sit down to convey some idea of the wonderful way in which God\nhas led and helped us during the year? ... It is not too much to say\nthat during the past twelve months we have passed from the position of a\nsmall and almost unknown mission to that of a great spiritual power,\nrecognised and felt throughout France and Switzerland.\"\n\nA series of fresh inspirations contributed to this result.  The first of\nthese was the visitation of the cafes of Paris.  One winter night the\nMarechale and two young comrades, Blanche Young and Kate Patrick, went\nout with shawls on their heads, and made their way to one of the\nboulevard cafes.  The leader passed the door, and passed it again.  She\nturned to her lieutenants and said, \"You have never known your Marechale\ntill now; you see what a coward she is!\"\n\n[Illustration: THE MARECHALE IN THE CAFE\n(From the painting of Baron Cederstroem,\nnow in the Picture Gallery of Stockholm)]\n\n\"No, no, no!\" they both protested.\n\nAt last she put her hand on the door, pushed it open, and went in.  A\nman in a white apron was selling drink.  Going up to him, she said, \"May\nI sing something?\"\n\nHe stared open-mouthed.\n\nTrembling from head to foot, she repeated, \"I should like to sing\nsomething.\"\n\n\"Very well!\"\n\nShe began:\n\n    \"Le ciel est ma belle patrie,\n      Les anges y font leur sejour;\n    Le soldat qui lutte et qui prie\n      Y sera bientot a son tour.\"\n\n\nWhile she sang, Blanche chimed in with her guitar and her second voice.\nAs they proceeded, the smoking, drinking, and card-playing ceased, and\nevery face was turned towards them.  They sang on:\n\n    \"En marche, en marche,\n    Soldats, vers la patrie!\n    En marche, en marche,\n    Soldats, vers la patrie!\"\n\n\nWhen they had finished the hymn, the Marechale thanked her audience,\nadding that they could hear her again at Rue Auber Hall; and that she\nknew a Friend, of whom she wished to tell them.  As she and her comrades\nturned to walk out, the man in the white apron bowed, as if they had\ndone him a service.\n\n\"May I come another time?\" said the Marechale.\n\n\"Certainly, Mademoiselle!\"\n\nThey visited sixteen cafes that night, and when she got home she felt\nshe had never been happier in her life, never nearer to Jesus.  She had\ntried in her own way to obey His command, \"Let your light shine before\nmen.\"  Since then, thousands and thousands of cafes have been visited,\nand much good has thus been done.  Let one case stand for many.\n\nThere used to be a well-known resort in Paris called the Cafe de\nl'Enfer, the windows and walls of which were painted with lurid scenes\nrepresenting hell.  There rouged and powdered singing girls entertained\npeople of the dare-devil type, who sat drinking and smoking at little\ntables.  From an open coffin a grim skeleton stared at everybody, and\nprizes were given for the most audacious witticisms about death.  The\nmore outrageous the blasphemies were, the louder were the roars of\napplause with which they were received.\n\nBut the Marechale and her young lieutenants, \"armed in complete\nsteel\"--the panoply of God--were not afraid of the gates of hell. Having\nobtained permission to sing, they mounted the _estrade_, and rendered\nsome of their most attractive part-songs.  The cafe orchestra at once\ntook up the airs as if it had been paid to do so.  The songs of Paradise\nwere well received even in those regions, and then the Marechale,\nstepping forward, made a little speech:\n\n\"You are very clever here.  You _play_ very well.  But it is a role that\nyou play.  Your laughter is not real; I can tell you the source of true\nlaughter and true joy.  This is not life, it is death; I can tell you\nwhat real life is. This is not peace, it is an effort to drown care and\nforget trouble; I can tell you the secret of peace.  Let me give you my\naddress, where you can hear us sing again.\"\n\nIt required as much moral courage to deliver that speech as to face all\nthe jurists of Helvetia.\n\nWhen the Marechale was leaving, she passed a lovely girl, in whose ear\nshe whispered, \"What are you doing here? you ought to be in bed.\"\n\n\"Who will give _me_ a supper or a bed?\" the girl plaintively asked.\n\n\"_I_ will!\" exclaimed the Marechale; \"come with me, quick!\"\n\nShe hailed a cab, put the girl in, and drove away.  The poor child,\neighteen years of age, had a sad tale to tell.  She had noble blood in\nher veins, and her mother and she had both been cruelly wronged.  The\nMarechale led her to Christ and ultimately secured for her a position in\none of the best colleges of America, where she was universally\nrespected.  Not long after she was installed there, she sent the\nMarechale 500 francs, with the pathetic message, \"Save another, as you\nsaved me.\"\n\nThe Marechale's methods naturally gave offence to those who had not the\ncourage to adopt them.  Late one night she and some comrades were\nstanding at the door of a theatre while it was emptying.  One of her\nyoung officers cried in clear, penetrating tones, \"Prepare to meet thy\nGod!\"  The words seemed to send an electric shock through the gay crowd.\nThereupon a gentleman came forward to the Marechale and said:\n\n\"Mademoiselle, you are evidently young girls of good family, and I am\nscandalised to see you here at this hour.  I, too, occupy myself with\npreaching, but I am shocked at your behaviour.\"\n\n\"Really?\" she replied, \"and I am scandalised that you are scandalised.\nYou profess to believe the Gospel.  How are you to get these indifferent\ntens of thousands to hear of the Saviour?  They won't come to listen to\nyou. What more natural and more in accord with the principles of Jesus,\nthan to go to them and compel them to hear?\"\n\nTen minutes after, the gentleman returned and slid a five-franc piece\ninto her hand, saying:\n\n\"It is you who are right!\"\n\nIt was impossible for young girls to be in the boulevards towards\nmidnight without being sometimes molested.  But the leader would\ninstruct her soldiers thus: \"If they say the vilest things in the world\nto you, remember that is only the outside.  Think of their souls which\ncost so dear to Christ.  Say one or two sentences that will remain with\nthem, and pass on.\"\n\nMore than once she proved this method of dealing to be very effective.\nIn a corner of one of the boulevards a \"gentleman\" approached her and\nasked for a rendezvous.  She looked at him in silence, which he took for\nconsent.\n\n\"Where?\" he asked, taking out his pencil and note-book.\n\n\"_Devant le Trone de Dieu!_\" (Before the Throne of God!)\n\nThe man took to his heels, and ran.\n\nThat went all over France.  One day the same sword will pierce the\nconscience of every roue in the universe.\n\nThe Marechale's second original idea was to begin a series of\n_Conferences_ (Meetings) in the fashionable Lecture Hall of the\nBoulevard des Capucines.  Her increasing popularity only deepened her\nsense of duty to the city of her adoption, and suggested to her the\npossibility of bringing Christ to the Boulevards as well as to the\nVillette.  She could not live in gay Paris without profoundly pitying\nthe thoughtless, infidel Rich, for whom it is proverbially so hard to\nenter the kingdom of heaven. Her idea of attacking the central\nstronghold of the world's fashion and pleasure was a daring one for a\nwoman, especially for a woman of the Marechale's youthful years.  About\nthis time she read the _Life of Napoleon_, and found in his astonishing\ncareer many lessons for an evangelist.  She was especially struck by his\nfaith in his star, and his contempt for \"_ce bete de mot, impossible_.\"\nShe knew that she had something better to trust than a star, and\nstronger reason for holding that all things are possible.\n\nHer new plan of campaign was great alike in its conception and its\nexecution.  From the very first the Conferences for men were\nastonishingly successful, and they were renewed year after year.  The\naudiences were very different from a Keswick or Northfield congregation,\nin which the preaching is mostly to the converted.  Perhaps the best\nparallel to the Marechale's Conferences is to be found in Professor\nDrummond's Sunday evening meetings for students (men only) in the\nOddfellows Hall, Edinburgh, which, by a strange coincidence, began in\nthe same year.  Having enjoyed the friendship of both these evangelists,\nand listened to them many scores of times, I have often been forcibly\nstruck by their likeness to each other, and for power to rivet the\nattention and inspire the confidence of cultivated men of the world I\nhave met nobody to compare with them.\n\nWhen the Marechale came to hold her first Conference, the proprietor of\nthe hall entered her ante-room and advised her to deliver a sort of\nethical lecture, rather than speak of salvation, as it was the worldly\nfashionable public who would assemble, and he was afraid they would not\nbe pleased if they heard too much of religion.  But they listened with\nrapt attention while she spoke on the text \"Without God and without hope\nin the world.\"  Of the second Conference Galignani's Messenger said,\n\"The subject, 'The Greatest Sin,' was treated with a force of religious\narguments which made a visible impression on many persons in the\naudience.  The attention was deep and respectful. The Hall was crowded,\nand the doors were vainly besieged by a numerous crowd, the greater part\nof whom remained outside the open windows to hear the address.\"  Another\nleading journal said, \"She has profoundly astonished the citizen\nsceptic, who has been out of the habit of being astonished for a long\ntime.\"\n\nHer brother Ballington was present at a later meeting, and described the\nimpression made on himself as one who did not know French.  \"I had to\ncover my face more than once while our Marechale spoke.  Her words,\nthough in a foreign language, yet seemed understandable.  The Spirit\ndoes not confine Himself to words alone.  He speaks through the\ncountenance, and eyes, and hands--He fills the Temples of His children.\nThree things struck me in that meeting: first, the rapt attention and\ninterest of the audience, and there seemed few who were not impressed at\nthe close; second, the manner in which the people remained in the\nafter-meeting on to the end; third, the utter amazement, and yet perfect\nsolemnity of the congregation, when some sinner came up through the\naisles to seek peace, even rising as though to make sure that what they\nsaw was a fact.\"  Then he adds--and one notes the beautiful\ntransition--\"I was also present and took part in meetings at Paris in\nwhich the very poorest were attending by hundreds, and at which I saw\nmen of the vilest caste and life getting saved.\"  No small part of the\nMarechale's charm lay in her flexibility and adaptability--her Pauline\nhabit of becoming all things to all men--to the rich and to the poor, to\nthe wise and to the unwise--that she might win some.\n\nAt a later time the Marechale delivered somewhat similar addresses in\nother cities of France such as Nimes, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen,\nLyons--and she was everywhere astonished to find that the French, who\nseem the most thoughtless, are yet among the most thoughtful people in\nthe world.  The result of such Conferences as these cannot be tabulated.\nFor one thing, they made the Marechale more than ever a mother-confessor\nand spiritual director. The thoughts of many hearts were revealed to her\nat private interviews of which no record was kept, and in letters, one\nof which may be given as containing the secret of the Marechale's\npower--her possession of Christ's Spirit--a second as showing the abyss\nof doubt from which many of her hearers had to be rescued, and some\nothers as indicating the wonderful success which often attended her\nefforts.\n\nThe first runs as follows: \"I am glad you accept my request to visit my\nhome.  You will consider the intention in asking you to come under my\nroof, like One before you, who had the noblest Heart which ever beat for\nmankind. It is because this Great Heart has possessed yours to the\ndegree of rendering you like Himself, that you have profoundly moved me\nand made me better.  Certainly I will speak with you on these vital\nsubjects, but I need more and more the moral and spiritual atmosphere of\nthe meetings: this opens the heart and at the same time deadens the\nopposition of the mind.  Oh, if the latter could hold its peace! ... I\nhave lived much in solitude, and naturally these problems have been\nalways with me.  I may say that the Infinite has tortured me for twenty\nyears: lately I have arrived at the conclusion that one can know\nnothing.  So I shall be glad to speak with you and at length.\"\n\nA second correspondent wrote: \"Your marvellous faith, your simple and\npowerful eloquence so deeply moved me that I cannot but thank you.  I\nthank you as an artist, as a sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great\ncharacters; I thank you as a man blase, sceptical, benumbed and\ndeadened.  As a child I adored Jesus, and now, after having thought much\nand suffered infinite pains which you cannot understand, I have said\nadieu to faith and also adieu to hope!  I have become one of those you\ncall sceptics.  Ah! do not say 'terrible' sceptic, but unfortunate,\npitiable, unhappy sceptic.  You are, Madame, a great, beautiful,\ngenerous heart, and if ever earnest good wishes have been worth\nanything, I have cherished them for you, your work, and those who fight\nby your side.  You will believe me, an unbeliever, who envies you,\nadmires you, and ideally loves you.\"\n\nA third of her hearers wrote succinctly: \"Two of your meetings have\nsufficed to destroy infidel convictions of twenty years' standing.\"\n\nA fourth, after testifying to his respect and confidence, said: \"What\nyour soul yearns for is conversion.  You would like me to add, I am\nconverted.  I cannot say that I am.  But you have made an incredible\nimpression on me, and you have made me love the Christ I never loved.\"\nHe evidently could not rest there, and soon he sent a second letter,\ndescribing with thankfulness how one night, in prayer and agonising\nmental controversy, he had received a manifestation of the Holy Spirit,\nwhich had finally slain his doubt and made him a believer in God.\n\nThe twofold purpose of the Conferences was to conquer the feelings and\ntastes, the etiquette and conventionality, of people of the world, and\nto awaken faith in unbelievers.  One day a very bad man thrust some\nbank-notes into the Marechale's hand, saying while he did so:\n\n\"I believe in nothing.\"\n\n\"You believe in nothing, and yet you give me these bank-notes!\"\n\nHe replied, \"I believe in you, and I wish you had a hall in every town\nand hamlet and village in my country.\"\n\n\"Pull out your watch,\" she said.  \"I believe in your watch, I believe\nthat it keeps time, but I do not believe in its maker! ... I am\nnaturally just as great a lover of ease and comfort as you are.  The\nmotive power--_la force motrice_--of my life, the spring upon which\neverything turns, is the love of Christ.  You believe in me; believe in\nHim who has made me what I am.\"\n\n\nThe Marechale's third new departure was perhaps the most important of\nall--the founding of an Ecole Militaire, or school for cadets, somewhat\nsimilar to the Military School at Clapton, over which her sister Emma at\nthat time presided.  When Catherine first went to France, a very noted\nProtestant pastor said to her, \"You will never get three Frenchwomen to\nlive together in peace.\"  But at the Training Home, Avenue Lumiere 3, in\nthe Villette, where the Marechale lived all the year round with her\nofficers, there were as many as forty or fifty young women--among whom,\nat one time, a Princess's daughters were side by side with scullery\nmaids--and the harmony, the love, the spirit of \"never mind me,\" which\nprevailed was one of the miracles of the work in France.\n\nTo the training of company after company of young cadets--French, Swiss,\nEnglish, Belgian, German, Italian and Russian--the Marechale gave a\ngreat deal of her time and strength, her pattern being ever our Lord's\nown training of the Twelve.  All obeyed her joyfully and without\nquestion.  She realised intuitively that the highest thing in training\nis not discipline, but something which discipline follows as light\nfollows the sun.  That something is the spirit, the atmosphere, which\nmen and women are brought into and which transforms them.  In the Ecole\nMilitaire it was the selflessness of people who did not care what became\nof them.  Where that spirit takes possession of any one, there is no\nneed to say to him, \"You shall do this or that.\"  The law of the spirit\nof life makes him obedient without constraint.\n\nThe spirit of the Marechale's leadership is somewhat expressed in\nGaribaldi's call to arms often quoted by her.  His followers understood\nhis motives, realised his disinterestedness, saw that rewards and\nhonours were nothing to the man who was seeking the Liberty of Italy.\nTherefore they loved him so much that they would have died for him.\nThere was no marked difference between the Staff and the Field, and yet\nthere was discipline, obedience, devotion such as the world has scarcely\never seen equalled.\n\nThat was the spirit which the Marechale sought to impart to the Ecole\nMilitaire. Everything else--how to study the Bible, how to conduct\nmeetings, how to use the voice, how to deal with souls--was subordinated\nby her to the one thing needful--the spirit of sacrifice.  \"We are\nsometimes told,\" she once wrote, \"that our uniforms, our young women\nspeaking in public, our tambourines and our processions bring contempt\nupon religion.  It is a mistake.  That which is the laughing-stock of\nthe world and of hell is a religion without sacrifice.  People will\nnever believe in Christians who, while professing to be disciples of Him\nwho had not where to lay His head, live in luxury, seek first the\ncomfort of their family, the health and position of their children, and\nlet their souls perish for lack of that Gospel which they profess to\nbelieve.  _There_ is the secret of the unbelief of France; that is what\nmakes the young who are in search of the truth cry 'Comedy!'  On the\nother hand, those faces which radiate the light from on high, those\nyoung people who rise up to give themselves to God instead of the world,\nthose men and women who declare, with a sincerity which leaves no room\nfor doubt, that they consecrate their life to God for the saving of\nsouls, are more eloquent than the most beautiful discourses.\"\n\nThe faces of officers and cadets who surrounded the Marechale on her\nplatform undoubtedly constituted a large element of her power.  Renee\nGange, the Socialist, wrote a fine appreciation of her and her comrades,\nin which she confesses that what she finds \"remarkable among these young\ngirls, pretty as well as plain, is the complete absence of the ordinary\nfeminine expression....  In looking with searching, scrutinising eye at\nthe faces enveloped in this ugly bonnet, we have not deciphered the\nleast vestige of this expression, neither timidity, nor awkwardness, nor\nrestlessness, nor the consciousness that people are thinking of them.\nNothing.  These faces are the free faces of free creatures.\"\n\nOne day a French Baron, who had received a great blessing at the\nMarechale's Conferences, said to her in the great hall at the Rue Auber,\n\"What you lack here is pictures; for instance, the saints.  Those\nbeautiful faces, with their sweet celestial expressions, diffuse a\nsentiment of reverence and quietness, and they would form such a\nbeautiful background to you.  You should have the Virgin, and Saint\nFrancis, and many others.  That is what you lack in all your halls:\ncould we not do something?\"\n\n\"Baron,\" said the Marechale, \"will you come here next Sunday evening?\"\n\n\"Yes, certainly.  Are you going to speak?\"  He never lost a chance of\nhearing her.\n\n\"Yes; be sure you do not miss it.\"\n\nNext Sunday evening she marshalled her little group of officers.  She\nfiled them in, men on one side, women on the other.  She stood in the\nmidst of them and spoke.  At the end of the meeting the Baron came\nforward.\n\n\"Marechale,\" he said, \"you have no need of pictures.  Those figures!\nthose faces! _they_ are your pictures.\"\n\nHer friend Frank Crossley was greatly struck by this incident.  He\nwrote: \"I was specially interested in the remark upon inspired faces.  I\nonce heard Rendel Harris say of the biblical critics, that they might\ntear the volume into shreds, but never could rub off the light of God\nfrom the faces of His people.\"\n\nOne of the cadets of the Ecole Militaire was Constance Monod, daughter\nof the great Protestant preacher whose hymn, \"Oh, the bitter shame and\nsorrow,\" is known everywhere. Having received salvation and rich\nspiritual blessings from attending the Marechale's meetings, she became\none of her most devoted officers and warmest friends.  She was one day\nput up to speak to a very rough audience of lewd, low men, and one of\nthe roughest and lewdest of them said, with tears in his eyes:\n\n\"Oh, what extraordinary purity in that face!\"\n\nThat was the expression which gave so many of the cadets their power in\nthe cafes and in the slums.  It was what they were, far more than what\nthey said, that did the work.\n\nAmong the new cadets there was always a great heart-searching.  Were\nthey sure of their vocation?  Had they a due sense of the seriousness,\nthe sacredness, the responsibility, the opportunity of the call to work\nand fight for God?  If they were not right there, everything was wrong.\nBut if they had really left the world, and come to learn to know GOD, He\nrevealed Himself to them, and it was marvellous how rapidly they grew in\nthat heart-knowledge which is always so much deeper than head-knowledge.\n\nWhenever troubles and difficulties arose, the Marechale's method was not\nto evade them, but to grip things at the bottom.  An invitation to \"come\nand have a cup of tea\" would lead to earnest talk and prayer, by which\nshe nipped many an evil in the bud.  These \"personals,\" as such\ninterviews were called, were remembered ever afterwards with gratitude.\n\nThe conquest of self, the triumph of the spirit of love, was illustrated\nin small matters as well as in great.  One day a Frenchman, Francois,\nrefused to clean the boots of another cadet, who was a German.\n\n\"I clean a German's boots?  Never! never!\" The Marechale quietly said:\n\n\"The boots will be cleaned.\"\n\n\"Never by me!\"\n\n\"By you.\"\n\n\"Well, not now, let them wait!\"\n\nThe whole day passed, and the boots were not cleaned.  The Marechale\nknew what Francois suffered inwardly, and got him alone in the evening.\n\n\"Jesus died for the Germans,\" she said.\n\nHis lips remained tightly pressed.  He suffered, and she suffered with\nhim.  After a moment's silence he burst into a torrent.\n\n\"We have endured too much!  Think of the siege of Paris.  That beast of\na Bismarck! Oh! our country has suffered.  Clean a German's boots?\nNever!\"\n\nHe raved.  The Marechale was quiet and listened for a time.  Then she\nsaid:\n\n\"All that may be true; but you are going to have a greater victory over\nthe Germans than ever the Germans won over you.  The triumph which they\nhad over France was a flea-bite in comparison.\"\n\nShe got his ear, and talked to him of the highest things.  The victory\nwhich Jesus won on Calvary over Pilate and the Priests and Judas, this\nmust be Francois' victory.\n\n\"Go back to your trade unless you can win this victory.  This makes an\napostle of Francois, and nothing else.  These boots are only a detail,\nbut they have brought to light something in you that is hindering the\ngreat victory.\"\n\nAnd so they talked.  She would not force him.  Next morning she gave a\nlecture, at the end of which he came into her room and sat down.  There\nwas a moment's silence, and then he collapsed, falling all of a heap and\nsobbing like a child.\n\n\"Marechale,\" he said, \"I will clean the boots!\"\n\nSuch training inside the Ecole made the cadets ready for any conflict\noutside, and the triumph of the spirit of love was in some instances a\npreparation for death.  The first of the Marechale's cadets to win the\nmartyr's crown was Louis Jeanmonod.\n\nHe was a Swiss youth, finely built, nearly six foot, and twenty-one\nyears of age; a true soldier, devoted, courageous, tender-hearted. His\nmonths of training were almost over, and in the last three weeks he\ndeveloped wonderfully. He visited the cafes with great success, singing\nand speaking, holding his auditors in breathless silence.  He had great\npower in convicting people, and often his opponents would become his\nfriends and ask him to continue to speak to them.\n\nOn a January night in 1885 he was guarding the door of the Hall at the\nQuai de Valmey, when one of the roughs ran at him head foremost and\nbutted him violently in the stomach. Louis managed to shut the door, and\nnext day went on bravely with his work, even selling the _En Avant_ in\nthe evening, till the pain became very severe.  The doctor found that a\nquantity of blood had already settled in his lungs, and soon after\npronounced his case beyond all human skill.\n\nLouis was for a time delirious, but he had never in his past life played\nthe fool, and he uttered no word that his mother would not have wished\nto hear.  He always seemed to be starting on a campaign.  Were the caps,\nthe bags, and everything else ready? Oh! what glorious times were\ncoming!\n\nWhen the delirium passed, and his mind became calm, his pallid face\nshone with a strange light.  As soon as the Marechale came to his\nbedside, he saluted and said--\n\n\"Amen, Marechale, amen!\"\n\nWhat were his thoughts of the ruffian who had dealt the deadly blow?  He\nhad only a single thought--\"One day he will be saved.\"  Detectives came\nto receive the dying man's description of the assailant.  A message from\nthem to this effect was conveyed to Louis, who answered it in a single\nword:\n\n\"_Jamais!_\" (Never!)\n\nBut he described the guilty man to the Marechale, that she might know\nhim and pray for him.\n\nSeeking her hand when the end drew near, he said--\n\n\"Oh, I love so much to hold your fingers.\"\n\n\"Jesus will take your hands, Louis, and guide you into the port.\"\n\n\"I will--let myself--be guided--by Him.\"\n\nThe Marechale prayed, and with the spirit of Saint Stephen in his breast\nand the words \"It is too beautiful!\" on his lips, he went to be with\nChrist.  Belleville and the Villette were stirred to the depths by a\nmartyr's funeral, and at the grave Theodore Monod spoke words which\nmoved the hearts of all.\n\nThe young Marechale who gathered round her men and women of this\nstamp--a willing people in the day of the Lord's power, ready for\neverything, faithful unto death--evidently possessed high qualities of\nleadership, and ere long the spirit of the Ecole Militaire was to be\nfound in every station of the Army throughout France and Switzerland.\nSpeaking at one of the General's great meetings in Scotland, Professor\nHenry Drummond said that after travelling all over the South of Europe,\nvisiting many cathedrals and hearing famous orators, he had landed at\nMarseilles, and felt more of the presence and power of Christ in the\nSalvation Army meeting-place of that town than he had experienced in all\nhis wanderings.  The General repeated this to the Marechale, and she\nfound that the meeting which had so profoundly impressed the Professor\nhad been conducted by a young officer, Mlle. Dormois, who had recently\nleft the Training School in Paris.\n\nThat the authorities at home praised God for the Marechale's work\nscarcely needs saying. Her father's appreciation found expression in\nevery letter.  Here are brief extracts from three of them.\n\n\"My dear girl, my very precious girl, I know you are after my own heart.\nI place boundless confidence in your judgment and resolutions.  Do not\nbe afraid of anything or any one.\"\n\n\"You are a true heroine, a Joan of Arc, indeed.\"\n\n\"You must have a fearful strain upon you. Still a great part of your\nbusiness is to keep yourself quiet and free from wearing care. To be\ncool and steady under fire is the quality of the very best soldiers.  I\nfear I have not excelled in this direction, and it is a very difficult\nproperty in our family, seeing how full of sympathy and feeling our\nhearts and lives are, but God can do much for us.\"\n\nEvery letter from her eldest brother Bramwell, who was the Chief of\nStaff, was a \"Well done!\" from over the sea.  Writing in 1885--the year\nof his and Stead's heroic crusade against vice--he said: \"I get more and\nmore dissatisfied with things human every day.  The world is all gone\nmad.  If it was only bad, and not mad, we could mend it, but being both\nI get less and less hope instead of more!  We will now attend to quality\nmore.  If we could get _better_ people surely we should go faster. I\nsolemnly believe you are ahead of us on the Continent in this\ndirection.\"\n\nIn the following year he wrote: \"Do not think you will ever be less dear\nto me than you have been.  You cannot be.  I love and admire you, and if\nyou were my general to-morrow I should follow you to the last gasp and\nstick while there was one limb of me left.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER VII*\n\n                           *WOMAN'S VOCATION*\n\n\n\"There can be neither Jew nor Greek; there can be neither bond nor free;\nthere can be no male and female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.\"\nAfter the lapse of many centuries this great apostolic saying is\nbeginning to yield up its meaning and its blessing.  The Mother of the\nArmy was one of the first to assert woman's liberty, and her daughters\nentered into a sacred heritage.  Having become a public speaker at\nfourteen, and seen the work of faith rewarded with countless signs\nfollowing, the Marechale could never harbour any secret fear that her\nministry might be grieving the Spirit of God.  It was impossible,\nhowever, that she should work for years without encountering many who\nhad strong prejudices. Our Lord's disciples \"marvelled that He spake\nwith a woman,\" and there are still disciples who marvel when a woman\nspeaks for Him.\n\nIn the summer of her third year in France, the Marechale attacked the\nold city of Nimes, in the largely Protestant Gard--the first of a series\nof campaigns which were the means of bringing a blessing to a number of\nthe provinces of France.  On her arrival she found that M. Peyron, an\neminent judge, who had greatly benefited from hearing her before, had\narranged a preliminary meeting of the orthodox of Nimes--pastors and\ntheir wives and other Protestant workers--to the number of about 120.\nHe was anxious that they should be won before her campaign began, but he\nhad no idea that he had prepared for her one of the battles royal of her\nlife.\n\nThe meeting being thrown open, the doctrine of holiness--God's power to\nkeep His children from sinning--first came up, and was violently\nattacked by several pastors who confounded it with perfectionism.  Their\nremarks were loudly applauded, and one lady screamed above the rest--\n\n\"Let him that is without sin get up and testify.\"\n\nGreatly daring, the Marechale whispered to a comrade who sat beside her,\n\"Rise, Bisson,\" which he did, and in a few simple words testified, not\nindeed to his own perfection, but to God's power to sanctify and keep as\nwell as justify.\n\nAfter a momentary lull, the storm became fiercer than ever, and the\nministry of women was now the cause of war.  The Marechale alluded to\nher mother's manifesto on the subject.\n\n\"We have read it,\" said a lady, \"and we do not agree with it.  Women are\nmeant for the home.  They are commanded to be silent in the churches.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" cried another, \"you are not old enough.\"\n\nThe Marechale quoted the words, \"Let no man despise thy youth.\"\n\n\"But that,\" retorted a pastor's wife, \"was said to a man.\"\n\nThereupon the babel of voices became deafening.\n\n\"Pretty and prepossessing girls,\" a matron was heard to say, \"should not\nshow themselves in public.\"\n\n\"If you do speak,\" said a pastor, skilled in distinctions, \"you should\nspeak to women only, and not before men.\"\n\nAll through the storm the central figure was quiet and self-possessed.\nBut she was thinking hard.  The idea of a distinction in sex had never\ncome before her as a speaker; it was new and strange to her.  When she\nat length spoke again, she put the result of her thinking into a simple,\nmemorable, unanswerable dictum:\n\n\"But there is no sex in soul.\"\n\nPerhaps somebody had said the same thing before, but it was none the\nless original on her part.  Then she expanded the truth:\n\n\"The needs of a man's soul are the same as a woman's, and vice versa.\nYou do not get up and say there are so many men and so many women in a\nmeeting.  They all need salvation, pardon, purity, peace; all the gifts\nand graces of the Spirit are for men and women alike.  Of course,\" she\ncontinued, \"if any woman is so light and frivolous that she makes such a\ndistinction, that certainly proves that she has no vocation to be an\nevangelist, and I should send her home by the next train.\"\n\nShe felt that the atmosphere of the room was horrible.  Religious\ncontroversies, like religious wars, create a more frightful spirit than\nany other quarrels.  Instead of prolonging the discussion, the Marechale\nsank on her knees and began to pray.  She had won by prayer many\nvictories which were remembered after long years.  When she was a child\nof fourteen, she attended a meeting of her mother's at Ryde in the Isle\nof Wight.  She sat far back beside the door, listening till the address\nwas ended, and then she heard her mother ask if some brother or sister\nwould pray.  As nobody responded, and the silence became too oppressive\nto bear, Katie rose and poured out her heart to God in tones of\npassionate earnestness, seeking for a victory ere the meeting ended.\nWhen she got home, she was folded in her mother's arms and covered with\nkisses; and forty years after, when she was herself conducting a mission\nat Ryde, a saintly lady of ninety-two told her that no prayer lived in\nher memory like that child's prayer.\n\nIt was such a prayer--long, intense, passionate--that the Marechale\nprayed among the orthodox of Nimes.  That night the eldest daughter of\nM. Peyron, a beautiful, worldly girl, was won for Christ.  At seven\no'clock on the following morning two pastors, MM. Challand and Babut,\nalong with M. Peyron, awoke the Marechale.  They had come to say, for\nthemselves and others, how they deplored the scene of the preceding\nnight, and to beg forgiveness.\n\nOn Sunday morning the campaign proper was begun in the Alcasar, which\nwas packed, and the wives of several pastors were among those who came\nin tears to the penitent form. Albin Peyron, junior, who is to-day the\nleader of the Army in Switzerland, began the new life at a \"Night with\nJesus\" which was held after that meeting.  In his youth he was the\nfounder of _La Petite Armee_, which did much good work among the\nchildren of Nimes and other towns of Southern France.\n\n\nWhile the Marechale was always at home in crowds, she loved quiet\ninterviews with individuals if possible still more.  In many of these\ntalks the subject was the victory of faith. During one of her\n_tournees_, she was conducting meetings in a theatre at Cannes.  On a\nlovely September evening she was walking towards the sea, lost in\nadmiration of the sunset.  Fatigued with her Sunday morning's work, she\nwas seeking a little repose.  She observed a priest slowly proceeding\ntowards the hill on which stood a little Catholic church.  His\nappearance struck her; he looked at once so distinguished and so sad.\nAn inner voice said to her, \"Speak to that priest.\"  \"I cannot,\" she\nsaid, \"he would think me mad.\"  But the voice said the same words a\nsecond time, and then she instantly obeyed.  Hurrying towards the\npriest, she said--\n\n\"Good-evening, _mon pere_.  I presume you are going to the church on the\nhill.  May I accompany you, for I would speak with you on spiritual\nsubjects?\"\n\nUncovering his head, and bowing with great respect, he answered,\n\"Certainly, madame.\"\n\nThey walked on for a little in silence.  Then she said--\n\n\"What must I do to be saved, my father?\"\n\n\"Keep the ten commandments,\" he answered at once.\n\n\"But the rich young man who came to Jesus could say with his hand on his\nheart that he had kept them all, and yet had no assurance of salvation.\nHe was in great trouble.  _He_ said, 'What must I do to be saved?'\"\n\n\"Oh, then you must take the holy Eucharist very often.\"\n\n\"But those who take it, my father, are they saved from sinning?  Are\nthey not the victims of the power of evil, the same as others?\"\n\n\"Oh! yes, madame, but then there is the Confessional.\"\n\n\"But does not the same thing apply to the Confessional, my father?  You\nmust know that there are tens of thousands in France who confess, but\nfall again the next day.  They have not found rest.  Is not Christ ready\nto save us if we are ready to be saved?\"\n\n\"Alas! madame, we shall sin always, always, to the very end of our\nlives.\"\n\n\"But, my father, were not St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St.\nCatherine of Siena, Fenelon and many others, delivered from the slavery\nof sin and self?  They attained to something definite--to holiness.\"\n\nHe turned with vehemence and said, raising his voice--\n\n\"Ah! madame, but those were extraordinary lives.  Those people were\nsaints.\"\n\n\"No, my father, they were men and women like you and me.  What God did\nfor St. Augustine or St. Catherine of Siena, can He not do it for me if\nI am ready to fulfil the conditions which He lays down?  What does\nreligion do, what is it worth, if it cannot deliver us from sin?\"\n\nHe did not answer.  He was silently thinking.\n\nShe went on, \"Is Christ a Saviour, yes or no?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, yes, yes, He is!\"\n\n\"Has He saved _you_, my father?\"\n\nThey stood still for a moment, and he turned his face away, with a look\nof poignant sadness. Then followed a confession--one of the deepest,\nmost heartfelt cries she had ever listened to--ending with the words,\n\"Alas, alas! all the days of my life I sin, and I expect to sin to my\nlatest breath.\"\n\nThe Marechale was profoundly moved, and felt that she stood upon holy\nground.  At last she spoke--\n\n\"Then Calvary is the greatest fiasco the world has ever seen.\"\n\nStretching out his hand, he said, \"Oh, madame, do not say that; it is\nblasphemy.\"\n\n\"But, my father, we are in the presence of facts, not fancies.  You have\nleft what men prize most.  You have lived up to your light. And what do\nI find?  Torment instead of rest, conflict instead of assurance, bondage\ninstead of deliverance.  Surely, my father, Jesus did not come to\nincrease our burdens, but to relieve them.  You remember His word, 'Come\nunto me and I will give you rest.'  He said, 'My yoke is easy and my\nburden is light.'  Are these theories to be preached in pulpits, or are\nthey realities?\"\n\nBy this time they stood on the summit of the hill, and she said--\n\n\"You are going to preach to-night, _mon pere_?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Would you like that we should go down the hill together and resume our\nconversation?\"\n\n\"It would be a great pleasure, madame.\"\n\nHe preached one of the best sermons she had ever heard, partly inspired,\nshe could not help thinking, by their intimate talk.  As the\ncongregation moved out, she stepped into a Confessional box to wait for\nhim.  She saw him turning this way and that with a look of\ndisappointment, and, stepping out, said to him--\n\n\"I am here, _mon pere_.\"\n\nThey began to descend the hill together. \"My father,\" she said, \"I\ngreatly enjoyed your sermon.  But how can you show others the way of\ndeliverance if you have not found it yourself?  How can you unbind if\nyou are not unbound?  How can you heal if you are not healed?  How, my\nfather?  Do you not see that all this is only from the head, not from\nthe life, the heart?\"\n\n\"It is true!  But I try, oh, my God, I try!\"\n\n\"But it does not come in that way--by our struggles.\"\n\n\"Then how?\" he exclaimed in a tone of despair.\n\n\"Does He not say, 'Abide in me, and ask what you will, and it shall be\ndone unto you'? Does not St. Paul testify, 'I can do all things through\nChrist which strengthened me.'  How many have given praise to Him who is\n'able to save to the uttermost' and 'able to present us faultless'!  Put\nHim to the proof.  If any one has the right to salvation, surely you\nhave.\"\n\nThey paused under a tree in the stillness of evening, and, while he\nstood with bowed head, she knelt beside him and prayed.\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER VIII*\n\n                       *THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME*\n\n\nEarly in 1887 the Marechale became the wife of Mr. Arthur Sydney\nClibborn, an Irish gentleman of Quaker extraction, lineally descended\nfrom Barclay of Ury, the hero of one of Whittier's finest poems.\nBrought up in Bessbrook, which was called the model town from the fact\nthat there was no public-house, police barracks or pawnshop in it, he\nrenounced excellent business prospects in answer to a call which first\ncame to him through a simple, earnest Quaker minister, \"Sydney, will\nthee not come with us?\"  The visit of some representatives of\nSalvationism to Bessbrook turned the current of his thoughts in a new\ndirection, making him exclaim, \"Here is primitive Quakerism, primitive\nWesleyanism, primitive Christianity!\"  As he had spent some years at\nschool in Switzerland, and become proficient in French and German, he\nwas sent by General Booth to assist the Marechale in France, and acted\nas her chief of staff until their marriage.\n\nHe was a man of great courage, and received a medal from the French\nPresident for saving life from drowning.  As a servant of God he would,\none cannot but think, have made a splendid Huguenot or Covenanter. His\nheroic ideal was the persecuted Quaker whose blood he had in his veins.\nIn the Salvation Army's early days of conflict he was the bravest of the\nbrave.  He was stoned and covered with mud in the streets of Geneva. He\nwas pursued by a Parisian mob that howled \"Down with Jesus Christ!\"  His\nlife was attempted many times, and he was condemned to death by the\nNihilists under the seal of the Paris headquarters; but he never went\nout of his way to avoid death or use carnal weapons.\n\nMr. Booth-Clibborn has been specially used of God in removing the\ndifficulties of those troubled with intellectual doubt and in opening\nthe eyes of a large number who were in spiritual darkness.\n\nThe Marechale was now obliged to leave the Training Home, where her _vie\napostolique_ among her beloved officers and cadets, whose every conflict\nand danger she shared, had often seemed to her like life in an earthly\nparadise. But whatever new duties and cares came to her in her little\nhome in the Rue d'Allemagne, she never allowed them to interfere with\nher vocation.  In the course of fourteen years God gave her five sons\nand five daughters, among whom life was infinitely sweet to her, yet all\nher public activities were maintained, while her passion for souls\nburned with a clear and steady flame.\n\nLoyalty to Christ now assumed a new aspect, and the conditions of\ndiscipleship an added stringency.  A great sentence in the\nGospel--\"Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or\nbrethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or\nlands, for my sake, and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an\nhundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and\nmothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the world to\ncome eternal life\"--burned itself into the Marechale's soul, and she\nnever doubted that she received her _centuple_ just because she paid the\nprice.\n\nWhen she went to any of the towns of France to undertake a difficult\ncampaign, it was impossible for her to do her duty unless she fixed her\nwhole mind and heart upon the work.  Having to deal with the mass of sin\nconcentrated in a large mixed audience such as she had to face in these\ntowns, and knowing, as she used to say, that every person had a skeleton\nin the cupboard, she felt that she must become, as it were, the\nscapegoat to bear the sins of these people.  There was a sense in which\nshe had to be like Christ in this respect, and so co-operate and suffer\nwith Him (Col. i. 24).  She must go and set herself apart to lift up\nhands to God in favour of the city.  She must say to every\npreoccupation, every earthly tie, \"Stand thou there while I go yonder to\npray.\"  She must _live_ for that town and that people for six weeks, or\ntwo or three months. She might do a certain kind of work without giving\nher _life_, but it would not be of the apostolic kind.  To get the\nhundredfold of which Christ spoke she must leave father and mother, home\nand child.  In some very real way she must sacrifice and suffer.  She\nhad felt this from her childhood, and she now saw it more clearly than\never; there was always a price to pay.  The secret of success in such\ncases was the consciousness of a vocation and a passionate love too, and\nthe personal dealing with the Christ of Calvary.\n\n[Illustration: THE MARECHALE\n(From a photograph by Fred. Boissonnas, Paris, circa 1880)]\n\nHow hard it became for the Marechale to accept this cross may be\nindicated by a touching scene depicted by her secretary, Miss Gugelman,\nwho is now one of the bravest soldiers of salvation in India.\n\n\"'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.'  How clearly this was illustrated\nwhen, at a late hour one evening, just at the close of her month's\nmeetings in Paris, the Marechale bent over her little ones' cots to bid\nthem good-bye before starting on her three-months' tour through France\nand Switzerland.  Evangeline, the eldest, had kept awake, for she knew\nthat her mamma was going away.  The little arms were flung round the\nwarrior-mother's neck, when, raising her sweet tear-stained face, little\nEvangeline stammered, '_Maman_, stay with me, or take me with you on\nyour _tournees_.'  Our leader's all too human tears filled her eyes; she\nkissed the little pleader, and then wrapped her up in a blanket, and\nbrought her into the study to see us off.  It was painfully clear to us\nwho were watching her, that the leaving of her little ones for the war's\nsake was a heavy cross to the Marechale.  Thank God, she shirks it not.\nSuppressing her feelings, she went out into the cold and damp, and\nstarted her long all-night journey.\"\n\nThat was in February 1894, and later in the same year she had two of the\nfinest campaigns of her life--at Havre and Rouen.  The turbulent\nbeginning at Havre was graphically described by her friend the Princess\nMalzoff, who accompanied the Marechale in order to have a taste of the\n_vie apostolique_.  \"There was a great tumult in the 'Lyre Havraise.'\nThe Marechale had come to publish the word of love and salvation.  An\nimmense crowd forced itself into the hall, and who would have dared\nbelieve that they had all come simply to present the world with the most\nscandalous, the most vulgar and odious spectacle that one can imagine?\nWhen the Marechale rose with great dignity and calm ... she could not\nmake herself heard.  Every word was interrupted; one could see that it\nwas a prepared stroke. One might imagine oneself to be in an asylum. But\nshe did not let herself be discouraged; she persevered; she walked\nstraight into the midst of the infuriated crowd.  She did not tame these\nwild beasts, but she came out victorious all the same.  Tall, beautiful,\ncalm, sustained by her divine conviction and with the strength of a\ngreat heart, she came back again and again--our admirable Marechale! ...\nIn the midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a few _elite_ souls\nfelt a noble enthusiasm for this young woman who battled alone against a\nhostile and wicked crowd.  They came to grasp her hand, to express their\nadmiration for her and their shame for those who had broken the simplest\nlaws of hospitality, politeness and civilisation.  Blessed be our\nMarechale; in her the whole _Armee du Salut_ was personified that night\nin its strength, its faith, its persevering love.\"\n\nTributes to \"the Marechale under fire\" were extorted from all the\nreporters.  After two or three meetings the atmosphere was changing and\nthe tide of battle turning, when tidings came from Paris, that\nAugustine, the Marechale's little son of two summers, was alarmingly\nill.  Then came an indescribable mental conflict, which ended in her\ndeciding to remain at least another night and hope for better news in\nthe morning.  She called her officers for prayer, and that night spoke\nwith a power and tenderness which held the vast audience as with a\nspell; after which she had Havre for six weeks in the hollow of her\nhand.\n\nNext morning she received a reassuring wire from home, and, sitting\nalone on the beach, she wrote a hymn that gives perfect expression to\nthe thought of the _Greater Love_--a hymn that has endeared itself in\nFrance as much to Catholics as to Protestants.  It begins:\n\n    Qui quitte famille et terre\n    Pour mon Nom, pour suivre mes pas;\n    Qui quitte enfants, pere ou mere,\n    Recoit le centuple ici-bas.\n\n\nWhen this hymn was sung in the \"Lyre Havraise\" a night or two afterwards\nby one of the Marechale's young comrades, Mme. Jeanmonod, who had a\nbeautiful soprano voice, it was received with a burst of sympathetic\napplause, and had to be sung over and over again, till the audience knew\nit.\n\nThen there was a great harvest of souls to reap.  A letter written at\nthe time gives an idea of the intensity of spirit with which the leader\nthrew herself into the work.\n\n\"Meeting superb!  Nothing of its kind since the days of Geneva and\nNimes, and even better in a sense than that, as the infidels rush to\nhear me.  Perfect order and people pleading to get in.  In these first\naudiences it has been too risky and excitable to allow any to speak but\nme.  They applaud everything, that is, when I have finished speaking,\nand I never felt more free and regardless of man's opinion.  I am\nstronger with the rough element alone in my weakness, so much stronger\nas I throw myself on them.  Yes, I am filled with the life and power of\nGod for this town.  This hour may never come again.  My soul is on the\nfull stretch....  Do you know what the 'Centuple' is for me?  That my\nchildren shall become apostles!  Oh, I claim that of God, and do you\nknow there is an assurance in my heart.\"\n\nIn addition to the nightly crowds at the Casino, the Marechale held\nafternoon meetings for women only, at which she spoke on such subjects\nas \"The Role of Woman,\" \"The Mother of Jesus,\" \"The White Robe.\"\nNothing impressed Havre more than the midnight suppers she gave to the\n_filles perdues_ of the town, not a few of whom were constrained to\nabandon the life of sin.  And so generous were the rich citizens in\ntheir offerings that at the close of the campaign the Marechale was at\nlength able to realise one of her cherished ideas--the foundation of a\nRescue Home in Paris.\n\n\nAfter Havre, the Marechale had a short breathing-space at home, and then\nRouen had to be faced.  Again the shadow of the Cross fell upon little\nhearts and lives.  Victoire, who was nearly five, pleaded with\nupstretched arms, \"Don't go, mother! stay with us!\" (_Ne pars pas,\nMaman!  Reste avec nous!_)  Evangeline, who had just turned six, had\nlearned the lesson of separation, and, throwing her arms around her\nmother, said, \"Maman, if you do go to Rouen, will some souls be saved\nthat would not be saved if you did not go?\"\n\n\"Yes; most likely so.\"\n\n\"Then go, Maman!\"\n\nAnd Maman went.\n\nWhile the good Catholic of Rouen was shocked, the man in the street was\namused, at the idea of worshipping God in the _Theatre Francais_ instead\nof the stately cathedral, and between them they contrived to make the\nthing impossible.  What, they asked, could be more grotesque than\npreaching and singing hymns on the stage?  At the opening meeting the\nMarechale herself obtained a fairly good hearing, but a hostile element\nwas present which every now and then convulsed the audience with\nlaughter by some comical exclamation; and when one of her comrades\nattempted to close the meeting with prayer, the rout was complete.\nPrayer in a theatre was the limit, and next day the Marechale was\ninformed by the Mayor that he must pacify the public by terminating\nthese proceedings.\n\nThe great Casino, at the corner of the square in which Joan of Arc was\nburned, was then secured, and the Marechale began to deliver a series of\naddresses on \"The Holy Mother of Jesus,\" \"Nineteenth Century Miracles,\"\n\"Confession,\" \"Restitution,\" \"The Saints,\" \"The Pater Noster,\" \"My\nCredo,\" \"The Altar.\"  The crowds that filled the hall to overflowing\nwere amazed to find that these subjects were all dealt with quite\nunecclesiastically, and with such an exclusive application to the\nindividual heart and life that sacerdotalism became, as it were,\nnon-existent, while the sinner and the Saviour were made manifest and\nleft face to face.  The people who came with minds alert left with\nhearts melted and consciences aroused.  Soon there were great numbers of\nsouls seeking spiritual help, and the Marechale announced that she would\nmeet the convicted and anxious in one of the rooms of the Casino. No\nfewer than four hundred sought private interviews in that place, which\nthus became a confessional of the simple, primitive order. Not by\npriestly absolution, but through personal contact with the one High\nPriest and Mediator, was sin remitted and salvation won.\n\nSo many Catholics were converted that the head of one of the seminaries\nthought it necessary to preach against the _Armee du Salut_. An\ninfluential abbe, on the other hand, said: \"I cannot, of course, agree\nwith the Salvationists, but I am absolutely convinced of their\nsincerity, and I am certain they are far nearer salvation than the\nmajority of Catholics.\"  The _cure_ of the largest _paroisse_ attended\none day in his _soutane_, gave an offering for the mission, and bought\nthe publications at the door. When the Marechale was about to speak to\nwomen alone on the Holy Mother, two priests expressed their desire to be\npresent, and she had them concealed behind a curtain.  At the end they\nwere deeply moved, and assured her they had not heard a single word with\nwhich they were not in heartiest agreement.  Such was the deep spiritual\nimpression made upon the town that a newspaper was published containing\nnothing but accounts of her meetings and the work going on in the\nCasino.\n\nDuring all her years in France the Marechale never posed as a Protestant\nand never attacked Catholicism.  Creeds, ceremonies, penances,\npilgrimages--these things were to her neither here nor there.  She\nalways went for the real, and she found in Christ not only true divinity\nbut perfect humanity.  Her sermon on the Virgin melted thousands of\nCatholic hearts, and her fundamental doctrine of sacrifice never failed\nto evoke a response from the Latin races.  She was an eager student--so\nfar as the \"apostolic life\" permitted--of the writings of Catherine of\nSiena, Thomas a Kempis, Madame Guyon and Fenelon, claiming kinship with\nall who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth.\n\nThus she had great power over Catholics as well as Protestants and\ninfidels.  One of her most devoted officers, M. le Roux, had, after a\nbrilliant career as a Catholic student, completed his preparation for\nthe priesthood and received the tonsure, when he came under her\ninfluence and found his life completely changed.  And the following\nletter received from a lady-professor in Rouen indicates the kind of\nimpression which was made on many Catholic minds.\n\n\"Dear Marechale, I wish to do what I have not yet dared to do when face\nto face with you--that is, to express the pleasure which I have found in\nyour charming Conferences. They have moved and troubled me to such an\nextent, have thrown such light in my heart and mind, that I ask myself\nwhat is going on within me.  Your addresses, so simple and yet so high,\nso suited to your hearers, so consecutive, have influenced me more than\nall the beautiful sermons of the monks.  You have made me understand\nthat God asks something else from us than outward practices and empty\nceremonial, and I feel that you have renewed a faith in me that had\nnearly disappeared.  You have made me taste, thanks to your deep\nconvictions and the warmth of your speech, one of the purest joys I have\never known....  Be blessed a thousand times, Marechale, for having\nrevealed my religion to be under a new light, for having shaken this\napathy which rendered me incapable of every generous impulse, for having\nmade me more sensitive to the sufferings of others.  Be blessed in your\nchildren, who one day I hope will reward you nobly for all your\nsacrifices.  Be blessed in humanity, the great family which you have\nelected to live for and which is the object of your care.\"\n\n\nDoes such a revival as this leave solid and lasting results?  Let one\ncase out of many be presented as evidence that it does.  M. Matter was a\ndistinguished engineer and an officer in the French army.  Extracts from\ntwo of his letters tell what the Rouen campaign did for him.\n\n\"Beloved Marechale, Three years ago tonight a poor man entered the\nCasino through what appeared mere chance.  He was burdened with sorrow,\nkeenly conscious of his sins, but never dreaming of asking the _Armee du\nSalut_--which did not even excite his curiosity--to help him, hardly\nbelieving any more in the possibility of salvation for him.  God\ninspired you; the Holy Spirit made your words penetrate even underneath\nthe breastplate of sin which covered my poor heart.  Two days after I\nwas born to a new life.  From that moment God has strengthened,\nprotected and directed me.  I seek to love Him with all my heart, and I\ntreasure a deep and loving gratitude to you.\"\n\nAnd six years later: \"I have made a pilgrimage at night in the deserted\nstreets to the Casino where God found me and where you were His\nambassador.\"\n\nThis gentleman is now well known all over France for his work among\ncriminals and drunkards, and his services have been recognised by the\nFrench government.  He gets into personal touch with hundreds of\nconvicts in order to speak to them of the love of God, and down in the\nArdeche he has a Home for four hundred little waifs, mostly the children\nof criminals, whom he calls the Marechale's grandchildren, he himself\nbeing her spiritual son.\n\nThe last time she visited him in Paris, they were engaged in eager and\nintimate talk, when he said, \"Do you see that ivory pipe?  I have\nengraved on it the day of my conversion at Rouen; but since that time I\nhave never had any inclination to smoke it.  And do you see that pile of\nletters?  These are from my boys in prison.  Let me read one of them to\nyou.\"  Then he read the words of a convict who spoke of prison walls\nlighted up with the glory of Christ's presence.  And he added, \"Do you\nremember you said to me when I was in despair over my past life, 'These\nhands, which have done so much evil, will bring blessing and salvation\nwhere I can never go.'  Your words have literally come true.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER IX*\n\n                       *THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST*\n\n\nOne night a little card was placed on the _table d'hote_ of the Hotel\nMeurice, in the Rue de Rivoli, intimating to the guests that the\nMarechale would speak at an informal meeting in the salon after dinner.\nAmong those who came to see and hear her was a little Russian lady with\ndeep and thoughtful hazel eyes.  She was the celebrated Princess Nancy\n(properly Anastasia) Malzoff of the Russian court.  One of the Czarinas\ndied in her arms.  She was a friend of King Edward VII, and her\nbrilliant wit made her a welcome figure in every court of Europe.  She\nspoke eight languages.\n\nShe was now well advanced in life, and thought she had known everybody\nworth knowing and seen everything worth seeing in the world.  But that\nevening was the beginning of a new life of peace and joy such as she had\nnever dreamed of.  From the moment the Marechale opened her lips, she\nwas fascinated, first by the speaker, and then still more by the\nmessage.  Next morning she came in her carriage to the Villette.  The\nMarechale was scarcely well enough to receive her, but she would not\ntake a \"No.\"  When she entered the Marechale's room, she threw herself\nby the bedside and exclaimed, \"Oh! tell me, how did you get to know\nHim?\"\n\nThis was the commencement of a seven years' friendship, and during all\nthat time she was never out of reach without writing the Marechale every\nsecond day.\n\nThe Princess was a member of the orthodox Greek Church.  Her mother had\nmarried her off at sixteen, and she had eleven children by the time she\nwas twenty-eight.  When she found that her husband had become\nunfaithful, she dismissed him with an emphatic \"C'est fini!\" and for\nmore than a quarter of a century she had never seen him.\n\nThe Marechale listened with deep sympathy to the story of her life, and\nthen said, \"You must forgive him, if you would be forgiven.\"\n\n\"Never, never!\"\n\n\"Yes, if you want Christ, forgive him. Never mind what he has done, you\nmust forgive him.\"\n\nThe Princess could not.  A struggle went on in her mind for six weeks.\nShe began to come to the meetings at the Rue Auber, but she had no\npeace.  The Marechale opened the question again.\n\n\"Come now, I want you to write and invite him to meet you at your hotel,\nto dine with him, and to forgive him.\"\n\nA terrible inner controversy ensued, and the Princess became ill over\nit.  One can scarcely imagine what it all meant to her, and yet\nthousands have to go through the same.\n\nCalling one day, the Marechale found her in a cloud of cigarette smoke.\n\n\"Princess, how dare you smoke like this?\"\n\n\"Well, I am surrounded by a thousand devils, blue, black and yellow.\nYou have been neglecting me.\"\n\nA ceaseless conflict was raging in her breast, and ere they parted that\nday she wrote a letter and said she would send it.\n\nThe Marechale called again, and found that the letter had not been sent.\nThen the crisis came.\n\n\"Princess, you are lost.  If you do not forgive, your heavenly Father\nwill not forgive you.\"\n\n\"I cannot, I cannot.\"\n\nShe was in agony of soul.\n\n\"Princess,\" said the Marechale, \"are you perfect?  From the little I\nknow of you I should think you have a very bad temper.\"\n\n\"It is true, it is true.\"\n\n\"Your sins have not been his, but they are sins before God, and have\ncaused suffering to others.  If you want God to forgive your bad temper,\nyou must forgive him.\"\n\nThe Marechale prayed, and bade her look to the Cross and see how Christ\nforgave.  Then she told her again what to do.\n\n\"Darling, you are to invite him to your apartments; you are to have a\nsweet little dinner for him and flowers on the table, and when he comes\nyou are to kiss him.\"\n\n\"But I cannot!\"\n\n\"Yes, you will; and remember it is no forgiveness unless you kiss him.\nForgiveness means kissing.  Forgive him, and I know peace will come.\"\n\n\"Very well, I will, I will!\"\n\nThe Marechale chanced to be leaving Paris for a time, and said--\n\n\"You will send me a wire when you have done it.\"\n\nThe Princess invited her husband.  He made a long night journey.  She\nkissed him and forgave him.  Next day the Marechale received a wire\nwhich made her dance for joy.  It ran: \"_Tout s'est passe comme vous\nl'avez dit, et la paix du Christ m'inonde: Malzoff_\" (All is done as you\nsaid, and the peace of Christ floods my soul.)\n\nHer husband died after a few months, and her thankfulness for what she\nhad done was profound.\n\nThe last years of her own life were beautiful. In a letter which she\nwrote to General Booth in regard to her friend's health she said: \"I owe\na great deal to the Marechale.  She has given me a treasure greater than\nall the treasures of this world--she has given me a living Christ; she\nhas put Him not near me, but in me, in my soul, and the gratitude I feel\nfor that blessing is great.\"  An article from her pen on the Army's work\nin Paris contains these words: \"The Salle Auber is to me now a holy\nplace.  I feel the presence of Christ there--Christ who has personally\nbecome a living Saviour to me since the Marechale brought me to Him and\ncommitted me to His Divine arms.\"\n\nHundreds of letters, the last of which was written in St. Petersburg on\nthe day before her death, reveal an intensely ardent nature, and prove\nthat the heart which truly loves never grows old.  We translate a few\nextracts.\n\n\"I will use all my moral forces to prove to you that our mutual\naffection has advanced me in the path of holiness which you opened to me\nthe very first moments I heard you speak.  God had pity upon me and sent\nyou on my _via dolorosa_ to open to me a new horizon, a new heaven.  He\ncarried my heart to you with an intensity of which I did not think\nmyself capable.\"\n\n\"I have found in you two beings equally precious to me--the first is a\nfriend I love like a dearly beloved daughter; the second the Marechale\nof my Salvation, whose work, vocation and power I admire--that moral\npower which you only in the whole world exercise over me.  If I had\nknown you earlier, you would have made a saint of me.\"\n\n\"Not any affection in the world, not even my children's, can replace\nyours for me.  What does it matter though everybody loves me if you do\nnot?\"\n\n\"I know that it is because I have not yet renounced my 'self,' my\n'_moi_,' that your absence makes me suffer, but I cannot help it--it is\nbeyond my power.  I know also that the day my 'self' will be chased\naway--which is doubtful--I shall love no one, for to love one must be a\nself, one must have one's _own_ heart.\"\n\n\"I doubt if there are any others who bear you such a deep, complete,\nliving, warm and luminous affection.  Not that you do not deserve it,\nbut all natures are not alike, and you know the fault of mine.  I cannot\nlove by halves.\"\n\n\"'Love wisely,' some one advises.  That word 'wise' hurts me.  I do not\nwant to be wise in my love for you.  I prefer to love madly, and that is\nwhat I do, and you feel it, don't you?  Wisdom to the devil when it is a\nquestion of the heart.\"\n\n\"I cannot believe that He must detach us from everything to attach us to\nHimself--that would make me very sad.  On the contrary I feel that it is\nonly human love, disinterested love, but deep and living, which can make\nus understand Divine love.  It is only through human experience that we\ncan appreciate His great, His mighty, His eternal love for us. All the\nlife of Jesus is filled with that palpable love for His creatures, and\nthat is why He is so near to us.  Let me therefore love you without\ndetachment, and the more I love you the more I will love Him.\"\n\n\nOne of her letters is peculiarly interesting: \"I will see the Emperor in\nthese days, and I will seek strength to speak to him.  You see, my\ndarling, speaking is not enough, one must in such a case pour out one's\nsoul and feel that a superior force guides one and speaks for one.\"\n\nIt turned out as she hoped.  One night she was at the Palace in St.\nPetersburg.  After dinner the Czar came and seated himself beside her.\nSoon they were deep in intimate conversation.  She began telling him\nwhat her new-found friend in Paris had done for her. She talked wisely\nas he listened attentively. At length he said--\n\n\"But, Nancy, _you_ have always been good, always right.\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered; \"till now I have never known the Christ.  She has\nmade Him real to me, brought Him near to me, and He has become what He\nnever was before--my personal Friend.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER X*\n\n                         *THE BURNING QUESTION*\n\n\nIt was the often expressed wish of Mrs. Josephine Butler that the\nMarechale might be able to join her crusade against the infamous White\nSlave Traffic.  In one of her earliest letters to her friend she said:\n\"Dearest Catherine, the wicked party, as you know, have triumphed in the\nelections in Switzerland, and the Geneva government has passed that evil\nLaw which our friends were trying to stop.... How nice it would be if\nyou and I could _stand up together_ in Geneva, and denounce their\nwickedness and proclaim the Saviour. I should love to do so.\"  At a\nlater time she wrote of her young friend, \"Oh, I sometimes think if she\nwere in the work of our Federation, what a harvest she might bring us\nin, or rather bring in for God!\"\n\nThe Marechale regarded the wish of that saintly and chivalrous woman as\ninvolving a kind of sacred trust.  Her own heart was early and deeply\ntroubled by the darker aspects of our modern civilisation.  When she and\nher two brave comrades, Florence Soper and Adelaide Cox, took their\nfirst flat in Paris, they were shocked to learn that they had as their\nnearest neighbours--above and beneath, to the right and to the\nleft--families unconsecrated by any marriage tie; and in the course of\ntheir ordinary work they found themselves hourly confronted by all the\ndevils of vice. The lurid facts, of which most Christians, happily for\ntheir own peace of mind, know little or nothing, were burned into the\nsouls of these noble women, each of whom dedicated herself to a battle\n_a outrance_ against this most appalling form of evil.  And have they\nnot faithfully kept their vow?  Are there any living Englishwomen who\nhave done so much to protect our innocent children and raise our fallen\nsisters as these three, who first toiled and suffered and prayed\ntogether thirty years ago in the Villette of Paris?\n\nIn redeeming her pledge, the Marechale not only gave midnight suppers to\nthe _filles dechues_ of the great cities in which she conducted her\ncampaigns, not only founded Rescue Homes in Paris, Nimes, Lyons and\nBrussels, but endeavoured to make the problem of purity a national\nquestion, to be dealt with in a statesmanlike manner by every patriotic\ncitizen.\n\nShe frequently addressed great meetings of the men of Paris and other\ncities on this subject, making irresistible appeals to the heart and\nconscience.  It was astonishing how she carried the most critical\naudiences along with her, though now and then an indignant hearer would\nleap to his feet and dash out of the hall or theatre in which her\nmeeting was held.\n\nShe steadily refused to believe that nothing could be done for the\n_morale_ of Frenchmen, and her faith in the innate chivalry of the\npeople was amply justified.  The respect with which she was heard was a\ntribute not only to the personal magnetism of a consecrated life, but to\nthe Christian ideal of chastity.  She was often told by journalists that\nany one else, man or woman, daring to utter half the home truths to\nwhich she gave expression would have been hissed out of the town.\nExplain it as one will, when she pleaded the sacred cause of womanhood,\nmen applauded to their own hurt. \"Gentlemen,\" she would exclaim, \"I am\nnot French, but I love your nation.  I have made your country mine, and\nI realise what France might be but for the worm which gnaws at the root\nof your national life.  It makes me shudder to think--it makes me\nliterally sick to see--how many thousands of my sisters, and your\nsisters, in your beautiful city are ministers of vice.  So many, your\npolicemen tell me, under twenty, so many under seventeen, so many under\nfifteen, and there are even those known to the police who are not in\ntheir teens. Gentlemen, they do not sin alone, for we are all\n_solidaires_.  They are like your own girls, your wives, your sweet\nlittle daughters.  They have hearts, they have brains, they are\nintelligent, they would make beautiful mothers, our comrades in life's\njourney, helping us and sharing our burdens.  And, alas, what have you\nmade of them?  Any nation which can look at _that_ going on in its\ncities day by day and night by night, without a word, without a\nprotest--which can see this splendid asset, woman, who should bear its\nsons and daughters, sacrificed and sold to vice, disease, and early\ndeath,--that nation is on the decline.  Do not tell me that a man worthy\nof the name can be silent in face of these stupendous facts.  Such a man\nis not a Frenchman.\n\n\"I am told that things have always been so, and will always be so.  I\nhear it said on every hand that this vice is a necessity.  That some\nwomen--that the daughters of the poor--should be sacrificed is regarded\nas inevitable. Well, then, gentlemen, as you say it is for the public\nutility, follow your reasoning to its own logical conclusion, be just to\nthese poor creatures; do not despise them, do not call them lost,\nfallen, prostitutes; be honest and acknowledge them; allow them to stand\nat least on the same level as our soldiers who sacrifice themselves for\ntheir country.  Far from being ashamed of them, honour them for their\nservice to our sons and our nation.\n\n\"But you say 'it is only _une fille_,' and one of your senators has\npublicly said that 'we are come to a fine pass if _an honest man_ cannot\nbuy himself _une bonne fortune_.'  Only a _fille_! Your mothers were\nonce only _filles_, your wives were only _filles_, and what are your own\ndaughters?  Wherein lies the difference?\n\n\"An honest _man_!  I am not a nun; I am not a man-hater stalking through\nthe world.  I revere man.  He is half a god.  Look at his works in every\ndomain--the king of creation, given that wonderful command to subdue and\nrule, having everything under his feet.  When he rises to his destiny,\nand becomes a co-worker with God, and puts his life and example--that\nwonderful miracle called influence--on the side of righteousness, he\nrises to the sublime.  The sum of happiness, of pure joy and peace, that\none good man can bring to the little group at home, and then to the\ncommunity, to the city, to the world, cannot be estimated.  And the sum\nof misery, the curse, the blight that one man can bring to a woman, to\nchildren, to every one he touches--that, too, cannot be estimated.  An\n_honest man_!  He does not even stop where the cows and horses do.  He\ngoes a thousand miles beneath them!  And yet the indulgence of the\npassions is no more a necessity than the drinking of alcohol is a\nnecessity for an infant of a year old.  It is society that awakens those\nevil desires, and they unfold themselves under the influence of a\nbaneful education.\n\n\"Gentlemen, you say that a bad woman is worse than a bad man.  Have you\never reflected that the wrongs done to her are far deeper?  Have you\nrealised that her make-up is a thousand times more delicate and complex\nthan yours, and that as a consequence this sin makes shorter work of\nher?  Her despair is blacker and she is reckless.  You take from her the\nhope of ever having a little home of her own, of ever having a real\nhusband, of ever hearing herself called mother.  You have done that\nbefore she can realise what you have done.  She does not wait, does not\nestimate. The realisation comes to her later on in life. And when it\ncomes, is it any wonder that she flies to drink and becomes a demon?\nWould not I?  Would not you?\n\n\"Say all that you please against woman. Reckon up the sins on your side\nand on hers. Still your page is black as ink compared with hers.  Think\nof the generous, the absolute, the totally blind ways she loves.\n\n    'Woman's heart runs down to love\n    As rivers run to seas.'\n\n\n\"You have your life, your work, your amusements; but love is her whole\nexistence.  She is created in that way.  That makes your sin in\ndeceiving a trusting heart infinitely greater.\n\n\"You may go and have a good marriage afterwards, and be proud of your\ncharming wife's sweet looks, but does not the vision of another, a pale\nface sometimes flit across your mind?  And when you look at your little\ncot, do you not see another baby face--another little life you have\nnever owned, of which you are the author, and which is equally yours\nbefore God?  A woman's heart has been broken, and there will be\nretribution.\"\n\nWhile the Marechale stood alone, pleading as a woman the cause of woman,\nher audiences of educated Frenchmen were sometimes so deeply stirred and\nconvicted that they would rock and sob under the power of emotion; and\nwhen they rose at the end to sing a hymn that she wrote as a young\ngirl--a hymn which has been translated into many languages--\n\n    Ote tous mes peches!\n    Ote tous mes peches!\n    Agneau de Dieu, je viens a toi,\n    Ote tous mes peches,\n\nthe words and music would sweep over the audience like a wave, sending\nmany away with consciences tortured and faces bathed in tears.\n\nOne morning, after such a meeting, there was a ring at the Marechale's\ndoor, and a lady was ushered into her presence.  Coming forward without\na word, she took the Marechale's face between her hands, and warmly\nembraced her in the French fashion by kissing both her cheeks.  The\nMarechale inquired what was the meaning of this sweet affection.\n\n\"Oh!\" said the stranger, \"you have restored to me my husband.  He was\nlistening to you last night, and when he came home he fell at my feet\nand begged me to pardon him, vowing that he would never again be untrue\nto me.\"\n\nThat was but one of the many fruits of these addresses.\n\n\nSometimes the Marechale would read to _elite_ audiences a letter which a\nman of high social standing wrote to a charming young girl whom he ought\nto have made his wife.  Having met her at Carnival, he awoke in her\nheart an adoring love, deceived her with a promise of marriage, put a\nring on her finger, and after three years abandoned her and her baby\nboy.  The Marechale took the letter to an eminent jurist and senator,\nwho confessed that for cold-blooded cruelty he had never seen anything\nto equal it; but he sorrowfully added--such are the laws of Christian\nlands--that nothing could be done to right the wrong.  The letter ran as\nfollows--\n\n\n\"LITTLE MARIE,\n\n\"Once again I must ask pardon for all the harm I have done you.  I hope,\nhowever, that you will be strong in trouble, stronger than you have been\nup to the present.  This will be a very great consolation to me.  I owe\nmany thanks for the resolutions that the good little Marie made\nyesterday, in spite of her heart and all her feelings.  Believe that I\nshall never forget it, and that it cost me much before deciding to break\nyour ideal--but, as I told you, I prefer to be sincere.  As long as my\nheart was free from other passion I always considered you as the best\nfriend I possessed.  If I was not completely happy, it was that living\nwithout love was not to live--but you, poor little Marie, you suffered!\n\n\"You are worth a hundred times more than I, and precisely on account of\nthat we could not understand each other.  You who are so good--too\ngood--permeated with the most delicate sentiments, you could not conquer\nan ambitious man, for I am very ambitious.\n\n\"Whilst you dreamed of a simple, quiet life with me, you must understand\nthat violent passions, riches, and a luxurious life are for me\nessential.  In a word, our ideals are completely different, and it is a\ndivorce of souls which I have accomplished in leaving you.  Fate made us\nmeet, and fate separates us.  Don't have any ill-feeling towards me.  My\ndream now is to create for myself quite a new life made up of goodness,\nof love, and above all faithfulness in a serious affection.\n\n\"I sacrifice you, it is true, but if it were otherwise, think of the\ntorture you would have inflicted on me.  Is it not better to separate,\neach of us keeping a good memory of what made our union?  Think also how\nmy life is insupportable in this muddle now that I love truly.\n\n\"You are good, Marie; be courageous now. The sacrifice that I ask of you\nis enormous, I know, but do it for love of me, and I will be eternally\nobliged to you.\n\n\"You will put all your tenderness in the little Gustave, whom I shall\nnever forget, and above all remember that he who loves well chastises\nwell.  Au revoir--au revoir!\n\n\"Once again pardon me, and don't suffer too much by your exile.  My only\nhope is that Gustave will recompense you largely for all the suffering\nyou have endured, so little merited during these long years.\n\n\"I remain,\n       \"Your devoted----.\"\n\n\nMarie was human, and when the marriage day drew near there was a fierce\nflaming-up of resentment in her young heart.  She thought of making a\nscene at the church and spoiling the bridegroom's joy.  Her brother\nfanned her burning sense of wrong, and promised to back her up if she\nwould seek revenge.  But the Marechale pleaded with her, the love of the\nCrucified constrained her, and on the morning of the wedding she wrote\nthe following pathetic little note: \"He is to be married to-day. The\nwedding bells are ringing....  It is all over, dear Marechale, and I am\non my knees in my little room.  All is well; the peace of Christ is in\nmy heart, and I have the victory.\"  This is no romance, but a bit of\nreal life. Which of us would have done as little Marie did?  She did not\nknow it, but she was worthy that morning of the ministry of angels--the\nshining ones who have never sinned and never suffered.\n\n\nSometimes the Marechale would tell her audience a story to prove what\nwells of love there still are in the hearts of the most abandoned.\nDuring a three months' campaign at Lyons, resulting in one of the most\nremarkable revivals in which she ever took part, she was giving a\nmidnight supper.  Her officers had gone to the most notorious houses and\nleft a card containing the words: \"A lady who is devoted to the cause of\nwomen desires to speak to them on subjects which deeply interest them,\nin ---- Hall, at twelve to-night.  Supper, music and singing.\"\n\nThe city had been moved, and the rich demonstrated their sympathy with\nthis effort. Having had frequent experiences of the risks attending\nmidnight gatherings, the Marechale enlisted the interest of the police,\nwho on this occasion gave her all possible assistance.\n\nLate in the evening the table was covered with damask cloths and adorned\nwith flowers. A supper of roast beef, vegetables, fruit and black coffee\nwas prepared.  Towards midnight the piano began to be played, that those\nwho entered the hall might be welcomed with cheerful music.\n\nSome girls came in laughing, and quickly went out again, evidently\nthinking there must be some deception.  They did not believe that\nbanquets were spread for nothing.  Sometimes it was very difficult to\nconvince them that the thing was not a farce.\n\nPresently a horrible old hag appeared--it would be difficult to imagine\na more ugly, repulsive woman.  Coming up to the Marechale she said--\n\n\"You are the Holy Virgin.  I know it.  _Oui, vous etes la Sainte Vierge,\nje le sais_.\"\n\nThe Marechale did not know what to say, so much was she taken aback.\n\n\"You are the Holy Virgin,\" the old woman repeated.\n\n\"Come along and have a talk with me,\" said the Marechale, \"and take\nsupper.  I am delighted to see you.\"\n\nThe woman laughed.  \"No, no, no, it isn't me that you want--_Ce n'est\npas moi qu'il vous faut_.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is you.  I am happy, believe me I am so happy, to see you.  It\nis you whom I want.  Do sit down.\"\n\nAt last, with great difficulty, she was persuaded to be seated.  But she\nstayed only a minute.  The Marechale turned to speak to somebody, and\nthe old woman darted out of the hall.  She was gone like a flash.\n\n\"We won't see _her_ again, Marechale,\" said one of the officers.\n\nThe Marechale began to blame herself. Why did she not inspire the poor\ncreature with confidence?  Why could one not make her feel at rest?  Why\nhad she run away?  She had seemed to suspect something.  It was a sore\ndisappointment.\n\nAfter some waiting, the girls began to come, and the tables filled up,\nbut every time the door opened the Marechale turned her eye towards it\nin the hope of seeing her old woman return.  A gloom had been cast over\nher spirit because that woman had gone out, not believing that she was\nwelcome, thinking she was too old and too ugly.\n\nThe beautiful grace, \"Nous Te benissons,\" was sung, prayer was offered,\nand sweet music filled the air while the plates were handed round.  Some\nof the guests were pretty and some ugly, some young and some old, some\nclad in rags and some dressed in the height of fashion.  Some poor\nfamished creatures asked for a plate of meat four or five times, while\nothers, having already supped, merely touched a little fruit with their\ndainty fingers and sipped a cup of black coffee.\n\nThe supper was nearly ended, and the Marechale was preparing to speak,\nwhen the door burst open, and in came our old woman, with a pretty young\ngirl, fair as a lily, on one arm, and a dark one, equally young and\nbeautiful, on the other.  Up she came to the \"Holy Virgin,\" with her\ndear old face radiant.\n\n\"_Voila_!  I have gone and found them.  It's _these_ that you want!  For\nme it is too late, but show them _the other side of the medal_.\"\n\nThe Marechale could not speak.  Her eyes filled with tears.  The words\ncut her through. The woman did not know what an act she had done, nor\nwhat an unforgettable phrase--_le revers de la medaille_--she had used.\n\n\"I have spent a long time in seeking them,\" she said.  \"I _am_\npleased--_Je suis contente_.\"\n\n\"And I, too, am happy,\" said the Marechale, \"but especially because you\nhave come.\"\n\n\"_Moi!_! for me it is finished.  For me it is too late.  But these--they\nare young, they are pretty, they have life before them.  It is these\nthat you want!\"\n\nThe three sat down, the Marechale taking the old woman next to her.  And\nshe never served a cup of coffee with such pleasure in her life.\n\nIn after years she would sometimes tell the story of that old woman on a\nSunday morning to an English congregation, and then ask the searching\nquestion, \"Which of you has ever spent two hours day or night seeking\nfor a lost soul as she did?\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER XI*\n\n                           *THE PRODIGAL SON*\n\n\nBaron X, the eldest son of the Baron of that name, was born at Bordeaux,\nand brought up in a family of strict Catholic traditions. He studied at\nthe College de Tivoli and the Lycee, but he cared for little except\nsport and pleasure.  After he had wasted much of his father's substance\nin riotous living, he was informed that his allowance would be entirely\ncut off unless he went abroad for a time.  Leaving home in disgrace, he\nsailed for New York, and was beginning to taste the bitterness of exile,\nwhen, chancing one day to enter a big restaurant, he was astonished to\nmeet his cousin, the Viscount of X., who, having inherited a fortune of\ntwo million francs, was making haste to squander it.  Falling upon each\nother's necks, they at once became companions in pleasure.  Giving\nthemselves up to all kinds of insanity, they spent immense sums in a few\nmonths.\n\nBaron X was afraid to give himself a single moment of reflection on the\nenormity of his errors.  He was inwardly miserable, and found that\neverybody else who was pursuing pleasure was as unhappy as himself.  One\nnight, at a dance in Montreal, he said to the queen of the ball, admired\nby everybody for her beauty and charm--\n\n\"Would that I could find out how to enjoy myself again!\"\n\nShe answered, \"If _I_ seem to be gay, I have no reason for being so.\nOh, how I suffer!\"\n\nThe young man felt that existence became more and more mechanical, the\ndays succeeding one another in an endless monotony of unsatisfying\namusements.  He seemed to be living in a bad dream.\n\nAfter a while he returned to France, and one evening he was sitting, sad\nat heart, on the balcony of the _Cafe de la Paix_, wondering to what\nplace of pleasure he should turn his steps, when some Salvationist girls\ncame to offer their journal to the customers.  They were greeted with\nthe usual pleasantries. Baron X asked the waiter if he knew who these\npeople were.\n\n\"Oh, yes, Monsieur, they are the _Salutistes_, and if you want to have a\ngood laugh, you have only to go to the Rue Auber, which is quite near\nby; they have a hall there where you could spend a good evening.\"\n\nHis curiosity awakened, Baron X went to the place indicated, taking a\n_fille de joie_ with him.  The fair-haired young man and his companion\nsat at the bottom of the hall laughing. That evening there were\n\"testimonies,\" which somehow arrested Baron X's attention.  He could not\nhelp asking himself how these young people seemed so happy.  Then a\nyoung officer read the words, \"The wages of sin is death, but the free\ngift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord,\" and\ndelivered an address which was not correct in language, but extremely\nincisive.  Baron X said to himself, \"He knows my history, and speaks to\nme.\"  As he went out, he bought some publications which were exposed for\nsale at the door, and spent the night in reading them.  He came next\nevening alone, and a great spiritual conflict began.  He continued to\ncome, and one night remained behind, being in an agony of soul.  Sobbing\naloud, he confessed that he had led a wild and wicked life, dishonoured\nhis name, and broken his mother's heart.  At one o'clock in the morning\nhe gave himself to God.\n\nThe Marechale saw that he was afraid of himself in Paris, and opened her\ndoors to him. For six months he lived partly at her house and partly at\nthe headquarters in the Rue Auber. She soon came to know him through and\nthrough, and was struck by his simplicity and absolute sincerity.  He\nhad broken completely with the past, and never had one _arriere pensee_.\nHe was ready for any sacrifice and for the humblest service.\n\nOne day a police agent came to tell the Marechale that she had somebody\nliving in her house and wearing the uniform of the _Armee de Salut_, who\nwas passing himself off as the son of Baron X.  She called Baron X, and,\nwhile the two men stared at each other, said, \"This is the son of Baron\nX.\"  The official apologised and withdrew.\n\nBaron X had written to tell his parents of his conversion, but received\nno answer.  After six months the Marechale had to begin a _tournee_ at\nBordeaux, and told Baron X that she would seize the opportunity to go\nand visit his parents.  He was overjoyed.  He hoped for much, and said\nhe would pray.\n\nWhen the Marechale, clad in uniform, drew near to the gates of the\nBaron's chateau, a complete stranger stopped her and exclaimed, \"My poor\nchild, what are you going to do in that house?\"  She only smiled and\nwalked on, but the question came back to her mind afterwards.\n\nRinging the bell, she was shown into a luxurious room, and presently the\nBaron, the Baroness, and their daughter appeared.  She was received as\nstiffly as if she had been the representative of the Queen, and found it\nhard to begin.  Making an effort, she said they had probably learned\nfrom their son that a wonderful change had taken place in his life.  She\nwas happy to be able to confirm it.  For six months she and her officers\nhad witnessed his life, and had noticed nothing in word or look or act\ninconsistent with this marvellous change.\n\nThere was no answer.  The parents and daughter simply stared at their\nvisitor.  She continued--\n\n\"I know that his life has been bad, but I thought that you would be glad\nto hear of his conversion.\"\n\nThen the Baroness could no longer contain herself.  A torrent of words\nfell from her lips. She depicted the scandalous life of her son, who had\nbeen a real prodigal in every sense of the word, gambling away their\nwealth, bringing his mistress into their house, and disgracing their\nname.\n\n\"But,\" said the Marechale, \"that was before his change.  Do not bring up\nwhat he once was.  Think of what he is now.  He has been living among my\nchildren, and I can trust him to go in and out with them.  I know\nsomething of real conversions, and I think I can judge.  I assure you\nthat he has become a new man, with new desires, new aspirations, a new\nnature.\"\n\nThese assurances only led to another realistic description of his sins.\n\n\"But,\" pleaded the Marechale, \"that was when he was Saul; now he is\nPaul.\"\n\nThey stared and did not comprehend the meaning of her words.\n\n\"Let him come back to the Catholic Church,\" said the Baron.  That his\nson should profess to have been saved outside the holy Mother Church was\nevidently a last blow to his pride.\n\n\"That is surely a secondary matter,\" said the Marechale.  \"Considering\nwhat a sinner he has been, you should not mind by whom the change has\ncome.  He has been converted in the _Armee du Salut_, but there is only\none God and one Saviour.  Catholic and Protestant are alike if they have\nno life.\"\n\nBut the Baroness drew herself up in her beautiful robe, and said--\n\n\"Let him come back to the Catholic Church, or he will never receive\nanother sou from us.\"\n\nThe Marechale saw that it was time to end the interview.\n\n\"Very well, Baroness,\" she said, rising, \"I will be your son's mother.\nI will buy your son clothes and boots.\"\n\nWith that she left their house disappointed and weary, having spent\nhours under their roof pleading their son's cause, but they had never\noffered her so much as a cup of tea.\n\nOn her return to Paris, she called Baron X. His face fell when she began\nto speak.  She bade him be brave, described to him her interview with\nhis people, and ended by saying, \"I will be a mother to you, and you\nshall never lack for anything.\"\n\nHe worked on with her in Paris for some months, and then he received a\ntelegram, \"Come quickly, father dying.\"  The Marechale rushed him off,\nand he afterwards gave her an account of his eventful journey.\n\nWhen he got home, he found the house silent, every sound muffled without\nand within.\n\n\"Am I too late?\" he asked.\n\n\"No, hush!  He has been asking for you all the time.  Come quickly.\"\n\nUpstairs he went to his father's room. Entering, he saw two thin white\nhands on the coverlet, and heard a voice--\n\n\"Is it my son?\"\n\n\"Yes, father!\"\n\nWith one bound he was at the bed-side, and fell on his knees.  With\nbreath coming thick and fast, his father said faintly--\n\n\"Oh, my son, your religion is better than mine.  Forgive your old father\nfor not forgiving you.\"\n\nHolding his hand, his son spoke to him of the Saviour, and sang to him\nsome of the choruses he had learned in the Army.  Father and son were a\nthousand miles away from Catholicism and Protestantism.  They were\nsimply in the presence of the Saviour.  With words of salvation in his\nears, and filial arms around him, the old Baron passed away.\n\nHimself now Baron X, he came into his fortune. However bad an eldest son\nhas been, he cannot, by French law, be disinherited.\n\nFor the next four years Baron X was an officer in the _Armee du Salut_.\nIn Paris and Nimes, England and Belgium he worked with ardour for the\nsalvation of souls.  He was with the Marechale in her Brussels\ncampaign.[1]\n\n\n[1] Described in chap. xiii.\n\n\nHe married Mlle. Babut, the daughter of the well-known pastor in Nimes.\nAs a girl she had been brilliantly clever, but very wilful, closing her\nheart to all who sought to influence her for good.  When the Marechale\ncame to Nimes she went, like everybody else, to the meetings, taking\nwith her girl friends whom she excited to mock and laugh.  But a strange\npower seized her.  In vain she tried to escape by ridiculing what she\nheard.  \"One evening,\" to use her own words, \"the Marechale--directed by\nGod--turned her eyes full on me and said, 'Young woman, you have not the\nright to waste your life.'  Clear, pointed, cutting like a sword, this\ntruth penetrated me, and with it the conviction, 'I ought to yield to\nGod here and now.'\"  Three months later she was in the Training Home in\nParis.\n\nThe Baron X and his wife afterwards became missionaries in Madagascar.\nThey gave themselves heart and soul to the work.  When Baron X's health\nbegan to fail, they returned home, and he continued to labour for Christ\nas long as he had any strength left.  His end came in 1911.  Pastor\nBabut said he had been attending death-beds for fifty years, but had\nnever seen anything so beautiful as the Baron's latter end.\n\n\"Courage,\" said some one to the dying man.\n\n\"Courage?  I do not need it when heaven is open to me.\"\n\n\"Do you see the Lord Jesus near you?\"\n\n\"But I am with Him!\"\n\n\"God has used you to work for Him.\"\n\n\"All I have done counts for nothing, only the immense grace and love of\nGod remain.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER XII*\n\n                            *SO GREAT FAITH*\n\n\nIt was mid-winter, and the ground was covered with snow.  There was no\nlittle anxiety at the Villette.  Forty hungry mouths had to be filled at\nthe Ecole Militaire, and there was nothing for dinner.  The simple fact\nwas that the cash-box was empty, and it was difficult not to have a\nheavy heart.  But the maxim of a _Salutiste_ is \"Keep believing!\"  God\nhad never forsaken the Marechale when she trusted in Him.  Depression\nand melancholy she regarded as lack of faith.  She bade her secretary\ncall a _fiacre_.  When they got in, the officer said--\n\n\"You have the fare, Marechale?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"But-----\"\n\n\"The Lord have mercy upon you!  Where is your faith?  Get down on your\nknees and pray!\"\n\nThe officer instantly obeyed.  They both prayed--it was real prayer--and\ntheir hearts became lighter.\n\nThe _fiacre_ drew up at the gate of a beautiful house in the Champs\nElysees.  It had to be kept waiting, for there was no money to pay the\n_cocher_.\n\nThe Marechale was ushered into a luxurious apartment, and was soon\ntalking with a Russian Countess about her soul.  They had never met\nbefore, but they found common ground.\n\n\"I too,\" said the Countess, \"adore the Christ! Come and see....  Look,\nthe Christ!\"\n\nThey stood before a beautiful picture of the thorn-crowned Redeemer.\n\n\"I adore Him!\" she repeated.\n\n\"But it is one thing,\" said the Marechale, \"to adore Him here in these\ncharming surroundings, and another thing to adore Him amidst the filth,\nthe immorality and the misery of the Villette, where I live night and\nday among the poor and the dying, and where I have devoted young\ncomrades who have left comfortable homes and bright prospects, and are\nnow labouring for Christ and receiving nothing for it.  What is your\nadoring Christ compared with theirs?\"\n\nThe Countess was silent, and evidently felt bad.  She had suddenly\nreceived a new ray of light upon the adoration of Jesus, and, realising\nthat deeds are better than words, she left the room for a minute, to\nreturn with an offering of 500 francs.\n\nIt was by such gifts that the Army was maintained on the Continent.  The\nMarechale, it is somewhat strange to discover, was not only the apostle\nbut the financier of the _Armee du Salut_ in France.  Others, of course,\ncould administer the funds, but on her fell the burden of replenishing\nthe exchequer.  As years passed and the work extended, the task became\nmore and more heavy.  Officers had to be supported, the rent of houses\nand halls paid, the Training Home, the Rescue Homes, the Orphanages, the\nHomes of Rest maintained, and to meet all this outlay the Marechale\ntoiled, travelled, and wrote countless letters.  Those who adored the\nChrist sent her their gifts from many lands.\n\nWhile there were many generous supporters of the Army in France and\nSwitzerland, the largest contributions came from the home-country.  We\nhave noted that the General did not like to see Catherine's\nhand-writing, because he thought of her weak spine.  Yet in one day she\nand her secretary would sometimes write over a hundred letters with\ntheir own hands, which at the end were too cramped to go on with more.\nExperience had taught her the value of a personal application.  Many a\nwell-wisher who would have given L5 in response to a typewritten letter,\ndid much better on receiving a warm appeal in the leader's own\nhandwriting.  She even made it a rule to write receipts herself.\n\nLean months tested the spirit of the Training Home.  Though there was\nnothing to eat but a plate of cabbage-soup and a potato, the cadets\nnever murmured.  \"_C'est la vie apostolique_,\" they cheerfully said one\nto another. And it was easy to bear any hardship when their leader\nshared it with them.  One who was an officer with her for years wrote:\n\"In all things she was our example.  If you wished to incur her\ndispleasure, you had but to give her something to eat which the workers\ndid not have.  As she was in delicate health, sometimes those around her\nwould try to get a little luxury to tempt her appetite or strengthen\nher.  They would be met with the answer: 'Whatever is this?  It is not\nfor me, I hope, because, though it is very good of you, I did not want\nit, and will not have anything of the sort.'  Then she would share it\nall round.\"\n\nWhenever it became known that the exchequer was almost empty, the\nofficers and cadets knew that this was a call to prayer. On one occasion\nthe rents of the Rue Auber and Quai de Valmy halls were due; there was\nnothing to meet them; and there were but three days of grace.  These\nwere days of agony. All the officers who had anything to spare gave it.\nThe children in the orphanage gave three francs and ten centimes.  But\nwhen the best had been done, not a tithe of the necessary 3000 francs\nwas in hand.\n\nEverybody met for prayer.  The Marechale spoke on the words, \"Though the\nfig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines ... the\nflock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the\nstalls: yet will I rejoice in the Lord.\"  She rang the changes on that\n\"rejoice,\" asking, \"Are we _there_?\"  Yes, they were all there--anxious\nfor nothing, but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving telling God\ntheir needs.\n\nAt such times the leader of the little band felt that God had to take\ncare of His name, His honour; He _had_ to send what was required. Who\nwill call such a faith in question?  Did not the German people say of\nLuther, \"Look, there is the man who gets from God whatever he asks?\"\nWhen the Marechale was travelling with her secretary in a third-class\ncarriage in the West of France, the poor people got in with their\nbaskets of vegetables, and one of them said in a loud whisper, \"Take\ncare what you say; these people when they pray get from God all they\nwant.\"\n\nTo return.  On the morning of the last day of grace the Marechale\nreceived a letter from Scotland containing a draft for L100, a \"God\nbless you,\" and nothing more.  She never knew what kind human heart had\nbeen moved to send the letter.  But she never doubted that God had sent\nit.\n\nSuch occurrences were not solitary.  Here is the testimony of M.\nGrandjean, who was for years one of the Marechale's best officers.  \"I\nthink with gratitude to God of the difficult days in which our faith was\nseverely tested, when I was cashier in Quai de Valmy, and I had not a\nshilling, and we had to pay the 6000 francs for rents and other\nexpenses.  I shall never forget my overwhelming joy when one night I\nappealed to the cadets who could pray with faith, and when five or six\nof us prayed with me in the little kitchen of the Quai de Valmy.  The\nnext day the Marechale received by the first post a cheque of 6000\nfrancs from some one who did not know that we were in need.\"\n\nIn one of her _tournees_ the Marechale was labouring down in the South\nof France. Though she was in the greatest need and had a heavy heart,\nshe went on with her meetings, when a lady who had been wonderfully\nblessed, and two of whose children had been saved through her ministry,\nwas moved to give her a thankoffering of 5000 francs.  Having to travel\nall night on the way back to Paris, and finding herself alone among a\nlot of working-men the Marechale put the money in her bosom and prayed,\n\"Now keep Thy little one,\" but did not dare to sleep.\n\nAmong the Army's unfailing supporters in France were the Marechale's\npersonal friends. One of the dearest of these was Madame de Bunsen, nee\nWaddington, who wrote _In Three Legations_.  They first met in Cannes,\nwhere the Marechale was conducting a campaign in the theatre; and a\ngreat bundle of letters, partly in French and partly in English,\ntestifies to the warmth of their friendship.  Madame de Bunsen once\npersuaded the Marechale to rest for some weeks in her castle on the\nRhine; and another time she tried to induce her to visit Florence, but\nthe Marechale could never quite get over the feeling that taking\nholidays was backsliding.\n\nAnother of her constant supporters was Mr. Frank Crossley, that\nhigh-souled man of business whose _Life_ has been admirably written by\nRendel Harris.  Soon after the Marechale went to France he wrote to\nexpress his \"ardent sympathy\" with her work.  \"I have,\" he said, \"met\nand known well several Christian workers--D. L. Moody, Miss Ellice\nHopkins, Miss Mittendorff, and others--but I will tell you that perhaps\nnone of these have created the same impression that you have done.\"\n\nIn one of her last letters she wrote \"Tell me, how is it that what seems\nso far off to us is near to you.\"  She was a beautiful soul and found\npeace in Christ.\n\nhe received hundreds of letters from him, and they are very interesting\nreading.  What chiefly attracted him to the Marechale was her intimacy\nwith Christ, which was the reward, as he saw, of self-sacrifice.  His\nwords on this theme go very deep.\n\n\"It is a struggle hard and long, but it is only the struggling, who\nspend their life-blood in the cause, that can claim _blood_-relationship\nwith the Lord Jesus.  The rest are second-cousins or not even as near as\nthat.  They don't know Him very intimately or feel much at home with Him\nwhen they pay Him a morning call....  He makes the entrance high and the\ngate strait that it may be prized when gained--I believe that is the key\nto the mystery of life, or at least to a large part of it. To let us up\nto the top for the prayer of a moment and the sacrifice of nothing would\nin many cases at any rate be impossible and useless.  Tell me soon more\nof how to climb.  I am a slow learner.\"\n\nMr. Crossley's nature had a pensive strain which the Marechale's\nfriendship helped to modify.  Regarding such a matter he felt that\n\"speech should not go near the length of feeling,\" but ere long we find\nhim writing, \"Das hallelujah Voegelein singt in meinem Herzen.\"\n\nHis donations to the work of the Army both at home and in France were\nvery generous. He gave the Marechale many thousand pounds a year.  His\nliberality was part of his worship of Christ.  Nothing could be finer\nthan the following: \"I know you will be thinking it is a serious slice\noff my capital.  Well, it is a branch off the tree.  'They broke off\nbranches from the palm trees and strewed them in the way and shouted\nHosanna,' and so do I.\"  And again: \"You are very grateful to me for\nwhat I have been able to give you, but if you knew how indebted and\ngrateful I also felt to you, you would see how God makes us unequal that\nwe may teach ourselves by the aid and necessary services He enables us\nto render.\"  Mr. Crossley wished the Marechale to accept a gift of\nL10,000 for the maintenance of her family, that she might be personally\nfree from financial care, and also offered to build her a home outside\nParis, but she declined both these offers, not wishing to be in a\ndifferent position from the other officers of the Army.\n\nIn 1891 the Marechale went to America to raise funds for the work in\nFrance. Accompanied by her secretary, Mme. Peyron--who was her Geneva\nconvert Mlle. Roussel--she sailed in October by the _Columbia_ for New\nYork, and visited twenty-eight of the principal cities of the States and\nCanada, holding sixty meetings, travelling sometimes for thirty or forty\nhours at a stretch, and once with the added experience of being snowed\nup for twelve hours.  She was everywhere very cordially received, and\nall the buildings in which she spoke were densely crowded.  Ministers\noffered her churches in which a woman had never spoken before.  After\none meeting she received invitations from a Bishop and seventeen pastors\nto address congregations on her work.\n\nThe reporters everywhere found her and her utterances good copy.  \"She\nwas not able to see representatives of the press in New York, although\nthey came by dozens,\" as one learns from the Boston man who claimed to\nbe \"her first American interviewer.\"  He found that \"her life in France\nhas given a Gallic twist to this Englishwoman's tongue.  She is quite as\nFrench in manner as her staff-captain, Madame Peyron, the dark-eyed\nFrenchwoman who travels with her.\"\n\nOne morning she got a great reception from the divinity students of\nYale, to whom she spoke at length on the qualifications necessary for\n\"saving souls,\" namely, the possession of a pure heart and the baptism\nof the Holy Spirit.  \"When she had finished her address she said she was\nwilling to answer any questions they might have to ask, and for half an\nhour the students and several of the professors poured a host of\nquestions upon her that would have embarrassed and muddled the\nclearest-brained ministers of the country under similar circumstances.\nShe, however, showed that she had answered questions before, and gave\nanswers that brought both laughter and applause, for her wit is keenly\ncultivated.\"\n\nIt is interesting to see her through Yale eyes. \"Her face is a study the\nlike of which an artist or a sculptor might seek for years without\nfinding.  In repose it reminds one of the pictures of the Madonnas of\nMichael Angelo, but when she speaks its earnestness is so intense that\nit is almost stern.  Her voice is one that any actress might well covet\nfor its depth and strength.  It is the equal of the great Bernhardt's,\nand yet it is sweet and soft, and has none of the harshness of the\nmasculine tone. Her accent is something charming, for it has all the\nattractiveness of the English tongue made even more sweet by long\nfamiliarity with the French language.  From her long acquaintance with\nthe lower classes, the socialists and all free-thinkers of France, she\nhas acquired that fiery directness and ease and attractiveness in her\nspeaking which is so characteristic of French oratory and so fascinating\nto Americans.  It is no injustice to this remarkable woman to say that,\nhad she chosen the stage for her role in life, her name would have\ncertainly been as famous in that profession as it is to-day as the\nMarechale of the French Salvation Army.\"\n\nIn America she had the immense happiness of being reunited with her\nbrother Ballington, who, being a year older than herself, had been her\nchum in childhood, and his wife, _nee_ Maud Charlesworth, who had been\nher brave girl-comrade in the first days of persecution in Switzerland.\n\nIn the end of January, 1892, the Marechale returned to France, after an\nabsence of three months and a half.  America had given her $60,000 for\nher work, and memories of unlimited kindness.\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER XIII*\n\n                           *BEAUTY FOR ASHES*\n\n\n\"You have added a new word to the French language,\" said M. Sarcey, the\nfamous critic, to the Marechale; \"I mean the word 'Salutiste.'\"  In 1881\nthere was not a single Salvationist in France or Switzerland.  After\nfifteen years there were 220 stations and outposts, over 400 officers,\nheadquarters in five cities, and four weekly papers.\n\nBut these bare facts only feebly indicate what the Marechale did for\nFrance.  In a moment of depression at the thought of French infidelity,\nthe Princess Malzoff once remarked to her--\n\n\"The French have no soul.\"\n\n\"How dare you,\" asked the Marechale, \"say such a thing?\"\n\nHer friend replied with charming inconsistency, \"But you have found the\nsoul of France!\"\n\nThat was perhaps the highest tribute ever paid to her.\n\nIf one asks some Frenchman who knew the Marechale in those days how she\nwon the heart of France, one gets the answer, \"But it is natural--she\nhas the French temperament; and, besides, _elle aime la France_.\"  If\none asks some convert of hers how she found the soul of France, the\nreply is, \"Ah! she brought us the Christ, who is victorious everywhere.\"\nBoth questions were answered together by one who, speaking for many,\nsaid, \"She bought us at the price of tears and sacrifice.\"\n\nWhen she was at the zenith of her power in France, an admirable\nappreciation of her was written[1] by one of the saints of the modern\ncalendar, Miss Frances E. Willard.  We extract a few sentences.  \"She\ninherits, it is said, beyond any other of the endowed and consecrated\neight children of the General and Mrs. Booth, their special gifts,\ngraces, and grace.... The Marechale's career already fulfils her\nfather's prophecy that women will, if once left free in their action,\ndevelop administrative powers fully equal and oftentimes superior to\nthose of men....  'I love France,' she said to me, with sparkling eyes:\n'it is a great and wonderful country, and I love its people every bit as\nmuch as ever I loved my own. I have become familiar with its peasants in\nthe provinces; have sat down with the French women who clatter about in\nsabots; have shared their chestnuts with them, heard of their sorrows as\nwell as their joys, and, believe me, the human heart is just the same in\nFrance as it is everywhere; and if you classify the saints whose\nhistories have come down to us, France would occupy the front rank.  The\nnation that has produced a Lacodaire, a Pascal, a Fenelon, and a Madame\nGuyon, does not lack the germs of spiritual life.'\"\n\n\n[1] _The Review of the Churches_, Feb. 1894.\n\n\nIn 1896, however, her career in France came to an end.  She received the\ncommand to go and devote herself to the work of the Army in Holland, and\nloyally prepared to obey.\n\nCatholics and Protestants alike were dismayed at the news.  One of her\ndearest friends, the Catholic scholar M. Lassaire, whose exquisite\ntranslation of the four Gospels had the honour of being put upon the\nIndex Expurgatorius, came to her and said--\n\n\"You ought not to leave us.  God has given you the ear of the nation as\nit is given only once in a hundred years.\"\n\n\"But I am commanded.\"\n\n\"If the angel Gabriel descended from heaven and bade you go, you ought\nnot to leave France!\"\n\nTheodore Monod, whose own family had been greatly blessed through the\nMarechale, deeply sympathised with her, and grieved over her departure\nalmost as if she had been his own daughter, but tried to comfort her by\nsaying, \"You leave us your hymns!\"\n\nThe day on which the Marechale left France was one of the two or three\ndark days of her life.  She felt somewhat like the young Scottish Queen\nwho said as she gazed at the receding shores of Calais--\n\n    \"Adieu! mon charmant pays de France,\n    Adieu! te quitter c'est mourir.\"\n\nAnd yet she believed in her heart that God would work out His gracious\npurpose, which no circumstances can ever alter.\n\nThat she loved France with a deep, pure, passionate love does not need\nto be said.  How France appreciated her in return may be indicated not\nonly by M. Sarcey's emphatic dictum, \"The devil take the country where\nshe was born! she is French in her soul,\" but by any letter taken at\nrandom from hundreds which she received from men and women of France.\n\nThe following extract, faithfully translated, shows the calibre of the\npeople whom the Marechale was able to reach, as well as the warm,\ngenerous style in which the Latin races habitually express themselves.\n\n\"The evening in which you spoke of the scene on Calvary and the words of\nthe penitent thief, 'Remember me,' that simple story, told by a\nbelieving soul, had more effect upon me than all the theses, quotations\nand theological arguments of all the doctors I have ever heard.  That\nexpression, that attitude, that conviction, that certitude, that\nassurance, that _living faith_ which affirmed itself before me in an\napostle, a new disciple of Christ, and that melodious voice, completed\nmy transformation. I believed that I was the penitent thief and you the\nChrist who said to me, 'When I am in Heaven I will remember thee,' and\nthat affirmation transported me....\n\n\"I marvel at the courage with which you endure fatigue, mockery,\njourneys, labours of all kinds to conquer for truth and light the\nmillions of _savages_ who are still in France, plunged in the darkness\nof error and superstition.  Permit me to express once again my sincere\nadmiration, and to offer you in the name of my country (I am perhaps a\nlittle presumptuous to speak in the name of France, but I have the\nright, as much as the other ten millions of citizens)--in the name of my\ncountry, and in the name of civilisation, my warm gratitude.  Deign to\naccept the homage ... of a very humble soldier and disciple of Christ.\"\n\nSwiss love, too, was now deep and strong, as will be sufficiently proved\nby a single letter, which enclosed a thankoffering.\n\n\"Dear Marechale--(How much that word contains of affection, admiration,\nand veneration, I cannot express),--These thousand francs fulfil their\nend where they do the most good and give you the greatest pleasure.  You\nalways think of yourself last, if you think of yourself at all; that is\nwhy others must think of you.  I would have liked to relieve you, dear\nMarechale, you particularly and personally. But you are devoured by the\nzeal of your divine work, and all goes that way.  Be it so!  God will\nrelieve you directly by His hand.  He will, but do not forget yourself\nentirely, I beg of you.  Care for yourself, for the sake of those who\nlove you, and who need your help, and who find so much happiness in your\nheavenly affection....  In the love of Christ, your devoted, A.S.\"\n\nIn the end of that year the Marechale needed words of good cheer, and\nthey were not lacking.  Her sister Eva was one of her comforters,\nsending many tender messages across the Atlantic.  Just after Christmas\nDay--Eva's own birthday--she wrote: \"I cannot say how much you have been\nin my thoughts.  I wished I could have popped in and had a sister's\nbirthday kiss and a good talk, but the Lord came very near to me, and I\nwas cheered that His birthday found me very busy on mine seeking the\npoor lost souls of men.  The years pass, but then what matters?  Every\nday brings us nearer our Eternal home, does it not, and then we will\nlive and love together for ever and ever, all of us.  Dear, darling\nKatie, I don't like to hear you say the year has been a sad one.  You\nare treasured by us all, by God and the world, and how much you have\ndone for the Kingdom as well....  There are some fond memories I\ntreasure which have to do with you and me, when I made you laugh and\ngave you baked potatoes!  I will write again soon.  Till then and for\never after always the same, Eva.\"\n\nCommissioners E.D. and Lucy Booth-Hellberg--the General's youngest\ndaughter--who took over the command of the Army in France and\nSwitzerland, wrote in their first Annual Report (1896): \"One of the last\nlinks in the long chain of desperate efforts for the salvation of\nFrance, put forth with undiminished love and faith by the Marechale, was\nthe Lyons campaign, which lasted for six weeks during the months of\nJanuary and February. Supported by a number of believing and\nhard-working officers, she conducted a series of truly remarkable\nmeetings in the _Salle Philharmonique_, which was filled on every\noccasion with an attentive and largely sympathetic audience.  The\nresults of the campaign were most encouraging and of a decidedly\npermanent nature.  The local corps, which up till then had led a very\nstruggling existence, received a powerful lift and is now in a healthy\ncondition. Furthermore a considerable amount of prejudice against our\nwork was removed and a number of friends and sympathisers were made, the\nimmediate result of which was the establishment of a Rescue Home for\nwomen in that city.\"  Later on Lucy wrote to the Marechale, \"Darling,\nyour love for France is wonderful; you cannot understand it.\"\n\nHad the Marechale been sent to another of the Latin races--for example,\nthe Italians or the Spaniards--her gifts might still have been used to\nthe highest advantage.  She once conducted a brief campaign in a great\nhall at Turin.  At the beginning she encountered a storm of opposition.\nWhile she dedicated the child of one of her former officers, her voice\nwas drowned in an uproar which turned the solemn service into a fiasco.\nThe audience got completely out of hand, and, as a final stroke of\ndevilry, a troop of students, headed by a big fellow with an evil,\ncynical face, came marching up the aisle, shouting, yelling and\nbrandishing sticks.  The ringleader had made a bet that he would kiss\nthe Marechale.  Her officers began to think it was high time to close\nthe meeting.  But she was not near the end of her resources.  Giving her\nfamiliar order, \"Leave them to me, and pray!\" she stepped to the edge of\nthe platform, and, when the leader was within a foot of her, fixed her\neyes on his face, raised her finger, and sang--[2]\n\n    Si tu savais comme Il t'aime,\n    Sans tarder tu viendrais a Lui,\n    Tu viendrais a l'heure meme,\n    Tu viendrais des aujourd'hui.\n\n[2] This hymn was composed by one of her officers, M. Grandjean.  The\ntune was one of the sweetest operatic airs of the day.\n\n\nThe clear, sweet notes went vibrating through the great hall, and Italy\nknows the power of song.  The ringleader stood staring as if he had been\npetrified, and his followers did not advance another step.  While the\nMarechale sang on, she was heard in breathless silence. Then she spoke\nfor an hour.  The after-meeting lasted till midnight, and the leader of\nthe students, completely broken down and sobbing like a child, said,\n\"Oh, stay with us, you will make angels of us all!\"\n\nIn Holland, where the Marechale laboured six years, she was heavily\nhandicapped by the fact that most of her speaking had to be done through\nan interpreter.  She had not that Open Sesame to the heart of a\npeople--the mastery of its language.  She learned, however, to sing\nbeautifully in Dutch, and the translation of her addresses was admirably\ndone by her secretary.  If she could not deny that her heart was still\nin the Rue Auber of Paris, she repressed her tears and took her new\ntask--a very tangled one--resolutely in hand, doing some deep and\nlasting spiritual work in Amsterdam and other towns, where she sometimes\nhad as many as forty or fifty penitents in one night.\n\nShe was lacking in what a statesman called \"Batavian grace,\" being cast\nin a very different mould, yet she came ere long to feel quite at home\namong the warm-hearted Dutch people.  She had taught Paris to sing her\nhymn, \"_Aimez toujours, et malgrez tout aimez toujours_,\" and now she\nput the lesson into practice in Holland.  Preaching and living the\ngospel of love, she had many tokens of success among all classes.  Best\nof all, she awoke in others the wistful desire to imitate her example.\nOne of Queen Wilhelmina's cabinet ministers brought his daughter, a\nthoughtful young girl, to a meeting conducted by the Marechale, and when\nthose who were willing to give themselves to Christ and His service were\ninvited to show it in some way, up went the hand of this eager girl.\nHer father at once whisked her out of the meeting.  But the deed was\ndone, and now there is no one who is doing a nobler work among the poor\nand sunken classes of Holland than Miss Rose Pierson.  Of that happy day\nin her life she wrote long afterwards: \"When I first heard the Marechale\nspeak I was a girl of seventeen. I remember still every word she spoke.\nI know it was a revelation to me what a reality Christ could be to a\nsoul.  I believe that was what impressed me--her perfect assurance of\nChrist's presence and her own ardent love of souls.\"\n\nHolland gave the Marechale two of her most efficient secretaries, Miss\nVan der Werken and Miss de Zwaan, who ideally fulfilled all the\nrequirements of the office--ability and willingness to nurse a babe,\nmake a cup of tea, write a letter, cook a decent dinner, talk in two or\nthree languages, keep the door of a hall, preach a sermon, and generally\nmake the best of everything!\n\n\nIt is possible that the Marechale's exile from France deepened and\nenriched her nature, drawing out stops not so often used before,\nespecially the _vox humana_--the voice of sympathy with all human pain\nand sorrow.  At the same time she began to have a more tragic sense of\nthe world's sin, which prompted one of her strangest and yet most\ncharacteristic impulses, and issued in what was in some ways the most\nremarkable of all her campaigns.\n\nOne midnight, while she lay awake in Amsterdam, she heard a clear inner\nvoice saying to her, \"Go to Brussels; go in sackcloth and ashes; go and\ntell of sin; let everything in your person speak of sin and awaken\nconscience; then proclaim, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the\nsin of the world.\"\n\nWithout waiting to take counsel with flesh and blood, she went with her\nnurse-secretary Swaan and her babe Frida, the child of peace, to\nBrussels, and hired for three weeks the most beautiful hall in the city,\nthe Salle de la Grande Harmonic--the same in which fair women and brave\nmen danced on the eve of Waterloo.\n\nWhen she at length divulged to one of her comrades the fact that she was\nto appear in sackcloth and ashes, he answered--\n\n\"You cannot! never!\"\n\n\"I must, it is so commanded.\"\n\nSo a _robe de bure_ was made for her--a single-seamed garment of the\ncoarse brown stuff worn by monks, with a hole cut out for the neck and\ntwo for the arms, and a hempen rope for the waist.\n\nBefore the opening meeting she had intimate dealings with her officers.\n\"It is necessary,\" she said, \"that one die for the people.  I want to\nbring that thoughtless, frivolous city into touch with God.  I wish your\nfaces to speak of another world.  It is your minds and hearts that I\nseek.  If you are going to think of your own people and your own\nconcerns, if you are going to be preoccupied with a hundred and one\nthings, go back at once.  I am going to live these three weeks as if\nthey were the last on earth.  I have left home and little ones and am\ngoing to exist for this town.  If Christ laid down His life for us, we\nhave got to lay down our lives for the salvation of Brussels.\"  There\nwere heart-searchings and confessions and tears among the officers;\nfresh alliances were made with God; and the Marechale believed that this\nwas one of the secrets of the wonderful success of that campaign.\n\nOn the evening of the first meeting, she clothed herself in the _robe de\nbure_, and put real ashes on her head.  But if ever the devil in person\nattacked any poor soul, the Marechale felt herself so assailed in those\nmoments when the great hall was filling and she was waiting. What shafts\nof ridicule were hurled at her as by a spiritual foe!  Could any dress\nhe more ridiculous, any realism more contemptible? How comical was that\nassumption of the role of prophet!  What a miserable fiasco the whole\nperformance would prove!  She was seized with a paralysing fear, and\nwhen Antomarchi--her \"St. Francis\"--came to announce that the audience\nwas ready, he found her white as a sheet and shaking from head to foot.\n\n\"Have I made a mistake?\" she asked.\n\n\"No!  Marechale, go on! go on! it is all right!\"\n\n\"Tell them to sing and pray, and then I will come.\"\n\nHer soul gathered strength from the strains of her own hymn, \"_O toi!\nbien-aime fils de l'homme_,\" with the chorus--\n\n    Viens, Jesus t'appelle;\n    Ne sois plus rebelle.\n    Viens au bien-aime Fils de Dieu,\n    Crois en sa tendresse eternelle--\n\nas well as from the succeeding silence in which she knew that faithful\nhearts were praying for her.  The clouds vanished, the fear of men was\ngone, and only the awe of the unseen world remained upon her spirit.\n\nSlowly she walked onto the platform, not raising her eyes from the\nground.  The audience seemed petrified by the strange apparition. After\na moment of deathly silence, her clear, penetrating voice sounded\nthrough the hall.\n\n\"'He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted\nwith grief ... and we esteemed Him not.  _Nous n'en avons fait aucun\ncas_.'\n\n\"If I wear mourning to-night, it is the better to express the feelings\nwhich are in the depths of my heart.  Your people, who are capable of\ngreat things, are going to their ruin.  On all hands there are nameless\nmiseries, despairing cries of women and children without defence and\nexposed to shame and the most frightful misery, and why?  Because you\nhave made Him--Christ--of no account.  I mourn your sins, the sins of\nyour country; the drunkenness, the debauchery, the selfishness, the\nwrongs which are seen everywhere; your rejection of the Christ of God,\nthe Saviour of the world.  This fills me with sorrow, and this, unless\nit is forsaken, will bring upon you the judgments of God.\"\n\nThus she unburdened her soul, and thus began not a three weeks' but a\ntwo months' campaign, which from the first moment--in so strange\ncontrast to the tumultuous openings at Havre and Rouen--was marked by a\nbeautiful reverence and solemnity.  The services of the police were\nnever required during the whole time.  Four or five evening meetings\nwere held every week, besides afternoon gatherings, _salon_ meetings,\nand midnight suppers.  All Brussels was moved.  An eminent statesman\nsaid to the Marechale, \"Everybody has been ridiculed here except you.\nRidicule kills everything; you have killed ridicule.\"\n\nIn the full tide of the mission she wrote to her father: \"Most\nmarvellously is God working here in Brussels.  Last night I had the\nconcert-hall crowded and a great number were turned back at the door.\nThe silence, the attention is unbroken, and there is conviction among\nall kind of persons.  Worldly and Catholic papers speak beautifully of\nus.  Four journals have given leading articles to me. Praise God, it is\nall His work!  This morning I had a conversation with a senator who is\nat the head of the party of progress here, and he says that the movement\nis the most remarkable \"the city has seen for a hundred years and that\nthe effects are profound and astonishing.\"  Another senator has sent me\nL20.  I feel more than ever now I ought to continue and push the battle.\nWe shall be able to do something extraordinary and put Belgium on a new\nfooting.\"\n\nThe first senator referred to in the letter was M. le Jeune, who said to\nthe Marechale--\n\n\"The bar, the artist world, society, Catholic and Protestant--they have\nall come to hear you.  You are universal, Madame.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, \"the Christ is universal.\"\n\nDuring these two months she had daily interviews with men and women\ncrushed under the burden of all kinds of sin--a burden that weighed so\nheavily on her own spirit that sometimes, instead of delivering an\naddress, she could only fall on her knees and cry to God to forgive all\nthe sins that come from the heart of man--murders, adulteries, thefts,\nuncleanness, lies, blasphemies--all of which had been confessed to her.\n\nIt was a time of wonderful spiritual blessing for all her comrades, who,\nlike her, literally \"lived for the people.\"  One of them said, \"We have\ngrown as much with you in these weeks as in twenty years.\"\n\nTo a thousand men of the _elite_ of Brussels she delivered an\naddress--which was afterwards published--on \"The Greatest Injustice of\nthe Century.\"  It was a woman's mournful, tender, passionate protest\nagainst man's sins in a city which had its twelve thousand so-called\n_filles de joie_, many of them of the tenderest years.  One of her\naudience, a typical Brussels man of the world, covering his face with a\nhand on which flashed a diamond ring, and shaking with great sobs of\nanguish, cried, \"I am a leper--damned already!\"  \"Madame,\" said an\neditor, \"they would hiss anybody else who said these things to them.\nThey bear them from you, because they feel you love them.\"\n\nOne day she received an invitation to dine with a dozen anarchists.  Her\ncomrades told her of the danger of bombs, etc., but she went, and, many\nyears after when asked by an English Divine, \"How did you get into such\nsociety?\" she answered, \"Extremes meet.\"\n\n\"So you are come to talk to us,\" said Elisee Recluse[3] with a smile,\n\"of justification by faith and sanctification by faith,\" etc.\n\n\n[3] Exiled from France as an anarchist, he had become a Professor in\nBrussels.  He had been trained as a Protestant Pastor.  He was the\ngreatest geographer of modern times, the writer of _Une nouvelle\ngeographie universelle_ (19 vols.).\n\n\n\"Oh, no, no!  I do not talk of doctrines. They never troubled me in my\nlife.  I care only for realities.  You have suffered; I too have\nsuffered.  Let us begin there, and compare notes.  Some of you have been\nin prison; I have been in prison.  You have been exiled; so have I.  You\nhave wept over the injustice and cruelties of the world; so have I wept,\nso do I weep.\"\n\nAnd thus they found common ground, agreeing in their diagnosis of the\ndiseases of society; differing only as to the remedy.  \"You believe in\nanarchy,\" said the Marechale.  \"One of your number said at one of my\nmeetings that anarchy is the most beautiful of all religions.  I know a\nmore excellent way--a shorter cut to making the world better.  You fling\nyour bombs to destroy life; how can people be converted when their heads\nare gone? Christ said 'Follow me to Calvary!'  He shed His _own_ blood.\nNo one else's.  He bids us save the world by denying ourselves and\ntaking up the Cross.\"\n\nThat evening Elisee Recluse drove her in his carriage to her meeting at\nthe _Salle Harmonie_, and in her little ante-room they prayed together.\n\nA Brussels sculptor begged the Marechale to pose for him in her _robe de\nbure_, but she declined.  Renee Gange, the heroine of the Belgian\nsocialists, after passionately embracing her before a thousand eyes,\npublished a charming pen-and-ink portrait of \"this enigmatic woman,\"\ncomparing her to a serene, calm statue that _almost_ smiles.  \"The fine\nand slender figure of the Marechale will long remain one of the most\ncurious, the most strange apparitions in the midst of our society of\nmoney-makers and machine-constructors.\"\n\nThe prophet, the mystic, the saint will always be a mystery to the art\nand science, not to speak of the sin and selfishness, of the world. This\ntruth was finely expressed by a writer in _L'Art moderne_ of Brussels.\n\"The Marechale does not seek to 'demonstrate' anything. I have seen her\nshrug her shoulders a little and smile when some one wished to reason or\ndiscuss with her.  She could do it, for she is intelligent and\n_merveilleusement intuitive_.  But her faith does not 'demonstrate'\nitself.  It lives and expands itself.  It affirms itself.  And those\nwho, now numerous, have some psychological tact have felt that this\nwoman obeyed something more powerful than herself.  Perhaps she is the\nhappy and unconscious instrument of an expansive force too much ignored,\ntoo little recognised and obeyed, as necessary for our preservation as\nthe law of self-preservation itself....  Her addresses are neither\nweighed nor balanced.  But they have the colour, the life, the strong\nsuggestiveness, the moving sincerity of an inspiration come from one\nknows not where, from above us, from outside us--mysterious impulses of\nthings eternal.\"\n\n\n\n\n                             *CHAPTER XIV*\n\n                      *TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE*\n\n\nIn the year 1902 the Marechale and her husband severed their connection\nwith the Salvation Army.  Concerning the causes that led to this, it is\ntheir united wish that nothing should be said that would interrupt the\ngood feeling that has always existed, and still exists between them and\nthousands of their old and dearly loved comrades in that organization.\n\nThere are those who have misjudged the Marechale in this matter, as\nhaving taken this step for personal advantage, and without due regard to\nits effect on her father and his work. How little do they know the\ntruth.  To one who has read the correspondence of those days, and all\nother days since, who has watched within the inner circle of the home,\noverhearing the most confidential conversations, nothing could be so\nshocking a contravention of the truth as to accuse this devoted daughter\neither of parental disregard, or self-willed unconcern for the welfare\nof the Kingdom of Christ.  This step cost heart's blood to the\nMarechale.\n\n\"Katie,\" said the General in Victoria Station, when she was starting on\nher second journey to France, \"you have remarkable instincts; follow\nthem, and you will never go wrong.\"  Twenty years after, her friend\nMlle. Constance Monod, the daughter of the great French preacher, wrote\nto her, \"I would beseech you to trust yourself, trust your divine\ninstinct, which God has developed so, so wonderfully in you.\"\n\nHeredity, training and experience had combined to give her the instincts\nof a prophetic soul-winner.  The grace of God had imparted to her a\nspirit of wisdom and revelation.  Her intuitions were at once her\nstrength and her safety.  Her instinctive love of the true, the\nbeautiful, and the good, her instinctive hatred of the false, the\nsordid, and the selfish, formed the touchstone to which she brought\neverything in the moral, social and religious life of France. Great\nnumbers of the _elite_ of Paris and other cities, who were technically\nfar better educated than she, came and sat at her feet, because they\nbowed to the authority of the Christ-Spirit in her.  And her instincts\nof sympathy with poor, sick, suffering souls drew multitudes who were\noutside the pale of the Church to the Saviour.\n\nShe always maintained that she went on her mission as a simple English\ngirl, doing only what any other girl, with the same opportunities and\nthe same faith, might have done. There is a divine power in a woman's\ninstincts of purity and righteousness which puts the baseness of men to\nshame.  That power, many believe, will be the chief factor in the\nsalvation of the modern Church and modern society.  Ours is an age which\nneeds Deborahs and Huldahs with their divine instincts.  The Song of\nSongs tells how a simple Hebrew girl, tempted by the glory of the world,\nbut strong in her passion of holy love, merited the wonderful\nascription, \"Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, _terrible as an army\nwith banners_.\"  If the Christian womanhood of the twentieth century\nrises to that level, the future of the Kingdom of God will be far more\nglorious than its past.\n\nThe Marechale's instincts for the beautiful in nature and in art\ndoubtless constituted no small part of her charm for the Latin races.\nShe looked at all the glory of heaven and earth with a poet's eyes.\nDuring her early crowded life of evangelism in England, her father once\ntook her on a tour through the Trossachs of Scotland, and the memory of\nthat vision of beauty at the age of sixteen ever afterwards haunted her\nlike a passion.  \"Let me stay here!\" she said to the General, whose\nreply, calling a soldier to arms, equally remained in her memory: \"Men\nare more interesting than scenery.\"  If she scarcely ever took holidays\nin after life, it was not that she did not sometimes sigh for the wings\nof a dove that she might fly away and be at rest.  There was a lifelong\nconflict between the natural and the ascetic in her.\n\nShe had never had time to cultivate any art except music, but her sense\nof everything lovely in form and colour and sound was exquisite, and she\nbecame without study a supreme artist in at least one department.  At\nthe time of the coronation of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, there was a\ngrand Exhibition of all that women can do in the modern world.  A\ndeputation waited on the Marechale and begged her to give an address\nalong with two other well-known lady speakers.  She agreed to come,\nprovided she should be allowed to choose her own subject.  Consent was\nreadily given, and she delivered an address in French upon what Christ\nhas done for Woman and what Woman for Christ.  She gave no thought to\nthe manner of delivery; she merely realised that she had a golden\nopportunity of proclaiming her Saviour to a magnificent audience.  She\nhad never in her life received a lesson in elocution, and to have done\nso might have seemed to her wicked backsliding. But she was awarded the\npalm of eloquence.\n\nIf her scholastic education was somewhat defective, she was wonderfully\nguided by her instincts in her later self-education.  During her\nAmerican tour she was taken one day by three white-haired professors to\nsee the greatest library in the States.  Her unsophisticated mind was\nbewildered by all that mass of learning. \"Surely,\" she said, \"it must\nstrike despair into the minds of the students!\"\n\nOne of her guides questioned her about her own favourite books.\n\n\"Well,\" she answered, \"I have never been a reader; I think I have only\ntwo.\"\n\n\"What might they be?\"\n\n\"One of them you know.\"\n\n\"Yes, the Bible; what is the second?\"\n\n\"The Heart of Man.  I am always at it, on land and sea, in the streets\nand in railway carriages, morning, noon and night.  It helps me with my\nfirst book better than any commentary.\"\n\nShe came to know the Bible with a thoroughness which not one man in ten\nthousand ever attains.  Her spiritual instinct seized, and her\nextraordinary memory retained, the vital and the essential.  She never\nstudied the Bible in the ordinary way, sitting down with lexicon and\nconcordance.  There was no time for that in her busy life.  She took her\nspiritual food from the Bible as the bee sips honey from flowers.  The\nBible was her companion and she read it for pleasure.  She absorbed and\nassimilated it without effort.  That she knew much of it by heart was of\nless importance than the fact that it became part of herself. Therein\nlay her power of expounding and applying it.  \"Nothing,\" said Dr. Munroe\nGibson after listening to her nightly for a week, \"charmed our people\nmore than her expositions of Scripture.\"\n\nThe truths by which she lived came to her intuitively.  Her religion did\nnot consist of commandments and dogmas.  It was life, light, liberty,\nand above all love.  Alike in what she accepted and what she rejected,\nshe acted instinctively--she could do no other.  She had an aversion to\nreligious controversy. Arguments made little or no impression upon her\nmind.  She might sometimes be overwhelmed with theological doctrines,\nthe truth of which she could neither affirm nor deny, but in the end she\nwould emerge with the naive remark, \"I am a very simple child, and I\nmust have a child's religion.\"  She always held that Christ's religion\nis for the multitude, and that the multitude are children.  The essence\nof Christianity can be assimilated by boys and girls who do not know how\nto read and write, and they may become saints and saviours.  A glance at\nthe Marechale's well-used Bible suffices to prove that for her the heart\nof the Old Testament is in Hosea, the prophet of love, and Isaiah the\nprophet of atonement, while the heart of the New Testament is in the\nstory of the returning prodigal or the penitent Magdalene.\n\n\nGenius is never easy to understand.  Its weakness is often related to\nits strength.  It has what the French call the defects of its qualities.\nA great part of the Marechale's power certainly lay in her childlike\nhumility. As a soul-winner she never gave the impression of\ncondescending.  She did not need to stoop; by nature and by grace she\nwas meek and lowly in heart.  What drew multitudes of poor sinners to\nher was their assurance that she would hear with human sympathy their\ntales of sin and sorrow.  At one of her midnight suppers a French lady\nsaid to her, \"I have been here all these years trying to bring these\npoor girls together.  How is it that you succeed where I fail, in\ngetting them to open their hearts to you?\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said the Marechale, \"it is because I do not make them feel\nthat there is a difference between them and me.\"\n\nWith her humility there was bound up a certain measure of self-distrust.\nIn her, as in her father, whom she resembled so strongly in spirit as\nwell as in features, there was an extraordinary combination of\nconfidence and diffidence.  It used to be said by those who knew the\nGeneral most intimately that, while he commanded an Army, he was\napologetic to his cook.  And if the Marechale had a splendid moral\ncourage, as her manner of dealing with hostile crowds abundantly proved,\nshe had also a womanly timidity in which there lay a certain subtle\ndanger.  So long as she had faith in her God-given instincts, and in the\nindividual guidance of the Holy Spirit, she was unconquerable, but if\nanything undermined them her power was for the time being paralysed. For\nthe criticisms of the world she cared little or nothing, but the real\nlove and understanding of her comrades was as the breath of life to her.\nFrom them she was always eager to learn, and sometimes she let the\njudgment of others obscure her spiritual and womanly intuitions.\n\nShe would sit at the feet of this or that teacher who spoke with an air\nof wisdom and authority, when in nine cases out of ten the relation of\nteacher and taught ought to have been reversed.  As a rule, her\ninstincts made her a swift and unerring discerner of spirits, but there\nwere exceptional cases in which it almost seemed disloyalty to \"try the\nspirits whether they are of God.\"  One of her life-long friends, Mr. W.\nT. Stead, who went down on the ill-fated _Titanic_, knew both sides of\nher character--her lion-like boldness as well as her dove-like\ngentleness.  He used to relate how she one day invaded the office of the\n_Pall Mall Gazette_, and summoned him with all the categorical\nimperiousness of her nature and her mission to quit politics and edit\nthe _War Cry_. Yet he used to say to her, with a seriousness that was\nnot altogether assumed, \"You are damned by your humility!\"\n\nIt is well known that the Marechale's husband was for a time a believer\nin Dr. Dowie, the Scotsman who founded Zion City beside Chicago.\nFinding that certain doctrines such as Faith Healing, the Second Advent,\nthe Rapture of the Saints, which were to him, as to thousands of others,\nof vital importance,--were being faithfully preached by one who claimed\nto be the second Elijah, the Forerunner of Christ, Mr. Booth-Clibborn\nbecame a member of the Christian Catholic Church. Having been a Quaker\nminister before his twenty years of faithful service in the Salvation\nArmy, he also cherished the hope of perfecting Zionism by adding to it\nhis own peace principles.\n\nThe Marechale could not accept Dr. Dowie's claims, but in her intense\ndesire for family unity she consented to go with her husband to see Zion\nCity, taking her two eldest daughters, Evangeline and Victoria, then\nfourteen and thirteen years of age, and baby Josephine, who was but four\nmonths old, with her.  They remained there four months, July to October,\n1902.\n\nThe diary and letters which she wrote during that visit are\npsychologically and Spiritually among the most interesting human\ndocuments I have ever seen, and sufficiently indicate her attitude of\nmind at this time.  But let us draw a veil, except for one or two\nincidents and extracts, over the dark anguish of soul, the torture of\nuncertainty, and the depths of despair which she then passed through.\n\nShe implored Dr. Dowie to take her husband and ordain him without her,\nbut he emphatically refused to do so.\n\nThe following paragraph, taken from her diary, shows in what a painful\npredicament she found herself.  Speaking of a friendly adviser, she\nsays: \"He said, as I was the wife, the responsibility was on my husband,\nand I must stand by him, even if he was in error, and God would forgive\nme if it was a mistake.\"  I felt so much taken aback by the way he\nlooked at the matter that I turned the key of my heart.\n\nTo one of her dearest friends she wrote a long letter, which was a cry\nout of the depths: \"I am not easily given to discouragement or despair,\nbut my position must make angels weep, if they can weep.  I cannot bring\nmyself to accept Dowie, so much in him violates the highest spiritual\ninstincts I have....  The forcing of me outwardly does not convince me.\nI have yielded all along the line, and now here I am ... but I am not in\ndespair.  I have been.  It seems to me as if God, who has seen the long\nagony, will himself open the door.  I cannot go further in this\ndirection.... I feel a fear over everything.  I never was so unutterably\nunhappy in my life, never. Oh, will you not help me?\"\n\nOne day the prophet was attacking some noted evangelists of the day.\nPresently he began to fulminate against the Salvation Army, and accused\nthe General of failing to reprove the sins of the rich.  The Marechale\nleapt to her feet, and facing the prophet with outstretched finger and\nflashing eye, an image of outraged justice, exclaimed, \"That is an\nuntruth!  No man has been more faithful in reproving the rich than my\nfather and it is cowardly of you to attack a man who is not here to\ndefend himself.\"  The prophet visibly quailed under the withering\nrebuke.  It was the first time any one had withstood him to the face.\nWith an hour of thundering oratory he tried to obliterate the impression\nmade on the vast audience, but for once he was evidently checkmated.\n\nAt length Dr. Dowie, seeing he could not overcome the Marechale's\nopposition, and that her unwilling presence in the city was a disturbing\nfactor among his people, requested her and her husband to withdraw.  Mr.\nBooth-Clibborn, of whose absolute sincerity there can be no doubt, was\nkeenly disappointed at having to turn his back upon Zion, which had\nbecome to him, as the Salvation Army in its early days a cause to live\nfor, and if need be to die for.\n\nThe strain on the Marechale had been so great that when she arrived in\nEngland she was utterly prostrated.  Two dear old cousins of her\nhusband's, the Misses Susan and Esther Bell, in Eastbourne, nursed her\nback to life. Then came two dark, silent years in Brussels. The\nMarechale looked for a friend and found none.  All the world believed\nthat she had \"joined Zion.\"  The French papers announced that she had\nburned (_brule_) the principles for which she had once fought.  Her\ndaughter Victoria, who was with her in those years of lonely sorrow,\nwrites: \"Gradually her strength left her.  She suffered dumbly, vainly\nhoping for some deliverance.  Was this the Marechale who had led her\narmy to battle and faced the howling mob with a smile on her face?  Her\nsorrow had crushed and sapped her courage which the storm of persecution\nonly served to quicken.\"\n\nHer children had starvation staring them in the face; another terrible\nillness, brought on by household care, laid her low; her spirit was\nexhausted by the torturing strain of years; and she could hold out no\nlonger.  In a \"blind faith, without conviction,\" she was received into\nZion Church.  Broken on the wheel of life, stretched too long upon the\nrack of this tough world, she accepted--like Savonarola and Galileo,\nlike Cranmer and Jeanne d'Arc--an alien creed, without her reason being\nconvinced or her heart won.\n\nBut--again like those--not for long.  Her deliverance came in a\nstartling fashion.  Soon after her removal with her family to Paris, her\nhusband began to suffer from the effects of a neglected influenza which\nsettled in his knee. True to his principles, he refused to see a doctor.\nWhen he was at the brink of death, the Marechale brought in a physician\nin the guise of a friend.  The sick man's case was at first pronounced\nto be hopeless, but three of the finest surgeons of Paris were hastily\nsummoned, performed four operations, and saved his life, leaving him,\nhowever, crippled for the rest of his days.\n\nThe dismissal of Mr. Booth-Clibborn followed as a matter of course.  He\nhad violated the strictest laws of Zion by accepting the aid of surgery.\nTwo of his own converts, now followers of Dr. Dowie, invaded the sick\nroom, and handed him the fateful document.  Some time afterward he\nwrote: \"Dowie was a good man at one time.  So was the devil.  Dowie fell\nthrough the same sin--Pride.\"  In addition to a statement which was\npublished in four countries, he has recently borne the following\nconclusive testimony: \"The Marechale would never have had anything to do\nwith Dr. Dowie but for me.  When she came near him it was on every\noccasion unwillingly.  She suffered unutterable anguish, pain and grief,\nfrom the fact that from the first all her instincts, as well as the\nconsciousness of her true religious interest, were against Dr. Dowie's\nspiritual personality, his ways, his claims, his style of government.\nIf, in a kind of despair, she went with me into it, though she was in it\nshe was not of it.  It was never sought, it was endured. The only\ncomfort in the enduring was the possibility of doing a little good\nmeanwhile to people in it, and of ultimately helping in the opening of\nmy eyes.\"\n\n\n\n\n                              *CHAPTER XV*\n\n                            *SURSUM CORDA!*\n\n\nAll the Marechale's hearers remember her penetrating gaze.  No one ever\nencountered her eyes and saw them shift.  Thousands have felt as if she\nwere looking through all disguises into their very souls, and her\ntapering index finger has often made the bravest quail. \"All through the\nnight,\" wrote a convicted sinner, \"I saw her finger pointing straight at\nme.\"  And one feels certain that her look was never more direct, never\nmore searching, than when it was turned inward.  She has always had a\npassion for seeing things as they are, especially the things of the\nspirit.\n\nWe are not surprised, therefore, at her often repeated words: \"This\nexperience has taught me the folly of violating God-given instinct, and\nallowing the inner light of God's Holy Spirit to be darkened by man.\nWhen I compare myself with what I was in the past, in many respects it\nseems as if that person was dead!\"\n\nDrawn by the cords of love, held by ties too sacred to be broken, worn\nby years of poverty and sickness, and moving at last in a kind of\ntrance, more dead than alive, one of God's truest and bravest servants\nblindly stumbled on till she found herself, for a time of agony, in a\nspiritual prison-house from which there seemed to be no escape.\n\nHer greatest danger lay in a kind of fatalistic submission, which would\nhave meant permanent disloyalty to her own ideals and convictions, as\nwell as the abandonment of her vocation.  She read the letters of Pere\nDidon, whose heroic acceptance of his destiny influenced her in the\ndirection of sinking her individuality.  And one cannot understand the\nexquisite torture of her position unless one realises that her mind had\noften been made an arena of conflict between the apparently\nirreconcilable claims of the domestic and the apostolic life.  And yet,\nFather Hyacinth once said to her in Paris, \"You are the only woman I\nhave ever met who has reconciled the vocation of a mother with that of\nan apostle.\"  It may be appropriate to say here that the prayers of both\nfather and mother have been answered in the conversion of their ten\nchildren, who have of their own free will consecrated themselves to the\nservice of Christ.  Four sons and three daughters are already engaged in\nactive evangelistic work, and have been used of God for the conversion\nof many souls.\n\nTo bring the Marechale back to liberty, God used the voices of nature,\nof children and of friends.\n\nShe had always had a poet's sensitive ear for earth's thousand voices of\npraise, and, sitting in a garden on a spring morning, she wrote: \"The\npast, whoever was right or wrong, shall be buried.  Let the dead bury\ntheir dead. Leave it, and this beautiful spring-tide let us begin again.\nThe crocuses and snowdrops in this lovely garden all say, 'New\nResurrection life!'\"\n\nHer own children's voices called her back into the thick of the old\nspiritual battle.  \"Now for the children,\" she wrote; \"they must all see\nsome salvation work, and they will feel the glow of the heavenly fire.\nIt will warm them, and say something far more than all the Bible lessons\nin the world.\"  Her eldest daughters, at that time girls of sixteen and\nfifteen, but with a wisdom far beyond their years, literally pushed her\ninto the war, and if ever she was unable to go they buckled on their\narmour and took her place.  \"Mother writes me,\" says Victoria in her\njournal, \"that Evangeline held a beautiful meeting on Sunday because she\nherself was too ill to go.  Poor mother, it is difficult for her to keep\nup her courage.\"  This diarist of fifteen thus philosophises on the\nmeaning of her mother's sorrow.  \"Everybody can understand why God lets\npeople of the world, the infidels, the self-seekers, the indifferent,\nsuffer.  It is to bring them to Himself through disappointments in the\nworld, in themselves, and in others.  But why He allows His children\nthat love Him, those whose greatest wish is to serve Him--why He allows\nthem to suffer is a mystery.  Perhaps it is to bring them into still\ncloser communion with Himself, so that they may become one with\nHim--His, body, soul and spirit, without reserve.\"\n\nThe Marechale's friends helped to bring her back to her predestined work\nof soul-winning.\n\nDuring a time of awful silence, in which she never received a call and\nrarely a letter, she had not courage to visit any of her old comrades in\nParis.  Once, in her great sorrow, she wanted to get away to some\nsympathising friend and open her heart.  At first she could think of no\none, but suddenly she remembered a humble working woman, and, taking the\ntrain to Paris, she wearily climbed to the fifth story of a house in the\nVillette, sat down in this woman's little room, and burst into a flood\nof tears.  Her friend tried to comfort her and, not quite understanding\nthis passionate grief, made her lie down in her own bed while she\nprepared for her a delicious little French meal.\n\nTwenty years before, on a dark winter night, the Marechale was passing\nalong the Seine embankment on the way to her place of meeting on the\nQuai de Valmy.  She noticed a girl gazing at the dark, cold waters, and\na voice told her that she was meditating suicide. Touching her arm she\nsaid--\n\n\"Don't look at those black, cruel waters. Come with me and have a nice\ncup of coffee. You seem to be in trouble.\"\n\nThe girl, whose face was dark and sullen, looked at her suspiciously,\nand did not speak. The Marechale gently pleaded with her to come and\nhear a lady sing.\n\n\"She sings beautifully, and you will find light and warmth and comfort,\nand you will have a good cup of coffee.  Do come with me.\"\n\nThe girl at length consented and came.  She heard the Marechale herself\nsing.  She sat right through the service without opening her lips and\nwith a hard look on her face.  At the end the Marechale went down beside\nher, asked if she had enjoyed the meeting, and said a word to her about\nthe goodness of God.  At the mention of the name of God, the girl burst\ninto passionate speech.\n\n\"God!  Don't talk to me of God!  I hate Him.  What has He done for me?\nWhy did He take my mother?  He doesn't care for me. If He did He would\nnot have let me be born in prison.  What have I done to deserve such a\nlife as this?  It isn't my fault.\"\n\nBut, while the Marechale talked with her and prayed with her, the girl's\nheart was softened. She began to attend the meetings, and soon gave her\nheart to the Lord Jesus.  Born in a prison, and saved from suicide in\nthe Seine, she became in turn her rescuer's best comforter in an hour of\nsupreme sorrow.\n\nWhen the Marechale at length plucked up heart to revisit England, after\na long absence and silence, her steps were directed to the home of a\ndear friend and kindred spirit in South London.  It was in early\ngirlhood that Mrs. Holman of Jerviston was first attracted to the\nMarechale.  Her mother had, as Lady Mayoress, invited Miss Booth, before\nthe work began in France, to address a drawing-room meeting in her\nhouse, and the indelible impressions made on a receptive mind on that\nday proved an inspiration to a lifetime of quiet and devoted service of\nChrist.  But so timid and dejected had the Marechale become that she\ndreaded the reception that might await her even in the home of a\nlifelong friend!  She trembled as she dragged herself across Streatham\nCommon.  She sat down on a seat and--her ruling passion strong as\never--spoke to a beggar about his soul, feeling a certain new kinship\nwith all outcasts and pariahs.  When she stood before her friend's door\nshe scarcely had courage to ring the bell, and if she had been told to\ngo to the kitchen and have a cup of tea with the servants, she would\nhave answered quite simply, \"Yes, I will go.\"  But Mr. Holman himself\nopened the door, and his hearty welcome and the outflow of a perfect\nsympathy at once cast all her fears to the winds.  Her friends were\nministering angels to her.  They nursed her back to health, dried her\ntears, and made her smile.  Their little daughter--now one of the\nsweetest singers in London--carolled to her every morning and awoke \"the\nhallelujah bird\" again in her own breast.  And God Himself was meanwhile\ndoing for her what even the best of friends could not do--giving her the\nResurrection Life, re-animating her hope, baptising her afresh with the\nSpirit, not of fear, but of power and of love, breaking all shackles and\nmaking her free--free from the ensnaring fear of man, free to obey the\nDivine call she had received even as a child--woman's Pentecostal call\nto prophesy for Christ, her one and only Master.\n\n_Aller An fang ist schwer_, and the difficulties which the Marechale\nencountered at the resumption of her work were enough to make any but\nthe stoutest heart faint.  If she had in the past shown a bravery\ntranscending that of even the bravest all this was of small account\ncompared to the heroism now required of her. In the past she had the\nhelp of her own people, her spiritual children, and a strong\norganization back of her.  Now she was utterly alone, thousands all over\nthe world had an erroneous conception of the entire situation, and many\neven believed she had made shipwreck of her faith.  Her daughter\nVictoria stands out during that lonely period of beginnings.  With\nremarkably clear judgment, discernment and sympathy she cheered and\ninspired her mother with her own enthusiastic hopefulness and vivid\nfaith.\n\nThe greatest service anyone could render the Marechale was to bid her go\non, fulfil her destiny, believe that God would again mightily use and\nbless her.  It might seem a small thing to say, \"Be of good cheer,\" yet\nit was one of those \"little nothings\" for which she was ever afterwards\nprofoundly grateful.  I remember her coming one evening into my Chelsea\nstudy in a mood of depression, baffled by life's insoluble mysteries.\nWondering what would lighten for her the burden and the weary weight, I\ntook down Browning and began to read \"Rabbi ben Ezra,\" which was new to\nher. From the opening words--\n\n    The best is yet to be,\n    The last of life, for which the first was planned--\n\nto the magnificent close, that inspired _Sursum Corda_ thrilled her as a\nmessage direct from the great Heart of God.  Only in one thing did she\nventure to differ from the poet.  \"He sees his heaven beyond,\" she said;\n\"I want mine down here in the salvation of souls.\"\n\nAs soon as she resumed her work, she had her reward in signs following\neverywhere.  Doors opened to her, first in England, then in Scotland,\nIreland and Wales.  She brought the breath of life into many churches,\nrekindled the zeal of many workers for Christ, and broke the chains\nwhich had bound multitudes of souls to an evil past.\n\nHer own experience had given her, as a physician of souls, perhaps a\ndeeper sympathy, a surer insight, a greater power to grapple with every\nform of evil than ever she had before. It became her mission to save\npeople from themselves by convincing them that only one thing is\nentirely worth doing--living like Christ by letting Christ live in them.\nThere are certainly few evangelists who have changed the whole current\nof so many lives in our country. Young ladies about to pass within\nconvent walls have found a more excellent way by receiving the living\nChrist into their hearts. Actors and singers have consecrated their\ngifts to Christ and His kingdom.  Young men of the world have heard the\ncall of God and resolved to enter the ministry or go to the\nmission-field.  God's gift of life has revealed to many questioning eyes\nits glorious possibilities. Multitudes who had no faith have heard\nanother say that she has faith for them--a faith which has somehow\ndispelled the mists of doubt and error and brought them into the\nsunlight of Divine love.\n\nAt the same time her ever-deepening knowledge of her two books, the\nBible and the Heart of Man, have made her a unique preacher to\npreachers.  One night at Keswick, in the summer of 1907, a brilliant\nyoung Scottish minister, who was a member of a large house-party of\nclergymen attending the annual Convention, came home late for supper.\n\n\"Excuse me,\" he said, as he sat down, \"but I could not tear myself away\nfrom the open-air meeting in the Square.  I never heard such speaking in\nmy life.  I stood transfixed.  The preacher was the daughter of General\nBooth, and I never knew the English language was such a magnificent\nweapon until to-night.  Her preaching was extraordinary.\"\n\nNext day, through Dr. Harry Guinness, who was her host, she was invited\nto address that house-party.  Another preacher who was present has\nrecorded his impressions.  \"After tea we all gathered our chairs in a\ncircle round her as she opened up some sacred chapters in her life.\nHour after hour sped.  No one thought of moving to go to the Tent\nmeetings.  There we sat spellbound, through a long evening, feeling we\nhad never come across such a being before.  This was the first of many\nsuch meetings, to which as many outsiders were invited as the large\ndrawing-room could hold.  What evenings these were!  Highland worthies\nsat gazing at her with open-mouthed wonder, held by her witchery, her\nstrange tales from actual life, by her wisdom and pathos.  Her voice,\nrich and sweet, sometimes fell to dreamy cadences, and sometimes rose to\nthe bugling of a gale.  It thrilled people and it melted them. Her eyes\nwere wonderful.  Sometimes they rested on one person in the audience\nwith a soft and appealing look; then they gleamed and blazed with holy\npassion.  Her long arms with their fine tapering fingers--how they\nhelped to express her mind!  But it was the face that was the great\nexponent, and as emotions played on her own mobile features she also\ntouched the deep chords of every minister's heart. What struck us most\nwas the access she won to the hearts of penitents.  The mother-love in\nher was so deep and real that we all felt as if we, too, could give her\nour sacred confidences.  A favourite word of hers was from St.\nAugustine, 'Love, and do as you like,' and every man in our company felt\nshe was a living illustration of it.  Her beautiful and choice language,\nsimple, fresh, exquisitely fitting, and used with superb ease and\nmastery, was a constant amazement.  She never attempted addresses or\nexpositions, but her talks, for no other name would she apply, were now\nand again gemmed with texts which came as with a flash of diamonds,\nflaming.\"\n\nThus she revealed herself to men who know that the care of all cares is\nthe \"cure\" of souls--_cura curarum cura animarum_.  She warned them that\nthe \"apostolic life,\" the most Christ-like of all vocations, is only for\nthose who are willing to \"fill up that which is lacking of the\nsufferings of Christ.\"  Prayer and fasting, love and sacrifice, real\nasceticism combined with joyful enthusiasm are the conditions of success\nin the never-ending warfare with evil. The world will always be a broad\nfield of battle.  But the living Christ gives so much of His real\npresence that His service is liberty and His rewards are sure.  No\nbreath of human praise can compare with the fervent and life-long\ngratitude which souls rescued from the powers of darkness bear to their\ndeliverer. Since the Marechale laid aside the French language---perhaps\nonly for a time--and resumed her mother-tongue, she has received\nliterally thousands of English letters from both continents testifying\nto blessings received through her ministry.  I here give a few carefully\nselected extracts from these letters with a few words of introduction.\n\nOne Sunday morning, as the Marechale was about to address a large\ncongregation, the minister whispered to her: \"You see those two young\nladies in black, if you can do anything with them, it would be a\nmiracle.\"\n\nIn one of the after-meetings of the mission, the Marechale approached\nthe elder of these ladies and ventured to speak with her, but intense\nreserve on her part made conversation impossible.  A cloud of utter\ndespair seemed to have settled on her spirit.  The look in her eyes\nrevealed sorrow too deep for words.\n\nThis is her story:\n\n\"At twelve o'clock one night I was returning home from business with my\nmother and only sister.  I found the body of my father hanging in the\ncorridor!  I was so horrified that for a moment I could not move, then,\nrecovering my presence of mind, I put out the lights and called my\nmother and sister to another door, just in time to prevent them seeing\nthe sight.  _But I can never forget it!_\n\n\"Then my mother's health broke down, and for four years I faithfully\nwatched and cared for her.\n\n\"During this second painful trial I received the startling news that my\ndearest and only brother had met with a serious accident while driving\nhis own automobile.  On arriving at the hospital in all haste I was met\nwith the words, 'Too late.'  He was gone!  The scene which followed is\ntoo terrible for me to speak of.  We adored him!  The effects of the\nshock hastened my mother's death.  We said good-bye to her, and oh, the\nrecollection of it haunts me still.\n\n\"After my mother's death my sister and I left the house of tragedy,\nbroken down with sorrow and grief.  These blows were beyond my powers of\nendurance.  In vain did I seek some ray of comfort.  Then I grew\ncareless! Wine began to get a hold on me; and I sank into depths of\ndespair, of which you only know. I really thought there was no God, and\ncontemplated ending my own existence.\n\n\"Through it all the Lord was looking down in tender compassion and love.\nHe sent you at this critical time in my sad career.\n\n\"When I look back on the past I can only praise God for what He has done\nfor me, through you.\n\n\"I am now conscious of the fact that He has washed and redeemed me\nthrough the precious blood.  Jesus is very dear to me.  He is the Lily\nof the Valley, the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.  The pleasures of\nthe world have henceforth no attraction for me, in Him I can overcome\nall temptations.\"\n\n\nThe following is from a gentleman in America, who, for thirty-five\nyears, had never entered a church.  He happened to hear the Marechale\nonce, and, rushing into the vestry, he broke down utterly and told her\nthe tragical story of his life.\n\nHe was an illegitimate child, and his mother often used to beat him\nuntil the blood ran. As a lad he struggled hard to be good, and,\nalthough he was sometimes led astray through the drink, he always\nshunned anything of an immoral character.\n\nHe married a sweet German girl, and by honest labour obtained a very\ngood position in New York, where he was esteemed by all who knew him.\n\nAt this juncture he met the French woman who ruined his life.  He told\nthe Marechale between his sobs that his wife naturally refused to have\nhim back.  Remorse and anguish of mind had driven him twice to attempt\nsuicide, but he was miraculously rescued.  In January, 1914, he writes:\n\n\n\"Dear Marechale and honored Spiritual Mother:\n\n\"It was with joy that I received your dear letter.  God has indeed been\nwonderfully good to me, an undeserving sinner!  He has rolled away the\nstone from a heart heavy with sin and sorrow.  I thank Him daily for His\nmercy, and wonder how I could ever have lived so long without Him.  No\nwonder I failed and would have been lost, had I not found Him at last\nthrough you, dear Marechale.  Life has a new meaning for me.  It is a\npleasure to live now, and before it was a curse.  The musicians are\nplaying ragtime while I am writing this, but God is playing another\nmelody in my heart. I thank Him for the opportunity I have here to do\ngood.  God has indeed changed me.  He has given me great power over the\nminds of my men.  The change which, with His help, I have been able to\neffect in their natures in two short weeks is wonderful to see.  I am\nhappy, very happy.\n\n\"There is surely a devil, for he has sorely tempted me, but I shake him\noff like a feather, smiling happily in my God-given strength. I say to\nhim, 'I fear you not, for I belong to Christ Jesus forever.'\n\n\"I am indeed in an unholy place.  It is given over to the devil in every\nform, but what matters, I belong to Christ for all time.\n\n\"In prayer and humility I thank and greet thee, Beloved Marechale.\"\n\n\nA beautiful girl in society writes the following:\n\n\"All night long I have whispered your name over and over again to\nmyself, saying, 'You have given me life, Marechale, do you hear me?\nLIFE!!!!'  I was dying of remorse and fear.  I shudder when I think of\nwhat would have become of me if I had not come to you. I used to say to\nmyself, 'Oh, well, what's the use, I have sinned beyond recall, so why\nnot sin again, and again, and again?  I am destined for Hell anyway, I\nmay just as well get there as fast as I can'--that is what you have\nsaved me from.\n\n\"I wonder how many times I have prayed 'Let me forget, only let me\nforget,' and the more I would pray, the more I would remember, and the\nmore I would remember the more terrified I would get, until life seemed\nto slip away from me, and I would fall down, down, down, into a\nbottomless pit of horror.... And now I LIVE!!!!  Oh, Marechale (how I\nlove that name, it sounds like music to me!)  My mother gave life to my\npoor miserable body, but you gave life to my soul.  My mother would not\nmind me loving you so if she knew that you gave me back to her.\"\n\nAgain she writes: \"I have lived alone, absolutely alone.  God only knows\nhow utterly alone I have been!  But now I have Him, a _Some One who\ncares_!  Is it not wonderful, Marechale, I am no longer alone for I have\nmy Christ?  The warm thing that flames in my soul is the _knowledge that\nHe loves me_! Now I know why all these years I have searched with empty\nhands for something.  I have it now, I _LIVE!!!!_\"\n\n\nA young gentleman whose life was transformed through attending the\nmeetings held by the Marechale's family in Keswick writes from Beyrout,\nSyria:\n\n\"Oh! what a responsibility it is for us to be the ambassadors of Christ,\nto represent Him to those who do not know Him, to be His Images!  If it\nwere not for us Christians, who so often stand in His way, Christ might\nhave a chance.  Some of the college men are meeting daily in my room to\npray and I wish you could hear them praying in English, Arabic, Turkish,\nArmenian and even Abyssinian.  You would not understand the words, but\nyou could never mistake the spirit.\n\n\"To-day I invited a man whom I know is in the hold of a terrible vice.\nHe came, and during the half hour he looked as though he had made a\nmistake in coming, but, before he left, he had led in prayer for\nstrength to overcome temptation.\n\n\"Don't you think America is a fine country? And yet, with all its great\nresources, opportunities and phenomenal progress, it is a very wicked\ncountry in many parts.  Races, nations and individuals may prosper and\nsucceed in plans for betterment and still be without the realisation of\nGod,--they may be 'Good but Godless.'\"\n\n[Illustration: THE MARECHALE\n(_From a photograph taken at the Gainsborough Studio,\nOxford Street, London, W., in_ 1913)]\n\nWith the tribute of one grateful heart this sketch may fitly close.\n\n\"I have been used in the past in the conversion of hundreds of souls,\nbut I made a _compromise_ and it has spelt ruin to my soul.  No one\nknows how vile I have been, meriting desertion by God and man....  I had\nresolved to end my existence, but somehow I was brought to that meeting\nto hear about that Russian lady.  Even then I _determined_ you should\nnot influence me, but God somehow through you gripped my life.  I saw\nmyself in the true light as (I say the words not in their usual sense) a\n'blasted hypocrite.'  Don't forget to echo and re-echo the words that\nreached me, 'Compromise with the world spells ruin.'  That burnt into my\nsoul....  I remember while you spoke a big lump rising in my throat, and\njust as you were closing your address the thought came, 'I wonder if she\nwould understand.'  Ay, more, I remember how you received me that day.\nGod bless you.  I came out of hell.  I have a clear sky.  I want to let\nyou know that the consciousness of forgiveness of the past has come with\nalmost an overwhelming force, and an awful load has gone.  No daughter\never loved mother more than I love you, I know that.  Why is it? Because\nGod made you the means of my salvation.  My heart just bursts with love\nand gratitude.  So I am yours, and at that last great day you will see\nit if I come through at last....  Dear one, have you ever thought of\nthis--some one by a gallant effort rescues lives from fire or shipwreck;\nthe world applauds and honours the deliverer.  You (by the grace of God)\nrescued me from shipwreck of soul.  Christ will own it before His Father\nand all the countless multitudes.\"\n\n\n\n                                THE END","title":"The Mar\u00e9chale (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":51025}