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Catherine Booth

<h1>XI</h1> <h2>Last Days</h2> ’As I look back on life I do not remember the houses I have lived in, the people that I have known, the things of passing interest at the moment. They are all gone. There is nothing stands out before my mind as of any consequence, but the work I have done for God and Eternity.’—Mrs. Booth. If The General and those who loved our Army Mother best had been able to choose for her, they would most likely have said: ’Let her live and fight and work on, up to within a few days of her promotion to Glory. Let the call come quickly and painlessly, as it has come to others in our ranks.’ But the Lord, who loved her more than we did, saw fit to send to her two and a half years of ever-increasing weariness and suffering. For long months she lay on the very bank of the River, longing for the messenger of Death to carry her across. Those who loved her could not tell why the Lord sent her this last fiery trial; they could only bow with her, and say, ‘Thy will be done.’ It was in February, 1888, that Mrs. Booth, who was anxious about her health, went to consult a great doctor and get his opinion. She was alone, for no one had thought her illness was so serious. She asked him to tell her the truth–all through her life, as you know, she wanted the truth; and after a little hesitation he told her. The truth was the saddest that she could hear. That dreadful illness–cancer–through which she had so tenderly nursed her own dear mother, had come to her, and in the doctor’s opinion she had much suffering to pass through, and only two or, at the most, three years longer to live. Mrs. Booth listened calmly, thanked the doctor, and then, getting once more into the cab, drove home all alone. It was a dark journey. The War needed her. The General needed her. Her children needed her. And yet the sentence of Death had been passed upon her, and she must soon leave them all. What did she do? I think you can guess. She knelt down in the cab, and in prayer committed to God, in a new and deeper way than ever before, her own body, and her dear ones and the work He had given her to do. At last the cab stopped before her own door, and The General came out to meet her. ‘I shall never forget that meeting in this world, or the next,’ he says. ’I had been watching for the cab, and had run out to meet her and help her up the steps. She tried to smile on me through her tears; but, drawing me into the room, soon told me, bit by bit, what the doctor had said. I sat down speechless. She rose from her seat, and came and knelt beside me, saying: “Do you know what was my first thought? That I should not be there to nurse you in your last hour.” ’I was stunned. I felt as if the whole world were coming to a standstill. Opposite me, on the wall, was a picture of Christ on the cross. I thought I could understand it then, as never before. She talked to me like an angel; she talked as she had never talked before. I could say little or nothing. I could only kneel with her and try to pray. That very same night The General was to leave London for some great Meetings in Holland, and Mrs. Booth would not hear of his changing his plans and remaining with her. ‘The War must go on’ was her thought, even when all her family stood stunned and heart-broken around her, unwilling to leave her even for a moment. Two years later, when but a few more days of suffering remained to her, a last message from her lips reached us as Self-Denial Week began. ’The War must go on’ was one of its sentences. ‘The War must go on’ had been as her motto, lived out in all the long, long months that lay between. Instead of immediately laying aside her work, when the doctors gave their dreadful judgment, and beginning to think only of herself, she went on with it as long as her increasing weakness allowed. But step by step the disease grew worse. First she was forced to give up Meetings and public work. Then it became impossible for her to use her right hand, and she was therefore obliged to give up her correspondence, though she still continued to dictate her letters, and learnt also to write with her left hand. Soon her daily drives became too tiring, and by and by she went out of the house into the little garden for the last time; and then for the concluding twelve months of her life she was a prisoner in her room, lying in constant suffering. But during these long months the greatest joy and relief that could come to her was to hear of some fresh victory or triumph for the Kingdom of Jesus. Her interest in The Army and her love for the people were as keen as ever, and War Councils were held and new developments planned in her chamber, and much of The General’s Darkest England Scheme for the poor and outcast was thought out and decided upon beside her sick bed. Again and again, too, Mrs. Booth would receive deputations of Officers of different classes and from various countries in which The Army was at work, who came to Clacton-on-Sea, where the last fifteen months of her life were spent, to listen to her words of advice and inspiration. There were no Corps Cadets in those days; but our Army Mother left some specially beautiful words about the Juniors, to which I must refer. When she was told by the Officer then in charge of our Junior Work in England that the children loved and prayed continually for her, she smiled. ‘The thought of the little ones,’ says some one who was there, ’brought our beloved Army Mother wholly out of herself and her pain and weariness.’ ‘A very choice branch of the work,’ she said. ’I have often told Emma that I hoped when I was too old for public work God would let me end where I began–with the children. But it seems that it is not to be so.’ ‘Give the children,’ she went on, in reply to the messages they had sent, ’my dear love, and tell them that if there had been a Salvation Army when I was ten I should have been a Soldier then, as I am to-day. Never allow yourself to be discouraged in your work. I know you must meet with many discouragements; but I am sure the Spirit of God works mightily on little children long before grown people think they are able to understand.’ Again and again during that last year of awful suffering it seemed as if Mrs. Booth were about to leave us; but then she would revive, and come back to endure more weeks and months of agony. But at last, on October 4, 1890, all could see that she was on the brink of the River, and even those who loved her the most tenderly could not wish to hold her back. ‘O Emma, let me go, darling,’ she whispered; and hearing the reply, ’Yes, we will, we will,’ she said, ‘Now! Yes, Lord, come, Oh, come!’ The singing of The Army songs seemed to comfort her; and once she raised her suffering arm, and pointed to the text, ’My grace is sufficient for thee,’ which hung on the wall. It was lifted down and placed at the foot of her bed, so that her eyes could often rest on it during those last hours. ‘Soon after noon,’ says the present General, ’I felt that the deepening darkness of the Valley was closing around my dear mother, and a little later I took my last farewell. Her lips moved, and she gave me one look of unspeakable tenderness and trust which will live with me for ever. Again we sang:– <blockquote>My mistakes His free grace doth cover,   My sins He doth wash away; These feet which shrink and falter   Shall enter the Gates of Day.</blockquote> And, holding her hand, The General gave her up to God. It was a solemn and wonderful scene.’ The Chief of the Staff and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, Mrs. Booth-Tucker, and the Commander, and her three daughters, Marian, Eva, and Lucy, knelt round the bed, upon which were placed photographs of the other members of her family who were unavoidably absent. Near to her stood her faithful nurse, Captain Carr, and others of the household, the dear General bowing over his beloved wife and companion in life’s long strife, and giving her up to the keeping of the Father. One by one the members of the family tenderly embraced her; then a gleam of recognition passed over the brightening countenance as The General bent over her. Their eyes met–-the last kiss of love on earth, the last word till the Morning, and without a movement the breathing gently ceased, and a warrior laid down her sword to receive her crown. <hr width="75%" size="1" /> You may have heard of those wonderful days from Tuesday morning till Sunday night, when the coffin containing the precious remains of our Army Mother lay at the Congress Hall, Clapton, and when more than fifty thousand people came to have a last look at her dear face. A piece of glass had been let into the plain oak coffin. It was just large enough to show the head and shoulders, and she lay as if in a sweet sleep. You wonder if many came merely from curiosity. Some did, of course, but most of the people came because her life and example and words had been so blessed to their souls; and they came as they would come to look at the dead face of their own mother. It was the most wonderful tribute to a woman’s life and words that London had ever seen. For all kinds of people came–rich and poor, good and bad, people of many different religions, and many with no religion at all. Working men came in their dinner-hour, with their tools on their backs and tears in their eyes; mothers lifted up their little children to look at the one who had taught them the way of life; and, best of all, by the side of her coffin knelt many a wanderer and backslider to give themselves afresh to God. More than one poor girl went direct from the Congress Hall to the Rescue Homes, to begin to live ‘as she would have wished’; and the Cadets on guard were all the time dealing with drunkards and helping those who desired to begin from thenceforth to live a new and different life. Even to-day, twenty-four years later, we often meet those who date their conversion, or their first step in the Narrow Way, from their look at that face lying in its simple coffin. One of Mrs. Booth’s own grandchildren, Mary, the present General’s second daughter, looks back to that scene as the time when God in an unmistakable manner sealed her as His. She was only five years old as she knelt by the coffin, but nevertheless she decided there, in her childish consecration, like Ruth of old, that ’Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God’; and in the spirit of this consecration she lives to-day. <hr width="75%" size="1" /> In order that some of the crowds who wished to share in the funeral service might be present, the largest hall in London, the Olympia, was taken. Twenty-six thousand people filled it; and though it was, of course, impossible for them all to hear, they followed the service given on printed papers with reverent sympathy. The coffin was carried down the immense hall by Officers; The General and his family followed. Those who arranged for this last mighty gathering remembered that Mrs. Booth, when with us, was never happy to leave a Meeting unless it had been brought to a point, and something definite had been done; and therefore, when the songs and prayers and readings were over, the huge crowd was asked to kneel and make a solemn covenant with God. It was a beautiful covenant, and ended with these words:– ’And now, in this solemn hour, and in the presence of death, I come again to Thy footstool, and make this covenant with Thee.’ Then all who had made the covenant from their hearts rose and sang together:– <blockquote>Just as I am Thou dost receive, Dost welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, Because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come!</blockquote> It was just such an ending to the wonderful service as our Army Mother would have chosen had she been still on earth with us. <hr width="75%" size="1" /> The next morning was dry and bright. ’I shall ask God to give you a fine day for my funeral, Emma, so that you mayn’t take cold,’ our Army Mother had said, for she was ever thoughtful for others; and her prayer was answered, for though the white mist crept up from the river to the Embankment, where the procession was forming up, there was no rain nor wind. Tens of thousands of our dear Soldiers would gladly have sacrificed a day’s work in order to follow in the funeral procession of one they so dearly loved; but, so as not to gather too large a crowd, only Officers were allowed in the march, which passed through countless throngs of people from International Headquarters to Abney Park Cemetery, a distance of about five miles. All along the route the crowds stood in dense masses, and roofs, windows, and every nook and corner were packed with human beings. Nothing had been seen like it, said the police, since the Duke of Wellington’s funeral, forty years before. It was a wonderful march. I wish you could have seen it! Sometimes it seemed as if every one was weeping; and when the open hearse, with its plain oak coffin, crowned by The Army bonnet and well-worn Bible, passed, all heads were bared, all voices hushed, and tears filled all eyes. The General, standing alone in his open carriage all along the long, sad way, must have felt that he had the people’s sympathy and love with him in his grief, for scores of heartfelt ‘God bless you’s!’ came from lips that are unused to such words. And at last the yellow evening sun shone out as the great procession reached the gates of Abney Park Cemetery and wound towards the open grave. Only a part of the mighty throng could hear The General’s beautiful words, so strong and yet so tender, from which I have already quoted, but all joined in the song, ‘Rock of Ages,’ which seemed to roll up to the heavens themselves. Several leading Officers and members of The General’s own family prayed and spoke, wonderfully upheld in spite of their deep grief and the strain of the last days. And then by the open grave the present General led all hearts to make a fresh consecration, the whole assembly promising, with God’s help, that they would be ’Faithful to Thee, faithful to one another, and faithful to a dying world, till we meet our beloved Mother in the Morning. Amen.’ <hr width="75%" size="1" /> If ever you are in Abney Park Cemetery you should visit her grave. It is very simple. Around the little piece of earth runs a grey stone, with these words carved on it:– Catherine Booth, Mother of The Salvation Army More than Conqueror, through Him that loved us, and gave Himself for all the world and for you. Do you also follow Christ? and above are two small beds of flowers. Do many people go to see it? you wonder. Oh, yes. All round it a path is worn in the grass, made by the tread of many feet; for mothers bring their boys and girls to see it, and tell them what a mother she was, and men and women of all creeds and races pause beside it, and remember. Many Officers, too–from distant lands, and speaking strange tongues you could not understand–come to The Army Mother’s grave when they visit our shores. For she was their Mother as well as ours, they say. They kneel beside the stone, and spell out the name, and then they consecrate themselves afresh to God and the needs of the heathen lands, and they claim His grace to follow in her steps. For our Army Mother is not dead. True, her body lies in the quiet grave at Abney Park, and her spirit is in Heaven; but her life and influence still live among us, her words are treasured, and our greatest prayer and desire for the girls and wives and mothers in our ranks is that they may live to be worthy daughters of Catherine Booth. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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