This is an etext version of Mildred Duff, Catherine Booth: A Sketch, with preface by General Bramwell Booth. Originally published by Salvation Army Book Department, circa 1907. This edition was created by Jone Johnson Lewis, 2003.
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Ah, if our women-Soldiers and Cadets to-day would but follow our Army Mother’s example, there would be fewer unhappy marriages and wrecked lives!
But in her secret heart Catherine had also, girl-like, some ideas about the sort of man she would like to marry, if she might choose. He should be a minister–that was the nearest she could get to an Officer in those days; William was a name she particularly liked, and–if only he might be tall and dark! If you had been there when Katie Mumford first listened to his preaching you would have seen that he was ‘tall and dark’ indeed.
But though William Booth loved Catherine with a deep and holy love, which increased each time they met, yet he was very poor, and he wondered if he ought, under the circumstances, to ask her to share his lot. He wrote a letter to her, telling her how perplexed and troubled he was, and her answer shows us that, right from the very earliest days, before they were even engaged, her one desire was that his soul should prosper.
‘My dear friend,’ she begins ... ’The thought that I should cause you any suffering or increase your perplexity is almost unbearable. I am tempted to wish that we had never seen each other. Do try to forget me, as far as the remembrance would injure your usefulness or spoil your peace. If I have no alternative but to oppose the Will of God, or trample on the desolations of my own heart, my choice is made. “Thy will be done” is my constant cry. I care not for myself; but Oh, if I cause you to err, I shall never be happy again.’
It was not the fear of poverty that frightened her, for a few days later she says:–
’I fear you did not fully understand my difficulty. It was not circumstances. I thought I had assured you that a bright prospect would not allure me, nor a dark one affright me, if only we are one in heart.
My only reason for wishing to defer the engagement was that you might feel satisfied in your mind that the step is right.... If you are convinced on this point, let circumstances go, and let us be one, come what may.’
This is exactly what they did, and after meeting, and together consecrating their lives to God, they solemnly pledged themselves to each other.
