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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'I will never speak to sinners so that one man or woman in my audience can stand up and say, "You might have warned me more faithfully, spoken more plainly than you did." I would rather die than that should be the case.'—Mrs. Booth.
No one must think that Mrs. Booth became a great speaker all in a moment, or by any 'royal road.' She started when about eighteen, as many a Corps Cadet has since done, by just taking a class or Company on Sundays, never dreaming of doing more. An elder girls' Company was given to her; and she had fifteen girls to teach, whose ages varied from twelve to nineteen.
Two half-days she spent every week in preparing for her Company, and in trying to make each lesson end in a practical way, so as to do them real good.
Then on Sunday, when the rest of the children had been dismissed, Miss Mumford would beg to be given the key of the room and would remain behind, holding a little Prayer Meeting with her girls. Sometimes they would stay on for an hour and a half, and many by this means became truly converted.
Often with so much praying and singing Catherine quite lost her voice before the end of the Meeting; but, so long as souls were saved, she did not mind that.
Soon after her marriage Mrs. Booth took another class of this same kind, and also a little sort of Sergeants' Meeting, and then - for you see our Army Mother was led on, just as you or I may be, step by step - she gave a short talk to the Band of Hope children (something like our Band of Love of today) on the evils of drink.
'Oh, how I wish,' she wrote to her father, 'that I had started speaking years ago!'
