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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And as with the eldest so with the other seven. One by one they gave their hearts to the Lord as soon as they grew old enough to do so.
'She used to gather us round her,' says one of her daughters,' and pray with us. I wore then a low frock, and her hot tears would often drop upon my neck, sending a thrill through me which I can never forget.'
She would pray again and again that she might lay them in their graves rather than she should see them grow up wicked.
Mrs. Booth was very particular about the way in which her children were dressed.
Of course, there was no uniform in those days, but The Army spirit was already in The Army Mother, and she would not have any finery or show, either for herself or her children.
'Accept,' she writes to her mother, 'my warm thanks for the little frock you sent. There is only one difficulty - it is too smart. We must set an example in this direction. I feel no temptation now to decorate myself, but I cannot say the same about the children; and yet, Oh, I see I must be decided. Besides, I find it would be dangerous for their own sakes. The seed of vanity is too deeply sown in their young hearts for me to dare to cultivate it.'
Even in her early days Mrs. Booth felt how wrong it was to spend time and money over dress: -
'I remember feeling condemned,' she says, 'when quite a child, not more than eight years old, at having to wear a lace tippet such as was fashionable in those days. From a worldly point of view it would have been considered, no doubt, very neat and consistent. But on several occasions I had good crying fits over it. Not only did I instinctively feel it to be immodest, because people could see through it, but I thought it was not such as a Christian child should wear.'
