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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But it was not at first easy for the mother-spirit in Mrs. Booth to allow her delicate girls of fourteen or fifteen to undertake a public life, and to speak and sing at the street corners, surrounded by a rough, low crowd. Such a thing was unheard-of in those days.
Once, hearing that her daughter Catherine had spoken in the open air to a large crowd, Mrs. Booth objected, as other mothers have since objected: the girl was too young as yet - she must wait awhile.
But her eldest son, looking at his mother in the tenderest and most solemn way, said, 'Mamma, dear, you will have to settle this question with God; for Katie is as surely called and inspired by Him for the particular work as you are yourself.'
Mrs. Booth said no more. She took this as the voice of God, and gave her girl up to the marvellous work which God had called her to do.
Later she writes of her to a friend: -
'Join me in praying that she may be kept humble and simple, and that all that the Lord has given her may be used for Him.'
'I see,' she says, writing at this same time to her daughter, 'what a glorious, blessed, useful life you may live; but I also see your danger, and I pray for you that you may be enabled to cast aside the world in every form, to look down upon its opinions, and to despise its spirit, maxims, and fashions.'
