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There is surely little need for me to commend this so intimate and living picture of Staff-Captain Kate Lee. It speaks for itself in speaking of one whose fine character and ceaseless labour were of singular charm and amazing fruitfulness.
The Salvation Army has been happy in its Women Officers. The lessons of experience undoubtedly teach us that they are fully qualified for all the work of the ministry of Christ.
Long denied the right of public testimony as well as the opportunity to proclaim the truth of the Saviour’s mission, women have in the history of our Movement fully proved that they may be as effective, as acceptable, and as successful as their brethren, both as teachers and rulers in the Kingdom of Christ on earth. The extraordinary theory that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are confined to those who have taken part in a certain ecclesiastical ceremonial, narrow and mistaken as it may be, is surely a mild and simple form of error, compared with the appalling notion that those gifts are confined to men, and are to be for ever withheld from the other half of the human family. The Churches of the world seem at length prepared to debate within themselves whether they should venture to follow our example, and give to woman a place worthy of her gifts in their various plans of campaign. Perhaps the brief story of this life may help some of them a step forward.
Kate Lee was an unfaltering believer in the power of God to save from the power of sin. This was really her secret. That faith dominated her own frail and often sick body with its nights of sleeplessness–its days of pain. It conquered the worst in the worst of men whom she encountered in her work of mercy. It won a multitude of souls to believe in her and in her message, and then to believe in her Saviour. It was ever greater than her circumstances. It was greater than herself. It makes her life, and this story of it, wonderful for us who remain.
And Kate Lee was a Salvationist; that is, she was seized with what we sometimes call the spirit of The Army–that union of holy love and fiery zeal and practical common sense which, by the power of Christ, produces wherever it is found the fruits of Salvation in the bodies and souls of those who are without. And I feel no sort of doubt that to any woman, having the opportunity to do so, and to whom she could speak to-day, she would say–’Do as I have done.’ I do not mean by that that every sincere woman is bound to become a Salvation Army Officer, or is called forthwith to go to the ends of the earth as a member of our Missionary Forces. But I do mean that Christian women everywhere have a part to play in the great Ministry of Conversion–in the glorious Mission of the Apostles of every age, for the evangelization of the world.
It behooves them to see that they play their part.
Bramwell Booth,
General.
The story of “The Angel Adjutant” is sure to continue its very exceptional and wonderfully inspirational work wherever and by whomsoever read, and consequently I am specially glad to know that an American edition is about to be published.
Seldom has a living spirit pulsated through biographical pages as it does throughout the simple account here given. Yet it is not merely the spirit of Kate Lee, who surely lives again in these folios–the simple, unsophisticated, devoted daughter of the Salvation Army, but this book throbs with that life which is begotten and sustained and empowered by the Holy Spirit. He was graciously and solely responsible for the constant stream of helpfulness that all who knew her witness as having resulted from a consecration made by a girl in her teens.
And how beautifully enshrined in this life was the soul of the Movement of which she was such a worthy unit. The description, while being a faithful portrayal of a very real person, can still be regarded as typical of a great host of blessed women whose supreme joy in life is found in having associated themselves in holy bonds of service such as their loved, and now glorified comrade, the subject of these memoirs, rendered mankind. While such as Kate Lee lives, the Salvation Army’s position as a saving force is secure.
Evangeline Booth,
Commander U.S.
New York, 1922.
Lucy Lee laid her head on her pillow and, looking through the silence and darkness, smiled up to God. She had won her first soul for Him, and now made her offering. The capture was not a drunkard, nor an outcast–many of whom, in years to come, she was to wrestle over and deliver–but her own sister, whose golden hair lay over the pillow beside her, and whose regular breathing told that she was fast asleep. Nothing did Lucy imagine of the blessing to thousands of souls that was to flow from that night’s work. She was happy in the consciousness that she had been faithful to the heavenly vision, and that now she and her sister were one in the experience of Salvation.
How Lucy loved her! Her mind ran back over the thirteen years since a baby sister came into her life. She remembered the rapture she felt, when sitting upon her mother’s bed, the nurse placed the baby in her arms. She was five years old then, and soon her small arms ached and her legs were cramped, but again and again she pleaded to hold her treasure just a little longer. She had been allowed to name the baby, and had called her Kate. What a frail, sweet little child she had grown!
When Kate was six years old their father died. Lucy recalled moving from their nice house in Hornsey Rise–a suburb of nearer London–to a smaller home; her start at business; and then, the great event that changed the course of life for both the girls.
One Sunday evening, after her mother and Kate had gone to chapel, Lucy had been keeping her brother company in the front room, when a burst of song in the street drew her to the window, and she saw a small procession of about twenty people go singing down the road, the leader waving an umbrella. Not staying to consider, she put on her hat and followed the march. It turned into a hall, which was already full of people, but Lucy slipped in at the back and stood. The meeting began with ’There is a Fountain filled with Blood.’ The girl was fascinated with the message given in song and testimony, until, suddenly remembering that her mother would have returned home and be anxious at her absence, she hurried away.
During the following week her mind was full of the strange street-singers. She made inquiries about them, and heard that they were Salvationists; ‘good people, but very queer.’ In her heart, the words–
I do believe, I will believe
That Jesus died for me;
That on the cross He shed His Blood,
From sin to set me free!
sang themselves over and over and over again.
The following Sunday evening she heard the singing in another street, and straightway started for the Salvationists’ hall, arriving in time to get a front seat. The message proclaimed the Sunday before rang out again: ’All have sinned; for all Jesus died, and through Him there is salvation for every one who repents of sin and believes on Him.’ To Lucy Lee it seemed that she was the only one to whom the message was directed; and, hearing the invitation for any who wished to find salvation to come forward and kneel at the penitent-form, she at once responded. Very soon her eager, seeking heart found the Saviour, and she hastened home to tell her mother the good news. Mrs. Lee had suffered many sorrows, and Lucy, although only in her teens, was a comfort who had never failed her. She was not pleased that her daughter was inclined to follow such extremists as the Salvationists evidently were; but when the girl said, ’Mother, they are thoroughly good, sincere people, you need have no fear of my going amongst them,’ Mrs. Lee became reassured that all was well, and unwilling to raise needless contentions, held her peace.
After a while Lucy begged permission of her mother that Kate might accompany her to a Sunday night meeting. Gaining her wish, the occasion proved to be something of an undertaking. The work was prospering, converts were increasing in numbers at the corps, and the roughs were moved to boisterous opposition. Kate was bewildered by the enthusiasm of the Salvationists, and the wild ways of the roughs, whilst Lucy was terrified for the white ribbon on her sister’s hat. This must be screened at all costs, for if the little mother had received any hint of mud-throwing and pushing, Kate would have paid her last visit to The Army, and Lucy was praying for her salvation. So, like a mother hen with wings outstretched, Lucy screened Kate’s hat with her arms and took her home in good order, though a little frightened and not over anxious to go to The Salvation Army again.
Lucy soon became a valiant soldier. Her religion was real. She not only believed; she felt deeply, and longed to witness for God. When called to the front to sing, she generally chose the song,
I have given up all for Jesus,
This vain world is naught to me,
All its pleasures are forgotten
In remembering Calvary.
Though my friends despise, forsake me,
And on me the world looks cold,
I’ve a Friend who will stand by me
When the Pearly Gates unfold.
Life’s morn will soon be waning,
And the evening bells will toll;
But my heart will know no sadness
When the Pearl Gates unfold.
Over and over again she sang this song, with the tears running down her face. It always carried a message to souls. As she became braver she spoke to the girls who came forward to the penitent-form.
Lucy longed to know that her own little sister was saved; but somehow, when she left the hall, courage to speak of spiritual matters forsook her. Six months passed away, and she had not spoken to Kate about her soul. At home, she endeavoured to live for Jesus; she sang Army songs whenever she was in the house; but to speak to her dear ones about their souls seemed impossible. She had ‘lock-jaw’ at the very thought. The Saviour’s face had seemed every day to shine upon Lucy; but now a cloud was coming between, and she knew the reason.
One evening, Mrs. Lee having some business which took her from home, the sisters were left alone. ’Lord, this is my chance; help me to make the most of it,’ Lucy prayed. The gas was lit, the fire cosy, and Lucy went to the piano and began to play and sing. She chose all the solemn, convicting songs she could think of, such as–
You’ll see the Great White Throne,
And stand before it all alone.
Kate had betaken herself to her favourite place, the hearthrug. She was silent until Lucy had reached the middle verse of ‘Almost persuaded,’ which she sang with due impressiveness. Then a sorrowful little voice quavered:–
‘I’m so lonely. I thought we were going to have such a nice time.’
Lucy at once got up. ‘Are you, dearie? Would you like some supper?’
‘No, I don’t want anything; I’m lonely and miserable,’ quavered Kate.
‘Well, then, we’ll go up to bed.’
Once in their room Lucy continued: ’I don’t think we want a light, do we?’ And sitting on the bed, her heart beating until her voice was uncertain, she put her arm round Kate’s waist, and began, ’Katie, dear, I’ve been wanting to have a special talk with you for a long time. You know I was saved six months ago, and I have been praying for you to be saved, too, but I’ve found it hard to talk to you about it. I’m so glad we’re alone to-night.’
’Didn’t you know I wanted you to talk to me? Haven’t you heard me crying every night in bed? I do want to be saved,’ and Kate burst into tears.
’Darling, I didn’t know. I’ve been stupid and shy; but I’m sorry. You can be saved just now. We’ll kneel down right here,’ said Lucy. The sisters knelt beside their bed, and Lucy led Kate step by step into the Kingdom of God. She knew she was a sinner? ‘Oh, yes,’ sobbed Kate. She was sorry for her sins? ‘Yes.’ She would give them up? every one? and would live henceforth only for God? ‘Yes!’ Then Jesus was saying, ‘Come unto Me, and I will give you rest.’ Did Kate believe it? ‘Yes!’ Then we’ll sing together the words I sang the night I was saved, ‘I do believe, I will believe that Jesus died for me.’ Together the sisters sang the chorus, just as if they were in a meeting; then they both prayed, and kissed one another, and got into bed.
Lucy went over it all, and praised the Lord for giving her the joys of salvation, first to herself, and now to the one she loved best in all the world, and so fell asleep.
Surely the angels looked down that night and smiled upon the sisters, the elder destined to be a patient, plodding, burden-bearer in the heavenly warfare, and the younger a great warrior in the Kingdom of Heaven, one of the saints and most successful field officers of the great Salvation Army.
From babyhood Kate Lee had been a delicate little mortal; she was so timid that even the visits of relatives to her home were a kind of torture to her, and she would hide in any corner rather than come forward and entertain or be entertained.
Her delicacy inclined her to selfishness, and her timidity to reserve and aloofness. She bid fair to grow up an insular, somewhat unlovable woman; but child though she was, conversion meant a radical change in character and purpose. She realized at once that as a follower of Jesus she might not live to please herself. She became interested in other people, their well-being and sorrows and needs. Then the joy of the Lord became her strength. It was so glorious to know that her soul was saved from sin; that she was at peace with God; that He had promised to be with her, and guide her, and help her through life, and give her Heaven at last. And this promise was for all the world; but people were still sinful and sad. Surely they did not know about Salvation. She must tell them!
Straightway she wanted to wear an Army bonnet, so as to silently witness for Jesus as she walked the streets. But opposition against Salvationists was strong in those days, and Mrs. Lee was fearful lest Kate should be roughly handled going to and from the meetings. In the matter of uniform, she had to content herself with a badge of Army ribbon. This she wore on her dress to school, and drew upon herself the ire of uncouth lads who noticed it; some even pelted her with mud. She used to remain behind after school hours to talk to her schoolmates about Salvation; some she won, but others resented her message. Invited to the birthday party of a school friend, she went, wearing as usual her Army badge. During the evening this was torn from her breast.
Kate’s eyes began to be opened concerning the attitude of the world towards Christ. She found that most people did not want to know of His will, much less do it, and that if she intended to devote her life to seek and to save souls she must be prepared to suffer with her Lord. Far from repelling her, the challenge called up the reserves of love and courage that until now had lain dormant in her spirit, and once and for all she took sides with Christ.
The shy little recruit, with eyes as blue as the sky, golden curls reaching to her waist, and a complexion like pink rose petals, sang her testimony in the meetings until she gained courage to speak. She was ever planning ways by which she could direct people’s thoughts toward God, and to arouse them to a sense of their spiritual state. An ingenious method she hit upon was to write carefully-worded little letters to the postmen and drop them into various pillar-boxes.
The family removed to Hornsey, and soon afterwards Lucy heard the ‘call’ to officership in The Salvation Army. This was the first real trial Mrs. Lee had felt in connexion with her daughters’ association with The Army. Though herself anything but a woman of war, she had not interfered with their choice of religion, for they were ‘such good girls.’ But to break her home circle was not in her reckoning. It was a pain that went deeper than the parting which caused tears to sting Lucy’s face as, on a snowy New Year’s day, she said good-bye to mother and sister and left home for the Training Garrison; but in her heart rang the words, ’If any man love father or mother more than Me, he is not worthy of Me.’ She must put God’s call first, and trust Him to bring all right.
Kate’s health remained frail, but her spirit grew stronger and stronger. Whenever able, she hied off to The Army hall, carrying her tambourine in a little green baize bag, and, as often as not, a bundle of ‘War Crys’ under her arm. In the Army papers she saw a powerful means of spreading Salvation, and she became a fearless Herald. [Footnote: One of a voluntary brigade of regular sellers.]
There are comrades at Wood Green who recall how on Wednesday nights Kate would go to the hall, fold a large bundle of ‘War Crys,’ and sally forth to the streets to sell them. The first time she ventured out on this service she saw a great, drunken navvy lounging against the door of a public-house. Mustering all her courage, the girl advanced and offered the paper to the drunkard. She felt she had scored quite a victory when the navvy bought a copy. By degrees she became braver, and would even go into the saloons to sell the periodicals. Then, noticing how the newsboys boarded buses with their papers, she thought that in the Lord’s service she should be as eager and enterprising as they, and she became quite agile, running up and down the iron steps as she joined the buses and offered her papers for sale to the passengers.
Veteran soldiers also recall Kate’s spiritual, earnest face, as she sat in side seats–known as ’the boxes’–at the Wood Green hall, whence she could study the congregation. As she recognized how people fell under conviction of sin during the progress of the meetings, she felt that she might help girls of her own age, who ‘didn’t look saved,’ if she sat beside them in the hall, and spoke to them when the prayer meeting was begun.
She was still shy, still nervous, but she suffered no excuse for herself when the heavenly vision made clear a path of duty. In later years, a corps cadet asked her if, in those days, she never said ‘I can’t.’ ‘Yes,’ she replied, ’I often said “I can’t, but I MUST,"’ and so she conquered.
To wear full Army uniform was still the desire of Kate’s heart. When she needed a new dress, she prevailed upon her mother to let it be a blue one, and by dint of great perseverance she made a uniform herself. Now, if she might but have the bonnet!
Lucy had passed through the Training Garrison, and was now an officer in the Field. A great Salvation demonstration was held at that time at the Alexandra Palace, and Lucy, with her captain, came to London for the important event. The mother and sisters met in the ground of the Palace. Lucy’s eyes were sparkling with quite extraordinary delight, and, needing a wash and brush up, she asked her mother to excuse Kate, and the girls slipped away.
‘Guess what I’ve got for you, little dear,’ Lucy exclaimed when they were alone. Kate laughed, but shook her head. Then, from a box, the elder sister drew a small Army bonnet. ‘Oh!’ gasped Kate, ’where did you get it?’
’I’ve been saving and saving for it, and at last here it is; and you’re going to wear it right off.’ Kate’s hat was transferred to the box and the bonnet tried on. ‘Darling, you look lovely; now come to mother,’ cried Lucy. Kate’s face was pink with pleasure, and her eyes shining with anticipation when the girls returned to Mrs. Lee. She looked a moment in surprise, then her eyes filled with tears. There was a beauty not of this earth about the child. She would not mar it. Kate might wear the bonnet. And thus it was that the mother, herself unreached with revelation, and untouched by inspiration, followed slowly but surely in her daughters’ steps.
Whilst Lucy was stationed at Folkestone it was a great joy to the sisters when it was arranged for Kate to visit her. To work amongst the people all day long, get them to the meetings at night, and ‘land’ them at the mercy-seat, seemed to Kate service that the angels might envy. One day she begged to be allowed to ‘visit’ [Footnote: Visiting the people in their homes–usually from house to house.] as her sister and the captain did. The captain consented somewhat reluctantly, but afterwards doubted the wisdom of allowing this child of fifteen to go alone into all manner of houses. Seeing Kate enter the home of a drunken sweep, she stepped along to the door and listened. Kate was dealing with the man as earnestly and directly, if not as skilfully, as she herself could have done. She smiled and turned away. When Kate had visited her street of houses, she returned to the quarters radiant. The sweep had promised to come to the meetings, and, ‘Just look what he gave me for tea,’ she announced triumphantly, and produced a currant loaf, a luxury in those days.
A kind-hearted woman soldier, touched by Kate’s delicate appearance, felt that the child needed the air of the hills, and abundant nourishment, and begged Lucy to allow her to take Kate to her home. Lucy, ever alive to Kate’s welfare, joyfully sent her off, and the child spent several health-giving months in the country. To help her happily to occupy her time, the good friend bought Kate a cheap concertina. By the hour she would sit in the sunshine, mastering the keyboard, and soon she could play simple Army tunes. How richly our Heavenly Father blesses the gifts of love! All unconsciously, the good soldier was preparing the Angel Adjutant of the future to win the hopeless and despairing of many great cities for God.
Kate had an extraordinary love for music. Her ambition had once been to make music her profession; but after her conversion she realized that there were higher things to live for than a successful career, and lest music should be a snare to her, she gave it up. This determination to allow nothing to interfere with her entire devotion to the will and service of God was a sure foundation for her spiritual life, but as she grew in the knowledge of God she realized that every gift may be consecrated to God’s service. She worked at the piano again; now she wrestled with the concertina, then tackled the banjo. Later they all became useful aids to her in her work amongst the people.
Soon after Kate’s return home from the country she wrote to Lucy telling her privately that for the upkeep of the home it was necessary that she should seek employment. This prospect caused Lucy much anxiety. Her own experience of earning her living in so seemingly irreproachable a business as photography returned to her with horror. The manager of the firm for which she had worked had been a dissolute man. Much of his conversation in the presence of the girl employees was incomprehensible to Lucy, who did her work faithfully, was pleasant and obliging, but lived her life largely apart from the others. Her later experience in moving amongst the people had enlarged her knowledge of life, and now she realized that, as a certain white flower with smooth petals remains unspotted at the mouth of coal pits, so by the innocency of her mind and the purity of her spirit, she had been preserved from dangers worse than death. The thought of Kate in such company was intolerable. With her usual motherliness towards her sister, she replied, ’On no account must you take a situation without my approval. Surely, there must be some godly place in London for you. I am going to pray hard that the Lord, will direct you to it, and you must wait till the right thing turns up.’
While Lucy was praying ‘hard,’ a representative of The Army Outfit Department visited her corps. He carried uniforms and books, set up a stall, and sold his goods before and after the meetings. Lucy knew little about the Outfit Department, but she was inspired with an idea. People must be needed to make the uniforms, she mused, and to sell the books, keep the accounts, and write letters. Why should not Kate be employed by The Army? She made inquiries of the salesman and was encouraged to write to Headquarters. God had heard Lucy’s prayer, and in a little while her sister found herself installed as a clerk at the Outfit Department at Clerkenwell.
Kate realized that a knowledge of shorthand would be to her advantage, and, obtaining the necessary books, she began to study, rising in the bright summer mornings at four o’clock and plodding her way along in spare minutes until she attained a speed of the coveted ‘hundred.’
So reliable was she found to be, that before long she received the title of lieutenant. She was very happy. All her time was now occupied in work for the Kingdom of Heaven; indirectly by day on correspondence and accounts, at night at the corps, she sought for souls, and she was ever a comfort to her mother.
So matters might have continued until to-day; indeed, one comrade of those years, a godly woman, ’content to fill a little space if God be glorified,’ still continues in the hidden but important duty of getting out uniform for the Salvationists. But deep in the silence of her soul Kate heard the call of God to leave this quiet post and seek the lost. Humanly speaking, there seemed to be every reason why she should not embark upon the life of a field officer.
When Kate mentioned her call to her mother, the little woman was overcome with sorrow and apprehension. She had become reconciled to Lucy’s absence, and even took pleasure in her work, but to part with her ’ewe lamb,’ to allow her to leave the shelter of her love and care and pour out her life in Army field service, was more than her faith could accept. She consulted the family doctor; he shook his head and declared that six months of such a life would kill her daughter.
Not one single voice was raised to encourage Kate Lee in obeying the Divine call. Even Lucy thought she was going ‘before the time.’ The soldiers of the corps expected her health would fail. Colonel Laurie, under whom she worked in the Outfit Department, says, ’She was a thoroughly good girl, conscientious and faithful in her work, but quiet and very frail. When she told me of her call, I would not discourage her faith, but I hoped she was not mistaken. The thought that she would ever become a spiritual leader in The Army never once occurred to me.’ Mrs. Lieut.-Colonel Moore, then Sister Stitt, Kate’s friend in the home corps, with many misgivings watched her go away. ’The home arrangements seemed so sensible; this fresh undertaking and her breaking away, so foolish! She was so good, always loving holiness, always sweet and unselfish, but terribly shy; and the idea of her roughing it, or becoming anything more than a behind-the-scenes officer, seemed impossible,’ said Mrs. Moore in passing on some reminiscences of her friend.
The day of farewell arrived, and with aching heart, conscious only of obeying the heavenly vision, Kate exchanged her title of lieutenant for that of cadet, took leave of her mother, and crossed London to the Training Garrison at Clapton.
General Bramwell Booth writes of this step, ’Her beginning was a great act of faith. She put her hand in her Master’s hand, and went out on the great adventure of Salvation Army life–stepping on to the waters with much tremulousness and many questions–but her faith carried her through.’
In those days the cadets were trained in small groups placed at certain corps, and to the Chalk Farm Garrison, under Ensign, now Brigadier, Elizabeth Thomas, Kate was appointed.
The brigadier, who has now retired from active service, delights to look back upon those days of rough fighting which tested the mettle of cadets, some thirty years ago. She says:–
When Kate came to me she was a sweet, fragile girl of about twenty. There was a look of indescribable tenderness about her, and a faraway look in her eyes. She might have been a sentimentalist, but there was no room for dreaming in that fight. From the first Kate showed an appreciation of her calling and a spirit that was determined to go through to the end. I have seen her lips quiver before we set out upon some bombardment, but her eyes were steadfast. She never refused a duty, nor failed in a charge. Every ounce of her was devoted to the work of the moment and to her own improvement for the future. She gave herself to every duty as it arose–boot-blacking, scrubbing, or scullery work–as readily as to her field training.
At one and the same time I had two cadets of exceptional promise– Kathleen Harrington and Kate Lee. Kathleen Barrington was a beautiful Irish girl, well educated, and from a home of wealth. She was full of enthusiasm, dash, and courage, and possessed a deep spiritual experience. Kate was not brilliant, and had merely an elementary education, but she was gentle and calm and refined by the grace of God, which seemed to permeate her whole nature. These two girls were kindred spirits. They were one in purpose, in outlook, and consecration. They delighted in each other’s company; and yet, so that there should be nothing that savoured of a clique in the Garrison, they devoted themselves to the other cadets, particularly linking up with those who were dull or timid and indulging their friendship only on occasions when the sign of preference for each other’s company would excite no jealousy.
Kathleen Harrington, after a brief service as a single officer and then as an officer’s wife, her life beginning to fulfil its brimming promise, radiant with happiness and victory, was promoted to Higher Service, while Kate Lee was left to wage warfare on earth.
Brigadier Thomas continues:–
There were about twenty-four girls at the Garrison. By 9:30, the work of the house was finished. From then till dinner hour, we had school, studying the Bible, the F.O., [Footnote: Orders and Regulations for Field Officers.] D.D., [Footnote: Doctrine of The Army.] and ’Why and Wherefore’. [Footnote: A book explanatory of Salvation Army terms and works.] After dinner the cadets set out for field training. These exercises included house-to-house visitation, open-air meetings, and ‘War Cry’ selling in the streets and the saloons. In our open-air meetings we were continually moved on by the police, but we aimed to deliver some definite message at each stand, and so to make our moving-on an occasion to reach more listeners.
Those were rough days. We had all our band instruments smashed and the windows of our Garrison as well, and one man, madly infuriated against us, heated a poker red hot and threw it into the hall amongst the congregation. We lived in danger to limb and life, but had the overshadowing presence of God with us.
Not every cadet who entered training had the grit to go through with it. Once, during her afternoon home, Kate sprained her ankle, but persuaded her mother to get a cab for her so that she might return to the Garrison the same night. ‘Why did you not remain at home to-night?’ an officer asked her, as Kate hopped into the Garrison. ’I was afraid you would think I had run away,’ she laughed, ’and I did not wish you to have that worry.’
Brigadier Thomas tells us:–
In house-to-house visitation I would take the cadets in turn, speak with the people on their door-steps, and, if possible, get into their houses and point them to God. Kate gloried in this. She was a most successful visitor.
Saloon ‘raiding’ was, perhaps, our most difficult work. We used ’The War Cry’ as a means of entrance and introduction. Going into the bar we offered the paper for sale and suggested singing one of the songs it contained. Conversation with the men and women followed, and before leaving we would pray. Often we were thrown out of the bars, and often, as we prayed, beer was dashed into our faces or over us, and on reaching the Garrison we would need to wash our clothes to remove the bar-room filth. ‘Trench mud’ we might have called it, had the war been on in those days. But the trial hardest of all to endure was the horrible talk of those dens of sin. Before leaving the Garrison we used to kneel and ask the Lord to sanctify our ears, and surely that was not the least of the prayers that He answered for us. Our souls were entirely delivered from that paralysing horror that the hearing of such profanity at first produced upon our minds, and we were kept in purity and simplicity as though such vileness had never been heard.
The only duty which Kate Lee really shrank from was to take up a collection for the maintenance of the Garrison. This was called the ‘Bread and Butter Box’; and the Cadets took turns to stand at the hall door after each meeting, hold the box and shake it. Kate heartily disliked this, but it was part of her duty, and she did it with a smile that brought success. In after years she became a wonderful woman, but in those early days she held the secret that made her wonderful. She walked with God. When the cadets had leisure time, the majority would engage in innocent chat of one kind and another; but you would find Kate a little withdrawn from the others, with her Bible. Yet there was nothing censorious about her. She was quick with a smile and an answer to any remark from the other cadets; but there she was, already her life was hid with ‘Christ in God.’
Captain Lucy rejoiced over her sister with trembling. She understood Kate’s willing, eager spirit, and the more she thought about her, the less did she believe her to be strong enough to take the position of an officer on field duty. So Lucy began to pray, and soon she felt inspired to act. Writing to Miss Evangeline Booth, then the Field Commissioner in London, she explained her fears for Kate, and asked if, for a year or two, her sister might be stationed with her.
The Commander was quick to see the wisdom of the suggestion, and after a few weeks Captain Lucy received orders for Penarth, in Wales, with Kate as her lieutenant. Her way lay through London, and she knocked at the home door one night. A quick, light step flew to answer it. ‘My captain!’ cried Kate. ‘My lieutenant!’ cried Lucy, as they clasped one another. Happy tears glistened in their eyes as they held each other at arms’ length to get a good view of each other in the full glory of their respective uniforms, and in the eyes of the little mother, who, learning to walk by faith, was finding the joy as well as the pain of sacrificing her treasures upon the altar of Christ.
We write in a matter-of-fact way that Captain Lucy and Lieutenant Kate Lee received an appointment to this or that corps, and the statement is received as it was written–without surprise or reflection. But, in truth, behind such a sentence lies one of the most notable achievements of The Salvation Army as a world force–the right to public service for women.
Looking over the fifty-five years of the life of The Army, and further back still, we can trace clearly the guiding hand of God in the formation and direction of this instrument of His choosing.
When, in the order of Divine providence, William Booth was chosen to be Founder of the Salvation Army, by strange, devious, suffering ways, God led him, chastened him, disciplined him in preparation for his great work. At the same time, Catherine Mumford, by the hand of God, was being fitted to be the Mother of The Salvation Army.
She was a delicate, retiring, but highly intelligent young woman of twenty-four years of age, when she heard her minister, in the course of a sermon, give expression to the view that women were mentally and morally inferior to men. At this suggestion Catherine Mumford felt a strong native resentment rise within her. Until that hour she had held the view that God had made men and women equal in gifts of mind and heart; now she made a thorough study of the subject in the light of the Word of God and of history, and as a result she formed a reasoned opinion from which she never swerved. In a letter, remarkable for its logic and its command of vigorous English, she set forth her views to her pastor. She admitted that prejudice and custom had relegated woman to positions inferior to those occupied by men; but argued that, given similar advantages of education and opportunity, woman is man’s equal, fitted to be his partner, and able, with great advantage to enter with him into all serious and practical counsels for the benefit of the race.
In championing the cause of her sex, Catherine Mumford found she had to take the field almost alone. Even William Booth, to whom she was then engaged, did not share her views. Mr. Booth believed that while woman carried the palm in point of affection, man was her superior in regard to intellect. Miss Mumford would not admit this for a moment; and by degrees, chiefly by the charming power of her own personality and also by argument, she wholly carried her beloved to her view-point.
In the ‘Life of Catherine Booth,’ by Commissioner Booth-Tucker, we find records of the young husband, soon after their marriage, urging his wife to lecture on various subjects.
The next move along the track which all unconsciously Mrs. Booth was blazing for a host of women to tread, publishing the Salvation of God, was in defence of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, a consecrated American evangelist who, in company with her husband, was conducting powerful mission services in England. Mrs. Palmer’s ministry, notwithstanding the fact that it was more honoured of God in the conversion of souls than that of her husband, excited a vigorous attack from a clergyman of a large church in Sunderland. In Catherine Booth’s breast again flamed that powerful resentment she had felt on the occasion previously mentioned. She wrote her mother saying that for the first time in her life she felt like taking the platform in order to answer the false views propounded concerning female ministry. Instead, she wrote a well-reasoned and convincing paper on woman’s right to preach–a pamphlet of some thirty-two pages. By this time her husband was so entirely with her in this matter that he encouraged her to make her defence. And we find Mr. Booth copying the pamphlet from his wife’s manuscript and preparing it for the press.
But while Mrs. Booth was the most powerful advocate in England of woman’s right to preach, she herself had never attempted to speak in public.
At last there came a day when she realized that her silence was not consistent with her profession and at great personal sacrifice she broke the bonds of timidity and publicly witnessed for her Lord. The following is an account from Mrs. Booth’s own lips of her experience given in a public meeting twenty years after she began to speak:
Perhaps some of you would hardly credit that I was one of the most timid and bashful disciples the Lord Jesus ever saved. But for four or five months before I commenced speaking the controversy had been signally roused in my soul, and I passed through some severe heart-searchings. During a season of sickness, it seemed one day as if the Lord revealed it all to me by His Spirit. I had no vision, but a revelation to my mind. He seemed to take me back to the time when I was fifteen or sixteen, when I first fully gave my heart to Him. He showed me that all the bitter way this one thing had been the fly in the pot of ointment, preventing me from realizing what I otherwise should have done. And then I remember prostrating myself upon my face before the Lord, and promising Him there in the sick room, ’Lord, if Thou wilt return unto me as in the days of old, and revisit me with those urgings of the Spirit, which I used to have, I will obey, if I die in the attempt.’ However, the Lord did not revisit me immediately. But He permitted me to recover, and to resume my usual duties.
About three months afterward I went to the chapel of which my husband was a minister, and he had an extraordinary service there. Even then he was always trying something new to get at the outside people. For this Sunday he had arranged with the leaders that the chapel should be closed, and a great out-door Service held at a place called Windmill Hills. It so happened, however, that the weather was too tempestous for carrying out this design, and hence the doors were thrown open and the meeting was held in the chapel. In spite of the stormy weather about 1,000 persons were present, including a number of preachers and outside friends.
I was, as usual, in the minister’s pew with my eldest boy, then four years old. I felt much depressed in mind, and was not expecting anything particular; but as the testimonies proceeded I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me. You alone who have experienced it can tell what it means. It cannot be described. I felt it to the extremity of my hands and feet. It seemed as if a Voice said to me, ’Now if you were to go and testify, you know I would bless it to your own soul, as well as to the people!’ I gasped again, and said in my heart, ’Yes, Lord, I believe Thou wouldst, but I cannot do it!’ I had forgotten my vow. It did not occur to me at all.
A moment afterward there flashed across my mind the memory of the bedroom visitation, when I had promised the Lord that I would obey Him at all costs. And then the Voice seemed to ask me if this was consistent with that promise. I almost jumped up, and said, ’No, Lord, it is the old thing over again. But I cannot do it!’ I felt as though I would sooner die than speak. And then the devil said, ’Besides, you are not prepared. You will look like a fool, and will have nothing to say.’ He made a mistake. He over-reached himself for once. It was this word that settled it. ‘Ah!’ I said, ’this is just the point. I have never yet been willing to be a fool for Christ. Now I will be one.’
Without stopping another moment I rose up from my seat and walked down the aisle. My dear husband was just going to conclude. He thought something had happened to me, and so did the people. We had been there two years, and they knew my timid, bashful nature. He stepped down and asked me, ‘What is the matter, my dear?’ I replied, ’I want to say a word.’ He was so taken by surprise that he could only say, ’My dear wife wishes to speak,’ and sat down. For years he had been trying to persuade me to do it. Only that very week he had wanted me to go and address a little Cottage Meeting of some twenty working people, but I had refused.
I stood–God only knows how–and if any mortal did ever hang on the arm of Omnipotence, I did. I felt as if I were clinging to some human arm; but it was a Divine one which held me up. I just stood, and told the people how it had come about. I confessed, as I think everybody should who has been in the wrong, and has misrepresented the religion of Jesus Christ. I said, ’I dare say many of you have been looking upon me as a very devoted woman, and one who has been living faithfully to God. But I have come to realize that I have been disobeying Him, and thus have brought darkness and leanness into my soul. I have promised the Lord to do so no longer, and have come to tell you that henceforth I will be obedient to the holy vision.’
There was more weeping, they said, in the chapel that day than on any previous occasion. Many dated a renewal in righteousness from that very moment, and began a life of devotion and consecration to God.
Now I might have ‘talked good’ to them till now. That honest confession did what twenty years of preaching could not have accomplished.
But, oh, how little did I realize how much was then involved! I never imagined the life of publicity and trial that it would lead me to, for I was never allowed to have another quiet Sabbath when I was well enough to stand and speak. All I did was to take the first step. I could not see in advance. But the Lord, as He always does when His people are honest with Him and obedient, opened the windows of Heaven, and poured out such a blessing that there was not room to receive it.
From that morning Mrs. Booth continued to respond to the call to proclaim Salvation, until she came to be regarded as one of the most powerful preachers of her day. Her service was not unattended with sorrow. For many years this shrinking woman had to face fires of criticism and blizzards of scorn; but she persevered.
Not only within the ranks of The Salvation Army has Mrs. Booth’s brave example borne a harvest of blessing, but in all walks of public life women now stand in the gates as co-workers with men in every righteous cause; sometimes they raise their voice for truth and equity where no other voice is heard.
When the Christian Mission began to take form, William Booth had no particular intentions as to the kind of helpers he was to have–either male or female. Female ministry evolved as a part of its service, as indeed the whole Salvation Army evolved, without premeditation or plan, indeed, as it is said of the Kingdom of God, ‘without observation.’ To Mr. Booth’s early meetings in the East End of London came a godly man and his wife to assist him with their sympathy. The woman was so shy as to be unable to pray aloud. She was in deep sorrow over the death of her two children. Later, when attending a holiness meeting, conducted in an old wood shed in Bethnal Green, this woman, Mrs. Collingridge, yielded herself entirely to God for His service. She knelt, a timid, broken woman, making the sincere offering of herself to God, and rose from her knees delivered from all fear and inspired with a message to the people. From that day, with the arresting power of a prophetess, she proclaimed the Saviour’s love and power. She could command a crowd of the wildest roughs in the open-air, or hold breathless a great theatre audience. She specially excelled in visiting the converts and others; so blessed was she in this work that Mr. Booth asked her to become the first paid woman member of the Mission.
Commissioner Railton tells of Mrs. Collingridge in his ’Twenty-one Years Salvation Army.’ He writes, ’It was no longing for publicity or notoriety that attracted her, for one hears not so much of her public work, blessed and glorious as that was, as the victories she won from garret to garret, from door to door, as she pressed on, resolved never, to the last hour, to give up a victim of sin.’ Worn out with loving and seeking souls, this–after The Army Mother–the first woman officer of The Salvation Army was promoted to glory, triumphing in God to her last breath. Mrs. Collingridge was the forerunner of such spirits as Kate Lee. She raised up and trained a band of brave women fighters; these women were used with remarkable success in the growing Mission. William Booth was hard put to find sufficient evangelists for the rapidly increasing stations about London and in the Provinces. God had signally blessed the Women’s Band as visitors and exhorters, and William Booth saw in them qualities that caused him to believe that, given opportuity, woman would excel as a leader–a commander.
Necessity urged the experiment. The first woman chosen for this purpose was Annie Davis, who later, as Mrs. Commissioner Ridsdel, after most distinguished service as a soul-winner, was promoted to glory. A quiet girl from a village, she had been converted in the old hall used by the Mission under the Railway Arch at Bethnal Green. From the first it was evident that the power of God rested upon her.
Annie Davis was placed in charge of the small Christian Mission Society in Barking. At the end of her term of office she left a flourishing work. She had managed her committee, successfully led her people, paid her way, and left a balance in hand.
The fact had been demonstrated that a woman was as capable of filling the position of an evangelist as a man. Kate Watts (now Mrs. Colonel Josiah Taylor) was then sent in charge of the Mission Work at Merthyr, in Wales, where she was used by God in the salvation of hundreds of souls–and Mrs. Reynolds ‘opened fire’ at Coventry. To Captain Reynolds was presented, on behalf of the Coventry Corps, the first Flag of The Salvation Army.
The Hallelujah Lass became an indispensable part of The Salvation Army. No effort was made to set these women in one common mould and turn them out replicas of the first. Indeed their naturalness, the very differences in disposition and method added to their usefulness.
In great contrast to the women already mentioned, was the type of whom ‘Happy Eliza’ was a specimen. Rough and ready and entirely fearless, she knew how to capture the most indifferent crowds. At one corps where ordinary methods had failed to secure the people, she marched through the streets with streamers floating from her hair, and on her back a placard bearing the words ‘I’m Happy Eliza.’ The denizens of public-houses and the slums flocked to the hall to hear a preacher who evidently understood them. At another place where a theatre was to be opened as a Salvation Army hall, she advertised the meetings by hiring a cab. On the box a man beat a drum, inside two or three others played brass instruments, while Happy Eliza took up her position on the luggage on the top, and drove through the streets alternately playing a fiddle and distributing handbills announcing the coming meetings.
Another indomitable was Chinee Smith. Trampled on by a Lancashire mob, her bonnet torn from her head, her shoes from her feet, she marched in her stockings through the streets to the hall, her hair streaming down her back. Taking her place on the platform she led the meeting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The hall was packed and souls sought salvation.
The Army’s Founder began to recognize that almost limitless possibilities lay in these women. Since they could attract and win sinners to Christ, could command the people of their corps with acceptance, why should they not be placed in charge of Divisions? He saw no reason. Captain Reynolds was promoted to the rank of major, and placed in charge of The Salvation Army work in Ireland, and the decision was fully justified by the blessed results which followed.
Thus, in a perfectly natural way, without design, woman’s position in The Salvation Army was established. To-day, there is no rank or position in its ranks which a woman may not occupy, including even that of General.
As may be supposed, the greater number of women officers marry officers, and therefore, as a rule, merge their activities into their husband’s work. This being the case, not so many women occupy leading positions as men. Nevertheless, women are to be found holding the highest rank and occupying leading positions in every phase of Army warfare. As Territorial Commander, Mrs. General Booth was for several years responsible for The Army’s work in Great Britain and Ireland; Commander Evangeline Booth for that of the United States; Commissioner Lucy Booth-Hellberg for Norway; Commissioner Adelaide Cox has direction of the Women’s Social Work in Great Britain. Commissioner Mildred Duff is editor of The Salvation Army literature for Young People. Commissioner Hannah Ouchterlony pioneered our work in her native land, Sweden, and now in a cloudless eventide looks with joy upon a glorious work, the foundations of which she laid in the face of fierce opposition. Lieut.-Commissioner Clara Case represents The Salvation Army woman missionary, having just retired from active service after twenty-seven years in India, during the greater part of which time she commanded the work in Southern India. Lieut-Colonel Catherine Booth, as International Secretary at Headquarters, is the General’s representative for Salvation Army work in European countries.
There are women Divisional Commanders, financiers, training officers, editors, teachers, and social, medical and nursing officers; and, by no means least, a host of efficient and devoted Corps Commanders of which Kate Lee was so worthy a representative.
Upon the woman officer of The Army rests no less responsibility than that carried by a man occupying a similar position, and she is expected to ‘deliver the goods’ as her male comrade in like circumstances would be required to do. And she does it.
The Salvation Army affords an unrivalled field of usefulness to young women who wish to devote their lives to the service of God. No organization offers a wider, if so wide a door. As one of its songs has it, ‘There’s a place in The Army for all’: for the educated and cultured, whose hearts are free from selfishness and fired with holy passion to seek and save the lost, and equally for the young woman of moderate gifts and elementary education, whose heart is also pure and whose soul is illuminated by Divine love.
The Army is by no means ‘a happy hunting ground’ for faddists or sentimentalists who think religious service consists in ‘sailing round’ singing songs, and whispering sweet nothings or shouting declarations. It is an Army out to fight another army; to wrestle; to conquer; to take prisoners, and to establish and govern territories. The Salvation fight demands the best a man and woman can give of heart and mind, of sacrifice and service. But, as one exuberant Salvationist has expressed, ’There’s stacks of fun in The Army!’ There are excitement, adventure, tragedy, and comedy, joy and sorrow, the like of which is found in few, if any other callings. Men and women who have gone out of its ranks or its commands, weary of the endless sacrifice and strain its service entails, and who are to-day well placed and full of the good things of this life, still sigh at the remembrance of the days of their warfare, and declare that the joy of a Salvation Army officer’s life is without compare in spiritual work.
The spirit of comradeship which exists between superior and junior officers is a real and beautiful thing. While Kate Lee as a girl captain was wrestling with the problems of her first corps in the villages of England, the writer of her memoir, then also a girl captain, was leading a village corps in her native Australian mountains. Since Kate cannot tell of the kindness of her Divisional Commanders, I may, for the sake of illustration, be permitted to mention my own experience in this relation, incidentally also showing The Army spirit in operation at the other end of the world from The Army hub.
At that time I was stationed at a mining township eighty miles from a railway. The distances between towns in that part of Australia being so great, my Divisional Commander, Major Jonah Evans, now retired, was able to visit my corps only once during my term of nine months there, but he kept in constant touch with his young officers by correspondence. Next to my mother’s weekly letter, I looked forward to one from my Divisional Commander. In my weekly dispatch I gave him a full account of everything that concerned my corps, which he was patient enough to read and to reply to carefully, giving such advice as he thought would help me in my work. Also, occasionally, a letter would arrive from his late sweet wife, who, as Captain Helen Morrell, had seen remarkable revivals amongst the Welsh miners. Passing on to city corps, where conditions were entirely different and responsibilities pressed heavily, Major William Hunter, now in Heaven, was my true friend as well as an able leader. The help and direction which such experienced officers are able to give to young men and women who are full of earnestness and desire to reach and bless the souls of the people, minimize the weight of responsibility sometimes thrown upon young shoulders.
Thirty years ago, when Kate Lee began her career as a field officer, The Army had not reached that place in public esteem which it enjoys to-day. The worst days of rioting and persecution had passed, and right of public speech in the streets had been gained in many countries after a long struggle. But The Army was still regarded as something of a nuisance by the majority of educated people, a good thing for the very worst by a few, with indifference or hostility by the mass. To wear the uniform was to bring upon one contumely, often persecution. Salvation Army officers were sometimes perhaps ill fed and poorly clad; nevertheless, because of the opportunity their position afforded to seek and find the lost, Kate Lee counted herself blessed above millions when she sewed the insignia of a lieutenant upon her collar.
Six months of joyous service amongst the Welsh miners was cut short by a telegram announcing to the sisters the serious illness of Mrs. Lee. Taking the news to their Divisional Commander, they were instructed to Headquarters. It was found that the illness was due to shock. The income from investments of the little estate left by Mr. Lee had dwindled; it now had disappeared altogether.
Captain Lucy faced the matter with her usual practical decision. ’Mother, darling, there are two ways out. Either I must come home and work and care for you, or you must come with us. If Headquarters would agree to you accompanying us from corps to corps, would you be willing to break up the home and come?’ By this time Mrs. Lee had become possessed by what is known amongst Salvationists as ‘The Army Spirit.’ She loved this wonderful Army which cared for, and sought and found the lost. She would not have her girls come out of the fight. ’I cannot preach, Lucy, but maybe there is some niche I could fill. I would like to come,’ she said.
So it was arranged, and shortly the little household, was transferred to Norwich. How happy they were! Captain and Lieutenant Lee, busy from morn till night, week in and week out, seeking the souls of the people. The mother in the little quarters, sitting with her work-basket beside the window, giving a smile to passers-by, and welcoming her daughters as they came to meals, always bringing with them some new tale of joy, of sorrow, of fighting, of victory or defeat. The little mother truly found her niche. Soldiers and adherents came to reckon upon her gentle patient influence, and her “never-mind-me” spirit was a constant sermon. She could sympathize and she could pray, and she sewed unceasingly for the annual sales of work, making useful articles out of the smallest and oddest remnants. She found supreme happiness in her Army warfare.
While Captain Lucy shielded Lieutenant Kate, she also gave her a practical training.
At Norwich they saw a great work amongst the worst characters of the city; many drunkards were transformed by the grace of God. One of the number, a soldier of the corps to-day, sends his grateful tribute to Lieutenant Kate’s persistence in holding up his tottering steps until they grew steady upon the heavenly way. The sisters had the joy of erecting a citadel in the Bull’s Close.
At King’s Lynn, visitation of the homes of the people was a specialty of their work.
It is to be regretted that neither Lucy nor Kate Lee kept a journal. They were too busy seeking the lost, and after finding them and rejoicing over them were too weary to record their experiences, interesting and profitable as they would have been for us to read about. Their official diaries furnish little more than entries of meetings conducted and other duties performed. The only preserved reminiscence of their work is found in an ‘All the World’ of 1895. Commissioner Duff, then editor of that journal, beguiled Captain Lucy into chatting about her work at King’s Lynn covering three days, and used the conversation as an unconscious answer to the oft-repeated taunt thrown at our officers in those days ’Go and work.’ The following are extracts:–
Friday. Back from London at five. So pleased to find lieutenant waiting for me on the platform, with a smile. Tea ready at home. While telling her about my London trip, the man brought my box. Paying him, he said, ’I always listen to your Open-Air on a Sunday; but I have one thing against you, you are so down on the drink.’ My chance! So I let him have it straight for ten minutes, when he gave me a penny for the collection, shook hands, and went off.
On the way to 7 o’clock converts’ meeting, took Mrs. — to see doctor. She was nervous at going alone. New converts turned up well. Brother — very bright. Soon after he got saved he painted his door to help to make his home nice, and the old women of the street came and smeared their dirty hands over it, to hear him swear. But the Lord kept him, and all the street believes in him to-day. And old Dad who cries when he talks, he feels so grateful to God for saving him.
When on our knees with our eyes shut, singing, Brother —, two months saved, came over to me and said softly ’I’m afraid I’m slipping back, Captain.’ Poor lad, his home is nearly unendurable. His mother said she would sooner see him dead than a Salvationist. We all prayed, sang, and I believed for him, and he got beautifully right. Read and explained Isaiah liv., ’No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper!’ We all marched into the holiness meeting at 8 o’clock. Some glorious testimonies. Closed with united consecration at 9:15, and met bandsmen to appoint new bandmaster. I was not quite sure as to how they would take the appointment; but went in and got them all on their knees, took up the holiness meeting chorus, ’I’ll be, Lord, I’ll be what You want me to be,’ and prayed. When on our feet again, I started off at once and got through without any hitch or word of dissent, finishing up most successfully. Praise God for this! Ran home to join the lieutenant and the treasurer and the secretary who were finishing the cartridges, [Footnote: Small envelopes in which Salvationists make their weekly gift for the maintenance of the work.] and we started on the books. Money well up this week; over thirty shillings to meet the gas bill. Hallelujah!
Saturday. Breakfast as usual, at eight, and prayers. Then we started our weekly clean-up. I take upstairs; lieutenant down. People have got to know that Saturday is our day home, and come to see us. Had good spell of work. Then a poor woman and her daughter in great distress called; advised that they should go to law, and make the child’s father support it. They are doing this. When I went with them to see the solicitor, he seemed to think they would succeed. Talked matter over with them, then had to leave lieutenant to finish with them, as Bandsman — came. Misunderstanding with comrade. Hot-tempered; feels he has disgraced himself; better give in instrument. Long talk with him. Showed him his duty was to admit his wrong, and ask forgiveness. At last willing to do so; prayed the Lord’s help and grace; took back instrument and went off happy. Dinner ready, then off to funeral, fixed for 2:30. Dear little Nellie! Glad I was able to be with her the last night. Had run in for a minute from open-air. Stayed till 5:30 in the morning. She was all night dying. Mother too overcome to be able to be with her. It was Nellie’s wish I should bury her. Band turned up; nice meeting at house, then marched to the cemetery; hundreds there. All assembled in chapel; I in pulpit. A child’s funeral seems a marvellous opportunity. Many in tears. Lord, make the impression lasting! Thankful I got quiet time in the train yesterday to prepare for Sunday. I’ve had no time since.
Before open-air went to see Mrs. —. Saturday is a specially trying day. Husband drinks heavily. So cruel to her. Found her very depressed. Tries to keep her home nice, but he makes it very hard. ’Been wondering to-day if God does hear my prayer. My husband only seems to get worse; the devil has been tempting me all day to give up.’ Read to her promise in Isaiah li., ’I am He that comforteth you.’ Seemed too depressed to grasp it. ’It is for you’ I said, and took her hand. Got down on my knees and prayed. She began to cry. ’I’ve been doubting and despairing all day,’ she said; ’but if He’ll forgive me, I will trust my Saviour.’ Bless her. Hurried on; just in time for open-air. Very good meeting inside. All going on well, except —. What can we do for him? Cost us more tears, and time, and prayers than all the rest put together. He seemed so satisfactory, then he backslid and came into the meeting drunk. Lieutenant could not let him go back. Brought him from the saloon, and now there he is in the back seat, all rags and misery. Too drunk to do anything but cry. He has lost the place we got him. Pawned his things. People laugh at us for our attempts; but we can’t give him up. That lost sheep, ‘until He findeth it,’ is my watchword for him.
Sunday. Nice number at knee-drill. On march from open-air, great excitement. The cry was raised in one of the narrow streets, ‘Runaway horse!’ I was terrified for the children, but the lads made a line across the street, and the color-sergeant put the pole of the flag crosswise, barring the way; so we stopped the horse, and no one was hurt. A helpful time, I think, in the holiness meeting. Read from Exodus xxxv., showing how the people listened and obeyed God’s word. After the meeting, saw the soldiers, who were on outpost duty, going off in the best of spirits. Stopped to speak to Sister — who is anxious about her son. Got home at one o’clock. Before dinner was finished some one came to fetch us, from the next street, to see a man who was dying, and who, in his delirium, was screaming for the captain. Found him in a dreadful state. At first I tried to soothe him. Soon I saw that he must speak. He had sat for years in the meetings, knowing what he ought to do, and never doing it. ’You’ve pleaded with me so often, and others have too,’ he began, ’and I’ve always put off deciding. I have asked God to forgive me. Will you forgive me, too?’ Prayed with him, and left him quieter. Went on to the hall in time for the Junior meeting. Most touching time. The children knew and loved little Nellie. When after the Company Lesson, [Footnote: Sunday School Bible Lesson.] I spoke to them of her beautiful life, they all cried, and we had a little dedication meeting, giving ourselves to God to live like Nellie, and claiming His power for help. Afternoon free-and-easy. Hall just on full, but could not keep the meeting on as we had the memorial service.
A funeral march is a sermon in itself. The indoor meeting was very solemn. Lieutenant read. She is coming on well. What a comfort she is to me. I don’t know how I should have got on here if we had not been so united. She is devotion itself.
The Lord gave us four souls. Two of them, unsaved relations of Nellie’s. It seemed the seal of Heaven upon her beautiful life. Oh! there is nothing like seeing souls saved! Said to lieutenant, as we crept home–and we feel we may have the luxury of being tired out on a Sunday night–that next to being an angel, there is no position in the world like being a field captain.
After King’s Lynn, Captain and Lieutenant Lee were appointed to Great Yarmouth. Here, an illness broke up the little household. During an epidemic of influenza, Kate was laid low, and before she had recovered, Lucy became ill. But the Chief of the Staff [Footnote: Now General Bramwell Booth.] was coming to Yarmouth; that was to be a great event. Lucy had taken the Drill Hall for the occasion, and would not rest until she had completed the arrangements for the campaign. The Chief had stirring meetings, with great crowds and many converts, but the captain lay at the quarters struggling with pneumonia. To this day Lucy cherishes the memory of The General’s visit to her bedside, where he commended her valiant service and prayed that she would be spared to the War. After her mother had nursed her through the illness she remained delicate, and in order to relieve her from open-air duties and assist in re-establishing her health, Headquarters appointed the captain to office work. The small family did not reunite, Mrs. Lee remaining with Lucy, until years later she was promoted to glory.
This break was the Lord’s way of thrusting Kate forth to take responsibilities of her own. Her health was now fairly robust, and her experience of life much broader. Promoted to the rank of captain, she went to take charge of her first corps, and we have fortunately her own account of her reception. Some years before her promotion to glory, during a rather long period of sick furlough, the General wished Kate to prepare reminiscences of her field experience. To speak of herself or her work, was ever the most difficult of orders for Kate to obey, but she meant to try. Amongst her papers was found a single sheet on which she had written headings for a series of reminiscences. A further hunt discovered two sketches which she had intended for publication anonymously. One of these is here given in full:
The Wrong Clothes.
The captain was going to take charge of her first corps, and as the train sped along her heart beat faster as each stop brought her nearer her destination. Would anyone be there to meet her? What was the town like? And the people? Above everything else, what about the lieutenant? These were the thoughts that came racing through her brain as the train dashed along.
The train slowed down. A porter’s voice announced the station, and she looked but of the window for a Salvation welcome, but no friendly face was there. Leaving her baggage, except for her handbag, at the station, she trudged off to find the quarters. There was no welcome there. After securing the key from a neighbour she entered the dwelling. Fortunately, there was sufficient tea in the caddy to make the longed-for cup, and with the lunch that had been forgotten on the exciting journey, she refreshed herself. There was no letter; no news of the lieutenant, and the indifferent neighbour could only say that she had been asked to hold the key until the new captain arrived.
The time for the meeting drew near, but no Salvationist called, and a feeling of strangeness and loneliness came upon the captain. Falling on her knees, she called upon God to help her. The realization of His Presence, the prospect of having a little corps of her very own, enabled her to smile at her fears, and to sally forth to seek The Army hall. At last it was discovered. Such a tiny place! A small burying ground surrounded it, giving it a dismal appearance. The door was closed, so the captain went and inquired for the key, and was informed that the hall would be opened in time for the meeting. After waiting for some time, a girl appeared, and, in a sullen way, opened the door. ’If only the lieutenant were here,’ the captain thought. By 8:30 two lads and a few children had mustered. Her first meeting in her own corps was one of the most difficult she had conducted. There was a strange something, a mysterious atmosphere which she could not understand.
The last train did not bring the lieutenant, and the captain, committing herself to God, decided she must make the best of the circumstances. She had no desire for supper and went to bed. Awakened next morning by a stream of beautiful sunshine, she realized where she was, and the dreariness and coldness of the past night’s experiences returned. ’If only the lieutenant were here,’ again she sighed. ‘If–but this will not do,’ she cried aloud, ’I must not let the first little struggle discourage me. Perhaps I was cold and tired last night, and perhaps the people did not really expect me–or perhaps–! Anyway, I am going to do my very best for God and souls here.’ Looking up to her Heavenly Father, she sought strength for the day. She made a scanty breakfast, then set about, righting the quarters. Her box had arrived, and from it she took her knick-knacks; a few cheery texts for the wall, and her beloved books, helped to make the place look homelike. Then she scanned the visitation book, making a plan for the afternoon.
That first visitation was a trying experience. ’How strange and cold these people seem to be!’ There was no answer to her knock from two or three houses. Everybody appeared to be out. At the next house she was sure she heard a sound that indicated that some one was at home, so she knocked with a determination that secured an answer. An upstairs window was thrown open. ’What do you want?’ snarled an angry voice. ‘Does Mrs. S— live here?’ ‘Yes, what do you want with her?’ ’I’m the new captain, and I’ve come to see her, is she at home?’ ’I’m Mrs. S—, but I’m too busy to come down. Good-day!’ The captain turned away, sick at heart, but determined to have another fry. Still, that afternoon was a very disappointing one, and she brought it to a finish with another visit to the station to inquire if there was a likely train that might bring the lieutenant. At night she went alone again to the hall, opened the door, but waited in vain for even the sullen girl and the little children.
On returning to the quarters, she found a letter awaiting her from the Divisional Commander regretting that the lieutenant was ill, and could not join her for at least a month. ’A month alone in this cold atmosphere!’ It seemed an endless age to anticipate, but now she faced the worst, and was determined to fight through to victory.
Saturday night found her at the open-air stand, waiting and hoping that some one would turn up, when to her relief, she espied a brass instrument glistening in the distance, and she rejoiced to greet her first bandsman. He approached in an indifferent way, but she was becoming more used to the ‘cold climate.’ When other bandsmen appeared she felt that, in spite of the stiffness, she loved her corps already. She would have been quite happy had the lieutenant been there, but to walk in front of that band without the satisfaction of knowing there was one sister in the rear, was a trial.
She put her best into the meetings; gave the address that had been prepared with tears and care, but her words seemed to fall flat. The prayer-meeting was hard and no souls came to the mercy-seat. At the end of that first week-end, she exclaimed to a local officer her surprise that no sisters attended the open-air meetings, and that everybody seemed strange. ‘Oh, so you don’t understand?’ he said. ‘You have got on the wrong clothes!’ ‘What do you mean?’ the captain inquired. ’Well, we are all disappointed. We wanted men officers. You have got on the wrong clothes.’ The captain did not reply, but determined that she would make those soldiers want her before she concluded her stay amongst them. She had a difficult task, the people were clannish, and their prejudice was not easily overcome.
Her first move was to arrange a social cup of tea. She prepared a dainty little spread, although the funds were low, for she did the baking herself. Every soldier was invited personally, and she felt rewarded when twenty-five out of her fifty soldiers responded. The little venture seemed to break the ice, and this first sign of success was followed by a tea for sisters only, and the disappointed sisters became quite reconciled to their girl captain.
The long month at last came to an end. With great happiness the captain welcomed her lieutenant. A bright fire was in the grate, the kettle singing on the hob, as over their first cup of tea they rejoiced that love had conquered. In the lieutenant’s welcome meeting, the break came, when a number of soldiers reconsecrated themselves to God. On the following Sunday night, the address was cut short by a woman rushing to the penitent-form, followed by several others. The soldiers were stirred, and the fires of love and enthusiasm burnt up the smallness and prejudice. Their cup ran over when they saw a poor drunkard of their town changed by the power of God.
Prejudice is a difficult thing to overcome. It starves the soul and withholds the blessing of God; but the fire of love can overcome it and enable one to triumph even over the ban of ’wrong clothes.’
After commanding three corps, giving to the people of each town her best service, a sharp attack of pneumonia carried Captain Lee away from corps work, and for a time it seemed that a constitutional bronchial weakness, now aggravated, would bring her regular public work to an early termination.
A term in the Naval and Military Department at Headquarters in London introduced Kate to a new sphere of Army service. Hitherto, her vision of the Salvation battlefield had been limited to the particular corps at which she soldiered or commanded, but contact with men who went to the ends of the earth and found The Army at almost every port, blessing them in soul and body, lifted her horizon until it became world-wide. Kate Lee began to realize the greatness of the organization to which she belonged.
A breakdown in the Naval and Military Home at Chatham placed Captain Kate in charge of that institution, with full responsibility for the catering, house-keeping, and meetings, and the visitation of ships in the harbour. A sister Salvationist writes:–
When first I saw her at the Naval and Military Home, I was impressed by her innocence, youth, and fragile appearance. For such a girl to bear the responsibility of so large an institution, was a marvel in my eyes. With one or two other comrades I used to accompany her to the ships in the Medway, to sing to the men. When a good crowd had gathered on the deck, Captain Kate would speak to them and invite them to come to The Army Home when they were ashore. The Home was packed out. She conducted bright meetings, and many soldiers and sailors were converted. Despite her youth, the men looked to her as an elder sister; gave into her keeping their bank-books and money, and sought her advice in their difficulties. So greatly did the Home succeed during the captain’s stay, that she had the pleasure of seeking for a site on which now stands the Home which does such excellent service in Chatham to-day.
With health fully restored, the call of the field was insistent, and Captain Lee begged to be allowed to take a corps again. She was appointed to Whitstable, Kent, and for the next fourteen years she poured out her life as a ceaseless offering for the souls of the people in town and city, in various parts of the United Kingdom.
A casual view of the work of a Salvation Army field officer might suggest that for such a position few qualities other than enthusiasm and some ability for public speaking are necessary. Such an idea is as wide of the mark as may be.
A field officer of The Army has the honour to be chosen for service similar to that William Booth undertook when he first turned to the unchurched masses of the East End of London. To him is committed the spiritual responsibility for the town or part of the town in which he is stationed. He is there to preach in the streets to the people who will not go to places of worship, and by every lawful means to compel them to his hall for help at closer range. He is there to visit the sick, to seek out the drunkard, to visit the police court, to encourage, and lift, and lift again the weak and stumbling. He is there to answer letters from anxious parents, to hunt up straying sons and daughters, to rebuke sin; in outbreaks of infectious disease and catastrophies to administer comfort and help to the sorrowing and bereaved; to instruct the children; to shepherd and inspire the band of Salvationists already attached to his corps; to raise money for the furtherance of The Army work. Indeed, nothing which affects the well-being of the populace lies outside the sphere of the officer of The Salvation Army.
All corps are not the same. There is the city corps, with its hundreds of soldiers; an efficient brass band and songster brigade, home league, young people’s work, and various other departments. The business man finds that the hustle, the high rent, floating population and the keen competition of the city necessitates extraordinary care and daring to ensure success. The same applies to our officers in charge of city corps.
There is the sea-side corps, with its thousands of visitors and ‘trippers’ whom The Army officer seeks to reach and bless. There is the suburban corps, with its settled residential population. There are corps in industrial centres with features peculiar to them; and the village corps, where long distances are covered by the officers in their efforts to reach the scattered population. Each corps presents to the field officer special problems as well as special opportunities.
To be a field officer as near perfection as possible, was the ambition of Kate Lee’s life. In this calling she believed she could best serve God and win souls from sin to righteousness. She began as a lieutenant, receiving twelve shillings per week and her furnished quarters, and when an adjutant at the height of her success, not only as a soul-winner, but as an organizer and manager of unusual ability, who in commercial or civil life could have commanded a large salary, she received a guinea (about $5.00 at normal exchange) a week and her quarters. [Footnote: These figures relate to the pre-war scale of allowances.] Kate Lee laid up her treasure in heaven.
As a Corps-Commander, she saw service in every kind of corps. Beginning amongst the villages, with tiny hall and a handful of people to care for, by sheer merit, she rose to command the most important corps in the British Territory.
She laid good foundation for a successful career. For the direction of field officers, The Army Founder wrote a book of Orders and Regulations known in The Army as “The F.O.” It is a volume of some six hundred pages packed from cover to cover with matter as interesting as it is logical and practical. Every phase of the officer’s life and service is therein dealt with. An officer might be located on Easter Island, separated from all oversight, and if he consulted his ‘F.O.,’ and commanded his corps according to its advice and directions, he would surely build The Salvation Army in miniature.
So entirely had Kate Lee assimilated William Booth’s spirit and adopted his methods in relation to her work, that she might well have been his own daughter. She lived the ‘F.O.’ in relation to her own soul, her lieutenant, her soldiers, every section of her corps; to the backsliders, to the great masses of the ungodly, to the civic authorities, to the churches, to her comrades and superior officers. And she succeeded wonderfully.
Adjutant Lee set to work in a methodical, practical way. On taking charge of a corps, she first consulted “The Soldiers’ Roll” in order to ascertain the size and condition of her charge as a fighting force; next she examined the cashbooks in order to find out her financial responsibilities. Lastly she took steps to gain an accurate idea of the condition of the town, morally and spiritually.
Says the treasurer of one of her corps:–
Soon after she arrived here she gave me a list of questions, including, ’How many saloons in the town? How many houses of ill fame? How many places of worship? What proportion of people go to church? When she compared these figures with the population she was able to estimate the grip of evil on the town, and the efforts made by the people of God to combat it. She reckoned all the godless people of the town were her concern, and laid her plans accordingly. She called upon the police, the civic authorities, and the ministers, intimating that she was there for the good of the city, and asked to be allowed to co-operate with them. It was not long before the governing people realized that an uncommon force for righteousness had come among them.
Says another of her local officers, ’Our city had never been so conscious of the presence of The Salvation Army as a regenerating force in its midst, as during her stay.’
Her ministering spirit played like a flame upon every section of the corps until the whole organization pulsated with life. Every evening of the week the citadel was ablaze with light and humming with activity, the soldiers unwilling to stay away one night for fear of missing a good thing.
In order to promote a spirit of prayer in a corps, the Adjutant’s plan was to form a prayer league. She chose the most spiritual amongst her soldiers and adherents, and pledged them to spend a portion of each day in prayer for an outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the corps and town. These comrades became a great strength in the battles for souls which developed. At some of her corps a few of these comrades remained in a room praying during the whole of the service on Sunday night; and when the prayer meeting began, they quietly made their way to either side of the penitent-form; their earnest pleading for the unsaved having much to do with the victories gained. Others were formed into a “Fishing Brigade.” [Footnote: Salvationists selected to speak personally with those likely to be brought to decision for Christ.] These were posted about the hall, and, at a given signal in the prayer meeting, moved amongst the unsaved and urged them to decision.
Soldier-making was Adjutant Lee’s object. A full penitent-form meant little to her unless the kneeling penitents became fighters for God. To this end she visited, and ‘nursed’ and trained and commanded–and with good results. But while she had a keen eye for the new recruit, she mourned and battled for the deserters. She had taken to her heart the Old General’s counsel on this score, part of which reads:–
The Field Officer must watch against heart backsliding. When soldiers drop off from knee-drill; when they are not found in the ranks in bad weather; when they no longer remain to the prayer meetings; when they come only now and then to the week-night services; and when they cease to testify as frequently, heartily, and definitely as in former days, the F.O. should conclude there is something wrong; decay has commenced. He should deal with such at once, and give them no rest.
No officer should refuse to seek the restoration of a backslider because of the disgrace he has brought upon the corps by his falling into old ways; old habits of drunkenness or uncleanness, fighting or thieving, or any other vulgar form of sin. The F.O. should consider the shame of the man himself, if he is permanently left to rot in the ditch of corruption, and the sorrows that burden the heart of His Master, for one for whom He has given His precious Blood.
Heart backsliders or open backsliders were all the same to her–deserters to be followed down and brought back to loyal service. One tells that he had been away from the fight for six years. She heard of him by a casual remark one comrade made to another, got his address and surprised his home by a visit.
‘After that,’ says this comrade, ’she slipped into our house for a few minutes every day until she won us back to God and The Army. Sometimes she might not even sit down; just kneel a moment and pray with us. At other times she merely put her head round the door and smiled; said, “God bless you,” and was gone. Her loving interest broke us down, and we hungered to get back into the fight.’
Another comrade had fought so successful a fight that the devil thought it worth while to centre his heavy guns upon him; he was so smashed spiritually that he seemed past mending. But not to Kate Lee’s faith. She prayed over him, believed for him, refused to give up his soul as lost until at length he again began to hope in God for deliverance. He was fully restored and became a devoted bandmaster.
Some backsliders who withstood her pleadings in life were brought home by her death. ‘The last time I saw her,’ said an old man with broken voice, ’she held an open-air service in our street, came into my house, wept over me and prayed for me. I used to serve under her. When she died—.’ He is fighting the good fight now as in his best days.
The bandsmen of The Army are a remarkable body of men. They are all converted, many from lives of desperate sin. Others have grown up in The Army; almost all have learned what they know of music in the ranks. Twenty years ago, the latter remark might have been received with a smile. Not so to-day, for while the object of Salvation Army music is the same as when it was first admitted as an auxiliary in our efforts to attract the unsaved, it has passed from the crudeness of its beginnings to a high standard of excellence. The bands of The Salvation Army now rank amongst the best in the world, and are an appreciated institution in most towns and villages. The bandsmen, who find their own uniforms and receive neither fee nor reward for their services, devote much of their leisure to Salvation Army service. They carry the message of salvation by music and song into city streets and slums, into the lanes of the country; to hospitals and asylums, and, besides, lead the singing in The Army citadels.
As might be expected amongst a body of clean-living, energetic men, there are occasions when matters of contention arise which require careful handling. More than once Kate Lee ‘scented’ trouble in her bands and resorted to a night of prayer, as a preparation for dealing with the problem. She would come from her little sanctuary, clothed with such meekness, tact, and strength that never once did she fail to stem the difficulty and to hold the men to the highest ideals of Salvationism.
If a whole band were affected, she saw the men one by one before she met them together. At one corps where the inclination to worldly amusement threatened serious loss, the Adjutant held a meeting which lasted until midnight. Lovingly, faithfully, firmly, she reminded the men of the high purposes of The Salvation Army, the condition of the world in relation to God, the spiritual danger of mixing with the ungodly in their amusement. Quietly, the men viewed the matter in the light of eternity and made their choice. It was according to the Adjutant’s standards. Not, as she was careful to explain, because they were hers as the commanding officer, but because they were standards of The Army, based upon the changeless principles of the Kingdom that is not of this world. She found, as many another servant of God has found, that, ’Strongly-formed purposes can be changed and men’s hearts influenced by prayer alone, and that surrenders made and principles accepted at such a time make for the permanent change of character.’
The wives of Salvation Army bandsmen make their sacrifices. Sunday is seldom a rest-day for Salvationists. Bandsmen are required to be present at six engagements, three out-door and three in. Their wives see to the children and the meals and send their husbands to their God-given labours. They were not forgotten by the Adjutant. She took a delight in preparing a pretty tea for them at her quarters, and inviting them to a little party all of their own. Serving them herself, she spent an evening of music and song amongst them, speaking words in appreciation and gratitude of their unselfish service, and making them feel that their part in the War was well worth while.
There are few rich people in The Salvation Army. Soldiers and adherents are trained to give according to their ability towards the upkeep of their respective corps; but when the best that may be is done in this direction, there is, in most cases, a considerable deficit remaining which must be met by public contribution.
As an example of the financial responsibilities which Kate Lee successfully discharged, the Brighton Congress Hall might be taken. Here the expenses for the year ran into some four thousand dollars. The Adjutant desired to give all her time to ’pulling sinners out of the fire.’ But there was the rent; the upkeep of a great hall and her quarters, fire and lighting, printing, advertising, in addition to the modest allowance for herself and her two lieutenants. To cope with such problems, Kate Lee brought the qualities of prayer and plan. ’A model of method,’ is how her treasurer here describes her. ’She ascertained the full extent of her liabilities, and probable income, and laid plans to meet the obligations with the least possible hindrance to spiritual effort.’
She never allowed lack of money to hinder her in a forward movement. Going to the charge of another large corps, she had decided upon an immediate campaign for souls. But awaiting her was a debt of five hundred dollars! However, in her Welcome meeting, she committed herself to the spiritual campaign, and enlisted the soldiers’ interest. The following morning she received a letter of welcome from her Divisional Commander, who incidentally informed her that the Division was financially in rather difficult circumstances, and that he was looking to her to assist him by reducing the debt on the corps as soon as possible. She was seized with the temptation, for a moment, to attack and dispose of the debt at once, but convinced that her first decision to be of God, she committed the money matter to Him, and began to organize the corps for a revival.
The month’s effort was to include house-to-house visitation, the ‘bombardment’ of saloons, and a Sunday Salvation campaign in a theatre. Her faith was tried; money was difficult to raise, and as she went forward with her plans for soul-winning her liabilities increased. ’The theatre will be a fizzle, and you will have a big deficit there,’ discouraged the Tempter. But Kate would not be moved from her purpose. The special Sunday proved to be a day of victory. At night, two notorious characters knelt at the penitent-form in addition to a number of promising young people. The expenses were met, and the soldiers enthused.
The following morning, as the Adjutant was seeing a visitor off at the railway station, a gentleman accosted her cheerfully, ’Adjutant, I have some encouraging news for you,’ he said. ’A friend of mine was present at the theatre last night, and he was so impressed with what he saw and heard that he intends to give you two hundred and fifty dollars!’ ’Oh, praise the Lord!’ responded the Adjutant. When she met her soldiers with the news, and showed them how God was honouring faith and obedience, they united forthwith to wipe out the debt. In came promises of different amounts. Ten days later the debt had vanished and a glorious work of soul-saving went forward.
Kate Lee’s lieutenants have lively memories of her methods and enthusiasm in conducting the annual Self-Denial Appeals. Says one:–
The first “S.-D.” I was with her, she said to me one morning, ’Now, dear, I must get this all planned out and see my target on paper before I meet the corps. I’m going upstairs, and I don’t want to see anyone or be disturbed for anything.’ Dinner time came, and I wondered what to do, and thought I had better take her dinner to her. When I appeared at her door with the tray, she laughed heartily with and at me, carried the tray down and we had dinner together. After the scheme was launched she kept in touch with the whole corps, encouraging and holding each up to his or her share in the effort, until it finished successfully.
She had settled ideas about personal self-denial. Another of her lieutenants tells that, during one Self-Denial week, a friend, thinking that the officers might be depriving themselves of nourishing food, left a basket packed with fresh goodies on the doorstep. The Adjutant smiled, sold the goods and the basket, and put the money to the fund.
The soldiers who fought under Kate Lee revere her memory. Volumes of tributes to their love and appreciation of her spirit, her ability and service, could be given.
’What I thought she was when she came to us, I was sure she was when she left.’ A testimony from a village comrade all unconscious probably of its full significance!
’Like a specialist she was; always a queue of people waiting to see her after the meetings,’ says one of her city hall-keepers. ’What did they want? Spiritual help, guidance, advice, about all manner of things; they knew her heart was big enough to take in all the troubles they could bring, and they never thought that her body might crack up.’
Another recalls her love for the Colours, and her loyalty to the standards of her General.
’My, but she loved the Flag! Once the colour-sergeant was away, and it was suggested we should go to the open-air meeting without the Flag. “Oh, no! The General wouldn’t like to see the march without the Flag,” she said; so a sister carried it.’
The following sidelights are contributed by a sister soldier of keen observation and sweet spirit. ’When the Adjutant died, I felt I had lost a dear and close relative, though as a matter of fact I had never caught much more than glimpses of her. My husband was one of her local officers and she frequently came to our home, but she did her business and went, never remaining even for a cup of tea unless it were poured out and she could take it without waiting. The most time I spent with her was once when she returned to conduct some special services here, and was billetted with us.
’She was too full of her mission to make friends for herself, but although so busy she did not rush. She never had too many irons in the fire to listen to a sorrow; and the few moments she could spare you knew were all your own.’ This characteristic is laid away in scores of hearts like a sweet perfume which gives out fragrance every time it is stirred. “She took time, she always took time to listen,” whispered one of her converts looking into my face with an adoring love in her eyes that was almost anguish. The story of her wonderful deliverance, more full of romance and tragedy than any novel, may not appear here for obvious reasons.
Continuing this soldier says, ’She seemed to put the work of two lives into one. Such a brisk walk she had! People pulled themselves to attention and things began to move faster whenever she came on the scene. “This is quite a feminine little bit”–I never saw her look into a shop window! She had not time for even the innnocent interests of most good women.
’She lived in the spirit of the command, “Be pitiful, be courteous.” The graciousness of her spirit always reminded me of Christ. She did not seem to understand the meaning of sarcasm.
’Her health was very frail. Whilst stationed here, she was often fighting bronchitis, but she never spoke of herself. Never even said she was tired. There was not a trace of self-pity or self-love about her.’
From many sources one hears of this continual fight with and triumph over physical weakness. A woman hall-keeper tells, ’One evening I caught her creeping like an old woman, through the dimly lighted hall, bent almost double with bronchitis. “Oh, Adjutant,” I cried, “you’re ill. You should go home to bed.” When she knew I had seen her, she steadied herself to take breath, smiled sternly, then waved me off, and presently walked briskly into her converts’ meeting.’ A lieutenant tells, ’Sometimes in the morning she looked so ill and old, and I would beg of her to let me take her breakfast to bed. But she would laugh and say, “What’s the good of giving way to feelings? I’ll be all right when I warm up to work.” Though ever a spartan to herself she was always tender in her treatment of others.’
The following extracts from an article by the late Mrs. Colonel Ewens appeared in ‘The Officer’ under the title of ‘My Ideal Field Officer.’ It indicates the high esteem in which Adjutant Lee’s Divisional Commanders held her:–
For some years now, a woman Officer who is still in the field, has been the living embodiment of my ‘Ideal Field Officer.’
I was conducting a Junior meeting at her corps when the bandmaster stepped into a side room for his instrument. I prepared to accompany him to the open-air meeting and casually remarked that the officers had gone on. ’You may trust our captain; I have never known her late,’ was the rejoinder.
Continuing he said:–
I have been in The Army for twenty years, but have never had such an eye-opener in all my experience. I tell you if ever I have felt ashamed of myself and my performances, it has been since this officer came. She’s the right woman in the right place, there’s no doubt about it. She can ‘sit on’ a fellow without crushing the life out of him. The whole band is changed. She’s just got our chaps, the thirty of them; and she’s as true and straight as a die. The beauty of her life and example beats all we have ever had. Makes you feel you must be good whether you will or not.’ This was intensely interesting to me, coming as it did so spontaneously from a man not at all in the habit of praising his Officers. After our conversation, I began to study the character and work of that unobtrusive woman.
I consider her success mainly attributable to her strict adherence to the godly principles which rule her life, and to the careful cultivation of certain useful qualifications which are within the reach of all. Three words sum them up, consecration, concentration, conservation. Every power of her being, every treasure of her heart, every hour of her time is at the service of God and humanity. My ‘Ideal F.O.’ is a God-possessed woman absorbed with a passion for soul-saving which nothing can quench.
She has so schooled herself that she now possesses the ability to focus every power of mind, body, and soul on the object of the moment, whether it is saving a drunkard, clearing a debt, settling a dispute, or leading a meeting.
There is complete abandonment but very little wreckage in her work. She conserves her energies in fitness, her soul in tenderness, her people in love, and the interests of The Army in loyalty. Consequently, her work wears well.
The feature which impressed me most in my F.O. was her faith, her indomitable faith in God, faith for the very worst, faith in the midst of darkness, tireless, persistent, fruitful, wondrous in its effect upon others. She literally accepts no defeat. Her convictions are strong, her brain fertile, and when failure appears imminent, her tactics are changed and seeming defeat turned into victory.
The shepherd spirit is characteristic of her. Watching and caring for souls seems part of her being. Hence visitation is a joy to her. The bright cheeriness of her manner, and her loving compassionate heart, ensure a welcome everywhere; and whilst she weeps over the wanderer, and spares no pains to win him back, she is inexorable where wrong is concerned. Sin must be confessed and forsaken. Wrong-doing must be righted, reparation must be made.
More time and prayer are spent by this particular officer on personal dealing than on any other aspect of her work. No wrong thing is ever winked at, be it in the wealthiest or the poorest; in the heart, the habit, or the home. The fierce light of the Judgment is brought to bear so powerfully upon evil that the wrongdoer must either give in to God or give up his profession.
Her soldiers and people regard their Officer with deep respect and affection. She is as accessible to the youngest child as to the eldest soldier, yet is over familiar with none.
For her platform she studies much, often alas! far into the night, when she has sent her lieutenants to rest. She is not what is termed a brilliant speaker, but her matter is arresting, convincing, converting.
To her lieutenants she is a charming companion, a wise leader. In her home she is a model of cleanliness and good management.
The business side of a woman’s work is often, I have heard, the weak point; but as a Commanding Officer my Ideal possesses a large capacity for business and relish for it, to which, as a lieutenant, she was a stranger. She shoulders financial burdens with a loyal courage, and carries them through successfully. Her writing table is the index to her brain, and bears the stamp of order upon it.
You cannot surprise her with an outstanding liability. She has her hand on everything in a corps in a remarkably short time. The yearly expenditure is calculated, the ordinary resources discovered, special efforts estimated, the deficit boldly faced; then prayer, faith, and extraordinary effort are brought to bear upon meeting it. She runs all her financial efforts on the budget principle.
On corps organization and oversight, she is equally systematic and comprehensive. You will find the individuality of my Ideal wherever you touch the corps; converts, backsliders, seniors, juniors, young people, home league, boys’ band, swimming club, corps cadet, company guards, ‘War Crys,’ songsters. In fact, there is no activity in the corps over which she does not exert a personal influence and directorship, though far from desiring to do everything herself.
Her lieutenants share her confidence, and work to the full. She never acts without the co-operation of her locals, where it is at all possible to secure it. She values their judgment, and fully appreciates their toil.
She has a duty ready for the youngest soldier and convert, and an encouraging word of approval for all.
Alert to avail herself of every possible means to improve her corps, amenable to reason, correct in her judgment, strong in discipline, humble as a child.
In the estimation of her two Generals, Kate Lee won a chief place. It was an honour that she held dearer than any badge, that once when chosen to represent the Field Officers to The Founder, the aged white-haired Leader stooped and kissed her as a daughter before her comrades.
Writes General Bramwell Booth:–
It was as a Corps Officer that she shone, excelled, and won her great victories. She showed us afresh, if we only have eyes to see, how great that position may be.
Christ took hold of her whole being and transformed her. He was united in His Spirit with her strong, loving, dutiful soul. The meekness of Jesus was found in her, side by side with a Divine passion for the lost.
She was at first one of the most unlikely people to take the place she ultimately took. Timid, retiring, having little confidence in herself, and quite unconscious of possessing any special gifts, she rose up, and did more actual work than is sometimes done by half a dozen of her sister-officers put together. The lost and the ruined and the broken-hearted, the vicious and desperate, and those who are ready to go down to the pit were her special delight. From town to town she went, consorting with them, hunting them up, weeping over them, praying for them, stretching out her hands to them; yes, and sometimes literally pulling them out of the fire.
It is extraordinary how officers of this type are remembered in different towns by different aspects of their work and character. In one town it is one thing, in another town it is another. It was so with Kate Lee. In one place she is spoken of as the great befriender of the broken and outcast. In another as ’the one who helped us when we were starving.’ In another as one of the few decent people who were ever seen during the midnight hours in the dark places. In another as making the open-air marches radiate light and music and Salvation. In another as being like a spiritual dredger, dragging the very gutters for lost souls.
And yet in all she would never speak of what she had done if she could help it. She was one of those who could say with Paul, ’I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.’
Certain enterprising business firms find it worth while to pay large salaries to servants whose sole duty it is to think out fresh ideas, the working of which will bring success to their house. Kate Lee’s mind was consecrated to get out of it every idea possible for the success of her campaigns. She had no leisure to devote exclusively to planning, but morn, noon, and night, while about her other work, walking here, pedalling her bicycle there, her eyes were wide open and her mind alert as she devised methods by which she might attract the ungodly to listen to her message, which, if obeyed by all, would turn this earth into a Paradise.
Nothing vexed her more than for the Lord’s people to be content to make shift with poor tools and conditions in His service, while the devil’s agents aim at getting the best to be had. Her patience was sorely tried when Salvationists thought their well-equipped hall too good for drunkards’ raids, and none the less when soldiers considered any poor shop good enough for the Army hall.
When she took charge of Hythe, the corps fought its battles in a miserable little barn known as ‘The Tar-Tub,’ located in a back lane. How could she hope to get crowds of people into that place? She simply would not suffer the indignity. There was land to be had, money in the place, and sympathy. A proper hall there must be! She secured the ground, and the season being summer, she hired a large tent and erected it on the vacant spot. Then she organized a campaign with features to attract not only the townspeople but summer visitors. Night after night the tent was crowded. Meanwhile, she stirred the town in raising funds for the erection of the hall, and before long the necessary proportion of money was in hand. The tent was replaced by building materials and Hythe turned out for the block-laying, an event which by this time had become of public interest.
Farewell orders came before the citadel was opened, but Kate Lee was always ready to cheerfully drop a work she had set going and take up the next thing.
At Ashford she was ashamed of the miscellaneous collection of band instruments. A special effort enabled her to leave there a band with a set of plated instruments. At Sunderland, hard by the hall, a tavern boasted a brilliant front light. The devil should not lure men to destruction with a brighter light than that by which she showed the way to Heaven! Soon, therefore, a competing light blazed before the citadel. The entrance to ’Norland Castle, The Army’s hall at Shepherd’s Bush, London, was a miserable affair. Two sets of narrow steps led to two doors. It was a considerable scheme to clear the whole front, erect a flight of solid concrete steps and replace the brick wall by an iron railing, but she saw it through.
At this corps she installed a new lighting apparatus, at that laid linoleum in the aisles, at another curtains to reduce the size of the hall for week-night meetings. Always some improvement. She loved to build a new penitent-form, which ran the whole width of the platform–with suitable carpet in front of it from end to end–and above it, in gold letters, some such message as, ‘At the Cross there’s room.’ She greatly rejoiced on the night that one such mercy-seat was thrown open, for a great sinner bedewed it with tears as he confessed his sins to God, and rose up, a new creature, to fight a good fight in that corps. But what was the good of a decent hall, clean, well lighted and warm, if the people remained outside? Get the people she must, and having got them once, she would make them want to come again. Go where you will, at the mention of her ‘special efforts’ there is a visible stirring amongst her erstwhile soldiers. It is amusing to watch different types of people as they prepare to describe her demonstrations. A villager shakes his head, looks solemn, clears his throat, and begins, ’Never seed the like of her and her ways!’ The eyes of keen business men contract and smile; then they remark, half apologetically for their enthusiasm, ’Really, they were wonderful affairs. The Adjutant was quite a marvel in the conception of a big thing and the ability to carry it out.’ As for the general rank and file, they bubble and burst with joyful acclamation at the recollection of red letter days in Salvation festivity.
The Adjutant turned to account every holy day and holiday. She laid herself out to make Christmas a joy-day for the lonely and poor. At Norland Castle, for instance, she provided dinner for some two hundred old people of the district. The afternoon was devoted to a children’s party, the old people being allowed to remain as delighted spectators of the children’s games and fun. For the night meeting the platform was decorated, the lights lowered, and a living representation showed the shepherds feeding their flocks at Bethlehem, and the angel choir proclaiming ‘Peace on earth and goodwill to men.’ By song, music, recitation, and appeal, the Adjutant made the Christmas message ring clear, and she closed the day pointing souls made tender by human loving-kindness, to the Prince of Peace.
Harvest Festival was, perhaps, her chief demonstration of the year. She used this occasion to impress The Army upon the whole town. The largest hall available was taken–such as at Coventry, the Drill Hall holding five thousand people. A long report from the local paper describes the appearance of this building converted into a rural scene. There was a farmhouse large enough for habitation, a windmill in motion, and a realistic farmyard containing sheep, pigs, rabbits, ducks, and fowls. A sower sowed the seed; there was standing corn. This was reaped, and the grain thrashed, ground, and baked on the spot. All manner of farm implements were on view, and great collections of fruit, vegetables, and flowers.
Spectacular processions considerably helped these demonstrations. One night, the corps turned out representing a great harvest home with a wagon of hay, and the soldiers attired as farm labourers, carrying forks, rakes, and sickles, Chinese lanterns on sticks, and transparent signs. Another night the Adjutant had as many as seven lorries carrying representations of different phases of Army work.
Wherever these harvest festivals were held, the town was stirred; and thousands of people attended the meetings. They were convinced of the possibility of joy in religion, and also, they were brought face to face with eternal truths. They saw the way of Salvation in object lesson; the Bread of Life contrasted with the husks of the world; listened to an interpretation of the Parable of the Sower; were reminded that ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’; in the story of Ruth recognized the wisdom of choosing Christ rather than the world, and also the beauty of unselfish service. Many were brought to consider the work of the reaper, Death, and to seek Salvation.
Such a demonstration entailed, as might be expected, an enormous amount of work, but the Adjutant’s skill in enlisting co-workers and enthusing them with her own desire, succeeded in making them toil till midnight with delight. A master carpenter recalls, ’Before the festival she had me there, working every night for a week’; a master baker, that he carted flour and utensils to the hall, where his staff, in full bake-house regalia, made bread and baked it on the spot.
The Adjutant delighted to bring The Army’s missionary work before the people. At several corps she converted her hall into an Indian village, the soldiers into Oriental villagers and invited missionary officers to explain our work amongst the peoples of the East. One of her city treasurers recalls the cleverness by which she engineered her plans, and got all that was needed for such a demonstration.
’Passing the shop of a taxidermist, the Adjutant noticed a fine stuffed tiger in the window. Turning into the shop, she asked to see the owner, and told him what was in her mind. Could he advise her? He was interested, very. He had several Indian jungle animals, which he would gladly lend. And he knew people who had fine Indian sceneries; he would speak to them and to others who had Indian costumes.
’The plan materialized surprisingly. She had the village, with the inevitable well; the women, with their water-pots, and the children playing about. The jungle adjoining was eerie with wild animals. There were tea-gardens with palms, an exhibition of Indian wares, and the soldiers of the corps moved about as Indian villagers.
’It was a most extraordinary affair. The campaign was well announced, and for three days the hall was packed. The missionary officers spoke, and our work in the East became a wonderful thing not only in the eyes of our own people, young and old, but of the outsiders as well. Fresh people heard the message of Salvation, and the heavy corps debt was cleared.’
For Bank Holidays the Adjutant provided counter attractions for her lively young people and converts, that they might feel no temptation towards the pleasures of the world, arranging a pleasant corps gathering in the afternoon and a tea at night.
Sharing the old General’s belief that it is right to consecrate the gifts of sinners to the service of Christ’s Kingdom, she roped in strange helpers. Perhaps the most extraordinary thing she did in this way was connected with the erection of a band rotunda for a Bank Holiday ‘go.’ Inspired with the idea that barrels would serve the purpose, she hied her to the brewery and interviewed the manager. A few days later, there was the unusual sight of a brewer’s dray drawing into the yard of the Salvation Army citadel and discharging a load of hogsheads. These were rolled into position, covered with red cloth, and on them, the bandsmen– many of them delivered from the curse of the beer–mounted and played music for the deliverance of others. But Kate Lee never bowed to the world in order to receive its favours. The brewer knew full well that this gentle woman was an avowed enemy of his trade; but she was not his enemy, for she cared for his soul as for those of all sinners.
Adjutant Lee never allowed efforts that might be called secular to interfere with the spiritual work of her corps. To her they were as spiritual as any other effort. We are told of her calling her chief local officers together on one occasion to discuss some special corps liability. ’She told us of her intention to run an Indian Exhibition, laid the plans before us, and then prayed. That census meeting was turned into one of the most powerful prayer meetings I can remember. The lieutenant told me afterwards that the Adjutant had spent the previous night in prayer about this effort.’
At another corps she borrowed several firemen’s helmets to be used in the Sunday’s meetings, presumably to draw attention to sin as a fire, a destroyer. She impressed upon the brothers who were to wear the helmets, that unless the effort were made earnestly, it would be a farce. The men so entered into her spirit that they remained at the hall after the afternoon meeting in fasting and prayer, so that the message might go forth at night with power.
At Coventry she was faced with an unusual difficulty. The hall was altogether too small to receive the crowds that swept down with the band from the Sunday night open-air service. For people to wish to attend an Army meeting and to be turned away was unthinkable to Kate Lee. She must secure a larger hall. But how? In Coventry every theatre and picture-palace was in full swing Sundays as well as week-days. The only hall available for the winter months was the Public Baths, and this was required for many purposes.
‘The committee can’t let you have it,’ she was told. ’Well, God can, and I will pray,’ she replied. The treasurer remembers how she spent the time in prayer while the committee met to discuss The Army’s request. To the surprise of many, the Baths were leased to The Army for Sunday evenings during the winter. The experiment proved a success as far as reaching the people went, but the expenses were heavy. All but two days of the last three months had expired, and the Adjutant had not got the money in hand to meet the rent bill. She had often lifted her heart to God about the matter, but as the days for settling the account drew near, she gave herself up to definite prayer. The lieutenant tells us that while actually on her knees, praying, a letter containing a note for ten pounds (fifty dollars) was pushed through the letter-box.
At many a corps the Adjutant conducted midnight raids for drunkards with great success. Amongst her papers was found the description, which she had prepared at The General’s request, of one of these raids, but wished it to be published anonymously.
‘I am afraid it is a mistake to have a midnight raid here,’ nervously suggested a soldier of a popular corps of —, a sunny seaside resort, that was patronized by a good class of visitor, and a ‘better class’ congregation attended The Army hall.
The Adjutant believed in the doctrine of her beloved Founder, and had said to her soldiers, ‘We must go for souls, and go for the worst;’ but the idea of filling the beautiful hall with drunken scallywags horrified not a few of the respectable Salvationists. Nevertheless, the need was pleaded, the interest of the band enlisted; a notorious character, saved from a life of sin, was coming from another corps to give his story; a startling bill inviting all to come, drunk or sober; a livener provided free, was well distributed by a band of scouts who had caught the spirit of the effort. Drunkards were visited and invited to the meeting. The band was ready to start, and the Captain prayed God’s help as they went out to seek the lost.
Even in that fashionable resort were to be found haunts of sin and misery. Slumdom was stirred that midnight as the cheery music peeled forth; the boozer laid down his glass and rushed to the door of the saloon to see what could be happening at such an hour. As he rolled out on to the sidewalk, he found his arms entwined in that of one of the scouts who followed the march and mingled with the crowd. The soldiers forgot their fear, their souls stirred in the glory of a desperate attack upon sin, and even the bandsmen as they played their instruments, were observed arming sundry drunks along to the hall. What a motley crew was gathered in! One to thrill the heart of every true Salvationist; just the people that The Army exists to save. Five or six hundred men and women drawn from the saloon, brought under the influence of the Gospel, even for one hour, is an achievement not to be despised.
What could one do with such a crowd in all stages of intoxication? some might query. Picture the scene. A livener, a cup of coffee and cake, is supplied. Music and song peal forth to drown drunken brawls. Presently there is a lull, the men are becoming sobered and are called to attention. A sister sings sweetly of mother and God. The name of an ex-drunkard is mentioned, and the crowd cheers as he stands forth to testify. He tells how drink cursed his life, and how God has changed him. A hush steals over the meeting as the Adjutant rises with God’s Word in hand, and calls for reverence if only for seven minutes! A great giant of a man, standing up, waves his heavy first and declares, ’I’ll fling out the first man that speaks; listen to the Captain!’ How they listened! Now there is a move, a man is pushing his way through his mates; he throws himself at the penitent-form and crys, ‘O God, make me like Bill!’ He had looked upon his old mate; listened to his testimony, and realized the wonderful change, a living miracle! He did not understand; the meaning of conversion was as foreign to him as to a heathen, but he wanted that something to happen to him that had happened to his mate Bill.
Not all of those twelve or fifteen drunkards who knelt at the penitent-form were really converted. Some found Christ. They were changed on the spot; they knelt down dazed with drink, and got up sober, praising God. The others merely took a step in the right direction. Some one has said that we are born with our backs to God, and our faces towards sin. Coming to the penitent-form, to some of those men, meant a turning of the back on the old life of sin and drink. They were too dazed with drink to understand more than, a longing after something better; but that longing was cherished; the man was followed to his home, watched over when the old craving came upon him, and taught how to seek and find God.
In a little room at the hall, a crowd of converts met week by week. The A B C of Salvation was explained to them; again and again the weak and ignorant were taught to pray and seek until the light of God dawned upon the darkened mind.
‘How we loved our Muvver’s meetings,’ exclaimed an ex-criminal to a listener, who smiled at the new kind of Mother’s meetings. He valued the words of his spiritual mother, and this converts’ meeting was to him the meeting of the week.
Eagerly the soldiers looked forward to the next midnight raid. How rewarded they felt as they looked upon some of the converts won during the first raid, donned in cap or bonnet, leading their mates to God.
‘Adjutant Lee must have worked you very hard,’ I remarked to the old keeper of the Congress Hall, Brighton. ’The hall must have been very dirty after a drunkards’ raid, and when it did not finish till one o’clock, how did you get ready for Sunday’s meetings?’ The sweet spirited old man smiled and replied, ’The hall did get dirty, and it did take some time to sweep up the sawdust and make things fresh for knee-drill, but I just went on till it was finished. Yes, I got tired. But no, I never grudged the work, thank God. I was glad to help the Adjutant, bless her! in my little way. To keep the hall in order, and to go on the door humouring the rowdy ones, not keeping anyone out, that was my work for the Adjutant, and I rejoiced to do it. And she was very thoughtful. When, after big demonstrations, the hall wanted extra cleaning, she would organize a scrubbing brigade of about twenty brothers and sisters, who would bring their own buckets and brushes, and she led them herself.’
Not content with directing extraordinary campaigns, there were special personal efforts which Kate Lee made to get in touch with the people. One of these was Saturday night visitation of the saloons. After the meeting –with her lieutenant or, at corps where there were suitable helpers, having sent the lieutenant home to get to bed early in preparation for the heavy strain of Sunday–until closing hours, she sought the souls of the drunkards.
A white-haired veteran soldier, himself a liberated drink-slave, tells of the Adjutant’s saloon visitation:–
I knew the run of these places from sad experience, and asked her, the first time we set out, ’Where shall we go, Adjutant: to the respectable, or the rough?’ ‘The rough,’ she replied. She would sing to the men, then kneel on those dirty floors and pray for the poor drunkards, and she would put in a word too, for the owner and his wife, asking the Lord to help them to find a better job. She could get in almost anywhere the first time round; after that she generally had to keep to the bar. The owners recognized in her a power against the trade. Sometimes men would be rude to her, but she smiled on as though she had not heard a rough remark.
We would go from place to place till half-past twelve. When the houses were emptying the men were quarrelsome, and we encountered many a fight. She had no fear at all; would go right into a fight and stop it. After that midnight work, she would be at knee-drill next morning and often passed me a little note giving the name and address of some drunkard she had got in conversation with and wanted me to follow up.
The old man’s eyes smiled, and he looked far away with an expression of wonder and reverence which I have noticed in many a faithful armour-bearer of Kate Lee, as they recalled her fight.
Colonel Stanley Ewens, at one time Kate Lee’s Divisional Commander, felt that this Saturday night work was too taxing for her frail body, and suggested that she entrust it to others. The Colonel says:–
I found that I had touched a vital spot. The Adjutant replied, ’You must please allow me to continue this work; some of my best trophies have been won for God as a result of my Saturday night visitations. It gives me an opportunity of getting to know the very worst sinners and following them up in their homes.’ This was better understood when the following incident was told me concerning a convert in this very town. A desperate character was met by the Adjutant every Saturday night in the same bar. She offered ‘The War Cry’ as a means to get into conversation with him, and finding out where he lived, asked permission to visit him. One morning at 5:30, whilst washing himself in preparation for his work, he heard some one knocking at the door. It was the Adjutant and her lieutenant who had called to see him and his wife. ‘Come in, sisters,’ the man said as he opened the door. It was a wretched home. The officers sat on boxes. The drunkard’s wife asked in a friendly way if they would have a cup of tea, and replying in the affirmative, were served with strong tea, in galley-pots. It was only a short visit, but it left its mark for eternity. This man and his wife were induced to attend the meetings and led to the Saviour.
One means to attract crowds to her halls, which she had used with success at many corps, was to dress in rags, and march at the head of the band. Amongst her people this recollection is spoken of with a kind of awe.
’To think that that lovely, pure woman should soil her face, pull her hair about, put on dirty torn clothes, broken boots, and make herself appear a sister of shame!
She asked me to keep her company; and, really, I did not like to walk down the street with her,’ says a sister local officer of one corps.
Arriving at the hall the Adjutant would lead the meeting, still in her ignominious garb, and preach about sin; how it blighted and defiled the lives of millions of men and women; how it made life here wretched, and would land the soul in hell hereafter; then she would tell of the remedy, the glorious Salvation of Jesus.
An officer writes that she was a little girl of eleven when the Adjutant dressed in rags at her corps. The effect upon her mind was to make her hate sin with such a horror, that right then and there she determined to give her life to seek sinners.
But some of the Adjutant’s soldiers could not see past the shame of their beautiful officer, thus making a spectacle of herself. ’It made me cry to look at her,’ said one sergeant-major.
’It fair upset me; I told her never to do that again; I could not abear to see it,’ confessed another.
The Adjutant carried out her part with apparently unconscious calm, and it never occurred to these worthies that their officer thus made herself of ‘no reputation’ at great personal cost.
The Brighton Congress Hall holds three thousand people. How to break in upon that city, catch the eye of the crowds, and fill her great building, caused the Adjutant much concern. She tried many means with only partial success.
‘I feel I should dress in rags again, and I simply cannot do it,’ she confided to her lieutenant. For several days she seemed absorbed and oppressed; then she betook herself to the little attic and shut herself away with God. On the evening of the second day she came down calm and triumphant, and the announcement was made that on the following Sunday she would dress in rags.
Sunday evening arrived and as she passed down the street to the open-air stand, people stared and gave her a wide berth. But the crowds were captured, and a full penitent-form was the result; no one but her lieutenant had any idea of the abnegation her service had cost.
Did Kate Lee never wish to escape from this endless strain upon body and soul? This constant spinning from out of her own heart and mind a web of love in which to capture wandering souls? I cannot find one person to whom she ever gave such an indication. She cast her burden upon the Lord; she drew her strength from hidden streams; she gloried in having a life to offer to the Holy War. We are indebted to Ensign Cutts, her last lieutenant, for a glimpse of Kate when the doctor ordered her off the battlefield to an operating theatre:–
A telegram announced her immediate return to her corps to say farewell. I met her at the station; such a pained, disappointed face greeted me, “O Leff, I feel this is the end of my Field days,” she exclaimed.
’But she threw off her sorrow, took farewell of her people, like the leader she was, and together we went to London. That night she spent in prayer, and in the morning she was calm and her face bright. “I have really got the victory,” she told me. “His will be done. If He allows me to return to the fight, that will be glorious. If not, His will is best.”
One of the joys of Kate Lee’s later years was to have with her, from time to time, her little namesake niece. Sometimes in the midst of a great campaign the hunger of heart to have a child in the house overcame her, and she would prevail upon her brother and his wife to allow Katie to come to her. The fair, timid child had much of her own appearance and disposition, and the Adjutant yearned to train her to take her place in the War. Here and there we get glimpses of her mothering love for the little one. A comrade officer tells that once boarding a boat travelling north, she found Adjutant Lee and her little niece were passengers by the same boat; but Kate, having arrived late, had no berth. All berths had been taken but one, which meant that the child had a bed, but her aunt had not. Immediately the officer placed her berth at the Adjutant’s disposal, saying she preferred to sleep on deck. Kate was distressed, she would not accept favours for herself, but for the sake of the timid little one to whom a sea journey was a new experience, she was grateful for her comrade’s thoughtfulness.
‘I am sure,’ says her comrade,’ that I slept better than she did. She came up at midnight to see if I were comfortable, and at dawn I was awakened by a gentle face bending over me and the words, “Have you taken no hurt by sleeping here? I am so distressed to have taken your bed.” The Adjutant’s appreciation of any service rendered her was so sincere that it more than compensated for any inconvenience incurred in serving her. We were only a few hours on the boat, but the Adjutant’s gracious spirit and pure, refined face made many of the passengers inquire, “Who is that beautiful woman?"’
A little maid, whom the Adjutant engaged to help her in the house at one corps, tells how she trained her to care for little Katie. She was intensely anxious concerning the little one’s health, and careful that the maid should speak gently and correctly, that she might be safely imitated.
For the sake of the lost, Kate Lee voluntarily laid aside her own hopes of marriage and motherhood. Detached and in a sense lofty in her walk amongst her comrades, still there were those who had coveted her as a continual comrade in the war, and had made their plea. Once she almost yielded, but pity for the unsaved prevailed over the most human inclinations of a woman’s heart. She was not sure that she would be as free to seek and win souls if she married. Her lover waited in hope for years, but Kate Lee became increasingly certain that it was God’s will for her to remain as she was. This matter once settled, she felt in a very sacred way,
Chosen for His holy pleasure,
Sealed to be His special treasure.
It was indeed a rash individual who trespassed upon the privacy of that consecration, and dared to rally the Adjutant on the subject of marriage. Upon such a one she turned eyes in which there was neither anger nor amusement, but which regarded the trespasser in silence until he felt like a clumsy boy, who, unaware, had stumbled into the presence of a queen. Then, to relieve his embarrassment, in perfect sweetness the Adjutant changed the subject.
The fountain of love and tenderness that might have blessed husband and children, was not sealed, else it had turned bitter. It flowed without restraint and increased as it flowed, until it became a river, carrying life and refreshment to thousands.
‘Aye, she was more to me than my own mother.’ said a North-Country woman, who, in the rush of industrial life, had missed a certain tender touch until she met Adjutant Lee.
‘Never nobody mothered me like her,’ declared a grey-headed man saved from great depths, whose tottering steps she taught to walk the way to Heaven steadily.
It is the lower type of mother-love that limits itself in affection and care for her own offspring alone; true mother-love takes to its heart all young and weak and wayward creatures. In this Kate Lee showed the true spirit of motherhood. Her own converts she nursed tenderly and guarded with unremitting care; but none the less the converts, the weak souls, and the young people she found at any corps upon taking charge.
A prominent local officer tells with gratitude how she helped him in the days of his spiritual infancy. His conversation illustrates, incidentally, the wonderful influence of the Holy Spirit upon the human heart, independent of any human agency except prayer.
William Bailey, unutterably wretched in mind, dark and sinful in soul, stood on the curb of a London street, and longed for some power that would change him and make him decent and happy. At the same moment The Army march swept past and the thought stole into his mind, ’If a man joins The Salvation Army, he becomes clean in mind, and talk, and action.’ He went to his bachelor rooms, knelt down, and prayed to be made like a Salvationist. He felt changed on the spot. The craving for strong drink and desire to gamble or swear was clean swept out of him.
The following night he went to The Army Hall. Adjutant Lee was being welcomed as commanding officer. During the prayer meeting she went down amongst the congregation and spoke to this man. ’Are you saved, my friend?’ she asked. ‘I believe I am, but I want to join The Army,’ he replied. He was totally ignorant regarding religion, and this gentle woman adopted this newborn soul, and from that night nursed him to spiritual manhood.
Bailey was a reservist–and a few weeks after his conversion his pay was due. Pay-day had always meant a spree, and Bailey was afraid. ’What shall I do, Adjutant?’ he asked. ‘Go to the office in an Army cap and jersey,’ she replied. Obediently he went to headquarters on Saturday and brought home these articles of uniform. He put them on, and many a strong man will understand the cold shivers that Bailey felt when he got into the street. He wanted to go to the “open-air” by back ways, but that would not please the Adjutant. Manfully he started down the main street, and presently came face to face with an old service comrade, hilariously the worse for drink. The sight of Bill Bailey in the uniform of another Army was too much for the merry ‘drunk.’ He made straight for his old mate, embraced him, exchanged hats, and arm in arm they marched to the open-air meeting. Taking in the situation at a glance, the Adjutant beamingly greeted the queer couple. ’Here’s my friend, Bill Bailey. He will give his testimony in his new jersey,’ she announced; and Bailey was committed to his first open-air witness for Christ. On Monday, with his uniform as his safeguard, he drew his pay, and not one of his mates suggested a drink.
The Adjutant next suggested that Bailey did not wear proper uniform. Tan boots and light trousers didn’t really go with the red shirt. Of course not. Bailey would be a real soldier; he ordered a regulation Army suit. The convert went steadily forward. He married an Army sister, and has a happy home. He has filled the position of young people’s worker, bandsman, assistant sergeant-major, and is now assistant treasurer.
’It’s through her I am what I am. Ignorant, rough man I was, with the merest flicker of spiritual life; but she cared for my soul, and was so patiently loving that she led me to know God.’ Bailey was afflicted with a stammer when he was converted. Of this, he says, ’She talked to me so calm and quiet. “Go slow, now,” she’d say, “Count.” She would insist upon my giving my testimony, and if she saw I was going to be fairly stuck, she’d shout. “Glory! Hallelujah!” and beam on me with that lovely smile of hers; and by that time I’d got my next word.’
The first baby words were not sweeter to mother ears than the first testimony of Adjutant Lee’s converts to her. One drunkard, so great a terror to his town that even the magistrate confessed that he used to cross the street rather than meet him, had been wonderfully delivered from sin. When called upon to give his first testimony, he said, ’I fank God He’s kept me this day wifout drink. I fank God He’s kept me this day wifout smoking. I fank God He’s kept me this day wifout swearing overmuch.’ Marvellous change! The Adjutant beamed upon him, rejoiced over him, and the following night had further cause for gladness, when he declared, ‘I fank God He’s kept me from swearing altogever.’
A woman soldier’s face quivers with emotion yet smiles as she tells:–
I was rather a problem when Adjutant Lee came to our corps. Mother died when I was fourteen, and I was left to bring up four brothers. You may be sure I had to hold my own with them, and I became obstinate and had a flippant manner which covered many a better feeling. I was a great trial to the lieutenant, who had no patience with my nonsense, but the Adjutant was never cross with me. One night, after a meeting, she took my arm and led me off for a walk. We walked miles. She talked to me about my flippant ways and sharp tongue. Said I did things that were not worthy of me; told me that I should be my real self, and not put on foolish airs. I stood that, though feeling bad; but then she cried, and said I would break her heart if I did not change.
Here was the mother-touch the starved, warped spirit was needing. After that, the graces of gentleness and sweetness began to appear.
There was nothing that concerned her people’s well-being that Kate Lee regarded as outside of her province. A certain sergeant-major, who had reached middle life and was still single, was reported to have become engaged to be married, and not to a Salvationist. This man was a wonderful trophy of grace. One of a family of fourteen, all drinking people, after he was converted it was six years before he was able to go to his home in his uniform. Often to escape the godless ways and contentions indoors, he had gone into the stable where he could pray in peace, and slept with his horses. But things were not so difficult now, and all the town respected the Army sergeant-major. The Adjutant knew that many a soul who has climbed with safety a rough up-hill path has slipped on a smooth dead level, and that many a man has fallen from grace through choosing a wrong wife. Somewhat anxiously she interviewed her local officer. ’You needn’t be afeared for me, Adjutant. I prayed and waited until the right person came my way,’ declared the sergeant-major.
Then the Adjutant sought the bride-elect. Gentle probing discovered a true Christian, and after a heart-to-heart talk, the Adjutant left her with an enlarged vision of her responsibility regarding the soul of the husband-to-be. Mrs. Sergeant-Major of to-day, a wise little woman, with a heart of gold, tells how she summed everything up and felt it to be her duty, as now it is her joy, to share to the fullest extent her husband’s work.
Over young people of strong impulses and unformed judgments Kate Lee exerted a remarkable influence. A bandmaster tells of her patience and tact with his obstinate ways in days long gone by. She felt there was good under the headstrong nature, and never met his ‘pig-headedness’ with harsh dealing, but taxed herself to make a reasoned appeal to the best that was in him. It was the mother hand upon the lad, and its influence is with the man to-day.
At one corps a gang of factory lads endeavoured to annoy the officers by hammering at the quarters’ door and running away. The Adjutant sought them out, and one by one they were converted. They became energetic soldiers. At Brighton corps there were at that time about fifty young women in the Young People’s Legion. They were an undisciplined, rather unlovely lot. In her work for them, the Adjutant had the co-operation of a godly comrade who was entirely of her leader’s spirit. Her home became an unofficial receiving and training home for these girls when they fell on difficult ways. ’Could you possibly manage to do with her, poor child? No mother, no encouragement nor help! How can we expect her to do well till we get her fairly on her feet?’ the Adjutant would plead. And the good woman would open her home again and again.
Many a girl, having received such help is saved to-day, doing well in a situation, or happily married. Should one be having an unhappy time at home, the Adjutant visited her people. Sometimes she discovered hardness of heart and cruelty wrecking the young life; sometimes fault on both sides. Then she acted as mediator and healer of the breach. She taught the girls to make and mend their clothes; when ill, she got them to a hospital. Always she made them feel she loved them and believed for them to be good. Her work amongst these girls would not have been unworthy of a sole responsibility, but it was one of her least noticed efforts at that corps.
Says a soldier saved from terrible sin:–
She was just like a mother. I would go and ask her advice when I had done anything wrong. She never scolded me, but would look serious and say, ‘Well, you know you ought not to have done that.’ And somehow, in a minute, I could see what I ought to have done, and would promise to try to do better. How could you help getting on when all the while she was smiling on you, giving you some work to do, and believing you to be good.
Her mothering love for souls sharpened her really wonderful faculty for remembering faces. Years after she had left a corps, if she met a comrade or friend, her face would light with recognition, and she would greet the person by name. The pleasure this afforded is mentioned all over the country.
Motherlike, she could not bear to feel that at night the door was shut upon any wandering child, and her sergeant-majors tell, ’No poor fellow who came to the penitent-form went without a bed. She kept bed tickets for emergencies. She might give away a good number to people who did not deserve help, but she would rather do that than fail one who did.’
’It’s because of all she taught me, and the nice way she taught me, that I have been able to take such good places,’ says a little maid, with quivering lips and shining eyes.
One motherless girl followed her from corps to corps for years, taking a situation in the town where she was stationed so that she might catch her smile now and again, and hear a few words of mother love. Married women’s eyes fill with tears as they recall her tenderness in sorrow and her wisdom in difficulties. How she took a poor little widow, distracted by sudden bereavement, and nursed and soothed her. How ’she stayed up all night with me when my sister died.’ How ’she buried my mother and was so kind I can never forget her.’ How ’she helped me to nurse sonny, when no one else dared come near.’
Women old enough to be her mother felt the pleasure of childhood when the Adjutant, revisiting an old corps and finding them doing the same faithful work as during her term, would beam upon them and remark,’ Still at it, you dears!’
‘She got me the job I’ve been in this fourteen years,’ says an ex-drunkard. ’I had worked my way along after I was saved; then I heard of a goob job becoming vacant, and I asked her if she would mind saying a word for me. She was up and away before breakfast next morning, interviewed the manager, and got me the job. Like a mother she said, with her nice smile, “Now, don’t you let me down!” And I haven’t.’
Kate Lee oozed motherliness-that love that is capable, wise, patient, tender-the love that never fails!
One of the sweetest fruits in her spiritual children is that after she had left them they continued to perform the services she loved. One man, saved from nameless sins, slow to speech, and clouded in intellect, would spend his money on Testaments, and ‘War Crys,’ and walk miles to visit gipsy camps to read and pray with these wanderers, and other isolated people. He knew that ‘mother,’ as this middle-aged man always called the Adjutant, would be pleased.
When Kate Lee received farewell orders from a corps, she suffered as a mother does in leaving her family. Her eyes hungered as they rested upon the men and women whom, with great travail of spirit, she had brought into the Kingdom of Grace. She had striven to teach them the ways of life, but they were not strong, and temptations were many. Laying hold of godly comrades of the corps, she would plead with them to continue to care for these children in the Lord, after she had left them.
And her heart often wandered back. She knew that no voice sounded to them just as hers did. There were, perhaps, thirty or forty trophies of grace, who now and again received a letter of encouragement in her swift, legible handwriting. Just a few words fresh as the dew, bright as the sunshine, with her voice ringing in them, pointing these souls, uplifted from the depths, to God, and holding them up to the standards she had raised.
When, during the war, the men of England were scattered over the world’s battlefields, no mother suffered more anxiety for her sons than did Kate Lee for her sons in the Gospel. Separated, as many of them were, from Army meetings and helpful influences, and surrounded by sin and temptation, her letters came like angel messages. No one knows how many she kept in touch with, but from unlikely sources up and down the country, one hears, ‘she was the only one who wrote to me.’
For the ‘Twice Born Men’ she felt a special solicitude. To the ‘Criminal’ at the front in France, she wrote every week, sending him ‘The War Cry,’ and occasionally a parcel. An early one contained an Army jersey. ’Wear it, Joe, and always live up to it,’ she had written. He wore it till it dropped to pieces, and then cut out the crest and brought it home. One can understand how her thoughtful love helped that trophy of grace, when, coming half-frozen out of the trenches, he refused the hot tea he craved for, because it contained rum.
For the ‘Copper Basher,’ away at the Dardanelles, separated from every Salvation Army comrade, she prayed especially. She wrote him regularly. Once, motherlike, she inquired if there were anything he would like her to send him. Tommy is a contented soul; the only thing he could think of was a luminous watch. Kate Lee managed to send him one, and as in the darkness of night the shining figures spoke to Tommy, so Kate Lee’s faith and love made the Saviour’s face to shine for him in the darkest hour. She rejoiced exceedingly that not only did Tommy refuse to sin, but that he let his light shine before his buddies. In the evenings when they would be drinking, swearing, and singing wild songs, Tommy would bring out his Bible to read his portion before ‘turning in.’ Sometimes, small men jeered at the man, who, before conversion, they might well have feared; another time they would say, ‘Old Tommy’ll read to us to-night.’ He would read aloud and pray, then ‘turning in’ would say, ’Good-night, chaps. Now Tommy’ll go to sleep.’ And he was left in peace.
The Memorial Service of Kate Lee was being conducted at one of the great corps the Adjutant had commanded, and one of her trophies was called upon to give his testimony. The man stood upon the platform, from whence he had heard his spiritual mother invite him to Jesus. It all came back, his sinfulness and misery; her winsomeness; her wonderful faith; her patience; her rejoicing through all the years since his conversion. He could not speak. The man stood and wept; his tears the greatest tribute he could pay to the woman who had mothered his soul to God.
When days are no more, and the things of this life are judged, one thinks to see a radiant spirit before the Throne of God, surrounded by a band of Blood-washed ones, and to hear Kate Lee say, with joy, to her Lord, ’The children whom Thou gavest me.’
In nothing did her motherliness show itself more beautifully than in the patient love that refused to abandon the most hopeless objects of her efforts, even though they shamed her and caused her sore distress. The love of many a parent for a prodigal child is quenched when son or daughter brings shame upon the family. But Kate Lee’s love was deeper and stronger than shame. One comrade tells of her, that finding one of her converts backslidden, and drinking in a public-house, she sat beside him while he drank of the cup of his destruction, then took him home.
A lieutenant speaks of a criminal whose soul Kate Lee wrestled for; after giving good promise, he broke into sin again and got into jail. She went to meet him at the gates upon his discharge, and brought him home to breakfast. He gave her his prison loaf; and she kept that loaf of bread– that slight evidence of gratitude–for quite a long time.
But–for our encouragement be it recorded–she did not always succeed in delivering the prey from the terrible. One notorious sinner, the terror of a certain city, she tried hard to win, but without success. Meeting him one day in the principal street, she took him into a restaurant and ordered dinner for two. The landlord called her aside, and inquired anxiously if she knew the character of her companion. ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied; ‘one of my friends whom I am hoping to help.’ Another time she met this man in the street, mad drunk. A sister-soldier was with her; Kate took the man’s arms, piloted him to the sister’s home; had a great pot of tea prepared, and made him drink cup after cup in quick succession. He wanted to fight, to smash the furniture; but she soothed him, and saved him from the lock-up. This man steadied considerably, but would not entirely renounce his sin. He still drinks; but when he meets Kate Lee’s old friends, he speaks about that ‘heavenly woman,’ and declares he’ll meet her in Heaven.
Only one instance can I discover when the Adjutant gave expression to the least discouragement concerning weak, wobbling converts. This was when she remarked to a beloved comrade who helped her to wrestle for the most hopeless, ’Shall we ever get to an end of it? Oh, that the Lord would take them Home!’
Army Officers verily believe in the aphorism that change of work is as good as a rest. When heavy campaigning at one corps had over-wearied Adjutant Lee, and it was suggested that she might conduct a party of emigrants to Canada, she hailed the opportunity with the joy of a child. To cross the ocean; to see something of the great Dominion; passing over thousands of miles of prairie, mountain, and river, and coming in touch with the throbbing cities of that great country, and all the while to be about her Master’s business, was pure delight in prospect.
Captain Winifred Leal, who was at that time engaged in the Emigration Department, and had to do with the party which was committed to Adjutant Lee’s charge, furnishes some reminiscences of the impression which she made upon herself, and also upon the officers of the boat upon which the party sailed. She writes:–
At that time these parties were crossing the Atlantic weekly, and sometimes three times a week. In advance of each sailing, full particulars were mailed to The Salvation Army officers who were responsible for meeting the boat at the port of landing, and also to The Salvation Army officers at the various centres throughout the Dominion, at which individual settlers were to arrive for distribution in outlying districts. Thus, no responsibility with regard to placing the newcomers upon arrival rested with the conductor, whose work it was to be spiritual adviser and friend to each member and unifier of the party as a whole, during the voyage. Whilst crossing the bridge that spans the distance between the known and unknown, hearts are tender. The mind, too, takes stock of the failures, mistakes, and successes of the past; fresh resolutions are made. It is a time propitious for the re-birth of souls. The Angel Adjutant said she felt it to be so.
Her party was an interesting one: wives and children joining husbands and fathers, who had set sail, with The Army’s help, some months previously; single women and widows going to domestic service; parents whose married children in the Dominion offered them a home with them; and not the least interesting, a party of Scotch boys, aged from fourteen to seventeen. (These boys were orphans. In Edinburgh and Glasgow they had started to earn their living in the streets. Under The Army’s wing they were now to be placed on Canadian farms.)
It fell to me to introduce Adjutant Lee to the members of her party, and her sympathy went out to each one of them. The Adjutant was undoubtedly nervous of her powers, when embarking upon an enterprise so new as this, and she asked if I could not accompany the sailing from Glasgow to Liverpool. A period of about twenty-four hours, as near as I can remember, was involved in the interval of embarking at Glasgow and setting sail from Liverpool. This was arranged, and three vivid impressions of this remarkable woman, whom I had not met previously, remain with me.
The first sitting of third-class passengers were seated around the table in the dining-room for their substantial meal, special tables having been allocated to the hundred or more members of the party under Salvation Army guidance. Adjutant Lee, who was standing by the tables, managed in a natural manner, and without any preliminary fuss to get the entire party on to their feet, singing,
We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
But more because of Jesus’ blood;
Let manna to our souls be given,
The Bread of Life sent down from Heaven.
Few, if any, of the party were Salvationists, but the singing was hearty, stewards and stewardesses looking on approvingly.
During the evening the Adjutant appeared in her bonnet, with her concertina, on the third-class upper deck. She began to play an appealing Salvation Army song. Several hundred passengers gathered round and settled into a singsong. Before long this drifted most naturally–or rather, was ably piloted–into a pulsing meeting with the accompaniment of testimony, a solo from a young man, and an earnest, direct appeal to seek Salvation from the leader of ceremonies, who now seemed not so much completely at home as entirely oblivious of herself. Her eyes travelled searchingly from face to face, and all listened eagerly.
Third and second-class accommodation being fully booked up, the steamship company found it most convenient to give the Adjutant a berth in the first class. When the bugle sounded at seven o’clock for dinner, we were in the midst of an argument. The Adjutant declared that she must go to dinner in her bonnet; she must at once show who and what she was. I replied that if she so chose, she could have breakfast, lunch, and tea, in her bonnet, but that it would be much better to appear at dinner inconspicuously bareheaded. My argument prevailed, though she declared she would be much more comfortable in the beloved bonnet. At the close of dinner the passengers at our table presented the Adjutant with their choice buttonholes, so that she was able at once to take a bouquet of roses and carnations to her third-class passengers. I left the ship next morning at Liverpool, feeling that it would have been interesting to have accompanied the Adjutant throughout the journey.
About a year later I happened to cross on the Hesperian in charge of a party. Many Salvation Army conductors had crossed and re-crossed in that vessel since the journey of Adjutant Lee, but from the ship’s officials, chief stewards and stewardesses, one name was mentioned persistently to me. There were many inquiries as to when Adjutant Lee was likely to cross again.
The effect of her influence upon the party actually under her care must have been very blessed. I was not privileged to see anything further of that. But amongst those who dwelt in the deep on that ship, it was apparent that her coming had left a streak of Salvation love and light.
Landing at Quebec, the Adjutant proceeded to Winnipeg with her party. A private tourist car was provided, and the train journey occupied four days and nights, and carried the party through wonderful scenery.
Delivering her charges, her work completed, the Adjutant gave herself up to a week or two of pure enjoyment. She was entertained at The Army Lodge for young women immigrants in Winnipeg, and from this base, visited all The Army institutions in the city. She was specially interested in the juvenile court attached to the detention home for young offenders, a government institution officered by The Salvation Army.
The splendid Grace Maternity Hospital was another centre of Army work which delighted the English visitor. Over the border into the United States went Kate Lee, and in Chicago saw The Army at work in the self-same way as elsewhere.
A Sunday evening visit to the prison court cells was a memorable experience. Standing where she and her companions could command several cells, they were able to speak to the prisoners who awaited trial next day. Some of the listeners were white, others coloured. Several of them in the private conversations which followed, expressed a desire for Salvation. One woman, whose curse had been drink, knelt with tears, and sought deliverance, as the Adjutant pointed her to God.
Back in Canada, the Adjutant plunged into a programme of meetings and the visitation of Army institutions and the prisons. Her fame as a specialist in dealing with criminals gave her an entrance and a welcome to Canadian jails. She visited the Dovercourt Prison, and conducted a meeting with two hundred long-sentence prisoners. She told of men she had known to be delivered from desperate sin, when in penitence they cried to God; and at the conclusion twenty men raised their hands as an evidence of their desire, then and there to seek Salvation. The Governor of the short-sentence prisoners sent the Adjutant an invitation, and she held two meetings at the prison with the women and with the men the day she was leaving the city. Kate Lee was struck with the Canadian prison system, and the evident aim of the whole treatment to uplift those under detention, and give them a chance of better things. She longed that the free opportunity for Army officers to help the prisoners might be extended to her own country.
A visit to Niagara was included in ‘the time of her life,’ as she described her overseas trip to her sister. Niagara, that mighty manifestation of natural force with its limitless possibilities in the service of man, when captured and controlled, impressed her deeply, for in her jottings book are found some vigorous notes on the harnessing of Niagara. Still, it was on the souls saved in the prisons that she dwelt as her special delight.
Kate Lee’s local officers speak of her in relation to that particular section of the corps to which they were attached during her stay amongst them, and laugh as they recall how hard she worked them. The treasurers and secretaries tell of her cleverness in financial affairs. The sergeant-majors chuckle and still marvel over her capacity for work and getting others to work; the bandsmen are enthusiastic over her ability to manage them; the ward sergeants of her working of the ward system; the recruiting sergeants over her care for the converts; the publication sergeants over her interest in the papers and magazines; the young people’s workers remember with gratitude her love for the coming Army.
But there is one work which all local officers and also the soldiers unite in recalling with wonder and warm appreciation–her visitation. To get amongst the people in their homes, to share in their joys and sorrows, to understand something of their sins! This, Kate Lee believed was the key to their souls. Like the Apostles she visited ’from house to house.’
To make this possible, with the many other claims of her commands, her life was subjected to stern discipline and governed by method. She rose at seven, breakfasted at eight; an hour was devoted to prayer and study, an hour to business, and by ten o’clock, she and her lieutenant left the house to visit. It would have been a mutual pleasure for the officers to have gone together, but as one lieuteant tells us, ’The Adjutant said, “We must sacrifice our feelings, dear, in order to cover more ground."’ So both went separate ways, the lieutenant returning to the quarters at twelve o’clock to have dinner ready by one. After dinner, they set out again, visiting until six o’clock, and even then, visiting was not entirely ruled out. Whenever a call came or a need arose, Kate Lee responded and when wrestling for a soul she took no account of time.
Lieut.-Colonel Thomas says:–
Some years ago I visited Adjutant Lee’s corps to conduct a campaign. We had just finished the Saturday night’s meeting when a little woman pushing a perambulator with two children in it, ran into the hall, asking for the Adjutant. Her husband was at home in delirium tremens, threatening terrible things. The Adjutant went back with her, soothed the poor madman, got him to bed, and sat with him until the early morning. Soon afterwards that man was soundly converted, and is to-day an Army bandsman, while the elder child who was wheeled in the perambulator, is a corps cadet.
Stories abound of her early morning visits to pray with converts before they faced the world. To catch the factory hands at Reading she would be at their home by six o’clock. To earlier workers she has called as early as half-past five.
A ship-owner in Sunderland had read of the Angel Adjutant, and afterwards attended her meetings. He was not impressed by her conversational powers nor her platform gifts, and often questioned in his mind where the secret of her influence upon desperate characters could be. One Monday morning, he had cause to go to his office early, and tells how he met Adjutant Lee in the street. ‘Out so early, and on a Monday morning, Adjutant?’ he remarked pleasantly. ’I would have thought you needed rest after your heavy Sunday.’ The Adjutant smiled, and hesitated. The gentleman continued, ‘May I ask why are you out so early?’ She replied, ’Well, last night we had two remarkable cases seeking Salvation, and when ungodly men are broken up and come to the penitent-form, that is only the commencement of the work. I have been down to these men’s homes to pray with them and see them safely into the works.’ Says this friend, ’Then I understood the secret of her power. It was the same love that took Christ to the Cross to save sinners, working in this woman to the same end. I no longer wondered at her success.’
Brigadier Southall, of Canada, relates an incident connected with a Sunday’s meetings, which he conducted at one of the Adjutant’s corps, which illustrates her midnight visitation.
Having heard something of her work, I looked forward to the day with anticipation. We had good crowds, and there were a few seekers at night, but no thrilling incident occurred during the day. However, after Sunday night’s meeting a young man who had come to the penitent- form, hesitated about leaving the hall. When Adjutant Lee spoke to him, he told her he was afraid to go to his home, from which he had been absent some time. He confessed to having robbed his parents on two previous occasions, and his father had told him never to come back again. The Adjutant determined to accompany him home. Arriving there she knocked, and in reply a voice from an upstairs window inquired her business. She explained that she had come upon an important matter, to which the reply came that as the family had retired, would she not indicate her business without bringing them downstairs? She replied that she must speak with them quietly. She kept the young fellow out of sight when the door was opened a few inches.
By tactful moves, Kate Lee got into the hall, and told of the son’s confession and his desire to live a new life. This produced a storm of protest. They could not trust him any more. The Adjutant pressed upon the mother the precious quality of forgiveness, and the necessity of exercising it if we would desire the love of God extended to us. She gained her way. At about two o’clock in the morning, the whole family professed to accept the mercy of God, and the erring boy was received again into the home.
One of the Adjutant’s special visitations was to the police station on Saturday night. Her friends the police were glad to see her, and willingly allowed her to interview the detained prisoners, with whom she prayed and left a copy of ‘The War Cry,’ for Sunday’s reading. At least one soul was led to God by this means.
‘When she got her sleep, I do not know,’ says a faithful armour-bearer at one corps.
From her various corps come stories of her sick visiting. Here, a child at the gates of death; there a bedridden old man, whose room she tidied and breakfast she prepared. Again, a drunken woman, whose body she nursed to health, while she brought her soul to the Great Physician. An outside friend tells that once entering a barber’s shop he found the topic of conversation to be The Salvation Army, which was coming in for a drubbing. ‘Wait a minute,’ broke in a rough workman; ’You don’t say a word against The Salvation Army while I’m about. This Adjutant Lee is a dear soul. We were in an awful hole at our place. Missis and the youngsters all ill at the same time, and this Adjutant heard about us; didn’t know a thing of us except we were in need, and she came in and nursed them all well.’
For her soldiers who were in health, spiritually and physically, the Adjutant had little time to spare; none for tea-drinking and social calls. She expected her soldiers to practise self-denial as she did. One soldier, feeling rather deprived on this account said, ’Must I go on the booze to get a little of your attention?’ Searching her face carefully, the Adjutant replied, ’You are all right, my dear; you must spare me for those who need me.’
She expected to be guided to souls who needed help, and was, as the following incident shows.
Two local officers moved, with their family, from a distant corps to London where they had undertaken heavy business responsibilities. The wife was tired and anxious, and felt that now they had slipped out of a corps where they had seemed indispensable, it would be better for them to remain undiscovered. She had, in fact, decided to withdraw from the fight. When visiting, the Adjutant stumbled upon them, muddled and tired, as they sat amongst their packing cases. Her radiant face and gracious spirit soon drew out of the little woman the confession she had meant to hide. ‘When I came in,’ says the husband, ’there was the Adjutant sitting on one of the boxes chatting so happily, she had mother feeling she was needed as much as ever, and simply must be in the fight. She came just at the right moment, and we have never looked back again; that is more than ten years ago.’
The Adjutant, in order to get about quickly, used a bicycle. One of her local officers says, ’She almost lived on her wheel, and when she heard of the motor attachment she wrote and asked me to inquire about one for her so that she might go faster.’
A comrade tells that when Kate Lee was stationed in the country, she went one day to see her, unexpectedly. ’I met her carrying a large basket, and on inquiry found that it contained the proverbial loaves and fishes, which she was taking to one of her converts who was out of work. She made sure that the family had their dinner, then started the husband off to sell the fish.’
Amongst the sinners in those terrible places, where respectable people and officers of the law are unsafe, the Adjutant’s figure and face were most familiar. When after her death, Kate Lee’s photo appeared in ’The War Cry,’ the call came from many of these haunts, ’Get me that Angel’s picture, we want it down here.’ She won some of her gems in those quarters. From one locality she persuaded three women to go to one of our Homes and none returned to their evil ways.
Her visitation was often discouraging. A lieutenant tells that the Adjutant spent much time and effort upon a man and his wife who were very wicked and in wretched circumstances. They lived in apartments. The Adjutant visited them persistently, but they seemed to become more and more hardened in sin, and she did not have the joy of seeing them converted. She grieved much and was tempted to wonder whether the time spent had been wasted. One day she was asked to visit a man in the room next to that occupied by this couple. He told the Adjutant that he had looked forward to her visits next door, and always placed his ear near to the wall so as to hear her pray. Through her prayers he had sought and found salvation.
Dr. Carse, of Sunderland, says:–
I met Kate Lee in all kinds of houses, and at all hours of the day and of the night, and she was always on the one mission–seeking souls. One morning, at half-past two, I was coming out of one of the worst slums in Sunderland, and met the Adjutant and her lieutenant. They were radiant. The Adjutant had gone to settle a family brawl; had reconciled husband and wife, got them converted, and broken their whisky bottles in the gutter. I met her also in the houses of the rich, and they would have kept her there, but she never stayed after she had finished her Master’s business.
But Kate did not attempt to encompass the fruitful work of visitation merely with her lieutenant’s assistance; she organized a band of visitors at her corps, generally godly, married women, who were timid of public service. They met at the hall one or two afternoons each week, and went two and two to certain districts. The Adjutant and her lieutenant initiated these comrades into the way of getting into the homes of the people. At an appointed hour they returned to the hall and reported any special case of sickness or sorrow to the officers, who followed it up. This method was a great feeder to the corps meetings, and provided an outlet for the awakened spiritual energies of some Salvationists who hitherto had been soldiers in name only.
She hungered for souls, she sought them everywhere. One morning, scanning the daily paper to see if there were some call for help in its pages, she noticed the case of a man awaiting trial for a serious offence. She remarked to her lieutenant, ‘I must try to help that man.’ Straightway she prayed, then wrote the governor of the jail asking permission to visit the prisoner. This was granted, but the Adjutant was not allowed to see him alone. She was conducted to a triple cage; a warder occupied one compartment; the prisoner another; Kate Lee the third. As she gazed at the man through the bars, to introduce herself to him, and so to establish friendly contact and to reach his soul, seemed impossible. She spoke to him for a considerable time and prayed, but the face before her was like a sphinx, and he did not answer a word. Kate Lee came away from the prison with a sad heart, feeling that she had accomplished nothing.
At the trial, the man was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. The Adjutant continued to pray for the convict, and at last, to her great joy, she received a letter from him. The prisoner told her that on returning to his cell, he had thought over all she had said to him; not only had conviction of sin come to his soul, but hope. He had asked God to forgive the past and to give him a new heart. God had answered his prayer. Good conduct shortened the criminal’s sentence, and Kate Lee saw him discharged, placed him in the care of The Army, and after a term at the Land Colony at Hadleigh, in Essex, he was restored to his friends. Until the end of her life, this man corresponded with the Adjutant, whom he always addressed as ‘Dear Mother.’
If staying for a night at a house, the Adjutant endeavoured to leave some blessing behind her, and the Spirit of God, resting upon quite commonplace words and actions, made them beautiful and blessed to the receivers. One woman writes, ’She billeted with me when my husband and son were soldiering. It was such a cheer to have her presence in the home. She wrote in a book for me her name, and “Be true to the Flag.” I treasure this very much.’
In another and different kind of home where she was the guest for a night, the daughter of the house, a bright, talented girl, given up to worldliness, accompanied the Adjutant to her room to make sure that all her needs were supplied. They fell into conversation about spiritual matters and talked on till the small morning hours, then knelt in prayer, and the girl gave herself to God. ’She used to call to see us, but try as we would we could never persuade her to rest for even one hour in our home,’ writes a girl from another home of comfort.
With her voice trembling with love and emotion, a woman soldier told me the following incident:–
When the Adjutant was stationed here, I was living away from home at service, but coming back for a holiday, I found my father ill, and stayed to nurse him. One evening I had a feeling I should bring the Adjutant to him. He was a man who went to no place of worship and made no profession of religion. I went to the officers’ quarters, and the lieutenant said that the Adjutant had gone out of town for a meeting; she did not know what time she would return. The feeling that I must get her that night grew on me, and I walked about the streets until I saw her coming home. It was nearly midnight, and I caught sight of her face in the light of a street lamp. She looked like a ghost, so tired and white, and I shouldn’t have had the heart to ask her to start out again, but for the strong feeling that had come to me. ‘Certainly I will come,’ she said brightly. Well, she came and talked to father, told him the way of Salvation, prayed with him, and he prayed, and she left him at peace with God, and happy. An hour after she had gone, he became unconscious and never regained his senses. He died that morning. Just caught his soul in the nick of time, she did. That’s the big thing about Adjutant Lee that stands out for mother and me, but I couldn’t begin to tell you all the little things she did. Aye, but she bothered about us, she did. I never knew the like.
The year that Kate Lee was born, the artist Dietrich gave to the world a picture, which, if not destined to become one of the immortals of religious art, has about it an irresistible charm for the ordinary eye. The Saviour stands with outstretched arms saying, ’Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.’ About Him are gathered people representing almost every condition of need and woe. The charm lies not so much in the central figure as in the adoring love of the sorrowing and the sick for the One who loves them; little children cuddle about His robe in utter contentment; a weary mother with babe at her breast, has brought her sick daughter; husband has carried a crippled wife; a woman ‘that was lost’ bends at the Saviour’s feet in an agony of repentance; an aged, blind man is led by his daughter; a maniac, whose tortured soul looks out of haggard eyes, frames a prayer with clasped hands.
When in a remote city, I first saw a print of this picture, a line from James Russell Lowell–’His Throne is with the outcast and the weak’– seemed its best title. But as I look at it to-day, all the sorrowful, needy people who have spoken to me of Kate Lee, seem to gather around that picture and I seem to hear the words, ’Aye, but He bothered about us,’ and there comes to my heart a realization of the triumph of Jesus in this servant of His, who grew to be so like her Master. Surely the world is heart-sick for such souls great in compassion, self-forgetful, and triumphant in faith as was Kate Lee.
Kate Lee had been a Salvation Army Field Officer for fifteen years, when suddenly she became famous. In gathering material for the writing of ‘Twice Born Men,’ Harold Begbie had been no less impressed by the sweetness and wisdom of the woman who had won from sin to righteousness several of the notable characters with whom the book deals, than he was with the miracle of their conversion. Throughout the book we catch glimpses of Kate Lee-her loveliness of character, her guileless wisdom, and her strength of purpose-as Mr. Begbie saw her. Vividly describing Shepherd’s Bush, the locality in which the Norland Castle corps operates, Mr. Begbie pictures the incessant, roaring traffic of the main roads, the ceaseless procession of humanity on the pavements, the exhibition of wealth and extravagance in the shops-almost frightening to those who know of the terrible destitution which exists only a stone’s throw distant– the crowded street markets of the poor, the shabby residential streets, and continues:–
One turns out of the respectable streets where the children are playing cricket, cherry-bobs, hopscotch, hoops, and cards, and suddenly finds himself in streets miserable and evil beyond description.
These are streets of once decent two-storied villas, now lodging- houses. The very atmosphere is different. One is conscious first of dejection, then of some hideous and abysmal degradation. It is not only the people who make this impression on one’s mind, but the houses themselves. Dear God, the very houses seem accursed! The bricks are crusted, and in a dull fashion shiny with grime; the doors, window-frames, and railings are dark with dirt only disturbed by fresh accretions; the flights of steps leading up to the front doors, under their foul porches, are worn, broken, and greasy; the doors and windows in the reeking basements have been smashed up in nearly every case for firewood. Here and there a rod is missing from the iron railings–it has been twisted out and used as a weapon.
In these streets on a summer evening you find the flight of steps occupied by the lodgers, and the pavements and road-ways swarming with their children. The men are thieves, begging-letter writers, pickpockets, bookmakers’ touts, totters (rag and bone men), and trouncers (men paid by costermongers to shout their wares), and bullies. The women add to their common degradation–which may be imagined–the art of the pickpocket, the beggar, the shoplifter, and the bully....
If you could see these bareheaded women, with their hanging hair, their ferocious eyes, their brutal mouths; if you could see them there, half dressed, and that in a draggle-tailed slovenliness incomparably horrible; and if you could hear their appalling language loading their hoarse voices, and from their phrases receive into your mind some impression of their modes of thought, you would say that human nature in the earliest and most barbarous of its evolutionary changes had never, could never, have been like this.
Concerning the men, one thing only need be said.... There was cunning in their faces, there was every expression of ... underhand craft, but they looked and lowered their eyes.... They seemed to me ‘consciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy.’
But more than by anything concerning the men and women of this neighbourhood, one is impressed by the swarm of dreggy children playing their poor little pavement games in the shadow of these lodging-houses. Some–can it be believed?–are decently clothed and look as if they are sometimes washed.... The mass of these children, above five or six years of age, are terribly neglected. I have never seen children more dirty, more foully clothed, more dejected looking.... I saw many children with sores and boils; I saw some children whose eyes looked out at me from a face that was nothing but a scab.
A mortuary chapel has had to be built for this neighbourhood. The rooms of the houses are so crowded that directly a person dies the body must be moved.
Mr. Begbie now introduces Kate Lee:–
Into these streets come day after day, and every Sunday, the little, vigorous corps of The Salvation Army, stationed in this quarter of London. The Adjutant of the corps some years ago was a beautiful and delicate girl. She prayed at the bedside of dying men and women in these lodging-houses. She taught children to pray. She went into public-houses and persuaded the violent blackguards of the town to come away; she pleaded with the most desperate women at street corners; she preached in the open streets on Sundays; she stood guard over the doors of men, mad for drink, and refused to let them out.
On one occasion this little woman was walking home through evil streets after midnight, when a drunken man asked her if he might travel by her side. After going some way the man said, ’No, you aren’t afraid,’ and then he mumbled to himself, ’Never insults the likes of you, because you cares for the likes of us.’
It is to the work of this wonderful woman–so gracious, so modest, and so sweet–that one may trace the miracles whose histories are contained in the following pages. The energy, resolution, and splendid cheerfulness of the present corps, some of them her own converts, may likewise be traced through her influence. She has left in these foul streets the fragrance of her personality, a fragrance of the lilies of a pure soul. ‘Ah,’ exclaims an old jail- bird, showing me the photograph of this woman, ’If anybody goes to Heaven, it will be that there little Angel of God.’ They call her the ‘Angel Adjutant.’
We see the Angel Adjutant again in the book, visiting the ‘Puncher’ at his work; braving the abominations of ‘O.B.D.’s’ den, as she made friends with that sodden drink slave and his wife, piloting him to the hall and mothering the first signs of grace in his stupefied soul. We see her mothering the ‘Criminal,’ weeping over the fall of ‘Rags and Bones,’ endeavouring to hold the ‘Failure’ to his moral and spiritual obligations, and, despite his falls, refusing to give him up.
’That man, Mr. Begbie, is wonderful. He’s got those men’s very images on paper,’ says one of Kate Lee’s converts, referring to the ’Twice Born Men’ characters. None the less truly did he get Kate Lee’s photograph on paper, and sent it round the world for all to see, and for thinking people to admire, to wonder over, to praise and give thanks for.
‘Twice Born Men’ was a great success. Its first edition was immediately absorbed, while its present edition is the twenty-seventh, and its English circulation has reached over a quarter of a million copies. It has had, likewise, an enormous sale in the United States and Canada. It has been translated into French, German, and Swedish.
Few books of its time appealed to so widely differing minds and classes. The professor of psychology, the theologian, the prize-fighter, Christian mother, the school-boy, in common interest bent their heads over its pages. The Press discussed it from many aspects in a chorus of favour.
‘The Angel Adjutant’ became an entity whom people all over the world desired to know. After she had been thus discovered to the world, wherever she went she was received with honour. Churches besieged her with invitations to occupy their pulpits. Civic authorities paid deference to this spiritual and moral specialist.
How did the glare of the limelight affect Kate Lee? A comrade who knew more of her inner life than almost any other, lets in a sidelight upon her association with ‘Twice Born Men.’ Her experiences in connexion with the book were not entirely sweet. She felt the sting of jealousy, that hurtful thing which, while uncleansed human nature is what it is, will continue to inflict wounds upon those chosen for honour, but Kate Lee bore it with meekness and in silence. ‘It is not easy to bear success,’ she said on this subject. ’When I have been lifted up, it has meant a cross rather than a throne for me.’
It is not easy for a noble soul to bear a representative honour, unless it is patent to all that it is representative and not personal. No one realized more fully than Kate Lee that other women officers had worked and are working amongst the masses just as she worked, actuated by the same spirit as moved her, and achieving the same results as those in which she rejoiced. She would rather that another than herself had been thrown upon the world’s screen to illustrate the work. A few weeks before she died, she spoke of this to her old friend, Brigadier Elizabeth Thomas, adding, ’Whenever “Twice Born Men” is mentioned, I want to run and hide my head.’ But while she felt all this, her keen sense of true values withheld her from putting a trumpet to her lips and declaring it. Rather, with that Christlike modesty and dignity that characterized all her public service, she entered every door that publicity opened to her and gave her message. She occupied many important pulpits, filling great churches with interested and sympathetic congregations.
As ever she was about her Father’s business. Far from attracting attention to herself, she brushed aside preliminaries, and got directly to her subject. For the title of her lecture, she did not always choose ‘The Terrible Ten’ or ‘Modern Miracles’ or ‘Twice Born Men’; sometimes she gave a plain Salvation address, or a simple call to professing Christians to live the life of Christ. One lady who heard her, tells how on one occasion she held a great congregation in the hollow of her hand. Tears had flowed; heads were shaking in depreciation or nodding approvingly, as she pictured the sorrows and the sins of the poor, and God’s power to save them to the uttermost. Then she ‘turned her guns’ upon her hearers. How did they stand before God in relation to sin? ’Society is often a cloak for sin that is terribly present in the heart. The law deals with sin that is found out: God deals with it as it is in the soul. You and I are each going to the bar of God to be judged as we are. How is it with your soul?’
A strange silence came upon that select audience, as the people pondered straighter and more personal questions than they were accustomed to hear addressed to them.
A lieutenant tells of a railroad incident, which reveals how truly Kate Lee loved to be unknown, and how she would screen herself from praise, when to accept it could serve no definite end. She says:–
We were returning from some Councils, and a clergyman got into our compartment. He was very friendly, and in conversation we found him enthusiastic over ‘Twice Born Men.’ He said how he would count it an honour to meet the ‘Angel Adjutant,’ and express to her his thanks for the help he had received by her example. I felt so proud of her, and wanted to tell the clergyman that the ‘Angel Adjutant’ was my Captain; but catching a warning glance from her, I had to keep quiet.
A few hours after he heard of Kate Lee’s death, Harold Begbie penned the following tribute to her memory:–
There seems to me something in the death of Kate Lee at this moment which has a mystical significance.
The world has just received ‘The Life of William Booth,’ and is making up its mind what to think of him. His son, Bramwell, with a courage which is part of his religion, allowed the biographer of William Booth to write freely what he believed to be the truth, and the whole truth, of the great Founder of The Salvation Army. There in that book for all men to behold, in the very habit of his daily life, stands William Booth, revivalist, social reformer, colonizer, organizer, husband, father, and man.
And now there ascends into the glory of God one of the most radiant spirits that ever blessed the darkest places of the earth with a light truly from Heaven, little Kate Lee, the Angel Adjutant of Notting Dale; the saint of the worst men that ever lived, the adored angel of souls once as foul and brutal and besotted with iniquity as ever corrupted human life, and but for William Booth she herself might have perished.
I am one of those who cannot think of William Booth as a saint. His wonder for me, and his greatness, lies in the fact that he made saints; this turbulent and tremendous power, this unresting energy, he made saints; that is to say, he made the most beautiful and gentle thing that can exist in human life, the spirit that loves the worst; that descends with joy into the pit of pollution; that is happier there than in the abodes of the sanctified; that is wholly content to be unknown and unheard of; that can save the worst and transfigure the most hideous, and itself remain utterly unspotted by the world.
I was far away in the dales of Yorkshire when I heard of Kate Lee’s death. My first feeling was one of gladness, for I loved to know she was beyond the touch of pain. Then I fell into a fit of sorrow. Why had I not made this miracle of William Booth more real in the biography? Is there anything in life so important, or anything at this moment of the world’s history that calls so urgently for proclamation, as the miracle of conversion?
Kate Lee seemed to be at my side. I saw the harassed statesmen of the nations attempting to piece together the broken pieces of this war-shattered world, and they seemed to me no greater figures than children playing with the parts of a world which they themselves had taken apart. And Kate Lee seemed to say, ’There is no hope for the world, no hope at all, but the changed heart. Until men love God, they will never love each other. And until they love each other there will be poverty and crime, revolutions and wars.’
Her life goes on in the lives of others. She is immortal here upon earth. For ever and ever some men and women will be better because in her lifetime she made other people good who were bad, happy who were unhappy. But I would that her spirit could penetrate into the whole life of humanity.
How modest she was, how unassuming, and how tranquil! She had seen the most evil depth of the human heart, and yet she believed, with a smile of unclouded gladness, that the human heart is of God. She loved the worst people in the world. She was tender and patient with the most stupid and dull. She never despaired of any soul that looked at her with eyes of hunger. The Pharisee might turn away with disgust, the judge might condemn, science might pronounce the case hopeless; she smiled and waited, waited at the prison door, waited in the pit of abomination, waited at the hard heart. And while she waited she prayed, quietly, and calmly; and while she prayed so great was the love of God in her heart, she smiled. There is no hope for the world until the love that was in Kate Lee is in us. Let every Salvationist assure himself with every day of life that his work lies only with the unhappy, the foul, the horrible, the repulsive. To this end came William Booth preaching in the slums and alleys of great cities, and on this mission of his went Kate Lee with a song in her heart and a smile on her lips.
I never looked into human face so full of the love of God, so shining with love of humanity, as the face of this ‘Angel Adjutant.’
During the week of the announcement of Kate Lee’s death, her name was upon the lips of millions of people. Newspapers throughout the country published her photograph and told of how she sought the lost. In the saloons around London the topic of conversation was the loveliness of the ‘Angel Adjutant.’ Almost wherever Salvationists appeared, people sympathized with them in the loss of so brave an officer as Kate Lee.
Beyond the seas, illustrated journals carried the picture of her pure face and the story of her love and devotion to her Saviour and the sinful, and mothers gave thanks for her life and prayed that their daughters might have her spirit.
Her casket was borne through streets lined with thousands of silent, reverent spectators and carried to the grave by men once deep-dyed in sin, now cleansed and ennobled by the Salvation she had proclaimed.
To queens has less honour been shown than to this girl who was born in crowded Hornsey, who lived a life of toil and struggle, and died penniless. Why? Because the human heart, despite its crookedness and failings, recognizes that love is the greatest thing in the world, and pays tribute accordingly.
Perhaps no class of people voluntarily work harder or longer hours than Salvationists. When the ordinary worker quits toil for recreation, the Salvationist drops his tools to work at his religion, and for no reward in this life. But for all that, the Salvationist has his compensations. The most precious thing about The Army, he will tell you, is its comradeship.
The uniform of the military means something of fellowship on service, nothing on leave; but the Salvationist is always on service, and the sign of cap, bonnet, or even the small Salvation Army brooch or tri-coloured ribbon, serves as an introduction, which includes a welcome, when Salvationists meet in any clime or country.
The uniform stands for the acceptance of certain convictions, principles, and consecration to one purpose in life, which knows no barrier of nation, colour, nor class. Salvationists are comrades of a single purpose, the bringing of all men to knowledge of God. Mr. Harold Begbie describes this bond of comradeship which he found illustrated in a prayer meeting which he attended amongst Salvationists in India. He writes:–
Those Officers represented many nations. Among them were a Brahmin, a Singalese, Malayali, a Tamil, a German, a Norwegian, a Swede, an Australian, an Englishman, and a Scot. All were praying. The voices of those various nationalities rose into the air as a cry inspired by love for a sinful world, with a compassion and a longing, uttered for the need of a common humanity, and all those separate voices and different words rose in a perfect unity like the prayer of a single family under a father’s roof.
Constitutionally Kate Lee was not dependent; she did not know what it was to hunger for society; to pine for a ‘yarn’; to ache with desire to discuss with a chum small talk of The Army. The passion of her life swept her beyond such things and the springs of her refreshment ran deep. Her business was to seek and to save that which was lost–to shepherd the sheep–and these she sought with a love that never wavered. Nevertheless, fellowship with her comrades was one of her chief joys. She delighted in Officers’ Councils where all were bent upon seeking guidance for the furtherance of the Salvation War. Whenever she was thrown into the company of her comrades her heart was at once at leisure from itself, and she sought and found pleasant and profitable point for contact.
She felt herself to be a poor conversationalist, and her success in fellowship lay in drawing out the interests of others. She was a good listener, rather than an entertainer. Humility was one of her greatest charms and she had no hesitation in confessing her limitations. ’I enjoy the fun, but I can’t make it; do help me,’ she said to a comrade, when once she found herself responsible for guiding the conversation of a party of officers.
Tributes come from comrades of all ranks, from the shy lieutenant, to the veteran commissioner, telling of the sweetness of her communion in comradeship.
But so great was the pressure upon her life, that during any period of respite from her work, she longed, not for change or entertainment, but rest.
One cannot talk with Kate Lee’s people without discovering that they regarded her as a person apart from all others. She would drink tea in a hovel with outcasts, or lead a volunteer brigade in scrubbing her halls; handle hammer and nails as a man; collect produce for the harvest festival with a donkey-cart, and perform a hundred and one other ‘unladylike’ offices. But about her was an atmosphere of intrinsic superiority, that the most untaught felt and appreciated. Amongst the most rough and ready people she is never mentioned with familiarity; but one constantly hears references to ‘that heavenly woman,’ ’an angel if ever there was one,’ and ‘that lovely lady’; also mention of ’her private means!’
Incidentally, a pathetic interest attaches to the illusion of ’her private means,’ for, except for her small Army allowance, Kate Lee had no private funds. Reserve and independence are characteristics of the Lee family, and are, despite warm affection, observed within their tiny family circle. When the mother joined her Officer daughters in their home, Lucy and Kate realized that if she were aware of the smallness of their allowance, she would feel that a third person could not share it without causing strain, and such knowledge would be a continual sorrow to her. So they never enlightened her, and during the years spent together, they endeavoured, by touching little self-denials, to keep their table and wardrobe as in the home days. So the little mother lived in peace, and died, and never guessed the truth. It was a good training for Kate, and later in life few women could get more value out of money than she. Her uniforms were turned, mended, and worn to the last. Her single indulgence was books, and these were few and well chosen. By dint of the habit of constant watchfulness over her purse, and the blessing of God, her little store became like the widow’s cruse of oil, and she gave her tenth and more to the Lord’s work. But it was the graciousness with which she gave that made her gifts appear large in the estimation of those who received.
While Kate was received and made much of by high and low alike, she made no pretence of being well born or well educated; nor did she assume airs. She was a perfectly natural woman, who, realizing that she was a daughter of the Heavenly King, sought to rightly represent Him. Nothing rough, mean, nor trivial would become a member of the heavenly household; but joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, goodness–the graces of the Spirit should be seen in her. And they were. The consciousness of her heavenly relationship also gave her a dignity that held itself graciously in any company, and with gentle, unafraid eyes, she met the gaze of all. Kate believed that if we ’walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other,’ and from a heart free from selfishness and guile, she looked out upon her neighbours, asking for nothing but to understand and bless them, and be blessed. The hearts of all but those who hate and reject the good, rose to salute her, and called her friend.
Of those who loved her and whom she loved there is no count; but here and there upon the fields where she fought, there are some to whom her soul clave in a particular way.
In and out of the homes of the rich she went, bearing sunshine and gathering gold wherewith to push her campaign; but she had no time to make friendships there. A certain leisureliness is inseparable from the life of the well-to-do; time to talk; to be interested in a variety of subjects; to be amused; time even to eat and rest in correct form. With Kate, life was terribly real. On every side her eyes saw men, women, and little children weighed down with sin and sorrow, and her soul joined in the consecration of the great soul who wrote:–
My every sacred moment spend.
In publishing the sinner’s Friend.
Thus, while many rich friends opened their beautiful homes to her, placed their cars at her disposal, and begged for her company, she passed on her way with a smile that was wholly free from censoriousness. And there may have been another reason. In her nature was a deep love for the beautiful, the harmonious. Maybe she recognized in the good things of life a temptation which she needed to hold at arm’s-length, if all her spikenard were to be poured out for her Lord.
In any case, it was to Bethany-like households, where, as a rule, the occupants did their own serving, but were rich in love and in full sympathy with her spirit and purpose, that she tarried to gain strength or refreshment.
One of these friends, Mrs. Taylorson, is a bedridden saint, a remarkable woman in her ninetieth year, of charming countenance, keen, vigorous intellect, great heart and spiritual vision. In the school of affliction and discipline she had sought and found the blessing of Full Salvation, and though a prisoner in her home, her interests are wide, and her influence, by the ministry of prayer, great.
Hearing of Adjutant Lee’s arrival in the town, she sent for her, and from their first meeting this aged saint rightly estimated the beauty and greatness of the Adjutant’s soul, and felt there was a part she could play in her campaign. Mrs. Taylorson says:–
I realized that my ministry to her was to look after her bodily welfare. I took to my bed whilst she was stationed here: and living quite near to me, she would often slip in for a few moments. Her sweet face would come round the door like a ray of sunshine. She would give me a warm kiss, tell me the latest news –this case or that problem to pray over–then she was off again. But I saw to it that my maid always had something nourishing on hand to help that dear, worn body. How my maid loved her! The Adjutant’s influence so led her into touch with Christ, that life became changed for her.
Oh, how Kate Lee worked! Far beyond her strength. Often, after her quest for souls, she would pass this house at two o’clock in the morning. When I would remonstrate with her, she would reply, ’Oh, but I had such a case last night.’ Then she would relate to me the story. Once, kneeling by my bed, she said, ’Granny, last night I was afraid for the first time. Oh, this place, this place! The sin, the sin is terrible!’ And she described to me the horrors of iniquity she had seen in our town.
The transparent hands were tensely clasped; the strong alert features relaxed into contemplation, and my eyes lifted from the face of the aged saint to the wall beside her bed where hung a motto, ’Prayer brings victory.’ It was easy to realize how Kate Lee had gathered strength for the fight in that little sanctuary of faith and hope, and love, with the practical addition of a strengthening cup, ’always ready, that the Adjutant might not be hindered.’
Kate met her beloved old friend only once after her term of three years at Sunderland. When leaving London to spend a week there, she received a wire from her old lieutenant, then on duty amongst the troops in France, ‘Coming on leave; want to spend week-end with you,’ to which she replied, ‘Going to Granny’s. Come.’ It was a happy party that gathered in that old home. The joys of reunion were still fresh, when in the doorway another figure appeared–Lucy Lee, also home on leave from France. Heaven seemed to come down to earth for those four women. Three from the rush of the battle, bubbling over with stories of the Holy War, the fourth–her faculties fresh as those of the youngest–delighting to linger on the brink of eternity, that she might hold up the hands of these, her adopted daughters in battles for God and souls.
Perched on the crest of a hill overlooking a seashore town, is a tiny cottage–two rooms up and two down. There are flowers in the windows and garden, and within, simplicity and sweet homeliness. The dwellers there are an old pensioner and his daughter. The daughter, a semi-invalid, keeps house. Her face is calm as a lake resting in the sunshine; her eyes blue as the sky on a spring day, and her voice musical and soothing as rippling water. Almost twenty years ago, Kate Lee conducted a battle for souls in the little town nestling below the hill. The suffering woman listened to her call to arms, at first from a distance. By degrees the full meaning of the officer’s life dawned upon her; she knew she could never be a leader; but she could, perhaps, be an armour-bearer; so she came nearer, and nearer, till she took a place at Captain Kate’s side, ready to perform any service possible.
A sufferer who triumphed had a peculiar charm for Kate Lee. This woman, caught in the furnace of affliction, had yielded herself to the fire, and found the Son of God keep company with her there, and she grew like Him.
When nerves were tingling, and body and soul were weary with sins and sorrows of the world, to no place did Kate turn her steps more readily than to the tiny house on the hill.
’Why can you love to come here? I have so little to offer you. Rich people would love to have you, and give you what I cannot,’ said her friend.
’And you can and do give me what no money in the world could buy: understanding, and love, and rest.’
On a sunny day, Kate would take a rug and a cushion, a book or some sewing, and her friend would accompany her to a little knoll, a stone’s throw from the house, which commanded a sea view for many miles. And there, mostly in silence, she would sit, and sun and rest for a day or two, and then hie back to the fight.
A mother with a child in an invalid chair, followed The Army march many a Sunday night during one summer. The band charmed the child, the sweet face of the officer soothed and strengthened the mother. One night, mother and child ventured into the meeting. At the conclusion of the first service, Adjutant Lee was shaking hands with the people as they left the hall, and urging them to return, and she beamed on the mother and child, and later, visited their home. A typical home of millions of working people, but true love reigned there, and made it a more pleasant place than many a mansion. The mother had spinal disease and her child seemed to have been born only to die. Doctor and friends had striven in vain to unlock the bands of mother love, and let the little suffering life escape, but the mother refused. If love and ceaseless care could make a child live, he should live. Mother and child nestled under the protection of a great, loving husband and father. The coming of the Adjutant to that home was like the visit of an angel; but she gathered as she gave, for the soothing atmosphere of those tiny rooms fell upon her spirit like dew. As well as love there was music. The father sat at the organ, and as he played and sang, his strong, tender spirit seemed to ring through the hymns. ‘Just one verse!’ the Adjutant would say, as she dropped in to give five minutes’ cheer.
The Adjutant lay ill in her quarters. Bronchitis had, as usual, laid her low during a foggy week. She had sent her lieutenant out on a round of work, and, feverish and weak, gave herself up to rest. There was a movement on the stairs and a face appeared at the bedroom door. It was little invalid mother. ‘How did you get here?’ the Adjutant asked. ’Through a window, and you’ll not talk. Just eat this bit of steamed fish.’ Every day, until the Adjutant was able to be about her Master’s business again, the little woman ministered to her with tender, joyful love.
‘Would you mind letting me look at your back?’ she asked the little mother, when she had come to be regarded as the dearest friend of the small family. She looked, and her eyes filled with tears. For a woman with such a back, to work, as this mother worked, to watch and wait and refuse to give up hope for love of her child, this was love indeed. Kate Lee would love sin-sick souls in this way. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, ‘you have inspired me.’ During her stay the little boy, then six years of age, definitely yielded his heart and life to the Saviour. When he was fourteen he begged to be allowed to join The Army Young People’s Band. ‘Impossible,’ said the doctor. ’But, doctor, you know how he has lived in spite of many contrary opinions, and we wish him to devote his life to The Army,’ pleaded the mother. A tall lad with purposeful face, playing in an Army band, is a joy to his Salvationist parents who carry in their hearts the faith of Kate Lee, that one day their son shall be an Army Officer.
Such were a very few of the friends of Kate Lee. Many, because of their great love for her, and conscious of her love for them, will, perhaps, feel a touch of disappointment that they are not included in the number, but the pages of our book will not stretch. As I think of them all, as I have seen them in their homes, and know of the many I have not been able to meet–I am reminded of strangely similiar company, fishermen, clerks, and a company of humble, holy women who ministered to Kate Lee’s Lord and Master in the days of His flesh.
Many volumes would be needed to contain the story of all the souls who found deliverance from sin, sorrow and terror by the message of Kate Lee, but her memoir would be sadly incomplete without, at least, a few sketches which illustrate the courage, the faith, and the love with which she sought and won and held souls who, unless such love, and faith, and courage had been expended upon them, would have died in their sin.
The following stories are true, but they do not profess to be vivid.
Few of us would care for a passport-photograph of ourselves to be given to the world as a true likeness, and when giving word-pictures of souls who are still fighting their way to Heaven ’midst many enemies and dangers, there is surely need of a kindly ‘re-touching!’ Scars which sin has made are wisely unnoticed; sins of the past best forgotten; there are conditions of strange and fierce trial in the lives of some which, if told, would magnify the triumph of grace, but should, for obvious reasons, remain unmentioned.
It was a great change for Kate Lee when, after her command of Norland Castle, she was appointed to Reading, a prosperous county town in charming surroundings. In its best business part stands a fine Army hall. It was faultlessly kept, and attended by a most respectable congregation. After her heavy term in the slums of London, it might reasonably be expected that she would take things quietly in a provincial corps and recuperate her spent strength. But Kate Lee could no more settle down to enjoy a pleasant time amongst pleasant people than could her old General during his field days.
She by no means despised her ‘nice’ people, but she hungered for those without the camp. ‘Are there none of our sort in Reading?’ she inquired of the local officers. To be sure there were Silver and Coley Streets; they were bad enough for anything. Too true. Kate Lee found in that small area drunkenness, cruelty, misery, hideous sin–a match for anything in Shepherd’s Bush.
She began with the children. Poor, ragged, neglected little souls they were; not because of want, but because of the sin of their parents. The Adjutant rented a small hall in Coley Street, and to it invited the children; they came in swarms. She made music for them with her concertina and banjo; sang to them; chatted with them; laughed with them; patted them. One of the first songs she taught them was, ’Let the blessed sunshine in.’
Straightway they took her to their hearts and called her ’The Sunshine Lady.’ She worked week after week amongst them. As well as telling them about the Saviour who wanted to make their lives good and happy, she drilled them, and after a while, announced a surprise to the parent corps. She would show them what her Coley Street children could do. She marched them up to the citadel, where they gave a programme of songs, drills, and recitations. What parents are not pleased when some one charmingly loves and makes a fuss of their children? Certainly, Silver and Coley Street parents were gratified.
One little group of youngsters begged the Adjutant to come and see their grandfather who was dying. She found a dear old Christian, living with his daughter and son-in-law, the latter a terrible drunkard. The Adjutant visited the old man until he died, comforted him, and promised by the help of God, to win his son-in-law. It seemed like attempting the impossible, but with God on her side nothing was impossible with Kate Lee.
Shepherd’s mother died when he was six weeks old; later his father died a drunkard. At five years of age wee boy Shepherd was carried home drunk, for men had stood him on a bench in the tap room and ’filled him up with beer.’ He drank for forty years. During a brief, steady bout, he had married a decent girl, who, not knowing his character, was carried away by the smart appearance of a handsome soldier in the glory of red coat and gleaming buttons. Once married, habit reasserted itself as the years stole on. Shepherd broke up his home, beat his wife, and terrified his children. His good wages went to the saloon-keeper’s till while his family starved and went in rags.
He had not been in a place of worship since the day of his marriage until, in an effort towards decency, in acknowledgment of Adjutant Lee’s kindness, he attended the memorial service of his father-in-law.
Kate Lee threw her net, but never was fish more wary, more determined not to be caught, than Shepherd. For months she followed him.
‘Where’s father?’ she would ask the children. ‘In the “Blue Lion,"’ they would reply, and into the ‘Blue Lion’ the Adjutant would go and visit him there. She waylaid him on his way home from work. She took the corps into the plot of garden in front of his house on Sunday afternoons and held meetings there.
‘She fair terrified me,’ says Shepherd, now. He was furious with her and determined to insult her, but when he met those blue eyes that knew no fear, brimming with love for his soul, and heard her ringing inquiry, ‘And how’s Brother Shepherd to-day?’ angry words died on his lips, and he sought refuge in escape.
At last, word went round the Coley district that the ‘Sunshine Lady’ was leaving Reading. Shepherd would soon be free from this bothering, interfering woman. But strangely enough, he did not feel relieved. Upon his heart had settled a load heavier than lead. He felt unutterably oppressed and miserable. He must see that Adjutant once more. He went to her farewell meeting. As she shook his hand, and looked into his soul to make her last appeal, his heart broke. He had loved sin greedily, but now it appeared hateful to him. If only he could be free from it! Down at the penitent-form he cast himself asking God to make him a new creature. He rose, feeling strangely, wonderfully light and free, sweet and clean in spirit. He was delivered from all desire to sin. Arriving at home, for the first time in his life he wanted to kneel at his bedside and ‘say his prayers.’
Kate Lee had won him to God. Now she must leave him. Years later, when visiting Reading, she met Shepherd, a bandsman in full uniform, beating the drum in Silver Street. Tears of joy ran down her face at the sight.
Shepherd has proved to his own happiness and to the satisfaction of the town that ‘the blessing of the Lord maketh rich and addeth no sorrow.’ By the grace of God he has never slipped. At the time of his conversion he had no clothes but those he stood in. When he left Coley Street, all his furniture went on a push-cart. Recently he moved house, and needed two vans. He is foreman at his place of employment. His wife sought salvation two weeks after he was saved, and of his family, five out of the seven children are Salvationists. His home is a joyous place. He loves to entertain, to take people home on a Sunday afternoon, and have a happy time with singing, reading God’s Word, and prayer. Then off to the open-air meeting, where he delights to witness to God’s wonder-working power! Saturday night, when his workmates gather round The Army ring, and in Coley Street, are his favourite open-air meetings.
Shepherd is a happy man. His healthy face beams with goodwill to men and gratitude to God. His eyes grow moist, but they still shine, when he speaks of Kate Lee. ’Aye, bless her heart! I’m going to frame that picture of her that came out in “The War Cry,"’ he exclaims with a deep, ringing voice. ’I look upon her as my mother–a real mother to my soul she was.’
In the streets of Reading almost any day, an old man may be seen pushing a tinker’s barrow. The small carriage is gay with yellow, red, and blue paint and bright with polished brass, and on a conspicuous place appear the words, ‘Where will you spend Eternity?’ The barrow-man has a pleasant, bearded face, and steady-gazing, merry, eyes, with a cheerful nod and word for every one; he steps in and out of gardens, mending kettles, sharpening knives, and doing other handy jobs for housewives. ‘Mr. Wellman, of The Salvation Army,’ an established resident would inform an inquirer.
Thirteen years ago, Wellman was one of the most wretched men in Reading. Drink had brought him, with his wife and family, to a common lodging-house, and there they herded, sometimes as many as twelve men, women, and children in one room, eating, drinking, sleeping, cursing.
A son of Christian parents, Wellman was a decent youth, but in his early married life he began to go down-hill and long before Adjutant Lee took charge of the corps at Reading, had reached the dead level of misery, degradation, and hopelessness. He had turned his back upon God; he feared Him, dreaded Him, longed to escape from His presence, but the Heavenly Father did not forsake him. His mother had died, he was filled with sorrow and remorse, when one Sunday evening The Army band halted before the lodging-house. Wellman was in the yard lounging against the wall when the drum tapped. He walked through the passage and gazed at The Army. Kate Lee was leading the meeting. She looked at him and smiled. There was a world of power in that look; interest, kindness, gentleness, sorrow for sin. Wellman listened with apparent indifference to the meeting, and the march moved off.
He had heard the Army drum hundreds of times before in Reading, but while it called to every one to remember God, its message had never reached him; but the look on that woman’s face did. For the first time he followed the march, and, arriving at the hall, was invited inside. The place was already full, but a wise-hearted orderly piloted Wellman to a front seat.
He has no remembrance of the message of the meeting; but he saw himself; his loathsome condition; his sin to God and man; his failure in life. At the invitation he went forward to the penitent-form and asked God to take away his sin; he rose from his knees believing that he was saved.
How wonderful is the work of God! Wellman came into the hall dirty, unkempt in body and soul. For years he had given no thought to his appearance, cared nothing for the contempt of respectable people. Now he fled to the lodging-house, ashamed to be seen.
The next morning the Adjutant called to see him. He had broken up eight homes, and for years had felt no wish for so troublesome a possession, but now he longed to get out of that hovel and to have a decent place to which he could invite this ‘angel woman.’ The Adjutant smiled upon him, told him he had only to follow God and things would soon improve. She fostered the desire to make home again with his family and his own bits of furniture about him, and helped him to get rooms. During Wellman’s years of sinning, whenever he had seen the word God in print, he had dropped the paper or book as though it were hot; now he opened his mother’s Bible and found it to be a library of delight; and his spare time, between work and the meetings, was spent in reading it for sheer pleasure.
The desire for strong drink had been swept out of him by one touch of the Holy Spirit, but his love of tobacco was even stronger than of beer. No one spoke to him about giving up smoking, but from the day of his conversion he felt ashamed of the habit and only smoked in the house. The heavenly vision growing stronger he determined to have nothing in his life about which he had any doubt, and he thus reasoned with himself, ’If God can cure me of the drink, He can cure me of the pipe.’ From that day he had no desire for tobacco.
Wellman’s business increased, and the Adjutant was interested in his barrow which had taken on a gay appearance in The Army colours. Pointing to a clear space she remarked, ‘Wouldn’t a message go well there?’ ‘’Twould, Adjutant; what one would do?’ She thought, ’I think, “Where will you spend Eternity?” would be a good one,’ she replied. So Wellman had the words painted on his barrow.
His quiet eyes smile as he says, ’Her text shall preach in Reading while ever I can push the barrow. It gives me no end of chances to speak to people. Some ladies on bicycles stopped me one day and said, “What is the meaning of those words?” “It means that you’re going to die, and are you ready for what comes after?” I told them. Some have said, “What have you got that rubbish on there for?” Then I tell them what Salvation has done for my life. But most people know me now, and look for a little word.’
He is now Sergeant Wellman at the corps, in full Army uniform, and does useful work as doorkeeper and orderly, always on the watch to welcome poor souls such as he was. He has had his share of trials since he was converted. Bronchitis and asthma often keep him a prisoner and make work slack. ’I don’t have to look for troubles, they come trooping along, but grace keeps them company,’ he says joyfully. Then a shade of sadness steals into his voice as he continues, wistfully, ’What was I doing to miss all those years? Wretched, terrible years, mind always brooding, never happy, never at rest!’
It is often more difficult to rescue a sinful married woman than a man. A man as soon as he is converted goes to work, and during the day remains under some sort of discipline and restraint; whereas the very privileges of a married woman’s position often become hindrances in the way of her Salvation. No one can compel her to work, and undesirable neighbours may visit her and tempt her to sin. Adjutant Lee never relaxed hope or effort because success was difficult of realization. There are bright stars in her crown of jewels whom she discovered in the depths; but after a woman has been restored to her family, the past forgiven and laid aside, her dear ones are naturally unwilling for the past to be recorded, and in this book we must content ourselves with a very slight sketch of one who has passed beyond the touch of pain.
A married woman had worn out the patience of a loving family. So ruinous to the happiness and well-being was her presence in the home, that when at last she went away her nearest made no effort to bring her back. The Adjutant found her in the depths of sin, and determined, by the grace of God, that she should be saved. This was one of the most difficult cases she ever undertook. The woman had lost hope and will power, and it took love that would not let go, and faith that would not accept defeat, before the desire to rise again stole into the poor heart made captive of the devil. At last the Adjutant persuaded her to attend the meetings and there she found deliverance. After a few weeks Kate Lee got in touch with the husband in a distant town, but his family had suffered too much at their mother’s hands for him readily to consent to his wife’s return. Yet he was not a hard-hearted man, and upon the suggestion of a reconciliation, if, for six months, his wife proved herself to be indeed a changed woman, he consented. During that trying probation the Adjutant mothered this soul, who, with tottering steps, had turned her face homeward, and she won through.
At the end of the allotted time a letter brought the husband to a meeting-place. He looked apprehensive, but meeting the wistful eyes of a well-dressed, comely woman, he saw once again the wife he loved and the mother his children loved. That day he bore her off to the expectant but anxious home. With beating hearts, the daughters waited the arrival, but it was not the abandoned drunkard who had spoilt their home, and horrified and frightened them, who stood on the doorstep with father. It was just mother. Home was really home once more. Mother at the head of the table, mother’s hand here, there, upon everything. Then she became ill. Months of agony followed. The doctor ordered stimulants; these were refused to the end. Slowly the delivered soul slipped down death’s river; then, as it met the sea of eternity, she looked up. ‘All’s well!’ she said, and crossed the bar.
It was through the house-to-house canvass of a Salvation Army Assurance Agent that Adjutant Lee came into contact with the Parrot family at Brighton. They lived in a poor enough street and house; but thinking people who live close to the working classes know that pounds a week which should go into the homes frequently find their way to the saloon-keeper’s till. ’The only saving I want to think about is to get my husband saved from the drink,’ Mrs. Parrot had told the agent, and, like a wise man, he reported the incident to Kate Lee.
It was Sunday morning. There was a tap at the door; a little child appeared, took one look at the pure, radiant face there, and disappeared saying aloud to his mother, ’There’s a Salvation Army lady at the door, mother, and I don’t think you ought to send her away.’ Kate Lee heard the words, and uninvited, slipped into the passage. Meeting the mother, she said gently, ’If I have a welcome from the child, I am sure of one from you.’
That morning the strings of Mrs. Parrot’s harp of hope were reduced to one. A brave-hearted girl, she had started married life determined to fill it with music, despite the prophecies that she was a fool to marry Parrot. But the strings of her harp broke one by one, and this morning there was no song in her heart; she could see no star in the heavy sky. She was a fine type of the working woman; had been servant in a good family, and had had a godly Sunday School teacher who had taught her the reality of God and the efficacy of prayer. Through all the wretched, terrible years of her married life, she had prayed and hoped for deliverance from the earthly hell in which she and her children lived. The week before Adjutant Lee’s visit she had in desperation gone to a spiritual leader and implored him to try and reform her husband, and had received the extraordinary reply, ’Well, you must bear with this little habit. I may tell you I have the same weakness myself.’
Little habit indeed! It had lost Parrot two businesses. Now he pushed a barrow, hawking anything he had money to buy; generally the proceeds went in drink, his family starved and lived in terror of him, and his wife, the soul of respectability, could not keep the family decent.
A year ago, her patience completely worn out, she had told him not to come home any more. This was the last straw to Parrot’s own wretchedness. He went to a chemist, purchased some oxalic acid, dropped it into a pint of beer and drank it; stumbling into the street, overcome by pain and gasping for breath, he fell to the ground. The police picked him up, took him to the hospital and his life was saved. When he had sufficiently recovered to go before the magistrate, he was sent to jail for a week; while in there, he made desperate resolves that he would do better; but once released, life went on as before.
Mrs. Parrot lifted her eyes to the Adjutant’s face. Was God going to help her after all? The Adjutant invited her to the meetings. She frankly said her husband had no clothes to wear. ‘Where was he?’ ‘Upstairs in bed.’ The Adjutant asked if she might go up and see him. Mrs. Parrot thought she had better go and inquire.
A Salvation Army woman wanted to come up to his bedroom and see him lying drunk in bed! The impudence! He would show her out of this British workman’s home quicker than she had come in. Lunging into his rough clothes, and staggering down the stairs, with muttering lips and angry eyes, came Parrot. He found Kate Lee talking with his children. She looked up at him with a smile and said, ’They told me I was coming to a drunkard’s home, but these don’t look like a drunkard’s children. The dears!’
Parrot was struck dumb and stood with a strangely-working face and a peculiar tearing at his throat staring at this fair, fragile woman. ’I want you to come to our meeting to-night,’ continued the Adjutant. ’Mrs. Parrot tells me you haven’t any good clothes; but I’ll have a full suit ready for you in time, and shall expect you there.’ She prayed and was gone.
This was the first vision of Divine love that Parrot had ever seen. Born in a beer shop, fighting and quarrelling from childhood, his life had been a hideous, hopeless failure. Hell he understood–felt; but such words as God, Heaven, Love, had meant nothing to him at all. Now they did. Love seemed to shine all over that woman. Angels’ wings never looked lovelier to human eyes than the Army blue of Adjutant Kate’s uniform looked to Parrot.
By-and-by a parcel arrived. It contained shirt, trousers, coat and vest, socks and boots, collar, tie, and even a handkerchief. Parrot handled them with wonder. He had never worn such clothes–the Adjutant had begged them from a gentleman. He put them on, and walked up and down the back yard. How good it felt to be well dressed–to look respectable.
Meeting time arrived and, piloted by his wondering wife, Parrot went to the hall. ‘Let’s go up out of the draught,’ diplomatized Mrs. Parrot, and edged her man as near to the front as possible. Kate Lee gloried in God that night. She told of His boundless love, His seeking–seeking to find, and make good and happy, every soul of man. Parrot and his wife knelt at the penitent-form.
Next morning Parrot felt desperately ill, but the craving for strong drink had gone. He must face life in earnest and see about providing for the family. He must have something to sell. Mrs. Parrot remembered a kind-hearted man who had promised, that if ever her husband tried to do better, that he would help him. Parrot walked several miles to find this man, who trusted him with a dollar’s worth of fish.
The spiritual life in this new convert was very feeble. Parrot felt comfortable in his mind, and happy to believe that angels still walked this earth, and that one had come his way. An ambition had come into his weak, undisciplined will to make a decent home for his wife and children. He would have been content to have let things rest there. But Kate Lee bore down upon him, not only with smiles, but commands. He must fight for God. He must tell all his townspeople of his conversion. Parrot was terrified, but there was no escape. When the Adjutant arrived with the band to carry him off, he slipped out of the back door, but there he was met by the wisest of recruiting sergeants, a man who understood men and loved them. Trembling in every limb, Parrot was marched off to The Army Hall, and sat by the Adjutant on the platform. In an open-air meeting in his own street, an Army cap was placed on his head. There could be no turning back. He was literally carried up the Delectable Mountains and shown higher views of life; and, seeing them, he desired them.
To-day, he is proud of his Salvation Army family, and of his good wife, who is the neighbours’ friend, helping them in trouble, comforting them in bereavement, praying with them in distress. When The General called for homes for the destitute Austrian children, the Parrot household was the first in the corps to open their door. Mrs. Parrot has a prosperous business, as also have two of their sons, and Parrot is in steady work. He is grateful for temporal mercies, but no words can express the gratitude of this man and his wife for the miracle of Salvation, the deliverance from sin, the love for the things of God, which has come to their home and their hearts by the grace of God, brought to them by the love that feared no insult, no violence; the faith that would not be disappointed, of Kate Lee.
Of Kate Lee General Bramwell Booth writes, ’She was one of those conquering souls who seldom look like a conqueror. She presented an extraordinary contrast. She was weak, and yet she was strong. She was poor, and yet she was one of the richest. She was intensely human, with many of the most marked limitations which belong to the human, and yet she was in an extraordinary degree spiritual, yes, even divine.’
These contrasts were clear to all and puzzling to many. Not a few people both in and outside the ranks of The Army have asked the question, ‘Wherein lay the secret of Kate Lee’s success?’ One person, accustomed only to surface views, gave answer, ’It is that she always aims to win trophies.’
Let any one determine to gain distinction for himself by lifting from the mire of sin souls robbed by the devil of hope and will power, and even desire for deliverance; let them essay to bring back from the far country wanderers sunk to the level of the brute; let them attempt to break bands of habit forged by the devil, or to deliver the prey from the terrible one. He will discover the impossibility of his enterprise if not his folly.
Desire to win spiritual battles in order to gain personal reputation is age-old. From the day that Simon the sorcerer offered Peter money in exchange for miracle-working power, the exercise of which would have placed him upon a pedestal above his fellows, the rebuke has rung out, ‘Thy heart is not right in the sight of God.’
Shortly before Jesus left His little band of disciples, with the charge to preach the Gospel to every creature, He spoke with them on the subject of spiritual fruitfulness. He assured them that, ’Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit,’ and in one sentence He made clear the secret of spiritual success. He said, ’He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without Me ye can do nothing.’
The failure of the Church of Christ to extend His Kingdom upon earth by great sweeping victories, lies in the imperfect apprehension or the neglect of this declaration. Tens of thousands of professing Christians do not abide in Christ; consequently, He cannot satisfy their soul. The cares and pleasures of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, occupy them as they do the ungodly; for their pleasures they turn to the world. A smaller section have faith in Christ, and realize the joys of Salvation, and comfort of His presence, but they do not yield themselves to Him for service. A smaller section dedicate themselves to His service, but rush to work for God without receiving directions from Him, with the result that much effort is wasted. If every consecrated soul would pay heed to Christ’s direction, how gloriously would His Kingdom extend! Not that the battle would ever become an easy one. The powers of evil against which we fight are second only in strength to those of righteousness and light. In conflict between these powers there will always be the sacrifices of war to reckon upon, the spade work, the tunnelling, the weariness; surprises of the enemy, rushed advances, sick and wounded to care for, and captured territory to be occupied, organized, and governed, before the final victory.
Kate Lee was one of the company that dwell in God. It is difficult to write of her secret soul life; for, keeping no journal she made no record of the dealings between her soul and her Beloved; no fights and victories over the powers of evil, no story of following the heavenly vision, nor does her very scrappy correspondence contain out-pourings of spiritual experience. Her life was a lovely epistle of week-day holiness for all to read, but it was the outward sign of an inward experience. Locked in a private box, a “Covenant” was found after her death which is as a key to the inner sanctuary in which her life was lived with Christ in God. It reads as follows:–
COVENANT
Solemnly entered into, January, 1897; Renewed, January, 1918
TO MY PRECIOUS LORD AND MASTER
In the first moments of this year I present myself to Thee in the deepest humiliation of soul, sensible of my utter unworthiness. I desire nothing in the world so much as to be Thine, and with the utmost solemnity, surrender myself fully unto Thee.
I declare Thee, O Lord, this day, to be my God, and myself to be Thine own child. Hear, O Thou God of Heaven, and record it in Thy Book of Remembrance, that I am Thine, only Thine.
From this first day of January do I solemnly renounce all that has had dominion over me, and every sin, and every lust, and in Thy name, set myself in eternal opposition to the powers of hell.
The whole frame of my nature, all the faculties of my mind, all the members of my body would I present to Thee this day, as a living sacrifice.
I consecrate myself to Thee; all my worldly possessions; and I pray Thee to give me the strength and courage to exert for Thy glory all the influence I may have over others. Receive and wash me. Forgive all past failings, clothe me with Thy perfect righteousness, and sanctify me throughout by the power of Thy Spirit.
Help me that I may never withdraw in any point from this renewal of my consecration and covenant.
Help me to live in the spirit of real consecration and crucifixion; and should I fail in carrying out this covenant in all points as I ought, then, dear Lord, forgive and lead me to perfection.
In Thy strength I promise to be true till death. Until then, keep, guide, and direct me.
Remember, dear Lord, this covenant when I am about to pass away; and should I then be incapable of recollecting it, look with pity on Thy dying child. Put strength and confidence into my departing spirit, and receive it to the embrace of Thy everlasting love.
For Jesus Christ’s sake.
May this petition be granted.
(Signed) KATE LEE.
Renewed, January 1st, 1920
Another valuable document traces for us Kate Lee’s seeking after sanctification. After having lived in the enjoyment of this blessing for nearly thirty years, she was asked by the editor of ‘The Officer’ to write her experience. The following article appeared in that magazine three years ago:–
Soon after I was converted I realized a great need in my heart. I had turned my back on the old life, and my face was toward God. I had started to travel the upward way. For the first few weeks I went with a rush, the joy of the new life within buoyed me up. I felt as though I was walking on air. I did not feel any strain of the upward tread. But soon I began to feel the tension of the daily struggle, the weary march. There were obstacles in that way that impeded my progress. My circumstances were against me, and the influences surrounding me had a tendency to draw me from Christ.
I began to stumble and fall. The tempter was soon at my side suggesting, ’You’re not converted; it’s all a delusion; you would not feel as you do; you would not fail as you have done, if you were really a child of God. Give it up, it’s no use trying,’ he argued. And, worst of all, I knew sin still existed in my heart. How often passion had broken my peace. How many times bitterness and evil had manifested itself in my nature. Was I mistaken? Had I ever been converted? Was it all a delusion?
Just then God in His love and pity came to my heart; gave me a revelation. He not only showed me myself and my sin, but showed me my need. I needed something, and as I sat in a holiness meeting I realized that need was sanctification. For months the word sanctification was to me a heavy burden; a torture. I could not really grasp its meaning. I read and re-read the theory of sanctification, going from one authority on the subject to another, only to turn away still more puzzled. I then set myself to seek publicly and was several times found at the holiness table, pleading for the blessing that I failed to understand. Again and again I came to the altar, and, as far as I understood, laid my all there. But as soon as the test came, without realizing that I did it, I took from off the altar the sin I had laid there, or the gifts that I had surrendered to God.
This is where I failed many times, and during my officership I have found scores of other souls who have failed on this very point. They come sincerely to the altar, definitely laying their gift there, a living sacrifice; but when the knife is felt, the realization of the dying comes upon them as they feel the hurt and understand fully what it means, they shrink and draw back. Abram’s experience, related in Genesis xv., has been a great help to me. He had to wait for the fire. He prayed all day, even until eventide, and then the birds of prey came down; but he stood by the sacrifice and drove them off. Then the fire came and consumed the sacrifice.
That was just the point to which I had to get. I had laid my all on the altar, but then I had to wait for the fire. Meanwhile, the birds of doubt, fear, and discouragement came flying around. I had to get up again and again to drive them off, and hold on to God.
Fresh light came; a new path opened up. The laying of self on the altar meant following God fully and showing my colours everywhere. Could I do it? It was hard to die to self, and say, ‘Yes, Lord.’ But as I said it, I felt I was accepted, and afterwards, when I carried out that vow, joy flooded my soul and I realized that the Spirit of the Lord was upon me. The desire to sin was removed, and my heart yearned to be kept pure and clean.
I have found the need of great watchfulness, and have needed much prayer to keep my soul in touch with God and on fire for precious souls. Although I realized, after I was sanctified, that I was over sin and no longer under the power of sin, and that I was cleansed from the desire to sin, yet in his subtlety the devil has come again and again and striven to bring me down.
Sometimes he has come as an angel of light, so that I have been led to the very verge of sin, tempted to indulge in what seemed at the moment harmless, perhaps because others, who professed as much as I did, indulged in it too. Tempted to shrink from the sacrifice that a separated life must mean; tempted to give way to the flesh, one’s natural desires and inclinations, I have even allowed the devil to take me to the edge of a great spiritual precipice, but God, in His mercy, has flashed His wonderful light upon my path in time to show me where I was, and what would be the outcome if I yielded to the temptation. Oh, how it caused me to pray and seek strength which enabled me to overcome!
Prayer has been my source of help, when burdens have pressed so heavily upon me that they threatened to crush my spirit; when disappointments, misrepresentations almost overwhelmed me, prayer has brought strength and comfort, a courage that could face a world of bitterness and scorn. I have proved that prayer will enable me to retain the substance of holiness. Prayer enables me to retain a passion for souls; keep it burning in hours of disappointment and failure, indifference and hardness, when men and devils rise in power against me.
One must tread the path of holiness carefully, with a watchful eye and ear always open to His voice, and a spirit ever ready to obey. But it is a wonderful way, a way of purity, where the soul can see God, even in the struggles of life. A way of joy; the deepest of joys. The realization of His smile enables me to live independent of all the joys of the world and to rejoice in the hour of sorrow. A way of power; when the channel is clear He works through it and accomplishes His will.
A personal experience of Full Salvation was the secret of Kate Lee’s success.
This life was not spasmodic. She did not pass in and out of the holy place, or step on and off the highway of holiness. She dwelt there. That does not imply that never during those thirty years was she overcome by Satan. Once, into a deep sorrow was poured the bitterness of gall through the wickedness of another. The enemy came in like a flood, threatening to overwhelm and root up many precious things, but the Spirit of the Lord was there to lift up a standard against him. ’If ye forgive not your enemies, neither will your Father forgive you,’ was the word that came to her heart. She closed her lips, hushed her sobs, crept to the feet of her Lord, where are ever the print of cruel nails, to remind His children of His sufferings and His forgiveness.
‘I was wrong,’ she said, ’very wrong. I must forgive, I do forgive’; and to the close of her life she lavished love upon one who had sore wounded her. ‘If we sin we have an Advocate.’ She laid her case in His hands, and left it there.
The officers who served as lieutenants with Kate Lee give us glimpses of the life she lived in the privacy of her quarters. We may stand at the door of the sanctuary where she met with God and learn a little. Says one of her lieutenants, ’It seemed to me that she prayed without ceasing. Her life was one continual looking to God. She prayed upon rising. We prayed together after breakfast; later, she went to her room for an hour’s private prayer and study; for special undertakings or emergencies she had special seasons of waiting upon God.’
How much there was to pray for. Her own soul and that of her lieutenant, that they might be kept in touch with God. Her corps, every department of it; the local officers, the band, the songsters, the home league; the soldiers and converts; the town, with its sin and indifference to the claims of Christ, the finance. Then, hers was not a small soul. She loved the whole wonderful Salvation Army of which she was a unit, and her leaders and comrades in all lands were remembered at the Throne of God. It was a great strength to her to feel that she lived in the atmosphere of prayer. When in the midst of a specially heavy battle for souls, she would write to comrades she knew had power in prayer and beg them specially to help her to fight through to victory.
Very real were the powers of darkness and evil against which this frail little woman set herself; sometimes they pressed her sore. She felt something of the sorrows and travail of soul of her Saviour, of whom it is written, ‘And being in an agony, He prayed.’ At times she suffered from depressions so heavy that they prostrated her. The lieutenant says, ’At these times, all I could do was to let her feel that I was carrying on, whilst she sought her chief remedy, prayer. By and by, she would come from her room, strengthened and peaceful, ready again for the fight.’
Writes another of her helpers:–
She was a wonderful officer in public, but I love best to remember how she conquered in her own private life. When we remember how she attacked the devil’s kingdom, we can well believe that he did not leave her unmolested. She had her full share of difficulties, hardnesses, disappointments, and physical weakness; but, whatever her feelings were, she rose above them, and went on with her work.
In her office, over the fireplace, hung a large picture of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. On her writing table was the same picture, but small; so, if she lifted her eyes from her writing, she was reminded of Him whom she loved with her whole heart. As He conquered by prayer, so did she. One morning, one of the local officers called to see her. When I went to her room to fetch her, her eyes were red with weeping. ‘Dear, I can’t go down like this,’ she said; ‘will you see to the business for me?’ She had been pleading–agonizing with God.
She was very sweet to me. I can see her smile now as she first welcomed me to the quarters. I was very timid and helpless in public work when I became her lieutenant, but she made me feel that her responsibility was to make me a worthy officer. She said, ’I could get others to do the house-work; you are to be my comrade in the fight.’ She took me fully into her confidence, consulted me about corps organization, difficulties, special efforts, everything! She would tell me all her plans and then ask for mine.
The first time she insisted upon my taking the Sunday night address, in spite of having laboriously prepared, I was so nervous that I stopped, fairly played out, in the middle of my talk, but she got up and encouraged me, and asked the comrades to pray. She helped me so much that to give a Bible address is not a difficulty now. I learned to forget myself.
Had she a weakness? Well, it may seem much to say it, but though I lived with her so long, I cannot think of one; she was an all-round conqueror.
Writes still another lieutenant:–
How I love her memory! My Bible was her parting gift to me, and in it she marked the text: ’In all thy way acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.’ She passed on to me the method that governed her own life.
In nothing did Kate Lee show her likeness to her Lord more than in her practical unselfishness. He wanted nothing from the world. He came to give Himself to save it. It was so with her. A woman so popular could have drawn to herself the homage and service of the crowd; but here she stood aloof. She welcomed, indeed she sought, gifts and service for the work of The Army and the poor, but she wanted nothing for herself. When she and her lieutenant were so pressed with work that they scarcely had time to eat their food, her eye would rove over the corps, and she would select a girl whom she felt had a true appreciation of the Kingdom of God, and ask her if she would like to come to the quarters to help with the house-work, so that the officers might be freer for soul-saving. Many a girl counts it the honour of her life to have shared that saintly woman’s home, sat at her table, joined in the prayers, and done the work of the house. The Adjutant and lieutenant paid her out of their small allowance.
To her soldiers, Kate Lee delighted to preach the doctrine of Full Salvation from sin, and greatly she rejoiced over those who entered into this glorious experience of freedom and power.
One comrade, who had been a Salvationist for twenty-seven years, a white-haired, sweet-spirited man, enjoyed his religion in the corps, but was little more than a cypher as a soldier. In a holiness meeting, while the Adjutant spoke from the text, ’Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord,’ the old soldier saw in a moment of revelation, that if he were thoroughly yielded to God and obedient to the heavenly vision, the Holy Spirit would cleanse him from sin, and, despite his lack of personality, and very ordinary qualities, would empower him for service. He went forward to the holiness table, seeking this experience. Attached to the corps was a young men’s Bible class languishing for want of a leader. A few evenings after his consecration, the Adjutant told this comrade that she wished him to take over the class. The habit of years strong upon him, he began to plead his unfitness; but inwardly reminded of his covenant with God, went away to pray and returned to say he was ready for service.
He laid hold upon those lads. Many young men, as officers, soldiers, and bandsmen, bless the day that Brother Fenwick claimed them for God. They are the fruit of his service.
The Adjutant was as watchful to help souls convicted of the need of a clean heart as to capture the unsaved. A sister writes:–
I am indebted to Kate Lee for leading me into the blessing of entire sanctification. Attending a tent campaign she had inaugurated, after her address setting forth the experience of holiness, she asked those in the congregation who were living up to that standard to rise. Condemnation filled my soul. I arose, but only to slip out of the tent by a far door. The Adjutant noticed the move, and met me as I was making my escape. Then she laboured until I knelt in full surrender, yielding my all to God. One of my chief difficulties was to wear Army uniform, but that was included in my consecration, and from the putting on of my first Army bonnet, nearly twenty years ago, I have been proud to witness for Christ in this way.
As a spiritual surgeon with skill in diagnosis, Kate Lee excelled. A sergeant-major of great devotion and good cheer fell into deep spiritual depression. No amount of pulling himself together or shaking free of the dumps, availed anything. He became as miserable as when first convicted of sin. ‘But why?’ he asked himself the question over and over. ’I love God with all my heart; I am fully consecrated to His service; then what is amiss?’ No reply. To a Watch-Night service this man came, under a vow not to leave his knees until he discovered the reason of this cloud and obtained deliverance.
During the meeting, he, the chief local officer of the corps, made confession before his comrades and knelt at the holiness table. The Adjutant sought to discover his difficulty. ’Sergeant-Major, have you a grudge against any person? Now, think carefully.’ The man was silent, searching his heart. Presently he replied, ‘You have found the spot.’ Years before, a man had deceived him in a matter of business, thereby bringing much trial into his home. By dogged, hard work, the material loss had been overtaken, and the affair forgotten. But there it lay in his heart. The remembrance of the man’s name brought with it feelings of resentment and contempt. ’Lord, forgive me for my hardness of heart toward that man as I now forgive him,’ he cried. ’Cleanse my soul from every stain of sin and fill me with perfect love.’ In an instant the cloud lifted from his soul, and his heart was filled with singing. That was a remarkable Watch-Night service. Other battles were fought and won, and not until two o’clock on New Year’s morning did the meeting close, with a final burst of praise, and with renewed consecration to fight for souls during the coming year.
Dr. Garfield Carse, of Sunderland, became a soldier of the Sunderland corps, and entered upon his medical career there, during the Adjutant’s term. He says:–
Adjutant Lee was a great advocate of holiness. She preached the doctrine and lived the life. That was the key to her success. Her theme expressed in many ways was, ’Put off the old man, and put on Jesus Christ. Live so that your life reminds people of His life.’ She was a great spiritual help to me; understanding the claims of a busy man, she would drop into my surgery and say, ’I have come to visit you for five minutes.’ She would read from the Bible, a few choice verses that had refreshed her own soul that day, and then would kneel and pray for me that I might represent Christ in my particular sphere. She was a great woman!
An old local officer illustrates her meekness, when as a young officer she was impulsive and arrived at quick conclusions on incomplete evidence. ’She believed I had done a wrong, and wanted me to ask forgiveness of people who were themselves in the wrong, but made a fair showing. I said, ‘No,’ and kept to it. She did not turn bitter towards me, nor ‘turn me down,’ but was kind and sorry. By and by she saw she had been mistaken in her judgment, and said sweetly, ’Ah, yes, I see I was wrong that time.’
Says another, ’What I thought she was when she came to us, I was sure that she was when she went away.’
Kate Lee had a settled conviction that ’the servant of the Lord must not strive.’ A comrade says:–
If misunderstood, she would not justify herself, even in a way that seemed wise to me. She would not attempt to hold her own. She would stand up for others or for principle; but for herself, she trusted the Lord to bring forth her righteousness as the light, and her judgment as the noonday. She would say, ’It doesn’t pay to contend for self, dear. It ruffles one’s spirit and lessens one’s influence. We must stoop to conquer.’ I was impetuous and hot before I knew her, but her life taught me the meaning of the beatitude, ’Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’
During the last year of her life, Satan gathered his forces for a last onslaught upon Kate Lee’s soul. She was stationed at the International Training Garrison in London, and her health continuing to be frail, a change was thought to be desirable for her. Therefore, she was appointed to take charge of the Home of Rest for Officers at Ramsgate. Only once before had she found it difficult to trust God concerning an appointment. As to her health, she was quite prepared to die at her post, but to leave the work of training those cadets for the field-work which she understood so well and loved with such a passion–could it be the will of God?
For some weeks the clear shining of her faith and joy suffered an eclipse. She maintained a calm exterior, but, in sore spiritual distress, sent for an old, trusted comrade to come and see her. This officer tells of a very sacred interview:–
When it was convenient for us to have a quiet time in her room, she turned upon me a face marked with intense suffering. She said, ’I cannot feel this is God’s will, and so I cannot be happy. I have never felt like this before in all my experience.’ ’But, Katy, what have we always preached? Don’t we still believe that a soul, really committed to God, cannot be moved, cannot be hurt, except by His permission? He knows you are here. If, to give up the thing you love best in life, is His test for you, can’t you trust Him and not take it from man, but from Him, and say, “Thy will be done"?’
Much searching communion passed between the sister-comrades, and at last in answer to the question, ’Can you not just now take life from God, just as you have done for thirty years?’ Kate replied with decision, ’Why, of course I can, and I will.’ Then the comrades rejoiced together, knelt in prayer, and when they rose, peace had returned to Kate’s heart and shone out of her eyes. ‘She looked ten years younger,’ says her comrade. ’I had an appointment to keep and she some shopping to do. She took a basket on her arm and tripped down the street with me as gaily as the girl she was when I first knew her.’
Shortly orders came to proceed to Headquarters. She was needed for training work in another part of the world.
Then, sudden, unexpected illness brought her face to face with eternity. After the doctor who gave the verdict had departed, the little maid went to Kate Lee’s room to see if she needed anything and found her in tears. ‘Leave me a little while,’ she said.
Alone with her Lord, Kate Lee realized many things. There was no mistake. Gently her Heavenly Father had been loosening her hold on the sword here, in preparation for higher service. This last trial of faith had been allowed that she might know at the end of her career, as at the beginnings of her service, that she chose the will of God before her own way. By-and-by the little maid, with leaden sorrow dragging at her heart, crept back to the Staff-Captain’s door. She started as she met Kate’s gaze. It was full of unutterable peace and joy. She smiled and stretched out her hands. ‘It is all well. God’s will is peace,’ she said. From that time until the end, only a few days later, except for the heat of the furnace of suffering, Satan’s fiery darts missed the mark. Kate had faced and overcome the last attack of the enemy. She won through to the end.
The Regulations of The Salvation Army provide for its officers to have, under ordinary circumstances, from two to three weeks’ furlough yearly. This respite from strain upon body and soul which the work involves is brief enough; it is due to their work, and it is expected that officers should make the most of it. To assist them, the authorities have instituted Homes of Rest at pleasant seaside resorts; at these institutions, for a very moderate charge, under good conditions and healthful surroundings, a thorough rest may be enjoyed. But officers are perfectly free to make their own arrangements if they so desire.
How did Kate Lee take her holidays? What spirit moved her when the pressure of responsibility for her particular charge was removed; when professionalism was, for the moment, dropped? ’Tell me about her holidays?’ I asked of an old lieutenant.
She replied: ’I never knew Adjutant Lee take a holiday in the usual sense of the word. If she furloughed in London, much of her time was spent in visiting her converts; if at the seaside, her Bible notes accompanied her thither, to be revised. A few years ago she and I spent a few days together in the country. For months the Adjutant had been working at very high pressure; she was too tired to read or write, but not too tired to meditate upon God and His goodness. Those five days are a precious memory to me because of the interchange of thought we enjoyed.’
So that officers may take their brief furlough without attracting attention to themselves, or receiving unlimited calls for service, they lay aside their uniform. The only ‘private’ clothing that Kate allowed herself were two or three white blouses, a panama hat for summer, and a blue felt for winter. These she wore, with her uniform blue serge skirt and ‘three-quarter’ jacket. When on holiday, she often travelled in her uniform so as to have more opportunities for blessing the people.
‘Tell me about Kate’s holidays,’ I asked, still curious of Commandant Lucy Lee. Into her eyes stole a faraway look, and after some hesitation, came vague answers.
‘Well,’ she began, ’last year we had our holiday together, preparing the Home of Rest at Ramsgate; the year before, Kate came to me in France. We had a lovely time visiting the hospitals and camps together; but, of course, it was not exactly a rest. And the year before that we spent them fixing up this little home. We did enjoy that. And the year before that?—’
Something else unsatisfactory to my way of thinking. ’But tell about a nice restful holiday at the seaside, or in the country where, out in the open, Kate just unwound and was refreshed for her work.’
’Well’–Lucy half closed her eyes and smiled wistfully–’somehow there always seemed something to prevent plans like that. So long as we could be together and have a quiet time, we were perfectly happy.’
Until the end of her life, a certain insularity clung to Kate Lee. She gloried to fight in a crowd, but she could not rest with a crowd. When set free from duty, all she longed for was some quiet corner with the protecting love of her sister–that love which perfectly understands and makes no demands–filling the days with tenderness. As her sister suggests, something generally turned up that made arrangements for real rest and change difficult to arrange. On the face of things, we might judge that in this particular Kate Lee’s usual common sense and good management failed her; but to one who has seen behind the scenes, into the hidden life of this remarkable woman, it would appear, rather, that in the matter of rest, as in other affairs touching her temporal happiness, God shut her up to Himself and taught her, first for her own joy, and then through her life taught others the possibility of having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
During one furlough, Kate determined to feel for herself the conditions of the very poor. To this end she spent a night amongst the women who frequent our Women’s Shelter in the East End of London.
Dressing in rags, she went to the door, paid her pence for a bed, passed into the long dormitory and, flattering herself that she was so well got up that she would not attract attention, sat down beside her bunk. But soon she discovered that she was the centre of discussion.
‘Poor thing, she’s not used to this,’ mumbled an old woman, steadily surveying her. Presently another, remarking that she would need some supper, offered her a mug of tea; another, a piece of bread. She accepted the bread, but said she was not thirsty, only tired, and would go to bed. She proceeded to lie down with her clothes on. Now the women were sure she had never been there before. ’Oo ever ’eard tell of agoing to bed wif close on?’ they remarked in loud whispers. But seeing the poor, tired thing would not be advised, they pitied her, told her the most comfortable way to lie, and left her alone.
The details of that long night remained clear in the Adjutant’s memory. The miserable seared days of these women were echoed in their sleep. Groans; curses; snatches of song; angry or weary talk, with heavy breathing troubled the night. Oh, the sorrows that follow in the wake of sin; it pressed upon Kate Lee’s heart until it felt like breaking.
With the first streak of dawn she rose, and noiselessly stealing out, escaped into the street. She felt cold and sick. Standing at a corner, she hailed a bus. The driver gave her a glance and drove on. She hailed another and another, but none would stop. They did not want to carry such as she. At last she managed to board a street car, and the passengers eyed her as she crouched in a corner. She knew, perhaps for the first time, what it really meant to be poor, and hungry, and despised. From that morning she believed that the very poor suffer more in spirit than in body, and she used her experience powerfully to plead their cause.
One of her furloughs was spent in Sunderland. That visit is still the talk of the corps; it seemed that in those few days she laid a hand of love upon all. And how full was Kate’s heart of grateful joy when she turned homeward. One of her most wonderful trophies, after fighting a splendid fight for years, had slipped back into the depths of sin. She found him desperately ill and wretched; drew him back to the Saviour; saw him restored and comforted, and held his hands as he waded the river of death, till his spirit reached the other side. Then she buried his mortal remains.
Her longer furloughs, those occasioned by illness, found her the same loving, watchful, ministering spirit, as when in health. After the operation, which followed her farewell from the field, she spent a few days in hospital. Suffering much, and unable to sleep, still she noticed that one of the nurses wore a sad expression. Waiting until she came to attend to her at midnight, she engaged her in conversation, and, spiritual specialist that she was, got to the root of the nurse’s trouble. She had lost faith and her life was sadly clouded. At midnight. while others slept, in that palace of pain, Kate led her nurse to the Saviour.
Later, at the Officers Nursing Home at Highbury, London, she shared a room with an officer from India, and delighted in this unexpected way to come in closer touch with our missionary work. As health returned, the two officers talked India to their hearts’ content. The major from the East confided her fears, that the little girls of the Industrial Home she had just left would miss their Christmas this year. ’Do not worry about it, they shall have their dollies,’ replied the Adjutant. As soon as she was able to write, she sent letters to many friends, begging for dressed dolls in time to reach India by Christmas. Fifty dollies take some getting, and the number was still incomplete when the Adjutant arrived at the Bexhill Home of Rest. An officer who was resting in the Home writes:–
She was just a shadow, sweet, mostly silent, with a cheerful, heartening smile. The officers saw in her the visible proof that unrestrained service pays; that God gives good recompense for all that is done for Him. The Adjutant’s quiet enthusiasm roped in ready assistance, and in good time, the dollies, beautifully dressed and packed, with additional tiny surprises were ready. She could well have been excused from such spending of time and effort, but it never dawned on Kate Lee that she needed to be excused. She gave all the time without effort, without knowing that she gave; to her it was just life. To those officer-comrades who assisted her, however, she was all gratitude. It was so splendid, she said, that they, being weary, should volunteer to do this sewing for the little Indian girls. She only saw their work, she never glimpsed her own, so utterly unselfish was her spirit.
The Adjutant had hoped that her retirement from the battle’s front might only be for a short time; but the nasal trouble was deep-seated, and her general health was atfected. She needed a course of surgical treatment, and it was arranged for her to rest in London.
Her experience somewhat resembled that of the apostle Philip, when he was caught up from the joys of a revival and set down in a desert. It was an experience difficult to understand, for her to retire, sick and wounded, to the rear, when there was so much to be done at the front of the battle, so much that she might do. But we have seen how she had fought the battle out, and she entered ‘the desert,’ her heart at peace with God, ready to accept any small opportunities for service that might come her way.
She was too frail to attend meetings, but she took up her pen, and having leisure for the first time in her Army career, revelled in the opportunity of writing for our periodicals. Each paper received helpful contributions. In a brief article which appeared anonymously in ’The Young Soldier’ we catch a glimpse of her happy spirit at this time:–
Sometimes I go to visit men who are in jail, and try to make them see that Jesus cares for them though they have done wrong. Then they talk to me. Some have told me about the mice in their cells. When they feel lonely, the prisoners are glad to have the company of even a little mouse. I am a prisoner just now, although I am not made to stay in a cell; but when an Army officer is shut away from all the poor people she loves and wants to help, it seems very much like being in a prison; but I have some little friends who come to cheer me. At least, I think they look upon me as their friend, for they come to my window and peep in at me so knowingly. Then I open the window very gently and they wait until I put some scraps from my plate on the sill, and then they have such a feast.
One of my little sparrow friends is partly blind. He only seems able to see out of one eye. I guess he has been in some fight and got the worst of it. It seems very bad for a bird to fight and have to suffer; but then he did not know any better, and perhaps he was fighting an enemy bird who tried to hurt his family. One day, when I was watching my sparrow friends on the sill, to my surprise I saw a little mouse pop out of the ivy which hangs round my window. Very quickly he picked up a piece of fat that I had put there for the sparrows, and then ran off so fast; and, what do you think? he brought another little mouse with him. Now they come along about the same time each evening, just when the birds are having their supper. I know that mice like to sip milk, and once I dropped just a little milk on the window-sill for them. Oh, how they enjoyed it! You would have laughed to see what they did after that; they sat up, and rubbing their wet hands together, made what looked like a soapy lather, and washed their faces.
Some small children make a fuss if only their lips are washed after a meal; they do not seem to care how sticky they are; but my mice do, they like to be clean and tidy. God’s tiny creatures teach us many lessons, and if you little ones are wise you will try, as great King Solomon advised, to learn something from them all.
The daughter of the house in which Kate Lee had taken rooms, attracted her. Commandant Lucy Lee lent the girl the two volumes of ’Catherine Booth: the Life of The Army Mother,’ which she read with delight. In the loving, eager spirit of this school girl, Ina, Kate detected something which reminded her of her own early longings. All her spiritual mother-love went out to Ina, and she led her into the Kingdom of God, and then step by step along the way of the Cross and the highway of holiness.
It was some time before permission was gained for the new convert to become a Salvationist, but gradually the parents began to recognize the beauty of a life wholly yielded to God, and became willing for their daughter to go Kate Lee’s way, and all the way. Kate did not make things easy for this new recruit. When she saw the spiritual light burning brightly in her soul, and the heavenly vision leading Ina to visit the saloons, she encouraged her, and frail though she herself was, she introduced her to the best way of doing this work. An anonymous article written to ‘The Warrior’ shows how this corps cadet learned to fight:–
Ina’s heart was filled with a great longing. She was tired, yet not satisfied, at the end of a busy Sunday. Going to and from the meetings, teaching a company of Juniors, seeking souls in the prayer meetings, and yet how little she seemed to be doing when the need was so great.
Then a voice said, ’Go to the saloons, and try and win some poor drink-slave for Jesus.’ How could she obey? She had never darkened the doors of such places. Brought up in a sheltered home, she had never seen the sad effects of drink, nor all the miseries that follow in its train. But the call had come, and months ago she had promised to follow where Jesus led. Securing a bundle of ‘War Crys,’ Ina started off, trembling at the thought of her venture. As she reached the first drink-shop with its startling sign, ‘The Tiger,’ the idea of entering it seemed to her agitated mind as impossible as to attack such a ferocious beast. The suggestion of leaving such a task for an older and more experienced comrade was natural; but no, the call had come; there must be no retreat. So with a prayer for wisdom and strength, she stumbled through the darkened entrance, and as the door swung open, a blaze of light dazzled her eyes. Such a sight met her fearful gaze! Men drinking, women huddled together supping the stuff that is cursing the homes and blighting the lives of little children. The whole atmosphere was repelling. The tobacco smoke, the sickly smell of beer, and the coarse jests that fell upon her ears; but her spirit rose to the attack in the name of the Lord, as the boy David of the Bible had faced the giant.
There was a sudden hush as the crowd looked at this uniformed girl in an out-of-the-way district, and the murmur went round, ‘Salvation Army.’
‘Yes,’ said the corps cadet, ’and I have come to ask you to buy a “War Cry."’
‘We don’t want war, Miss; we’ve had too much already.’
‘Yes,’ answered the cadet, ’but the outcome of the Salvation War means an everlasting peace.’
The word peace seemed to change the atmosphere. ’We know you’re all right,’ a voice answered. ’You mean well. Here’s a penny, miss.’ And then another, and yet other hands were stretched out for a paper.
Whilst she was handing round the papers, Ina’s heart was going up to the Lord in prayer that each might be the means of blessing, and even directing some soul into the way of life. Then with a kindly smile and a hearty ‘God bless you,’ she passed out and into another bar. Here sat a military man drinking with his wife. ’Will you buy a “War Cry"’? she asked. ‘No,’ came the rough answer. Then turning to the wife, an appeal was made. In a nervous, confused way the woman bent her head low, and sought for a penny for the paper. The husband seemed touched by his wife’s action which may have called to mind their better days. ’Well, miss, I couldn’t buy a “War Cry,” as I like my beer, and I don’t want to be a hypocrite.’ But the cadet told him he could read a ‘War Cry’ even if he did like his beer, but she prayed in her heart that it might be the means of making him hate his beer.
The man and woman read interest and love in the young face, and as she left the place, with a ‘Good-night, and God bless you,’ the words echoed after her.
Crossing the road with renewed energy, she was soon within the doors of ‘The Little Bear,’ which was known as one of the roughest houses of that quarter. Sitting in the corner was an old man whom she asked to buy a ‘War Cry.’
‘Yes,’ he answered warmly, ’after what you did after the air raid last week, I should think I would.’ Sitting huddled in another corner was a poor, wretched ‘drunk,’ ragged, dirty, and woe-begone. Seeing the Salvationist, and before she had opportunity of offering him a ‘War Cry,’ he held out a penny saying, ‘Here, give us one; I like you people.’ Before she left he was made to feel that The Army loved such as he–and who knows the result of that word?
‘The Lion’ had still to be attacked, but Ina had the value of her experience in ‘The Tiger’ and ‘The Bear,’ and no longer trembled. It was not all smooth sailing. We are not told if the lions in Daniel’s den lay down perfectly still, or whether some came close to him, sniffing and snarling; but we are told that they were powerless to hurt God’s child. Even in this vile place the devil could only go ‘so far.’ His servants seemed forced to give respect to God’s messenger in spite of themselves.
The saloon-keeper’s wife appeared on the scene and bought a ‘Young Soldier.’ Ina was quick to enrol her as a customer, and now, week by week, ‘The Young Soldier’ is handed to her little daughter with the prayer that her father and mother may be led to God. As Ina enters the saloon bar there is a respectful hush and the little missionary is able to sow the seed. A soldier is accosted who is on leave from the trenches. He tells of his troubles, of that terrible battle when he felt his need of God. Before she leaves him a tear is seen, as he promises to seek God. Many such incidents are happening week by week as she goes on her round. Only eternity will reveal the outcome of such efforts.
Is there another corps cadet who should take up this work?
Corps Cadet Ina writes of the influence of her spiritual mother upon her life:–
After I had become a Salvationist and longed to work as she had worked, she accompanied me to teach me the art of successful ‘saloon-raiding.’ She made several bar frequenters special cases. Sometimes she got them to give her their names, and these went on our special prayer list. We had cases in the saloons as well as the bar. If she could induce them to give their addresses, she would take me with her to visit them in their homes, or would keep in touch with them by writing. We had several conversions.
As we walked from one place to another, she would impress upon me the importance of keeping in the spirit. ’It is not merely selling “The War Cry,"’ she would say; ’it is the grand opportunity of dropping words for God.’
As we see this warrior broken in health, undergoing continual treatment of a very painful nature, yet week by week accompanying the corps cadet to saloons in a district outlying the ordinary activities of an Army corps, we realize the truth of The General’s words:–
Her appetite grew by what it fed on. She loved sinners from the beginning, but she went on until she could not live without them. She was insatiable. Her soul could not be satisfied in any other way. She was always working for souls, seeking souls, knocking at the doors of mercy for souls, loving souls.
The corps cadet continues:–
I thank God for sending her into my life. For years she was The Salvation Army to me, all I knew of it; and years before I was permitted to go to a Salvation Army meeting, I had determined that God and The Army would have all my life.
Her life was wonderful. Even though ill and on rest she had a plan for every hour of the day. Sometimes she would visit the people. If they disappointed her she would try the harder to win them. She was always hunting round to help families in need.
She spent a great deal of time in writing, and when I would persuade her to leave her desk and come for a walk, she would give me what she termed, ‘Field Drill.’ Oh, those talks; how I treasure the memory of them! On one of the last occasions she said to me, ’The sins of the world will do one of three things for you; they will either harden your heart, or break it, or soften it. I want you to have a soft, tender heart.’
Sometimes she would commend me; but, as a true friend, she would also reprimand me when I needed it, yet always in love, showing me where I might be better. She taught me how to study the Bible, and infused into my heart some of her love for it. ’I mean to make the Bible my one book. It is one of my New Year’s resolutions,’ she told me at the beginning of this year, and at the same time mentioned a new idea which would make study of the Word of God more easy.
She taught me by example, as well as by what she said, to conquer by prayer.
When she was not writing articles or revising subject notes, she wrote letters to those she had been the means of blessing. Beautiful letters they were; sometimes she delighted me by dictating them and letting me type them for her.
Although she found her long periods of rest trying because of her great love for souls, she maintained a bright, beautiful spirit, and had a smile whenever one saw her. She compared her last few years to a long dark tunnel, and just before she died, when anticipating her new appointment, she said, ’I really believe I’m coming to the end of it at last.’
Surely one of the most beautiful pictures in Kate Lee’s life is here. Ill, in a sense alone and amongst strangers, yet triumphant, filling the days with any little services that came to her hand, performing them as faithfully as she had performed her field duties in the glare of the limelight, and seeking to bring into one young life the spirit that would give to the world a warrior after her own heart, against the day that her own feet could no longer be swift and beautiful for God.
In John Wesley’s house in the City Road, London, is a small room which was built expressly to be the prayer-chamber of the Founder of Methodism. When I entered the small sitting-room of one of Kate Lee’s field quarters, I was conscious of feelings of reverence similar to those which possessed me in Wesley’s prayer-room. There she had wrestled and prayed, planned and studied, written and interviewed callers who sought her help. It was holy ground.
The sitting-room of the little home which she enjoyed for the last two or three years of her life, was a reflex of her character in modesty, simplicity, and usableness. A soft green paper covered the walls, dark lino the floor, a rug or two here and there; a writing-desk, book-case, a cottage piano, a couple of easy chairs, and a couch completed the furniture. On the walls and mantleshelf were Army photos, a print of Christ at prayer; a few treasures, ‘with a meaning’ (her sister explains), picked up here and there as mementoes of her furloughs; a small French bronze of Jesus carrying His cross; a petrified bird’s nest, which has served as an object lesson in children’s meetings, and so on.
This quiet room was the dearest of retreats to Kate Lee. Here, with her sister, who anticipated her every wish and lavished love upon her, she shut the door upon the world with its turmoils, and gave herself up to study and rest. Her books were her greatest treasures. In them she enjoyed the company of the greatest and best of souls, who believed as she believed, fought for the things she counted worth while, and triumphed as she was endeavouring to triumph.
Her bookshelf contained, perhaps, one hundred volumes in all; chosen, as were all her small possessions, with an eye to the highest values.
A notebook furnishes a list of the books she read during her field service; they included The Founder’s and The Army Mother’s works, Finney’s ‘Revivals,’ many biographies, Meyer’s ‘Bible Characters,’ and more thoughtful studies such as Butler’s ‘Analogy.’ How she had managed time for reading during those busy, rushed days, is revealed in a reply to a young officer who had consulted her on self-improvement. She wrote, ‘I trained myself to read one chapter of some good book every day.’
To sit at the desk where Kate Lee had worked, open its drawers and draw out the contents, was to discover on everything the stamp of the principles which had governed her life. Everything was in perfect order. Here is her diary, a memorandum of coming events and engagements fulfilled; and her accounts. Here a locked box; in it a tiny leather bag, holding the balance of her ‘Lord’s money,’ with a reference to her diary for the exact amount due; also the covenant mentioned elsewhere. A much-worn ‘Where Is It?’ contains a record, with shorthand remarks, of every address she had delivered, in alphabetical order of the place where she had spoken. She commenced these entries at her second corps, nearly thirty years earlier, and by reference, could ascertain in a few minutes the addresses or lectures she had given on Holiness, Salvation, Social, or other subjects, whether in Sunderland, Brighton, Croydon, Thetford, or elsewhere. For her there was no unpleasant wondering as to whether she might repeat her subject on a return visit anywhere.
Kate had a peculiar shyness and reserve regarding her subject-notes. They were sacred to her; she had received them on her knees ‘in the mount,’ often in loneliness and tears. Commandant Lucy drew out from her sister’s desk three half-leather, locked volumes. She handled them gently, smiled and hesitated a moment, ‘No one but Kate has ever opened these,’ she said. ’Sometimes I used to tease her, and pretend to take one up, but no, until the end that was not allowed.’
A key was inserted in one of the books, and it fell open. Treasure trove indeed! Six hundred pages of most carefully prepared subject-notes and illustrations on every imaginable topic that might appeal to the soul. Every page an example of method, care, and good taste.
Under bold, red headings, in her shapely, flowing hand, the various subjects are classified, and set out. The second volume is similar; the third is only half filled, and turning to the end it seems as though she anticipated that this was to be her last book, for there are personal notes and entries on the chief events of her life. The latter begins, ’Born August 3, 1872; born again September 17, 1885. First bonnet, Alexandra Palace, 1887; Trade Headquarters, November 20, 1889. Commissioned Lieutenant, June 20, 1890. Chalk Farm Training Garrison, June 19, 1892.’ Then follow her appointments till the last, which appears in pencil, when she was ‘Awaiting appointment.’
There are mottoes she chose on New Year’s Day for many years. Among the number are ‘Keep thy Soul Diligently’; ’Deal Courageously and Deal with the Ones ’; ‘Obey, Bear, Seek’; ‘Stand by the Flag.’
The first of the subject-notes in the last of the volumes deals with Barabbas. One sees him in the dungeon, a thief, a terror. There is a picture of the world in his day. He is called to die. Christ appears. Christ dies for Barabbas.
The next notes are on ’Life. How to view it. The Servant; the Mistress; the Workman; the Master; the Soldier; the Sergeant; the Local Officer; the Officer.’
Ezekiel seemed to have gripped the Adjutant’s imagination during the last year of her life; she had prepared several powerful addresses from his prophecies.
‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Paradise Regained’ provides thought for several closely-packed pages. Then follow a series of addresses to young people on Good Behaviour. I. At Home. II. In the Street. III. In The Salvation Army Citadel. IV. Toward the Opposite Sex. V. On Tobacco. VI. Reading.
There are comprehensive notes on Christianity.
Notes of a Session at the College for Staff Officers.
Twenty closely written pages on the Bible. How written?
Why so called?
Written by whom? Notes on each book. Translations,
etc.
Madam Guyon on prayer.
Many pages on ‘Preaching’ being expressions from master preachers, showing how to capture the souls of men.
To fill over one thousand pages with careful, close writing, took time. But Kate Lee did no fancy work; she never gossiped; she kept no pets; she did not even ‘garden’; she seldom went for a walk except on a mission. She cared only for those things that would forward the Kingdom of God, and while some played with shells and made sand castles that a day’s tide swept away, she delved in the King’s mines, finding precious things wherewith to serve the Holy War.
Kate gathered in order to give out again. Her gift of expression was small at the beginning, but she so stirred it up and improved it, that, with increasing ease, she was able by both spoken and written word to express her thoughts in simple, direct English that reached hearts. The knowledge grew upon her that she would not always be able for public work, and she determined to prepare herself to appeal to souls by her pen. In her last letter to her sister, she wrote:–
There are one or two things I would like you to see to for me. In the cupboard, under my writing-desk, you will find some articles I have written. No. 1. ‘Temples of Fire.’ It is a subject that has been upon my soul for a long time. I did not offer this series for publication as I intended to shape it up again. I hardly know if the articles will be considered worth accepting; but if something could be done with them, I should be glad.
There is another series I was trying to write on ’The Master’s Locals.’ You will also find, ‘The Story of Jesus,’ and ’Thoughts about the Cross,’ and several other little articles. I am afraid none of them are up to the mark, but if anything could be done with them to help souls, I should rejoice.
These manuscripts show how she spared herself no pains to prepare a message. Over and over again she would draft a sentence, a page, or an article until she felt the message to be arresting. Then she sent it forth with much love and prayer. When it appeared in print–often anonymously–sometimes under her name or initials, she delighted and wondered that God gave to her the broad platform of The Army publications. The following articles, both of which appeared in ’The War Cry,’ indicate something of the fresh, crisp heart messages that she gave to saint and sinner from her platform. When pressed by editors of The Army publications for an article, she took some hours from her sleep in order to prepare them for the press. Kate did not speak from notes. She had in her Bible a few headings on a sheet of paper, but having prepared her subject with great prayerfulness, after reading the Scriptures she left the reading desk, and in the simplicity and earnestness of her pure soul, freely gave out her message.
A Glorious Cleansing
’Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean’
(Matthew viii. 2)
The story of the leper is, to my mind, one of the most wonderful stories in the Bible, as it so forcibly illustrates how God looks upon and deals with sin. Leprosy was in the days of Christ an acknowledged type of sin, and we see in the condition of the leper a picture of its utter loathsomeness.
I fancy I see the poor fellow outside the city gate–cut off from his home and friends.
But they do not forget him, and each morning some loved one–a mother, perhaps–at an early hour comes to the gate and there places a little basket of provisions sufficient for his needs of the day. Then she goes away, and from a distance watches the poor creature draw near, and take the much-needed food. One morning the basket must, I fancy, have contained, in addition to the food, a message which, as the poor leper reads, brings a ray of hope into his wretched, weary life.
The note tells of Jesus, the wonderful Christ, who is going about healing all kinds of incurable diseases, and even raising the dead to life.
’Oh, if only you could see Him! If only you could get near enough to Jesus, there might be a chance for you, my poor boy!’ his mother may have written.
As he reads, his poor face brightens as he murmurs to himself, ’Yes, I will try, I will risk all; I will chance the consequences.’
Let us look at him a moment. Here is vileness indeed, a very type of impurity; and here we see how sin looks in the eyes of God.
His limbs swollen, his hair white, tumours appear on his jaws, his breath noisome, and his whole person fitted to inspire loathing.
Leprosy is infectious and of slow progress. It begins within the body, and throws out a moisture which corrupts the outside, and covers it with a kind of white scale. It is said that the body becomes so hot that a fresh apple held but an hour in the hand will be withered and wrinkled. The parts of the body infected become insensible, and in time fall off.
The leper is conscious that he is vile. He wears the leper’s garment, and day by day from his lips comes the mournful cry, ’Unclean, unclean!’
Then, the leper is not only conscious of his vileness, and acknowledges it, but he despairs of cleansing. He knows that unless some Supreme Power intervenes death will ensue.
It was, perhaps, his desperate condition which led this leper, of whom we speak, to break, with heroic courage, through the ceremonial law, and to expose himself to the risk of being stoned to death that he might cast himself at the Saviour’s feet.
See him venturing through the gate into the city to find Jesus. And when at last he approaches the place where he expected to see Jesus, he discovers to his great disappointment that the Lord has gone up the mountain side.
I fancy I see the leper crouching, waiting, and watching for Jesus. At last, that wonderful Form appears, and comes down the mountain with a great crowd following.
How can he get to Jesus? is the leper’s first thought. With a dash and the cry,’ Unclean!’ which causes the crowd to make way and shrink back in horror, he rushes forward and prostrates himself at the feet of Jesus. ‘Lord, if Thou wilt,’ he cries, ‘Thou canst make me clean.’
Here we see the vast difference between curiosity and need. The crowd follow out of curiosity. The leper flings himself in abandon at Jesus’ feet because of his need. Need alone will make a man really come to Jesus. The soul that feels its need, and realizes its sin, will make an effort–a dash to get to God.
Listen to the leper’s prayer! ‘Lord.’ He owns Jesus as his Lord. He makes a complete, unconditional, and unreserved surrender, and feels his helplessness! Only God can save him! That is the way to come to Jesus!
His was a model prayer–simple, short, direct. It was grounded in a glorious faith in the power of Christ to heal; a prayer that did not limit God; believed, indeed, that with Him nothing was impossible.
It is well to recollect that God has never failed with a case yet. Those who have wandered the farthest away from Him, those who have sunk the lowest, He can restore, and will never turn His ear from a prayer fashioned like that of the leper’s.
I fancy I see the breathless crowd shrinking back in horror! I fancy, too, that I hear those clear, beautiful words ring forth: ’I will; be thou clean.’ But Jesus not only speaks; to the astonishment of the crowd, He puts forth His hand and touches the leper. That touch may have been a violation of the letter of the law, but not of the spirit. Jesus knew His touch would give healing to the leper, and not pollution to Himself.
At the cry of the leper, Jesus touched him immediately, true figure of God’s readiness to forgive and cleanse sin.
Jesus is the same to-day. He deals with sin and the sinner in the same way. If you will come in the same spirit as the leper, His hand will be immediately stretched forth to save.
When Jesus touched the leper I can picture the crowd drawing nearer. They watch the wonderful change take place. A flush passes over the leper’s pale face, the despairing look gives way to an overwhelming look of joy. The cringing stoop and feeble gait change to an upright attitude and a firm tread. See him going to show himself to the priest. He is commanded to ‘tell no one,’ but as he goes he meets an old friend. The temptation is too great; he tells him what has happened, and then another and another. He cannot keep the truth in, but blazes it abroad.
Oh! If you would find Christ you must push through the difficulties and the hindrances that would keep you away from Him. If, in the spirit of the leper, you come as you are, conscious of your sin, confessing it with faith in God’s power to cleanse you, you will hear the selfsame words from those gracious lips: ’I will; be thou clean,’ and immediately your leprosy, your sin, will leave you.
I see the new creation rise,
I hear the speaking Blood;
It speaks! Polluted nature dies,
Sinks ’neath the cleansing Flood.
The cleansing Stream I see, I see,
I plunge, and, Oh it cleanseth me!
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth me!
It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth me!
* * * * *
Harvests: Joy and Sorrow
’The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few’
(Matthew ix. 37)
As we read these words of the Master we fancy we can see His benign and majestic Presence as He stops and, turning round, looks not upon the beautiful harvest fields, with waving corn, but upon the vast field of the world, with its teeming masses of humanity.
So many are ready to look upon the cornfields of gain, to look for something to fill their baskets and store, but hearts like the Master’s are wanted that see the great harvest fields of humanity, all ripe and ready to be gathered in. Hearts are wanted that will not only go out in sentimental sympathy, but that will give a helping hand, where it is required, leaving the fields of gain, and toiling for love amidst human need. There seem to be two thoughts in the mind of the Master. As He speaks He strikes two notes–one of joy, and one of sorrow.
A plentiful harvest always brings joy. Another harvest of the earth is being gathered, and as I write I am looking upon the golden cornfields, and see the men all busily engaged. Thank God for plenty!
Do we praise God sufficiently for His mercies? Do we always value them? Sometimes we do not fully appreciate them until they are withdrawn.
It seems to me that if the Master walked our crowded cities, He would repeat again those words, ‘Truly the harvest is plenteous.’ Plenty to reap; only labourers are wanted to go out. The masses are still there; the need is for some one to go to the masses.
Then the note of sorrow seems to drown and spoil the note of joy. ’The harvest is plenteous’–rejoice! ’But the labourers are few’–cause for sorrow. The masses are there–the opportunity–but so few to take hold of it. Corn to be gathered in, but few reapers.
The harvest was plenteous in the time of Christ, but it is even more so now. The people are waiting for us, they expect us and look to us, who are the followers of Christ, to go to their help!
Oh, the open doors! Was the door of the public ear ever more ready to listen to us than at the present time? Those who once turned a deaf ear, and did not believe in us, now say, ’Yes, you are right. You have got the right thing, and are doing the right thing.’
Were people ever more ready to open their doors to us than they are now? How they appreciate the visit of the Salvationist! The doors, too, of the workhouses, the prisons, the hospitals are opening more widely to us.
Yes, the people are ready to open their hearts to us. The poor drunkard, as he rolls from one side of the road to the other, exclaims when he sees a Salvationist, ‘God–bless–General–Booth!’
The masses may not always rush as excitedly after us as they once did–there are so many counter-attractions now–but they are there. We must go to them; they need us.
I have heard the story of a little boy who lost his mother, and was found lying upon her grave weeping and praying. Some one who had felt moved to do something for the motherless boy discovered him in this position. ‘Jesus has sent me to you!’ said the lady. ’I am going to love you as my own little boy.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, through his tears as he looked up as though he had been expecting her, ’so Jesus has sent you! You have been a long time coming though, haven’t you?’
Do the sinners and drunkards feel we are a long time coming, because the labourers are too few, and you have kept back from becoming one?
Above the note of joy, above the plentiful harvest, rings out so loudly the note of sorrow–’But the labourers are few!’ How few in comparison to the masses! So few labourers who will put off the coat of formality, who will pull up the sleeve of ease! Few who will work by the sweat of their brow and make a sacrifice for souls! Sacrifice is needed in God’s service to-day as much as ever, and never was there a more urgent call for men and women who, like our precious General, can say, ’I am never out of it; I sleep in it; I shall die in it.’ Nothing worth anything can be accomplished without sacrifice.
How many are there in God’s service who merely look on? More are wanted who will work. The success of The Army has been because of its willingness to come down to the level of the people–to strive to save them. A reckless dying to self is what is needed. Was it not dying made the harvest? The dying is part of the success. The grain was dropped into the ground, and died before it could spring forth and produce living results. There must be the dying to sin, and to self, and self-interests.
Men and women of heart are wanted–men and women, who in seeking souls will give themselves up in the spirit of the champion aviator who said, ’If I had not succeeded I should not have been here. I was determined to win, or die in the attempt.’
Labourers are wanted who will dig right deep down into the heart of sorrow, and find those desires and longings after purity and goodness which even the heart itself scarcely realizes are there.
In the man of the world, though one would hardly believe it as one sees the cynical look and sneer and hears him say, ’I don’t want your church–your Army!’ there is underneath, in spite of his apparent indifference, a longing after God and a disgust of the world.
Men and women are wanted to grapple with the vast harvest–this great opportunity–and to gather in God’s sheaves. Oh, to leave the world of vice and folly as naked as the earth is after the harvest! Empty public-houses! Empty gambling dens! Empty abodes of impurity! Empty slums! Empty all places where God is not! But thanksgiving in the home; the House of God filled with rejoicing people, telling out of hearts of gladness that labourers came into the fields of sin and gathered them in.
Many letters, folded and handled until almost worn to pieces, but treasured above gold, lie before me. They are addressed to Kate Lee’s spiritual children, to the sick, the discouraged, or those living far from an Army hall and rarely able to get to the meetings. These letters are short, often mere notes of one page, rarely running into more than two or three folios; and they are not clever. Kate had little imagination in her make up; she did not see pictures wherever her eyes lit, and never had time to give to studied composition. The value of these letters to us is that any ordinary girl, anyone with a heart ‘at leisure from itself’ could write such letters. Over and over again in The Army Founder’s life we find him saying, ‘It is heart work we want. HEART work.’ It is because Kate Lee’s letters came from a heart full of love that they reached hearts and never failed to bless them.
She had a delightful way of remembering the anniversary of some of her trophies’ conversion. She called them birthdays. Here is a little scrap to a man battling bravely against ill health and other adversities:–
I am enclosing a Money Order for five shillings so that you can get some little thing for yourself or your wife. Just a little birthday gift for your twelfth birthday. God bless you! Keep near to Jesus and do all in your power to lead those around you to Him. Praise Him that He has kept you all these years. He is a wonderful Saviour and worthy of our praise.
No work of art was so beautiful in the eyes of Kate Lee as the photographs of men and women to whom God had given ‘beauty for ashes.’ She writes to one:–
The photo is lovely–I am proud of you. It gives me real joy to hear that you are still wheeling your barrow around and reminding souls of Eternity. Give my love to your precious wife.
To a man just lifted from a pit of sin, and whose feet still tottered, she wrote:–
I cannot call and see you as I am away until Friday night Then I shall look for you at the meeting. I have asked a comrade or so to call and see you. I am praying much for you. Hold on to God, and He will prosper you and bless you, and soon, if you only serve Him with all your heart, things will be so different with you and your dear family.
To one in deep bereavement:–
I wish I had been home when the letter came so that I could have sent you word by the next post. In these trying hours I rejoice that you are fully the Lord’s, and can trust Him. We cannot understand why sorrow and bereavement should touch us, but God allows it in love.
She regarded the ‘funniosities’ of people with a large indulgence. One old comrade who had put on the uniform during her command at his corps, believed that no one could buy a jersey and cap so well as ’the dear Adjutant,’ so wherever she was, he sent to her when he needed new uniform.
Her Christmas remembrances did not take the form of considerable presents to special friends or comrades who might remember her in return. Rather, her love overflowed in a flood of loving messages. Calendars, leaflets, cards costing only a penny or two, with just a word of greeting, flew in all directions, carrying the remembrance of her smile, her voice, and her faith and prayer that her comrades and friends would press on through sacrifice and service to victory.
But it would seem that the letters she most loved to write were to young officers and those who wished to become officers. She counselled one: ’Seek God with all your heart. If you will pay the price of letting Him have all His way, He will fill you with a passion for souls.’
To a young captain she wrote a few weeks before her promotion to Glory:–
There is nothing in the world like soul-winning. If you will only give up yourself wholly to it, and let God fit you for it, He, who is no respecter of persons, can do for you as much as for any other soul whom He has called.
I have found one of the greatest helps to soul-winning, next to Bible study and prayer, is the reading of helpful books. I know that the officer who does her duty to the people has little free time, but I used to make myself spend a certain time each day in study, and kept a note book to make notes of any paragraph that impressed me so that I would not forget the thoughts which inspired me. Have you read ‘Tongues of Fire,’ by William Arthur; S. D. Gordon’s ’Quiet Talks on Prayer’? To read such books on your knees, drinking in the wonderful truths they set forth, would help you towards the realization of all your desires.
Kate Lee loved girls in their teens, and they were much drawn to her.
Some officers who excel in helping the rag-tag class of young people, as Kate Lee did, fight shy of those of refined training and better education. This may possibly arise from a dread lest these keen young folk may take their soundings and soon ‘touch bottom’ in many directions. Kate feared nothing. Common-sense, an even balance, and true love count most with the young, and of these qualities she had abundance.
Major Mary Booth says:–
Dear Angel Adjutant! How I loved her! Miriam and I, when we were in our early teens, did several week-ends for her and I was much impressed by her love for the poor. Her zeal, and the influence of it, remains with me to-day. After the meetings were over, Miriam and I, when taking supper with the Adjutant, often stayed till one o’clock in the morning, listening to her tales of the poor drunkards. I remember specially one night, she tried to drag us to bed, but we finished by getting her to sit down on the stairs and tell us some more of her thrilling experiences.
The following extracts from letters show her winsome way of helping them to aim at the best things:–
I have started a series of articles on the ‘Five Senses,’ and felt you would like to help me. Will you keep your eyes open for illustrations bearing on the subject, spiritual or otherwise, and pass them on to me. I have the subject in my mind and keep finding fresh material for it; if you will help me, you will have a share in the outcome by and by, if the idea develops satisfactorily.
From another letter:–
I am sending you ‘The Life of The General.’ It is only a cheap copy, but I saw it on the bookstall last night, and thought you would like to have it. It is so wonderful to see how God raised him up and used him as His instrument. It shows what wonderful things God can do when one is fully yielded to Him, and what responsibility rests upon us each. If William Booth had held back, we see what he would have missed, and his great work would have been left undone.
Still another:–
I am feeling concerned about you. You must not let yourself get down. Nerves can be conquered, and you know where to get strength to rise above them. I am praying for you and believe God will do great things for you. Do not be surprised that training is necessary and that the training comes in the way we should prefer not.
Then she turns the girl’s thoughts away from herself and concludes with, ‘Pray for me.’
Kate Lee’s last five years were as the life of a bird with a broken wing. She struggled hard to do as she had ever done, but again and again had to admit that her strength had failed. Following the operation which closed her work on the field, she spent a year under drastic and painful surgical treatment. When sufficient strength was recovered to enable her to undertake an appointment under the eye of her doctor, she was promoted to the rank of Staff-Captain and saw two brief periods of service at the International Training Garrison in London, and a few months in the Candidates’ Department at Headquarters. Then another breakdown, and another year’s furlough.
Her health again improving, to her great delight the Staff-Captain was re-appointed to the Training Garrison, this time as Secretary of Field Training. Twelve months of golden service followed. She revelled in her work amongst the women cadets, who, under her holy, gracious influence, were trained in the arts of service on the field. She had a remarkable influence upon the cadets. They knew her record, and accepted her because of that; but coming close up to her they rejoiced in her as a teacher and a leader because of what they found her to be. The cadets delighted in her classes. She made the field work appear to be the most glorious calling on earth. She inspired the weakest girl with hope that she might rise and excel if she would be at pains to grip herself and make the most of the talents and opportunities God had given her. She held herself up as an example of what God can do with a timid girl who was so entirely yielded to Him as never to say ‘I can’t.’
The air raids on London were very severe during that twelve months. One Saturday night, Leyton suffered terribly, and on Sunday morning, Staff-Captain Lee with a detachment of cadets arrived to minister to the needs of the terrified, and in many cases, homeless people. The police at once gave them right-of-way in the distressed area.
There were lodgings to arrange for people whose homes were in ruins, letters and messages to send to anxious relatives, terrified little children and the elder people to comfort and provide food for. The Staff-Captain was in her glory. Her cheerful face, ringing voice, and capable management had a remarkably soothing and steadying effect upon the distressed people, while the cadets revelled in the service she set them to perform.
To be included in a campaign led by Staff-Captain Lee was a great delight to the cadets chosen for this privilege. This the twelve sergeants [Footnote: Probation Officers selected to assist in the work of Training.] enjoyed in the recess between the sessions. Southend, during holiday season, was the place chosen for the attack. House-to-house visitation, open-air ‘bombardments’ among the holiday crowds, and great meetings in the citadel were included in the attack. The first to lead the way of eighty seekers for pardon or purity was a little child, unaccustomed to Salvation Army meetings. Dressed in white, with wistful, earnest face, the little one had listened to the Staff-Captain’s message, and when the invitation was given she came forward, looking up to the platform with inquiring, wondering eyes. Then at the penitent-form the Staff-Captain pointed the little one to Jesus. She loved to rescue the drunkard and criminal from the pit of sin, but to lead a little child to the Saviour was the dearest joy of all to Kate Lee. The following day she visited the child in her home; her parents both sought the Lord and became Salvation soldiers.
The Staff-Captain’s example amongst the cadets was more powerful than her word. One tells of a week-end visit to Shepherd’s Bush with a brigade, and one of her local officers asking if she couldn’t spare half a day to visit his home, to which she replied, ’You know me better than to think that is in my line.’ She was away with her cadets by eight-thirty next morning.
Many are the loving, tender memories of the cadets she trained. Those who, by reason of long distance or for other reasons, could not go home for Christmas, reckoned they were privileged to remain at the garrison because of the tender love Staff-Captain Lee expended on them, whom she feared might feel lonely and deprived at the Christmas season.
After recess came a transfer for a few months to The Army’s Holiday Home at Ramsgate, where it was hoped that the good air and freedom from heavy responsibility would re-establish her health. The officers to whose comfort she ministered during the holiday months, recall sweet memories of her influence. One says:–
She was wonderfully gentle in spirit. But about her was a strength and authority that made one feel all the while the presence of a superior soul; that one must be at his best in her company. In guiding the conversation at the table she showed a winsome discretion; pleasant, bright topics were the order; she enjoyed wholesome fun and encouraged it, but unkind criticism and sarcasm could not live under her eyes.
Another writes of her sweetness to the little children who stayed in the Home; how they remembered the stories she told them, and her quaint little grace before meals, which they adopted for home use.
Receiving word to return to London and prepare for a foreign appointment, she came on wings of joy. Her doctor gave her a reassuring report, and to her friends she sent notes of pure happiness, telling that at last after six years of hoping against hope, her doctor had given her a clean ’bill of health’ and she was well enough for service in any part of the world. She had not the strength of former days for field work, but somewhere in America, Australia, or Canada, she was to be appointed to training work. How she would love the girls committed to her charge. How she would pray over them, travail in spirit for them, until she saw the passion of Christ born in them, and they go out to do the work that had been her delight.
Her face glowed with joy; her eyes sparkled; her feet skipped; her hand gripped as she told her comrades, ‘I’m good for ten years yet.’ She went to her dressmaker with the palpitating joy of a bride-elect. She sorted her papers; tore from their mounts and rolled the photos of her field associations; chose a few of her favourite pictures and packed them. All was ready, and waiting orders she spent the days at her desk, or visiting her spiritual children. She appeared to be so well. Then, bronchitis, which foggy weather always induced, laid her up for some days.
Her sister Lucy watched her with a strange misgiving at her heart. Kate had always been of an independent disposition, had despised breakfast in bed, but for a week or two she accepted this indulgence without resistance. The least noise pained her, and the loving, mother-sister crept about in soft slippers, pondering things in her heart but saying nothing, until one morning she declared, ’Little dear, I think it’s more than a bottle of bronchitis medicine you need; I’m going to ask the doctor to call.’ Kate was resting somewhat listlessly, but at that word she rose, the commander in every tone of her voice. ’Indeed, no! I’m not very grand this morning, but not that. If you’re late for the office, of course you must give a reason, and no idea that I’m not fit must get around.’
‘But—’ persisted Lucy.
‘Well, you can go to-night if you still feel so,’ compromised Kate, and smiled her sister away.
The following day the doctor called, and gave an opinion that hastened a specialist to the tiny cottage. He was a kind man and shrank from giving a verdict that meant a full stop to this precious life. An immediate operation was the only hope to save life, and this was arranged.
From the first, Kate Lee felt she was going “Home.” She wrote to a special friend, ’I have my appointment; very different from what I expected; but all’s well. I am in His will.’ The comrade hastened to her to learn the news, ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ’To another country altogether–to Heaven,’ she replied.
There was a wondrous peacefulness about the little home as those two gentle women made preparations for the hospital.
Kate’s last day at home was spent chatting with her sister, writing letters settling personal affairs, and resting.
Down to the very brink of the River she wrestled for souls. The last letter she wrote that day was to Lieut.-Colonel Mary Bennett, of the Women’s Social Work, in London, whose interests she had enlisted in a woman addicted to drugs. She writes, ’I am feeling concerned about her. I meant to do my part fully in helping you, and am grieved to fail you in this way.’ Then she mentions her sudden illness and continues on the subject of self-denial (Self-Denial Week was to begin the following Saturday),’ I was trying to give you a little surprise, and, as I have no special target this year, felt I would like to do a little for your home. As this has come it will not be much I am afraid, but I have three pounds for you which we have both collected. My sister will bring it over.’ Her personal Self-Denial gift had gone to give another corps a lift. She was full of hope that the corps were having a good Sunday.
The morning of her last day at home, the corps cadet whom she had come to call ‘my little Leff,’ was with her. She writes:–
I will never forget that talk; she went over the names of her dear, saved drunkards, one by one, giving me messages for some I would see. She urged me to continue praying for them, if the Lord called her Home. She said it would be a luxury to slip away; then, sitting up in bed and looking right into my face, she said, ’Little Leff, those are the people I want you to live for. You do, and you will love them, won’t you?’ With the tears running down my face, I promised that I would do so.
A few days under observation at the Mildmay Hospital, to which she was admitted and cared for with much tenderness not only for Christ’s sake, as is the purpose of that excellent institution towards sufferers, but for her work’s sake, then came the operation. The warrior spirit entered into fires of suffering that she had not hitherto felt; but while the flesh shrank, her faith triumphed. Her sister, who had hovered about her bed during the week, spent the Sunday with her. Even then, those women held themselves at attention at the call to service, and, at the request of the Sister of the ward Kate occupied before the operation, Commandant Lucy left her sister’s side and conducted a service with the patients.
Kate felt that she had not much longer to live, and reaching for her writing pad and pen, she wrote a last message of love for her sister and brother. Her sister found the letters in her blotter after Kate had ’gone home.’ To her she wrote:–
I am writing this line in case I do not see your dear face again, as I want you to have a last message of love. It will not be long until we meet again, and you can think of me watching for you. I do not want to leave you all alone, but the thought that to-morrow I may see His face thrills my soul, and it would be easy to slip away. I am very tired, but I want to finish my course, and am quite willing to face the struggle again if it is His will.... Now, my own treasure, I cannot write more, but must say one great big thank you for all you have done for me, and for all the love you have lavished upon me.
The next morning when Lucy saw Kate again, she was sure that soon her precious sister would see the King in His beauty. What the separation would mean to her no one would fully know; but, as ever, forgetful of herself, she sat beside her, smiled and said brightly, ’Little love, if you see mother before I do, tell her I’m coming.’ Back came Kate’s ready smile, and she replied, ‘Rather!’ so naturally that for a moment it seemed impossible that she was on the borderland of earth.
But soon the brave spirit became troubled. ‘What is it, little love?’ asked Lucy.
’Oh, the people, the people! I haven’t the heart to send them away.’ moaned Kate. Her mind was wandering, and the ruling passion of her life, in death was strong upon her. She was out amongst the crowds, seeing their sins and their sorrows, and their needs, and in a dim way was conscious that she no longer had power to serve them.
’Darling, do not worry any more; you have loved them and sought them all these years, and now you’re going to rest,’ said Lucy. The words reached her ears, but she shook her head, ’I haven’t the heart to send them away,’ she moaned.
Faithful, brave little follower of The Army’s Founder, in life; even to her deathbed there came an echo from his. In his blindness, William Booth had mourned to his daughter, ‘Oh, the sins, the sins of the people!’ He went into eternity, sighing for the sins and sorrows of the world.
But further back than the human, we can trace this spirit. The Saviour, looking upon a multitude of needy souls, is saying, ’I have compassion on the multitude; I cannot send them away.’ William Booth caught the spirit of Christ; he lived it; breathed it into thousands of his followers, of whom there has not fought and triumphed in life and death a truer saint and soldier than Kate Lee, the Angel Adjutant.
We conclude this sketch of her career with some words of General Bramwell Booth: ’I pray that many of those who knew her, and of those who did not know her,’ he says, ’may be stirred up by the testimony of her life and death to walk in the same path, and so glorify God and bless their fellows.’
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