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FRAGILE DOES NOT 
 CIRCULATE 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 050 944 507 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924050944507 
 
THE MARECHALE 
 
THE MAEECHALE 
 
 {From a photai/rapit taken at the Gainsborouijh Sludici Oxford Sired, 
 Londiin, W., in 1013) 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
THE MARECHALE 
 
 FOUNDER OF THE SALVATION ARMY 
 IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND 
 
 BY 
 JAMES STRAHAN, D.D. 
 
 NINTH EDITION 
 
 NEW ^B? YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPTHIGHT, 1914, 
 BY GEORGE H. DOBAN COMPANY 
 
 The right of translation is reserved 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
TO 
 
 THE EVER DEAR MEMORY 
 
 OF THE MARECHALE'S 
 
 FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is the unexpected result of a brief 
 visit which the Marechale paid her daughter 
 and the writer in the spring of this year. She 
 was daily persuaded, not so much to talk of the 
 past, as to live parts of her life over again, for 
 in her case the telling of a story is the enacting 
 of a drama. She begins to describe an inci- 
 dent, to recall a conversation, to sketch a 
 character, and straightway she is suiting the 
 word to the action, the action to the word, 
 holding the mirror up to nature, using her 
 brilhant dramatic gift, which is as natural to 
 her as singing is to birds, to caU up faces, to 
 bring back voices, to restore scenes, which are 
 all, whether grave or gay, summoned out of a 
 dead past that has suddenly, as by the wave of 
 a magician's wand, become once more alive. 
 
 One day I said to her, "Have you never 
 thought of giving all this to the world?" She 
 answered, "I am often asked to do so, and 
 some day I may." Soon after she surprised 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 me by saying, "I have come to the conclusion 
 that something ought to be written now, and 
 you must write it." 
 
 A mass of materials in Enghsh, French and 
 German — ^reports, letters, diaries, magazines, 
 and other documents — has therefore been put 
 at my disposal. I have not used a tithe of 
 what I have received, and much of what is 
 left it as good as what has been taken. More 
 will ere long, I doubt not, see the hght. One 
 of my best sources of information has been the 
 Marechale's own phenomenal memory, which I 
 have tested times without number, and found 
 invariably accurate, except in dates. Events 
 are apt to be associated in her mind not so 
 much with years as with homes and children, 
 which are much more interesting. 
 
 This book consists of a few sections frona a 
 hfe which, hke Mrs. Browning's pomegranate, 
 "shows within a heart blood-tinctured." To 
 a heart of love add a spirit of fire, and you 
 have the Marechale. Blood and fire — ^that is 
 what she was at the beginning, and that is 
 what she will be to the end. One has often 
 heard her say that she has never been more in 
 her element than when, on entering some town. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 vu 
 
 she has found herself confronted, in a theatre 
 or casino, by "all the devils of the place." She 
 is happy whenever "Jesus is going to have a 
 chance for a night." In the natural course of 
 things her greatest battles are still before her. 
 England has need of her, France perhaps stiU 
 greater need. May it be long before the Mare- 
 chale reaches her last campaign! Meanwhile 
 the old battle-cry, En Avant! 
 
 The subject of this sketch — ^written during a 
 brief respite from other woi'k — is at present 
 far away, but I know that what she desires to 
 give to the world is a sense of the Divine, the 
 miracle-working power which rewards a child- 
 hke faith, and that she will be glad if every 
 reader closes the book with a Gloire a Dieu! 
 
 J. S. 
 
 London^ 1914. 
 
PREFACE TO EIGHTH EDITION 
 
 These sketches of a Woman Evangelist's 
 work were first published in 1914, and quickly 
 went out of print in England during the 
 Great War, while edition after edition — ^five 
 in all — appeared in America. The present 
 edition, somewhat revised, is required in view 
 of the Marechale's beginning a series of evan- 
 gehstic campaigns in the United States and 
 Canada. 
 
 To be strictly correct, one ought of course 
 to say "La Marechale." But the subject of 
 these sketches is known among all her British 
 and American friends as "The Marechale," 
 and the famous journalist, W. T. Stead, who 
 esteemed her very highly in love for her 
 work's sake, said, with characteristic empha- 
 sis, "There wiU never be a second Marechale." 
 
 J. S. 
 
 Londonderry, 1921. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I PioK 
 
 FiNELT Touched to Fine Issues I 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 A GiBL Evangelist 17 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 The Secret of Evangeusm 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Christ in Paris 49 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Freedom to Worship God 69 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Soul of France IO9 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 Wobian's Vocation 141 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII PAGE 
 
 The RENtnsrciATiON of Homi: 155 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Friendship of Christ 175 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Burning Question 187 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 The Prodigal Son 207 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 So Great Faith 219 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 Beautt fob Ashes 235 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 As A Little Child <^ . . 263 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 A Midnight Interview 271 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 To Thine Own Self Be True , , 283 
 
LIST OF PORTRAITS 
 
 To face page 
 The MAidjCHALB Frontispiece 
 
 (From, a photograph taken in London in 1913) 
 
 Catherine Booth 82 
 
 {From a drawing by Edward Clifford, exhibited in the Royal Academy 
 and presented to Mrs. Booth) 
 
 The Mabi^chale in the Caf6 114 
 
 (From the painting of Baron Cederstrdm) 
 
 The Maiu^chale 160 
 
 {From a photo taken in Paris, circa 1890) 
 
 The Marechale , . 290 
 
 {From a photograph by Moffett, Chicago^ 1921) 
 
finely; touched to fine 
 
 ISSUES 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 FINELY TOUCHED TO FINE ISSUES 
 
 In the summer of 1865 William Booth, 
 Evangelist, found his life-work. For some 
 time back his imagination had been more than 
 usually active. He could not help thinking 
 that all his past efforts had been but tentative 
 solutions of a difficiilt problem. He felt the 
 spur of a vague discontent. He seemed to be 
 groping liis way towards an unrealised ideal. 
 At length he got the inner light he needed. 
 While he was conducting a series of meetings 
 in a tent pitched on the disused Quaker bury- 
 ing-ground at Baker's Row, Whitechapel, he 
 saw his heavenly vision and heard his divine 
 call. He accepted a mission which was no less 
 real than those of Hebrew Prophets and Chris- 
 tian Apostles. The words in which he describes 
 his vocation form part of the history of Chris- 
 tianity in England. "I found my heart," he 
 says, "strongly and strangely drawn out on be- 
 half of the million people living within a mile 
 
4 THE MARECHALE 
 
 of the tent, ninety out of every hundred of 
 whom, they told me, never heard the sound of 
 the preacher's voice from year to year. 'Here 
 is a sphere!' was being whispered continually 
 in my inward ear by an inward voice . . . and 
 I was continually haunted with a desire to 
 offer myself to Jesus Christ as an apostle for 
 the heathen of East London. The idea or 
 heavenly vision or whatever you may call it 
 overcame me; I yielded to it; and what has 
 happened since is, I think, not only my justi- 
 fication, but an evidence that my offer was 
 accepted," 
 
 Thus it was that on a memorable June night, 
 having ended his meeting and after-meeting, 
 he rushed home, tired as usual, but with a 
 strange light in his face which indicated an 
 unusual glow in his heart. 
 
 "Darling," he exclaimed to his wife, "I 
 have found my destiny!" 
 
 His imexpected words, like the touch of 
 Ithuriel's spear, proved the quality of his hfe- 
 mate's womanhood. For a moment she trem- 
 bled under the test. While her husband 
 poured out his burning words about the 
 heathenism of London, and expressed his 
 
FINELY TOUCHED 5 
 
 conviction that it was his duty to stop and 
 preach to these East End multitudes, she sat 
 gazing into the empty fireplace. The voice of 
 the tempter — so she imagined — whispered to 
 her, "This means another new departure, 
 another start in life." She thought of five 
 little heads asleep on their pillows upstairs, 
 and rememhered that she had already passed 
 through more than one time of domestic 
 anxiety. But no woman living at that time 
 was more ready for acts of daring faith; few, 
 if any, were so animated by scorn of miserable 
 aims that end in self. After silently thinking 
 and praying for some minutes, she said: 
 
 "Well, if you feel you ought to stay, stay. 
 We have trusted the Lord once for our support 
 and we can trust Him again." 
 
 Thus the die was cast, and the day ended 
 with one of those scenes by which our common 
 humanity is ennobled. "Together," he says, 
 "we humbled ourselves before God, and dedi- 
 cated our Hves to the task that it seemed we 
 had been praying for for twenty-five years. 
 Her heart came over to my heart. We re- 
 solved that this poor, submerged, giddy, care- 
 less people should henceforth become our 
 
6 THE MARECHALE 
 
 people and our God their God as far as we 
 could induce them to accept Him, and for this 
 end we would face poverty, persecution, or 
 whatever Providence might permit in oxir 
 consecration to what we believed to be the way 
 God had mapped out for us." 
 
 One feels perfectly certain that these two 
 modern apostles would have fulfilled their 
 destiny even if they had stood alone; but it 
 could scarcely have been so ample and glorious 
 a destiny if God had not given them children 
 who inherited their gifts and helped them to 
 realise their ideals. It is the simple truth that 
 the ruling passion of each of their eight sons 
 and daughters has been the love of souls ; each 
 of them has exulted to spend and be spent in 
 the service of Christ, which is the service of 
 humanity; and if one of them has been too 
 feeble in her health to be a militant Salvation- 
 ist, the great Captain of our salvation accepts 
 the wiU for the deed. 
 
 Among all the bold and original acts by 
 which the breath and the flame of a new life 
 have been brought into the modem Chvu-ch, 
 none is more striking, and yet none more sim- 
 
FINELY TOUCHED 7 
 
 pie and natural, than the revival, after aU these 
 centuries, of the apostolic ministry of wom- 
 en. Like Philip the Evangelist of Csesarea, 
 William and Catherine Booth "had four 
 daughters who did prophesy"; brave and 
 gifted English girls who, baptised with the 
 Holy Spirit, used their dower of burning elo- 
 quence to bring sinners to the mercy-seat. 
 If to-day "the women that publish the tidings 
 are a great host," the fact illustrates the power 
 of example. In every new movement there 
 must be daring pioneers and self-sacrificing 
 leaders. For woman's "liberty of prophesy- 
 ing," as for every other form of freedom, the 
 price has had to be paid. The purpose of this 
 little book is to sketch the life of the eldest of 
 General Booth's four daughter-evangelists, 
 who was called to carry the spirit of the Gospel 
 — Christ's own spirit of love — first into many 
 of the cities of England, and afterwards, in 
 fulfilment of her distinctive life-work, into 
 France and Switzerland, Holland and Bel- 
 gium. If her story could be told as it deserves 
 to be, it would stand out as one of the most re- 
 markable modern records of Christian work, 
 for there is perhaps no one living to-day who 
 
8 THE MARECHALE 
 
 has seen so much of what Henry Drummond 
 used to call "the contemporary activities of the 
 Holy Ghost." 
 
 Catherine Booth the elder, the Mother of the 
 Army, was already in her thirty-second year 
 when she wrote her famous brochure upon Fe- 
 male Ministry J and, not without fear and trem- 
 bling, delivered her first evangelistic address in 
 the Bethesda Chapel at Gateshead-on-Tyne, 
 where her husband was minister. Little Cath- 
 erine, who had been baptised in that chapel, 
 was in her second year when her mother began 
 public speaking, and in her seventh when her 
 father found his destiny. Probably no child 
 ever had greater privileges than she enjoyed. 
 Her earthly home was a house of God and a 
 gate of heaven; and from the first she seemed 
 to respond to all that was highest and best in 
 lier environment. She was one of those happy 
 souls who have no memory of their conversion, 
 who cannot recall a time when they did not 
 heartily love the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Her father was the centre of all her childish 
 thoughts and most vivid recollections, and 
 nothing could ever dislodge him from the 
 first place in her affections. An interesting 
 
FINELY TOUCHED 9 
 
 page from her earliest memories may be repro- 
 duced. When she was three or four years 
 old, her father was a Wesleyan Pastor in 
 Cornwall, where his ministry led to a revival 
 in which hundreds of souls found salvation. 
 One night Katie was taken by her nurse to the 
 meeting, and, on arrival, found herself before 
 a flight of steps leading up to the gallery. 
 Thinking herself quite a big girl, she wished to 
 chmb, but nurse, fearing the crowd, snatched 
 her up and carried her to the top. At length 
 they were inside, and what the child then saw 
 and heard remained for ever vividly impressed 
 on her imagination. The great building was 
 crammed. Away down on the platform stood 
 her father, with her mother sitting beside him. 
 He was leading the singing, keeping time with 
 his folded umbrella, and this was the chorus: 
 
 Let the winds blow high, or the winds blow low. 
 It's a pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah! 
 
 How well did the eager-hearted little maid 
 enjoy that voyage, and how proud she was of 
 her captain! The winds blew low and the 
 sun shone upon her in those days. But it could 
 not always be fair weather. Often since that 
 
10 THE MARECHALE 
 
 far-off Cornish time have the winds blown 
 high, and sometimes the mariner has felt her- 
 self tossed, chartless and rudderless, on dark 
 tempestuous seas; but ever the winds have 
 fallen, the sun has shone out again over the 
 waves; and to how many tens of thousands 
 has this daughter of music sung, with sweet 
 variations, her father's song — "It's a pleasant 
 sail to Canaan, hallelujah!" 
 
 The Booth children were left in no mist of 
 doubt as to their future. There was an end, 
 a point, a purpose, in their life. They grew up 
 in an atmosphere of decision. Many children 
 are made timid, diffident, ineffective by their 
 training. They are constantly told how 
 naughty they are, till they begin to believe 
 that they are good for nothing. The Booth 
 parents acted on a different principle. They 
 had faith in their children and for their chil- 
 dren. When Katie was still a little girl in 
 socks, her mother would say to her, "Now, 
 Katie, you are not here in this world for your- 
 self. You have been sent for others. The 
 world is waiting for you." What a phrase that 
 was to send a little girl to bed with ! There she 
 turned the words over and over in her own 
 
FINELY TOUCHED 11 
 
 mind. "Mother says the world is waiting for 
 me. Oh, I must be good. . . . How selfish I was 
 in taking that orange 1" The lesson was worth 
 £1000 to a child. In the development of 
 Katie's mind and character her mother's in- 
 fluence was naturally very strong. The fellow- 
 ship between them soon became peculiarly 
 intimate, and it was the mother's joy to find her 
 alter ego in the daughter who bore her name. 
 Katie's memories of her early London life 
 were bound up with the Christian Mission. 
 Hand in hand with her sister Emma, and often 
 singing with her "I mean with Jesus Christ 
 to dwell, will you go?" she walked every Sun- 
 day morning along the great road leading to 
 Whitechapel. Ineffaceable impressions were 
 made on her sensitive mind by the open-air 
 preaching at MUe End Waste, Bethnal Green 
 and Hackney; by the apostolic spirit of holy 
 enthusiasm; by the Friday morning prayer- 
 meetings, where the officers met alone to 
 plead with God and wrestle in tears for more 
 power. All this became the warp and woof 
 of her own spiritual life, preparing her for her 
 high calhng. And, though she could not re- 
 member the day of her new birth, she clearly 
 
12 THE MARECHALE 
 
 recalled several times when she consecrated 
 herself, body and soul, to God. In a great 
 whitewashed building in the East End her 
 father preached on "The King's daughters are 
 all glorious within," and she prayed that she 
 might have the inner purity which would make 
 her a child of God. From a meeting of Chris- 
 tian workers she ran home to her room, shut 
 herself in, and deliberately gave her heart and 
 life to Christ. She could not, perhaps, realise 
 all that her covenant meant, but one thing she 
 understood — ^that she was called to yield herself 
 completely to do His will and to save souls. 
 
 There was plenty of laughter and fun in that 
 home. The Booth children were all born with 
 the dramatic instinct, and the spirit of the 
 Christian Mission invaded the nursery. Not 
 only were the great dramas of the Bible — 
 Joseph and his brothers, David and Gohath, 
 Daniel and the lions, and a score of others — 
 enacted there, but the meeting and the penitent 
 form, the drunkard and the backslider, the 
 hopeful and the desperate case were all repro- 
 duced in the plays of the children. Katie and 
 Emma brought their babies to the meeting, 
 and the babies generally insisted on crying, 
 
FINELY TOUCHED 13 
 
 to the despair of Bramwell or Ballington, who 
 stopped preaching to give the stern order, 
 "Take the babies out of the theatre," against 
 which the mothers indignantly protested, 
 "Papa would not have stopped, papa would 
 have gone on preaching anyhow." But the 
 dramatic masterpiece was Ballington deahng 
 with an interesting case — generally a pillow — 
 coaxing, dragging, banging the poor reluctant 
 penitent to the mercy-seat and exclaiming, 
 "Ah! this is a good case, bless him! . . . Give 
 up the drink, brother." That is a scene which 
 is stUl sometimes re-enacted to the delight of 
 new generations. 
 
 Jesus Himself watched the games of the 
 children who piped and mourned in the market- 
 place. Life is none the less strenuous for 
 its interludes of mirth. Catherine, who was 
 dramatic to the finger-tips, was very early 
 mastered by a sense of the sacredness of duty. 
 The moral ideal set before her was the highest, 
 and her conscience was tremulously sensitive. 
 She was oppressed with the sense of what 
 ought to be, and inconsolable when she faUed 
 to attain it. A word of rebuke cut her like a 
 knife, and she would sometimes weep far into 
 
14 THE MARECHALE 
 
 the night if she thought she had put pleasure 
 before duty. It is a great thing to make 
 religion real to children, and especially to give 
 them a sense of the obligation to please Christ 
 in everything. Mrs. Booth found Katie ready 
 to go all lengths with her, and even to outrun 
 her, in her ideas of what was right and what 
 was wrong for Christians. It is amusing to 
 hear that when the mother was going out one 
 day to buy new frocks for her httle girls, 
 'Katie's words to her were not "Do buy us 
 something pretty!" but "Mind you get some- 
 thing Christian!" and that when Mrs. Booth 
 came home with her purchases, and Katie 
 rushed downstairs to meet her, the child's first 
 inquiry was, "Are they Christian?" 
 
 But the sense of duty may become morbid 
 if it is not transmuted by love. Many servants 
 of God never learn the secret which makes 
 Christ's yoke easy and His burden light. They 
 have to confess to themselves that they cannot 
 say, "To do Thy wiU, O Lord, I take delight." 
 It would have been strange if any of the Booth 
 children had not learned the secret. Catherine 
 discovered it early, learned it thoroughly, and 
 it became in after years one of the hidden 
 
FINELY TOUCHED 15 
 
 sources of her power. As a child she lived in 
 union with Christ; she practised and felt the 
 Real Presence ; she understood that Christian- 
 ity is a Divine Service transfigured by a Divine 
 Friendship. In Victoria Park there was a 
 shady alley where she was in the habit of walk- 
 ing, because Some One walked beside her! In 
 Chfton, where she lived for a time, she had a 
 tiny upper room in which she felt that she was 
 never alone! That was her childhood's religion, 
 which she never needed to change. She found 
 it to be utterly independent of time and place, 
 form and ceremony. In the glare of public 
 hf e, in the storm of persecution, in the hour of 
 temptation and danger, she had always a 
 cathedral into which she could retire that she 
 might find peace. She was spiritually akin 
 with the Hebrew mystics who lived in the secret 
 place of the Most High, who had at all times 
 a pavUion from the strife of tongues. In her 
 Neuchatel prison she wrote some simple words 
 which sent a thrill through the heart of Chris- 
 tian Europe: 
 
 Best Beloved of my soul, 
 
 I am here alone with Thee; 
 And my prison is a heaven, 
 
 Since Thou sharest it with me. 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A GIKL EVANGELIST 
 
 When the heart is warm and full the lips 
 lyecome eloquent. Jesus expects each of His 
 followers to testify for Him. His redeemed 
 ones should need httle persuasion to plead His 
 cause. Every genuine conversion creates a 
 new advocate for His side. Dumbness is one 
 of the signs of unreality in rehgion. The sin 
 of silence received due castigation, in public 
 and in private, from the tongues of fire which 
 the Spirit gave to William and Catherine 
 Booth. Their children therefore learned that 
 it is every Christian's calling to speak in season 
 and out of season for Christ, to press His 
 claims upon the willing and the unwilling aHke. 
 Katie, it appears, began among her httle com- 
 panions in the Victoria Park. Her old nurse 
 still remembers how she would gather little 
 groups about her and teU them of the Saviour's 
 love. When she was in her twelfth year, she 
 lived for some time with a family in Chfton, 
 
 19 
 
20 THE MARECHALE 
 
 along with whom she attended the Church of 
 England. One Sunday evening the Vicar, 
 who had noticed her earnest gaze fixed on his 
 face, sent for her that he might have a little 
 talk with her. He asked her what she liked 
 best in the Bible, and she answered "The 
 Atonement." He was so struck by her intelli- 
 gence that he offered her a children's class, 
 which soon grew large. Week by week she 
 talked to the little ones of sin and the Saviour. 
 Letting story-books go, she went for their con- 
 version. Having to return home on her twelfth 
 birthday — the last day on which she could 
 travel with a half -ticket — she told her mother 
 of her great longing to continue her work 
 among children. Her mother readily con- 
 sented, and soon there was a weekly gathering 
 of young folk in a downstairs room of the 
 Gore Road house. After a while Katie had the 
 assistance of her sister Emma, who was her 
 junior by little more than a year. Tears were 
 shed, confessions made, and lives changed in 
 that room. And there two of the most bril- 
 liant evangelists of our time first learned to 
 deal with souls. They were in every way kin- 
 dred spirits. Long afterwards one finds 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 21 
 
 Emma writing to Catherine : "We will always 
 be 'special sisters.' We were Ma's two first 
 girls, and were brought up side by side — and 
 side by side we wiU labour and love till we 
 stand with our children in her presence again 
 before the Throne!" 
 
 Katie was thirteen when she first spoke in 
 public. No one asked her to do it; she yielded 
 to an irresistible inward impulse. Her eldest 
 brother was conducting an open-air meeting 
 opposite a low public-house at the corner of Cat 
 and Mutton Bridge in Hackney. Katie was 
 beside him, and whispered, "I wiU say a few 
 words." Her brother was delighted, and she 
 dehvered her message with a directness and 
 fluency which compelled attention and proved 
 her a born speaker. Not very long after, she 
 spoke in the hearing of the General, who wrote 
 to his wife, "I don't know whether I told you 
 how pleased I was with dear Katie speaking 
 in the streets on Sunday morning. It was 
 very nice and effective. Bless her!" "From 
 this time," says Mr. Booth in a docvunent of 
 great importance, "she continued occasionally 
 to speak in public meetings, but it was not 
 until she was between fourteen and fifteen. 
 
22 THE MARECHALE 
 
 when she was with me in Ryde, Isle of Wight, 
 that I fully realised and settled the question. 
 During that time my eldest son joined us for 
 a few days, and, with another friend or two, 
 held open-air meetings; on one of these 
 occasions Catherine accompanied them, and her 
 brother induced her to say a few words, which 
 it appears f eU with extraordinary power upon 
 the listening crowd of men and others, such as 
 usually comprise the visitors at these places. 
 On their return my son described to me the 
 effects of her address, but, not being fuUy 
 emancipated from my old ideas of propriety, I 
 remonstrated and urged such objections as 
 I presume any other mother, consecrated but 
 not fuUy enlightened, might have urged 
 agaiast her being thrust into such a public po- 
 sition at such an early age. My son, gazing at 
 me with great solemnity and tenderness, said, 
 'Mamma, dear, you wiU have to settle this 
 question with God, for she is as surely called 
 and inspired by Him for this particular work 
 as yourself.' These words were God's message 
 to my soul, and helped me to puU myself up 
 as to the ground of my objection. I retired 
 to my room, and, after pouring out my heart 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 23 
 
 to God, settled the question that henceforth 
 I would raise no barrier between any of my 
 children and the carrying out of His will con- 
 cerning them, trying to rejoice that they, not 
 less than myself, should be counted worthy to 
 suffer shame for His name." 
 
 From that time Catherine's path was clearly 
 marked out. While she continued her educa- 
 tion, which included a special liking for French, 
 she gradually undertook more and more public 
 work. Her father's delight in her ripening 
 powers found frequent utterance, and her 
 companionship with him during the next six 
 years of work is one of the most beautiful 
 things in the hterature of evangelism. "Wil- 
 liam," said Mrs. Booth about this time, "writes 
 that he is utterly apazed at Katie; he had no 
 idea that she could speak as she does. He 
 says that she is a born leader, and will if she 
 keeps right see thousands saved. . . . Praise 
 His name that she can stand in my stead, and 
 bear His name to perishing souls." After 
 holding meetings in different parts of London, 
 from Stratford and Poplar to Hammersmith, 
 Catherine began, just before she was seventeen, 
 to conduct evangehstic campaigns in many of 
 
24 THE MARECHALB 
 
 the other great cities of England, sometimes 
 lasting three weeks or a month. The largest 
 building in the town densely crowded Sunday 
 after Simday, and frequently on week nights 
 as weU; hundreds of people to speak to about 
 their souls' salvation every week; correspond- 
 ence and travel; ceaseless labour and re- 
 sponsibility — these things absorbed all her 
 energies of body and mind. She was but a 
 frail girl, and suffered for a time from a curva- 
 ture of spine, which compelled her to lie on 
 her back in great weakness and pain. If she 
 yet overcame, it is evident that she was "mar- 
 vellously helped." 
 
 In 1876 Katie was one of the speakers at the 
 annual Conference in the People's Hall, 
 Whitechapel. Her appearance on the platform 
 was described by her hfelong friend, R. C. 
 Morgan of The Christian, who saw in her "a 
 fragile, ladyhke girl of seventeen, half woman, 
 half child, a characteristic product of the Chris- 
 tian Mission, whose words fell like smnmer rain 
 upon the upturned faces of the crowd." This 
 was the Conference at which the epoch-making 
 measure was adopted of appointing women 
 evangehsts to the sole charge of stations. Miss 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 25 
 
 Booth was reserved "for general evangelistic 
 tours." 
 
 It is interesting to glance through the num- 
 bers of the old Christian Mission Magazine and 
 light upon brief reports of Catherine's work. 
 From Hammersmith (1875) : "Miss Kate 
 Booth [age 16] spent a Sabbath with us, 
 preaching twice with great acceptance. A large 
 audience was deeply impressed, and some, we 
 trust, were truly converted to God." From 
 Poplar: "Mr. Bramwell and Miss C. Booth 
 were with us. On the Sunday and Monday 
 evening the hall was crowded, and some thirty 
 souls at the two services sought salvation. . . . 
 On Easter Sunday one sister's face was cut 
 with a stone, and heavy stones feU upon some 
 on many occasions of late; but we endure as 
 seeing Him who is invisible." From Ports- 
 mouth: "Miss Booth, assisted by W- Bram- 
 weU Booth, commenced a series of special ser- 
 vices, which God owned and blessed to the sal- 
 vation of many precious souls. In the morning 
 Miss Booth preached, and all felt it good to be 
 there. Then a love-feast was conducted by] 
 W. B. Booth in the afternoon. ... In the even- 
 ing Miss Booth preached in the music-hall to 
 
26 THE MARECHALE 
 
 upwards of three thousand people. The Spirit 
 applied the Word with power, and seventeen 
 broke away from the ranks of sin and enlisted 
 under the banner of Jesus Christ." Again 
 from Portsmouth, some months later: "We 
 had a visit from Miss Booth with her brother 
 Mr. Bramwell, and again the dear Lord blessed 
 their labours in this town. Each service was 
 fraught with Divine power; many trembled 
 under the Word, and anxious ones came for- 
 ward seeking forgiveness of sins, until the 
 penitent-rail and vestry were filled with those 
 who, in bitterness of soul, sought pardon and 
 peace through Jesus." 
 
 From Limehouse (1876) : "We had dear 
 Miss Booth and her brother, and a blessed day. 
 In the evening she preached with wonderful 
 power, and ten or twelve came out for God. 
 May they be kept faithful!" From Ports- 
 mouth: "Miss Booth's visit was made of the 
 Lord a great blessing to us all. Very few who 
 listened to her in the morning will forget how 
 she pleaded with us to present our bodies a 
 living sacrifice. Oh, may God bless her and 
 make her a mighty blessing, for Christ's sake." 
 From Whitechapel (1877) : "An earnest ap- 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 27 
 
 jpeal was made at one of our Sunday evening 
 services by Miss Booth, from 'Run, speak to 
 that young man.' Although in very delicate 
 health, the Lord blessedly assisted her. The 
 word was with power, and eleven souls decided 
 for Jesus, among whom was the converted Pot- 
 man. This young man was a leader in petty 
 and mischievous annoyances. The genuineness 
 of his conversion was evidenced by his giving 
 up the public-house work to seek more honoiu*- 
 able employment." From Middlesbro' (1878): 
 "Miss Booth visited us for five days, and 
 many blood-bought souls have been blessed and 
 saved. Her first Sunday with us was a day 
 of power, and it wiE not be soon forgotten by 
 those present. It was a grand sight to see 
 a large hall filled to the door with anxious 
 hearers, while hundreds went away; but the 
 grandest sight of all was to see old and young 
 flocking to the penitent form." From Leices- 
 ter: "Miss Booth's services may be summar- 
 ised in the statement that she had twenty- 
 two souls the first Sunday evening, and in- 
 creasing victory thereafter right on to the 
 end." 
 
 At Whitby there was a six weeks' campaign. 
 
28 THE MARECHALE 
 
 organised by Captain Cadman. On the first 
 Sunday "the large hall, which holds three 
 thousand, was well filled, and in the after ser- 
 vice many souls were brought to Jesus." On 
 the second Sunday "Miss Booth was hstened 
 to with breathless attention. In the after ser- 
 vice we drew the net to land, having a multi- 
 tude of fishes, and among them we found we 
 had caught a fox-hunter, a dog-fancier, drunk- 
 ards, a Roman Catholic, and many others. In 
 the week-night services souls were saved every 
 night. The proprietor of the hall had got 
 some large bills out announcing 'Troupe of 
 Arctic Skaters in the Congress HaU for a 
 week,' but he put them off by telling them it 
 was no use coming, as all the town was being 
 evangelised." The concluding services "drew 
 great crowds from all parts of town and coun- 
 try, rich and poor, until the haU was so filled 
 that there was no standing room." In a Con- 
 secration meeting, "After Miss Booth's ad- 
 dress we formed a large ring in the centre of 
 the hall, which brought the power down upon 
 us ; hundreds looked on with astonishment and 
 tears in their eyes, whilst others gave them- 
 selves WhoUy to God. . . . Ministers, like Nico- 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 29 
 
 demus of old, came to see by what power these 
 miracles were wrought, and, going back to 
 their congregations, resolved to serve God bet- 
 ter, and to preach the gospel more faithfully; 
 in the future." 
 
 From Leeds: "Miss Booth in the Circus. 
 A glorious month. Hard-hearted sinners 
 broken down. Best of all, our own people 
 have been getting blessedly near to God. On 
 Sunday mornings love feasts from nine to ten. 
 ... It would be impossible to give even an out- 
 line of the various and glorious cases of con- 
 version that have come under our notice 
 through the month which is past. For truly 
 Christ has been bringing to His fold rich and 
 poor, yoimg and old." From Cardiif : "The 
 question, 'Does this work stand?' received a 
 magnificent reply on Sunday. The crowds 
 who filled the Stuart Hall, to hear Miss Booth, 
 were the largest any one can remember seeing 
 during all the four years of the Mission's his- 
 tory there." From King's Lynn: "Miss 
 Booth's Mission. The town has had a royal 
 visit from the Lord of Lords and King of 
 Kings. There has been a great awakening, 
 and trembling, and turning to the Lord. 
 
30 THE MARECHALE 
 
 Whole families have been saved, and whole 
 courts have sought salvation. Our hohness 
 meeting will never be forgotten. . . . The work 
 here roUs on gloriously. Not only in Lynn but 
 for miles round the town it is well known that 
 a marvellous work has been done and is still 
 going forward." 
 
 All these battles and victories were naturally 
 followed by the General with intense interest, 
 and as often as it was possible he was at his 
 daughter's side. Mrs. Booth j oined them when 
 they were opening a campaign together at 
 Stockton-on-Tees, and sent her impressions to 
 a friend. "Pa and Katie had a blessed begin- 
 ning yesterday. Theatre crowded at night, 
 and fifteen cases. I heard Katie for the first 
 time since we were at Cardiff. I was aston- 
 ished at the advance she had made. I wish 
 you had been there, I think you would have 
 been as pleased as I was. It was sweet, tender, 
 forcible, and Divine. I could only adore and 
 weep. She looked like an angel, and the peo- 
 ple were melted, and spellboimd like children." 
 The General began to call her his "Bliicher," 
 for she helped to win many a hard-fought bat- 
 tle which he might otherwise have lost. When 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 31 
 
 the rowdies threatened to take the upper hand 
 at a meeting, he would say, "Put on Katie, 
 she's our last card; if she fails we'll close the 
 meeting." 
 
 "I remember," wrote her eldest brother, "a 
 striking instance of this occurring in a certain 
 northern town on a Sunday night. A crowd 
 assembled at the doors of the theatre, composed 
 of the lowest and roughest of the town, who, 
 overpowering the doorkeepers, pressed into the 
 building and took complete possession of one 
 of the galleries, so that by the time the re- 
 mainder of the theatre was occupied this por- 
 tion of it represented a scene more like a 
 crowded tap-room than the gallery of what was 
 if or the moment a place of worship. Rows of 
 men sat smoking and spitting, others were 
 talking and laughing aloud, while many with 
 hats on were standing in the aisles and pas- 
 sages, bandying to and fro jokes and criticisms 
 of the coarsest character. All this continued 
 with little intermission during the opening ex- 
 ercises, and the more timid among us had prac- 
 tically given up hope about the meeting, when 
 Miss Booth rose, and standing in front of the 
 ilittle table just before the footlights, com- 
 
32 THE MARECHALE 
 
 menced to sing, with such feeling and unction 
 as it is impossible to describe with pen and ink, 
 
 'The rocks and the mountains will all flee away. 
 And you will need a hiding-place that day.' 
 
 There was instantaneous silence over the whole 
 house; after singing two or three stanzas, she 
 stopped and announced her text, 'Let me die 
 the death of the righteous and let my last end 
 be like His.' While she did so nearly every 
 head in the gallery was uncovered, and within 
 fifteen minutes both she and every one of the 
 fifteen hundred people present were completely 
 absorbed in her subject, and for forty minutes 
 no one stirred or spoke among that unruly 
 crowd, until she made her concluding appeal, 
 and called for volunteers to begin the new life 
 of righteousness, when a great big nawy-look- 
 ing man rose up, and in the midst of the throng 
 in the gallery exclaimed, 'I'll make one!' He 
 was followed by thirty others that night." 
 
 Well might the General's hopes regarding 
 the young soul-winner be high and confident. 
 "Papa," wrote Mrs. Booth, "says he felt very 
 proud of her the other day as she walked by 
 his side at the head of a procession with an im- 
 
CATHERINE BOOTH 
 
 (From n portrait hi/ Edward Clifford, exhibited at the Royal Academ}/ 
 and presented to Mrs. Booth) 
 
 [Page m 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 33 
 
 mense crowd at their heels. He turned to her 
 and said, 'Ah, my lass, you shall wear a crown 
 by-and-by.' " 
 
 With what desires and prayers the mother 
 of this gifted girl followed such a career is 
 indicated by her letters. "Oh, it seems to me 
 that if I were in your place — ^young — no cares 
 or anxieties — ^with such a start, such iofluence, 
 and such a prospect, I should not be able to 
 contain myself for joy. I should indeed aspire 
 to be 'the bride of the Lamb,' and to follow 
 Him in conflict for the salvation of poor, lost 
 and miserable man. ... I don't want you to 
 make any vows (unless, indeed, the Spirit 
 leads you to do so) , but I want you to set yoiu- 
 mind and heart on winning souls, and to leave 
 everything else with the Lord. When you 
 do this you wiU be happy — oh, so happy ! Your 
 soul will then find perfect rest. The Lord 
 grant it you, my dear chUd. ... I have been 
 'careful about many things.' I want you to 
 care only for the one thing. . . . Look forward, 
 my child, into eternity — on, and on^ and ON. 
 .You are to live for ever. This is only the in- 
 fancy of existence — the school-days, the seed- 
 
34 THE MARECHALE 
 
 time. Then is the grand, great, glorious eter- 
 nal harvest." 
 
 Whatever gifts were the dower of the young 
 evangelist, she refused to regard herself as 
 different in God's sight from the poorest and 
 meanest of sinners. If God loved her. He 
 loved all with an equal love. That conviction 
 was the motive-power of all her evangehsm. 
 A limited atonement was to her unthinkable. 
 How often she has made vast audiences sing 
 her father's great hymn, "O boundless salva- 
 tion, so fuU and so free!" When she was con- 
 ducting a remarkable campaign in Portsmouth, 
 she found herself one day among a number of 
 the ministers of the town, one of whom in his 
 admiration of her and her work persisted in 
 calling her one of the elect. This led to an 
 animated discussion on election. Katie list- 
 ened for a while, but lost patience at last, and, 
 rising, delivered herself thus: "I am not one 
 of the elect, and I don't want to be. I would 
 rather be with the poor devils outside than 
 with you inside." Having discharged this 
 bombshell she flew upstairs to her mother. 
 "Oh!" she cried, "what have I done?" When 
 she repeated what she had said, her mother. 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 35 
 
 whose laugh was always hearty, screamed with 
 delight. Election as commonly taught was 
 rank poison to the Mother of the Army. The 
 doctrine that God has out of His mere good 
 pleasure elected some to eternal life made her 
 wUd with indignation. When her son Bram- 
 well was staying for a time in Scotland, she 
 wrote him: "It seems a pecuUarity of the 
 awful doctrine of Calvinism that it makes those 
 who hold it far more interested in and anxious 
 about its propagation than about the diminu- 
 tion of sin and the salvation of souls. ... It 
 may be God will bless your sling and stone to 
 deliver His servant out of the paw of this bear 
 of hell — Calvinism." 
 
 One naturally asks what became of Cather- 
 ine's education all this time. On this subject 
 also Mrs. Booth held strong views. When her 
 daughter was sixteen she wrote to her: "You 
 must not think that we do not rightly value 
 education, or that we are indifferent on the 
 subject. We have denied ourselves the com- 
 mon necessaries of life to give you the best in 
 our power, and I think this has proved that 
 we put a right value on it. But we put God 
 
36 THE MARECHALE 
 
 and righteousness first and education second, 
 and if I had life to begin over again I should 
 be stiU more particular. ... I would like you to 
 learn to put your thoughts together forcibly 
 and well, to think logically and clearly, to 
 speak powerfully, i. e. with good but simple 
 language, and to write legibly and well, which 
 will have more to do with your usefulness than 
 half the useful knowledge you would have to 
 spend your time over at College." When the 
 principal of a Ladies' College^ who had at- 
 tended Mrs. Booth's meetings and been blessed, 
 offered to receive Catherine and educate her 
 gratuitously, Mrs. Booth, after visiting the 
 College and breathing the atmosphere of the 
 place, declined the tempting offer with thanks. 
 Some wiU, of course, be disposed to question 
 the Avisdom of the mother's decision. It should 
 not be impossible to combine the noblest learn- 
 ing with the most fervent faith. Yet every 
 discipline must be judged by its fruits. How 
 many Catherine Booths have hitherto been pro- 
 duced by Newnham 'and Girton? 
 
 Long after Catherine the younger had left 
 her home-land, she continued to receive letters 
 
A GIRL EVANGELIST 37 
 
 from her English converts, and when, after 
 many years, she resumed her evangehstic work 
 in England, people whom she had never seen 
 and never heard of before would come and tell 
 her that they had been saved through her mis- 
 sion at this or that place. All these testimonies 
 were like bells ringing in her soul. One out of 
 many may be resounded. Writing to Paris in 
 1896, Henry Howard, now the Chief of Staff 
 in the Army, said: "I have certainly never 
 forgotten your Ilkeston campaign of sixteen 
 years ago, when God made your soul a mes- 
 senger to my soul. You led me towards an 
 open door which I am pleased to remember I 
 went in at, and during these many years your 
 own share in my hfe's transformation has 
 often been the subject of grateful praise." 
 
THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 
 
 Aftee many victories at home, William and 
 Catherine Booth began to look abroad. They 
 realised that "the field is the world," and they 
 longed to commence operations on the Conti- 
 nent. In the smnmer of 1881, with high hopes 
 and some natural fears, they dedicated their 
 eldest daughter to France. In giving her they 
 gave their best. Delicate girl though she was, 
 she had become one of the greatest spiritual 
 forces in England. She swayed vast multi- 
 tudes by something higher than mere elo- 
 quence. Wherever she went revivals broke 
 out and hundreds were converted. There was 
 a pathos and a power in her appeals which 
 made them irresistible. 
 
 At the time of her departure she received 
 many letters from friends whom she had spir- 
 itually helped, and who reaUsed how much they 
 would miss her in England. Nowhere had 
 
 41 
 
42 THE MARECHALE 
 
 she done more good, nowhere could her ab- 
 sence create a greater blank, than in her own 
 home. Her sister Eva wrote : "I cannot bear 
 the thought that you are gone. You have 
 always understood me. I hope one day to be 
 of some use to you, in return for all you have 
 done for me." And her brother Herbert wrote 
 her: "You cannot know how much I felt your 
 leaving. The blow came so suddenly. You 
 were gone. Only God and myself know how 
 much I had lost in you. I can truthfully say 
 that you have been everything to me, and if it 
 had not been for you I should never have been 
 where and what I am spiritually at present. 
 God bless you a thousand thousand times. Oh ! 
 how I long to be of some little service to you 
 after all you have been to me. . . . Thousands 
 upon thousands of true, loving hearts are bear- 
 ing you up at the Eternal throne, mine among 
 them. You have a chance that men of the 
 past would have given their blood for, and 
 that the very angels in Heaven covet." 
 
 There was no Entente Cordiale in those 
 days, and at the thought of parting with Katie, 
 and letting her go to live in the slums of Paris, 
 Mrs. Booth confessed that she "felt unutter- 
 
THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 43 
 
 able things." In a letter to a friend she wrote : 
 "The papers I read on the state of Society in 
 Paris make me shudder, and I see all the dan- 
 gers to which our darling will be exposed!" 
 But if her fears were great, her faith was 
 greater. Asked by Lady Cairns how she dared 
 to send a girl so young and unprotected into 
 such surroundings, she answered, "Her inno- 
 cence is her strength, and Katie knows the 
 Lord." And if Katie herself was asked to de- 
 fine Christianity, she answered, "Christianity 
 is heroism!" For a girl of this spirit, was 
 there, after all, anything so formidable in the 
 French people? Was there not rather a pre- 
 established harmony between her and the pleas- 
 ant land of France, as her remarkable predi- 
 lection for the French language already 
 seemed to indicate? Is any nation in the 
 world so chivalrous as the French? any nation 
 so sensitive to the charm of manner, the mag- 
 netic power of personality? any nation — in 
 spite of all its hatred of clericahsm — gifted 
 with so inf aUible a sense of the beauty of true 
 holiness? Courage, camarade! 
 
 What were the ideas with which Catherine 
 began her work in Paris? What was her plan 
 
44 THE MARECHALE 
 
 of campaign? How did she hope to conquer? 
 On these points let us listen to herself. "I 
 saw," she says, "that the bridge to France 
 was — making the French people believe in me. 
 That is what the Protestants do not under- 
 stand. They preach the Bible, they write 
 books, they offer tracts. But that does not 
 do the work. 'Curse your bibles, your books, 
 your tracts!' cry the French. I have seen 
 thousands of testaments given away to very 
 little purpose. I have seen them torn up to 
 light cigars. And the conviction that took 
 shape in my mind was that, unless I could in- 
 spire faith in me, there was no hope. Only if 
 Jesus is hfted up in flesh and blood, wiU He 
 to-day draw all men to Him. If I cannot give 
 Him, I shaU fail. France has not waited till 
 now for rehgion, for preaching, for eloquence. 
 Something more is needed. 'I that speak unto 
 thee am He' — there is a sense in which the 
 world is waiting for that to-day. You may 
 say that this leads to fanaticism, to all sorts 
 of error; and yet I always come back to it. 
 Christ's primary idea. His means of saving the 
 world, is, after all, personality. The face, the 
 character, the life of Jesus is to be seen in 
 
THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 45 
 
 men and women. This is the bridge to the 
 seething masses who believe in nothing, who 
 hate religion, who cry 'Down with Jesus 
 Christ!' What sympathy I felt with them as 
 I listened to their angry cries against some- 
 thing which they had never reaUy seen or 
 known. They shout 'Jesuits,' but they have 
 never seen Jesus. Could they but see Him, 
 they would still 'receive Him gladly.' It is the 
 [priests' religion that has made them bitter. 
 'Money to be baptised! Money to be married! 
 Money to be buried!' was what I heard them 
 mutter. Ah! they are quick to recognise the! 
 comedian in religion, and equally quick to rec- 
 ognise the real thing. France is more sensitive 
 to disinterested love than any nation I have 
 ever known. France will never accept a re- 
 ligion without sacrifice. 
 
 "These were the convictions with which I 
 began the work in Paris, and, if I had to begin 
 it over again to-day, I would go on the same 
 lines. When I knew what I had to do, my 
 mind was at rest. I said, 'We wiU lay our- 
 selves out for them; they shall know where 
 we hve, they can watch us day and night, 
 they shall see what we do and judge us.' And 
 
46 THE MARECHALE 
 
 the wonderful thing in those first years of our 
 work in France and Switzerland was the flame. 
 We lighted it all along the line. Wherever we 
 went we brought the fire with us, we fanned 
 it, we conununicated it. We could not help 
 doing so, because it was in us, and that was 
 what made us sufi'erers. The fire had to be 
 burning in us day and night. That is our 
 symbol — ^the fire, the fire! 
 
 Seigneur, ce que mon coeur reclame, 
 
 C'est le Feu . . . 
 Le seul secret de la Victoire, 
 
 C'est le Feu. 
 
 We all know what the fire is. It warms and il; 
 burns. It scorches the Pharisees and makes the 
 cowards fly. But the poor, tempted, unhappy 
 world knows by whom it is kindled, and says : 
 'I know Thee who Thou art — ^the Holy One 
 of God!' 
 
 "That was what fiUed the halls at Havre 
 and Rouen, Nimes and Bordeaux, Brussels 
 and Liege. We personified Some One, and 
 that was the attraction. I have not the in- 
 sufferable conceit to suppose that it was any- 
 thing in me that drew them. What am I? 
 Dust and ashes. But if you have the fire, it 
 
THE SECRET OF EVANGELISM 47 
 
 draws, it melts; it consumes all selfishness; it 
 makes you love as He loves; it gives you a 
 heart of steel to yourself, and the tenderest of 
 hearts to others; it gives you eyes to see what 
 no one else sees, to hear what others have 
 never given themselves the trouble to listen 
 to. And men rush to you because you are 
 what you are; you are as He was in the world; 
 you have His sympathy, His Divine love, His 
 Divine patience. Therefore He gives you the 
 victory over the world; and what is money, 
 what are houses, lands, anything, compared 
 with that? 
 
 "This was the one attraction. When I went 
 to France I said to Christ: 'I in You and 
 lYou in me!' and many a time in confronting 
 a laughing, scofiing crowd, single-handed, I 
 have said, 'You and I are enough for them. 
 I won't fail You, and You won't fail me.' 
 That is something of which we have only 
 touched the fringe. That is a truth almost 
 hermetically sealed. It would be sacrilege, it 
 would be desecration, it would be wrong, un- 
 fair, unjust if Divine power were given on any 
 other terms than absolute self-abandonment. 
 When I went to France I said to Jesus, 'I 
 
48 THE MARECHALE 
 
 will suffer anything if You will give me the 
 keys.' And if I am asked what was the secret 
 of our power in France, I answer: First, 
 love; second, love; third, love. And if you 
 ask how to get it, I answer: First, by sacri- 
 fice; second, by sacrifice; third, by sacrifice. 
 Christ loved us passionately, and loves to be 
 loved passionately. He gives Himself to those 
 who love Him passionately. And the world 
 has yet to see what can be done on these 
 lines." 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CHRIST EST PARIS 
 
 In the early spring of 1881 Captain Cath- 
 erine Booth and her intrepid Heutenants, 
 Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox and Ruth Pat- 
 rick, began life in Paris. Years before Canon 
 Barnett's band of Oxford men were attracted 
 to Whitechapel, these fresh young English 
 girls settled in a similar quarter of the French 
 capital. What quixotic impulses carried them 
 thither? They had no social or political ideals 
 to realise. They had not been persuaded that 
 altruism is better than egoism, that the enthu- 
 siasm of humanity is nobler than the pursuit of 
 pleasure or the love of culture. They were 
 not weary of the conventions of society and 
 seeking a new sensation in slumming. They 
 were not playing at soldiers. But they, too, 
 had their dreams and visions. They loved 
 Christ, and they wished to see Christ victorious 
 in Paris. Coming into a wilderness of pov- 
 
 51 
 
52 THE MARECHALE 
 
 erty, squalor and vice, they dared to believe 
 that they could make the desert to rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose. They had the faith which 
 laughs at impossibilities. 
 
 The first letter Catherine received from her 
 father after she set foot in France breathed 
 tender affection and ardent hope. "Oh, my 
 heart does yearn over you! How could you 
 fear for a single moment that you would be 
 any less near and dear to me on account of 
 your brave going forth to a land of strangers 
 to help me in the great purpose and struggle 
 of my life? My darling, you are nearer and 
 dearer than ever. . . . France is hanging on 
 you to an extent fearful to contemplate, and 
 you must regard your health, seeing that we 
 cannot go on without you. We shall anx- 
 iously await information as to when you make 
 a start. Everybody who has heard you and 
 knows you feels the fullest confidence in the 
 result. Nevertheless I shall be glad for you 
 to get to work, seeing that I know you won't 
 be easy in your mind until you have seen a 
 few French sinners smashed up at the penitent 
 form." 
 
 With her own hand Catherine raised the 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 53 
 
 flag at Rue d'Angouleme 66, in Belleville. 
 Here was a hall for six hundred, situated in a 
 court approached by a narrow street. The bulk 
 of the audience that gathered there night after 
 night were of the artisan class. Some were 
 young men of a lower type, and from these 
 came what disturbance there was. The French 
 sense of humour is keen, and there were many 
 lively sallies at the expense of the speakers and 
 singers on the platform. Every false accent, 
 every wrong idiom, every unexpected utter- 
 ance or gesture was received with an outburst 
 of laughter. But the mirth was superficial, 
 and the expression on the faces of the tired 
 men, harassed women, and pale children was 
 one of settled melancholy. Catherine instinc- 
 tively felt that what they needed was a gospel 
 of joy; certainly not the preaching of hell. 
 These toUing sisters and brothers were the 
 multitudes on whom Jesus had compassion. 
 
 Meetings were held night after night, and 
 for six months the Capitaine was never absent 
 except on Saturdays. Those were days of 
 fight, and she fought, to use her own phrase, 
 like a tiger. She had to fight first her own 
 heart. She knew her capacity, and God had 
 
54 THE MARECHALE 
 
 done great things through her in England, 
 The change from an audience of five thousand 
 spellbound hearers in the circus of Leeds to a 
 handful of gibing ouvriers in the Belleville 
 quarter of Paris was indeed a clashing an- 
 tithesis. A fortnight passed without a single 
 penitent, and Catherine was all the time so ill 
 that it was doubtful if she would be able to 
 remain in the field. That fortnight was prob- 
 ably one of the supreme trials of her faith. 
 The work appeared so hopeless! There was 
 nothing to see, But for the Capitaine faith 
 meant going on. It meant saying to her heart, 
 "You may suifer, you may bleed, you may 
 break, but you shall go on." She went on, be- 
 lieving, praying, fighting, and at last the tide 
 of battle turned. 
 
 The beginning of what proved a memorable 
 meeting was more than usually unpromising. 
 One of the tormentors, a terrible woman, 
 known as "the devil's wife," excelled herself 
 that night. She was of immense size, and used 
 to stand in the hall with arms akimbo and 
 sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and with 
 one wink of her eye would set everybody 
 screaming and yelling. On this occasion there 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 55 
 
 was not a thing that she did not turn to ridi- 
 cule. The fun grew fast and furious, and 
 some of the audience got up and began to 
 dance. The meeting seemed to be lost ; but by 
 a master-stroke the leader turned defeat into 
 victory. Through the din she cried, "Mes 
 amis! I will give you twenty minutes to dance, 
 if you will then give me twenty minutes to 
 speak. Are you agreed ?" A tall, dark, hand- 
 some ouvrier, in a blue blouse, who had been a 
 ringleader in the disturbances, jumped up and 
 said, "Citizens, it is only fair play," and they 
 all agreed. So they had their dance, and at 
 the end of the appointed time the ouvrier^ 
 standing with watch in hand, cried, "Time up, 
 citizens; it is the Capitaine's turn!" The bar- 
 gain was kept. Everybody sat down, and an 
 extraordinary silence filled the place. ISTot for 
 twenty, but for an hour and twenty minutes 
 the leader had the meeting in the hollow of her 
 hand. When the audience filed out, the taU 
 ouvrier remained behind, and Catherine went 
 down to where he was sitting in the back of the 
 hall. With his chiselled face and firm-set 
 mouth, he looked like a man who could have 
 seen one burned alive without moving a muscle. 
 
56 THE MARECHALE 
 
 "Thank you," said the Capitaine, "you have 
 helped me to-night. Have you understood 
 what I have been saying?" 
 
 "I believe that you believe what you say." 
 
 "Oh! of course I believe." 
 
 "Well, I was not sure before." With a sigH 
 he added, "Have you time to listen?" 
 
 "Yes, certainly.' 
 
 It was midnight and they were alone. As 
 he began in softest tones to tell the story of 
 his inner life, she felt the delicacy of the soul 
 that is hidden under the roughest exterior. He 
 said, "I had the happiest home in all Paris. I 
 married the woman I loved, and after twelve 
 months a little boy came to our home. Three 
 weeks after, my wife lost her reason, and now 
 she is in an asylum. But there was still my 
 little boy. He was a beautiful child. We ate 
 together, slept together, walked and talked 
 together. He was all the world to me. He 
 was the first to greet me in the morning, and 
 the first to welcome me in the evening when I 
 came home from work. This went on till the 
 sixth year struck, and then. ..." His lips 
 twitched, and he turned his face away. His 
 hearer softly said, "He died." He gave a 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 57 
 
 scarcely perceptible noS, and smothered a 
 groan. "And then," he continued, "I went to 
 the devil. Before the open grave in the Pere 
 Lachaise cemetery, with hmidreds of my com- 
 rades about me, I lifted my hand to heaven and 
 cried, 'If there be a God, let Him strike me 
 dead!' " 
 
 "But He did not strike you dead?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "He is very gentle and patient with us all. 
 And now you have come here to-night. Does 
 it not seem to you a strange thing that you 
 out of all the millions of France, and I out of 
 all the millions of England should be all alone 
 together here at midnight? How do you ac- 
 count for it? Isn't it because God thought of 
 you, and loves you? . . . Do you ever pray?" 
 
 "I pray? Oh, never! Perhaps I prayed as 
 a child, but never now." 
 
 "But I pray," said the Capitaine, and, kneel- 
 ing down, she prayed a double prayer, for 
 herself as well as for him. She wanted this 
 man's salvation for her own sake and the 
 work's sake. For weeks she had been fighting 
 and praying for a break, and she felt as if on 
 the issue of this wrestling for a single soul 
 
58 THE MARECHALE 
 
 depended the whole future of the work in 
 France. While she prayed for his salvation 
 from sin she was silently praying for her own 
 deliverance from doubt and fear and discour- 
 agement. And both prayers were heard. 
 When she opened her eyes, she saw his face 
 bathed in tears. She knew that his heart was 
 melted, and she spoke to him of the love of 
 God. 
 
 "But I have hated Him. I have hated reli- 
 gion; I have come here to mock you; I have 
 called you Jesuits." 
 
 "Yet God loves you." 
 
 "But why did He allow my wife to lose her 
 reason? Why did He take my child if He 
 is love?" 
 
 "I cannot answer these questions. You will 
 know why one day. But I know He loves 
 you." 
 
 "Is it possible that He can forgive a poor 
 sinner like me?" 
 
 "It is certain." 
 
 ]&mile was won. Some nights afterward he 
 gave his testimony, and for seven years he 
 always stood by the Marechale. He was her 
 best helper. When he used to get up to speak, 
 
CHRIST IN PAKIS 59 
 
 there was immediate attention. "Citizens," 
 he would say, "you all know me. You have 
 heard me many times. This God whom I once 
 hated I now love, and I want to speak to you 
 about Him." 
 
 After this, conversions became frequent. 
 The mercy-seat was rarely empty. One of the 
 first French songs of Catherine's composition 
 contained the most curious idioms: 
 
 Quand je suis souiFrant, 
 Entendez mon cri, etc. 
 
 But she sang it with such feeling that it was 
 the means of the conversion of a clever young 
 governess, who became one of her most de- 
 voted officers. 
 
 Then another striking conquest was made. 
 One night a rough fellow, partly drunk, ap- 
 proached the Capitaine and said a vile word to 
 her in the hearing of "the devil's wife," who 
 dealt him a blow that sent him reeling across 
 the hall, and, when Catherine stepped between 
 them, her new defender exclaimed, "You dare 
 not touch her, she is too pure for us!" {Elle 
 est trop pure pour nous!) Thus "la femme 
 du diable" was won, and from that time she 
 
60 THE MARECHALE 
 
 got two or three others to join her in forming 
 Catherine's bodyguard, who nightly escorted 
 her and her comrades through the Rue d'Alle- 
 magne, which was a haunt of criminals, and 
 saw her safe at the door of her flat in the 
 Avenue Parmentier. 
 
 When Baron Cederstrom was seeking local 
 colour for his painting "The Marechale in the 
 Cafe,"^ he drove down with his wife to a meet- 
 ing in the Rue d'Angouleme. As they ap- 
 proached the haU, the Baroness caught sight of 
 some of the faces and took fright. 
 
 "Go back, go back!" she shouted to the 
 coachman. 
 
 The Baron tried in vain to reassure her. 
 
 "Give me my salts !" she cried, feeling as if 
 she would faint. "I never saw such faces in 
 my life. They are all murderers and brig- 
 ands." To Catherine, who came out to wel- 
 come her, she exclaimed, "I am sure the good 
 God won't send you to Purgatory, for you 
 have it here!" 
 
 "You have nothing to fear," was the an- 
 
 ^This painting is now in the picture gallery of Stock- 
 holm. The artist^ as is well known, afterwards married 
 Madame Fatti. 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 61 
 
 swer; "I am here every night." But as the 
 Baroness was led up to the front seats, she still 
 cast scared looks at the people she passed. 
 
 Some of the politically dangerous classes did 
 give trouble for a time. Knives were dis- 
 played and some blood was shed. An excited 
 sergeant of police declared one night that half 
 the cut-throats of Paris were in that hall, and 
 by order of the authorities it was closed. Soon, 
 however, the meetings were again in full swing, 
 and when Catherine's eldest brother Bramwell, 
 her comrade in many an English campaign, 
 paid her a flying visit three months after she 
 left home, he was delighted with all that he 
 saw. "The meetings," he wrote, "are held 
 every night. The congregations vary from 
 
 150 to 400 On Sunday, at three, I attended 
 
 the testimony meeting, which is only for con- 
 verts and friends. About seventy were pres- 
 ent. Miss Booth took the centre, and gathered 
 round her a little company. I cannot describe 
 that meeting. When I heard those French 
 converts singing that first hymn, 'Nearer to 
 heaven, nearer to heaven,' I wept for joy, and 
 during the season of prayer which f oEowed my 
 heart overflowed. Here, using another tongue. 
 
62 THE MARECHALE 
 
 among a strange people, almost alone, this 
 little band have trusted the Lord and tri- 
 umphed. . . . Then testimonies were invited. 
 ... I wept and rejoiced, and wept again. I 
 glorified God, Had I not heard these seventy- 
 people speak in their own language of God's 
 saving power in Paris during those few 
 weeks! I require all who read this to rejoice. 
 I believe they will. Remember how great a 
 task it is to awaken the conscience before 
 Christ can be offered; to convince of sin as 
 well as of righteousness ; to call to repentance 
 as well as faith. . . , On the following night 300 
 were present. . . . Miss Booth stepped off the 
 platform as she concluded her address, and 
 came down, as so many of us have seen her 
 come down at home, into the midst of the peo- 
 ple. Her closing appeal seemed to go through 
 them. Many were deeply moved. Some of 
 those sitting at the back, who had evidently 
 come largely for fun, quailed before one's very 
 eyes, and seemed subdued and softened. God 
 was working." 
 
 Later in the year the new headquarters on 
 the Quai de Valmy were opened. Here there 
 was a hall for 1200. No other form of religion 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 63 
 
 could draw such an assembly of the lowest class 
 of Parisians as nightly met in it. The men 
 came in their blouses, kept their caps on their 
 heads, and — except that they abstained from 
 smoking, in obedience to a notice at the door — 
 behaved with the freedom and ease of a music- 
 haU audience. But the earnest way in which 
 most of those present joined in the hymns 
 proved that they were not mere spectators, and 
 it was astonishing that many rough, unkempt, 
 and even brutal-looking men soon learned to 
 sing heartily without using the book. 
 
 There were a hundred converts in the first 
 year and another five hundred in the second. 
 Paris herself began to testify that a good work 
 had been begun in her midst. On the way to 
 and from the hall in the Rue d'Angouleme 
 Catherine, who by this time had begun to be 
 endearingly known as the Marechale, the high- 
 est military title in France, used often to meet 
 a priest, to whom she always said "Bon jour, 
 mon pere." One day he paused and said, 
 "Madame la Marechale, I want to tell you that 
 since you began your work in this quarter the 
 moral atmosphere of the whole place has 
 changed. I meet the fruits everywhere, and I 
 
64 THE MARECHALE 
 
 can tell better than you what you are doing." 
 She felt that God sent her that word of en- 
 couragement. 
 
 One of her letters of this time indicates 
 what kind of impression her work was making. 
 "There is a man," she wrote, "who has at- 
 tended our meetings most regularly. He lis- 
 tens with breathless attention, and sometimes 
 the tears flow down his cheeks. He was visited, 
 and sent me 70 francs for our work, with a 
 message that he desired to see me. I saw him, 
 and he gave me 80 more, with the words 
 'Sauvez la jeunesse!' ('Save the young!') I 
 found him very dark and hopeless about him- 
 self. . . . The next week he again called me 
 aside in the hall, put 50 francs into my hand, 
 saying he hoped soon we should have a hall in 
 every quarter of Paris. 'Save the young peo- 
 ple!' he again said. I said 'Yes, but I want to 
 see you saved.' 'That will come,' he said, and 
 left the hall. Last Sunday afternoon, I no- 
 ticed him weeping in a comer of the hall, as 
 our young people were witnessing for Jesus, 
 and, after the services, he asked if he might 
 speak to me for two minutes; this time he 
 handed me 60 francs, telling me to go on pray- 
 
CHRIST IN PAKIS 65 
 
 ing for him. He has lived a bad life and is 
 troubled with the thought of the past." 
 
 It began to be commonly believed that the 
 Marechale could work certain kinds of mir- 
 acles. A woman,who had attended the meet- 
 ings, and been blessed in her soul, became con- 
 vinced that the English lady had power to cast 
 out devils, and orte day she brought a neigh- 
 bour to the physician of souls, introducing her 
 with the remark, "She has not only one but 
 seven devils." The new-comer had a frightful 
 face. She was so drunken, immoral and violent 
 that nobody could live with her. Yet she, too, 
 had a soul. The Marechale made her get down 
 on her knees, put both her hands on her head, 
 and prayed that the devils might all be cast 
 out. "She's now another woman," was the 
 testimony soon after borne by all her neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 One of the surest indications of the success 
 of the work in Paris is found in the fact that, 
 before the end of the first year there was a 
 general demand for a newspaper correspond- 
 ing in some degree to the English War Cry. 
 That was a memorable day on which the Mare- 
 
66 THE MARECHAI.E 
 
 chale and her officers sat in their Avenue Par- 
 mentier flat, like a coterie of Fleet Street 
 journalists, gravely discussing their new ven- 
 ture. It was indicative of the holy simplicity 
 of the editor-in-chief that she thought at first 
 of changing The War Cry into Amour. She 
 did not realise the sensation which the cry 
 "Amour, un sou!" would have created in the 
 Boulevards. Her proposal was overruled, but 
 her second suggestion, to call the paper En 
 Avant {Forward!), was received with accla- 
 mation. This was a real inspiration. The 
 paper duly appeared in the beginning of 1882, 
 and has gone on successfully ever since. The 
 shouting of its name in the streets set all the 
 world and his wife a-thinking and a-talking. 
 What if the Man of Nazareth is after all far 
 ahead of our modern philosophers and states- 
 men, and if this handful of Enghsh girls is 
 come to lead us all forward to true liberty, 
 equahty and fraternity? 
 
 The reports of the work in France were 
 received with feelings of gratitude at home. 
 To "My dear Kittens" — ^a family pet-name — 
 her brother Bramwell wrote: "We are more 
 
CHRIST IN PARIS 67 
 
 than satisfied with your progress. The Gen- 
 eral says that so far as he can judge your rate 
 of advance in making people is greater than 
 his own was at the beginning. I am sure you 
 ought to feel only the hveliest confidence and 
 greatest encouragement aU the time." And to 
 "jMy darling Bliicher" the General himself 
 wrote, "I appreciate and admire and daUy 
 thank God for your courage and love and 
 endin-ance. God will and must bless you. We 
 pray for you. I feel I live over again in you. 
 We all send you our heartiest greetings and 
 our most tender aff'ection. Look up. Don't 
 forget my sympathy. Don't trouble to an- 
 swer my scrawls. I never hke to see your 
 handwriting because I know it means your 
 poor back. Remember me to all your com- 
 rades." 
 
 "I feel I live over again in you." The 
 thought was evidently habitual in the Gen- 
 eral's mind. "He bids me teU you," wrote 
 Emma, "that you are his second self." The 
 resemblance was physical as well as spiritual. 
 With her tall figure, her chiselled face, her 
 aquiline nose, her penetrating blue eyes, Cath- 
 
68 THE MARECHALE 
 
 erine became, as time went on, more and more 
 strikingly like her father. One of her sons, 
 who saw her stooping over the General the day; 
 before he died, said that the two pallid faces 
 were like facsimiles in marble. 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 
 
 In the autumn of 1883 the Marechale sud- 
 denly leapt into fame as a latter-day Portia, 
 brilliantly and successfully pleading in a Swiss 
 law-court, before the eyes of Europe, the 
 sacred cause of civil and religious liberty. The 
 land of Tell, the oldest of modern republics, 
 has always been regarded as a shrine of free- 
 dom. It has shown itself hospitable to aU 
 kinds of ideas, even the newest, the strangest, 
 the most anti-Christian, the most anti-social. 
 There is a natural affinity between free Eng- 
 land and free Switzerland. 
 
 "Two Voices are there ; one is of the sea, 
 One of the mountains ; each a mighty Voice : 
 In both from age to age thou didst rejoice; 
 They were thy chosen music. Liberty." 
 
 In the "Treaty of Friendship" between 
 Great Britain and Switzerland, drawn up in 
 
 71 
 
72 THE MARECHALE 
 
 1855, it was agreed that "the subjects and 
 citizens of either of the two contracting parties 
 shall, provided they conform to the laws of the i 
 country, be at liberty, with their families, to 
 enter, estabhsh themselves, reside and remain 
 in any part of the territories of the other." 
 Yet the presence of a few English evangelists 
 in Switzerland evoked a storm of persecution 
 in which the first principles of religious liberty 
 were as much violated as ever they had been 
 in the days of the Huguenots. 
 
 When the Marechale and some comrades 
 accepted an urgent invitation to Switzerland, 
 she little thought that she would be the 
 heroine of an historical trial. She went to 
 preach the gospel. She observed the laws of 
 the land, and respected the religious suscepti- 
 bilities of its people. When she entered Ge- 
 neva, she published only one poster, and that 
 after it had been duly vise; she allowed no 
 processions, banners or brass bands in the 
 streets. Her only crime was that she sought 
 to gain the ears of those who never entered a 
 place of worship, and that she marvellously 
 succeeded. 
 
 If good order was not always maintained 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 73 
 
 at her meetings, it was not her fault, but that 
 of the authorities who refused to do their duty. 
 History repeats itself. As in ancient Thessa- 
 lonica during the visit of St. Paul, so in mod- 
 ern Geneva, some citizens, "moved with jeal- 
 ousy, took unto themselves certain vile fellows 
 of the rabble, and gathering a crowd set the 
 city on an uproar." The ringleaders of the 
 disturbance were paid by noted traflBckers in 
 vice, who were themselves often seen in the 
 meetings inciting the audience to riot. One 
 of the first converts, a student, confessed that 
 he had got twenty francs a night, and as much 
 whisky as he could drink, to make a row. 
 
 The Department of Justice and Police 
 chanced at that time to have as its president 
 a Councillor of State, M. Heridier, who 
 thought it right not to pimish the offenders 
 but to banish their victims. In a sitting of the 
 Grand Council he said, "We have been peti- 
 tioned to call out a company of gendarmerie 
 to protect these foreigners, and to prevent 
 brawls and rows. I wUl not consent to take 
 such a step. There are already eight poHce 
 agents in these places every evening who have 
 a very hard time of it. . . , These agents might 
 
74 THE MARECHALE 
 
 be doing more useful work elsewhere, and I 
 am just about to withdraw them." That meant 
 handing over the strangers to the tender 
 mercies of the mob. It was a gross breach of 
 the laws of hospitality and chivalry as well as 
 of the constitution of a free coimtry. The 
 city of Calvin did not know the day of its visi- 
 tation. 
 
 The Marechale and her comrades began their 
 meetings in the Casino on December 22, 1882. 
 The hall was crowded, and soon there was rag- 
 ing a great battle between the powers of light 
 and darkness. A disturbance had evidently 
 been organised. A band of students in col- 
 oured caps, who had come early and taken 
 possession of the front of the galleries and 
 other prominent positions, were on their worst 
 behaviour. The first hymn was interrupted by 
 cries and ribald songs, and the prayer which 
 followed was almost drowned. But the Mare- 
 chale was never more calm and confident than 
 when facing such music. At every slight lull 
 in the storm, she uttered, in clear, penetrating 
 tones, some pointed words which pierced many 
 a heart. Within an hour she not only had sub- 
 dued her audience but was inviting those who 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 75 
 
 desired salvation to come forward to the peni- 
 tent form. Scoffers of half an hour ago left 
 their places, trembling under the sense of guilt, 
 and as they knelt down the Marechale sang, in 
 soft notes, the hymn: 
 
 Reviens, reviens, pauvre pecheur. 
 
 Ton Pere encore t'attend; 
 Veux-tu languir loin du bonheur, 
 
 Et pecher plus longtemps? 
 
 O ! reviens a ton Sauveur, 
 
 Reviens ce soir, 
 II veut te recevoir, 
 
 Beviens a ton Sauveur! 
 
 A strange influence stole over the meeting, 
 hushing the crowd into profound sUence, and 
 the Spirit did His work in many hearts. 
 
 The Marechale conducted a similar service 
 the following night, and on Christmas Eve she 
 faced an audience of 3000 in the Salle de la 
 Reformation. Its composition was entirely to 
 her mind, for she was never so inspired with 
 divine pity and power as when she was con- 
 fronting the worst elements of a town. The 
 theatres, the cabarets, the dancing saloons. 
 
76 THE MARECHALE 
 
 the drinking dens, and the rendezvous of pros- 
 titution had poured their contents into the hall. 
 Socialists who had found refuge in Geneva — 
 men of many nationalities — came en masse. A 
 large part of the audience were so entirely 
 strangers to the idea of worship or of a Divine 
 Being, that the sound of prayer called forth 
 loud derisive laughter, with questions and cries 
 of surprise and scorn. 
 
 But the soldiers of Christ, clad in armour of 
 light, were more than a match for the powers 
 of darkness. Many a winged word found its 
 mark, and the after-meeting in the smaller 
 hall, into which three hundred were crowded, 
 was pervaded by a death-like stillness, in which 
 many sought and found salvation. Some of 
 the ringleaders of the disturbance had pushed 
 their way into this room; but they remained 
 perfectly quiet, evidently subdued and over- 
 awed, with an expression on their faces of 
 intense interest, which showed that they felt 
 they were in presence of a reality in religion 
 which they had not before encountered. The 
 Marechale sang her own hymn "Je viens a Toi, 
 dans ma misere," and many joined in the 
 chorus: 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 77 
 
 Ote tous mes peches ! 
 
 Agneau de Dieu, je viens a Toi, 
 
 Ote tous mes peches. 
 
 One of those who were melted by the words 
 wrote: "I was like the demoniac of Gadara. 
 I may say I was possessed; I was chained for 
 fifteen years to a frightful hfe. ... It was 
 then that you came. I was at first astonished ; 
 then remorse seized me. Then followed a 
 frightful torment in my soul — a real hell. I 
 resolved to put an end to it one way or another. 
 Yet I thought I would go and hear you once 
 more. I had been in darkness and anguish 
 since the day of the first meeting. No word 
 had I been able to recall of that day's teaching, 
 except the words of the sacred song 'Ote tous 
 mes peches' (Take all my sins away). These 
 sounded in my heart and brain through the 
 day and the sleepless night — ^these and these 
 only. Bowed down with grief and despair, 
 again I came to the Reformation HaU, and 
 to the after-meeting. The first sovmds which 
 fell on my ear were again those very words, 
 *Ote tous mes peches,' and then you spoke 
 on the words, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, 
 they shall be white as snow'; you seemed to 
 
78 THE MARECHALE 
 
 speak to me alone, to regard me alone — ^and 
 I felt it was God who had sent me there to 
 hear those words." 
 
 Hundreds of such letters were written. Evi- 
 dence came from all sides of blessing received 
 in many homes, of wild sons reclaimed, of 
 drunkards and vicious men transformed by 
 the power of God, of light and joy brought 
 into families over which a cloud had hung. 
 Not only anarchists and prodigals, but students 
 of theology and the children of pastors had 
 their lives transformed. In a meeting for 
 women only, at which 3000 were present, the 
 daughter of Pastor Napoleon Roussel began 
 the new life. Her brother had been one of the 
 converts in the first meeting in the Reforma- 
 tion Hall. Mile. Roussel was to be the Mare- 
 chale's secretary for five years, and accompany 
 her in a great American tour. A divinity stu- 
 dent who attended a "night with Jesus" on 
 New Year's Eve, wrote: "I passed a long 
 night of watch, which I shall never forget. 
 Since then I am ever happy, and can say 
 'Glory to God' every hour of the day." 
 
 But as the tide of Divine blessing rose, the 
 tide of human hatred also rose, and in the 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 79 
 
 beginning of February the "exercises" of the 
 Army were by Cantonal decree forbidden. A 
 week later, the Marechale, with a young com- 
 panion, Miss Maud Charlesworth, now Mrs. 
 Gen. Ballington Booth, was expelled from the 
 Canton of Geneva. During her six weeks in 
 the city she had been used to biing about 
 probably the greatest revival which it had wit- 
 nessed since the days of the Reformers. 
 
 One of the most eminent lawyers of Geneva, 
 Edmond Pictet, who had himself been greatly 
 blessed during those stirring weeks, helped her 
 to draw up an Appeal (Recours) to the Grand 
 Council. He found, however, that she needed 
 but little help, and often remarked that with 
 the warm heart of an evangeKst she combined 
 the lucid intelligence of an advocate. When 
 the Council of State had deputed two or three 
 of its members to hear her on the subject of 
 her Appeal, she came back to Gteneva under 
 a safe-conduct to meet them. In the course 
 of the interview, at which the British Consul 
 in the city was present, the leading Councillor 
 said, "You are a ycimg woman; it is not in ac- 
 cordance with our ideas and customs that 
 young women should appear in public. We 
 
80 THE MARECHALE 
 
 are scandalised (froisses) by it." The rejoin- 
 der which he received was so remarkable a de- 
 fence of "the Prophesying- of Women" that 
 we give it in f uU. 
 
 "Listen to me, I beg of you, sir. It is con- 
 trary, you tell me, to your sense of what is 
 right and becoming that young women should 
 preach the Gospel. Now, if Miss Charles- 
 worth and I had come to Geneva to act in one 
 of your theatres, I have no doubt we should 
 have met with sympathy and approval from 
 your public. We could have sung and danced 
 on your stage; we could have dressed in a man- 
 ner very different from, and much less modest 
 than, that in which you see us dressed; we 
 could have appeared before a miscellaneous 
 audience, men and women, young and old, and 
 of every class ; members of the Grand Coimcil, 
 M. Heridier himself and others, would have 
 come to see us act; we should have got money; 
 Gteneva would have paid ungrudgingly in that 
 case ; and you would all have sat and approved; 
 you would have clapped your hands and 
 cheered us ; you would have brought your wives 
 and daughters to see us, and they also would 
 have applauded. There would have been noth- 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 81 
 
 ing to froisser you, no immorality in all that, 
 according to your ideas and customs. The 
 noise (bruit) we should have thus made would 
 not have caused our expulsion. But when 
 women come to try and save some of the forty 
 or fifty thousand of your miserable, scoffing, 
 irreligious population who never enter any 
 place of worship, when they come with hearts 
 full of pity and love for the ignorant and sin- 
 ful, and stand up to tell the glad tidings of 
 salvation to these rebels, this mob, among^ 
 whom many accept the tidings with eager joy 
 — then you cry out that this is unseemly and 
 immodest. You would not bring your wives 
 and daughters to hear us speak of Jesus, 
 though you would bring them to hear us if we 
 danced and sang upon the stage of your thea- 
 tre. Now you have expelled us ; but still there 
 are those multitudes in Geneva who are dark, 
 lost, unsaved; and you know it. There they 
 are; they exist. What wiU you do with them? 
 Say — ^what wUl you do? Are they not a dan- 
 ger? Does not their lost condition cry out 
 against you?" 
 
 The Councillor was not only silenced, but 
 sank into his chair in a state of temporary col- 
 
82 THE MARECHALE 
 
 lapse. For the moment, at least, the realityj 
 of the picture presented to him had touched! 
 his heart. 
 
 Nevertheless the Marechale's Appeal was 
 rejected, and M. Pictet wrote to her: "The 
 wretched storm of anger and prejudice which 
 you witnessed and which your friends deplore 
 so much, has not blown over by any means. I, 
 for one, despair of ever seeing my fellow-citi- 
 zens properly understand what religious lib- 
 erty and respect of other people's opinion 
 mean, — ^therefore the only course left to the 
 Army seems to be the one indicated in St. Mat- 
 thew X. 23! You have done your duty, you 
 cannot be expected to do more than Paul and 
 Barnabas did (Acts xiii. 51)." 
 
 Meantime the enemies of righteousness re- 
 joiced. The theatrical paper of Geneva com- 
 plimented the authorities upon the expulsion. 
 ■"Our theatre," it said, "has lost a formidable 
 rival, and the crowd is beginning to find its 
 way back to us." 
 
 At that critical time it was not only the civil 
 but the spiritual leaders who were weighed and 
 found wanting. Injustice could scarcely have 
 i)een pushed so far had not the Churches sane- 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 83. 
 
 tioned it by their attitude of silence or open 
 hostility. Many religious people took the side 
 of the persecuting government and the godless 
 populace. The bitterest pamphlet against the 
 Armee du Salut was written by Madame la 
 Comtesse de Gasparin, whom the dehghted 
 mob hailed as "a Christian if ever there was 
 one." But the most strange and humiliating 
 fact of all was that the Swiss branch of the 
 Evangelical Alliance resolved, after due de- 
 liberation, to refrain from uttering a single 
 word in defence of religious liberty. No won- 
 der that a number of its most influential mem- 
 bers sorrowfully withdrew from its fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 Banished from Geneva, the Evangelists 
 found refuge for a time in Neuchatel. Com- 
 ing on the scene just after the authorities had 
 forbidden evening meetings, the Marechale 
 gaA'^e notice of a morning one to be held the 
 next day. The hall was filled, and the meet- 
 ings went on every morning and afternoon, aU 
 through the week. 
 
 At six o'clock on Sunday morning the roar- 
 ing of a crowd of roughs coming up the street 
 reached the ears of those who had already gath- 
 
«4 THE MARECHALE 
 
 «red inside the hall. While the noise grew 
 louder and louder, the Marechale said to her 
 officers, "Wait here and pray; I will go and 
 meet them." On stepping outside the door, 
 she was at once surrounded by rough fellows in 
 their shirt sleeves, armed with sticks and forks 
 and stones, who began to demand what she 
 wanted in their town, and poured upon her the 
 senseless accusations of the tap-rooms. 
 
 "Go away!" cried one, "we've got our pas- 
 tors." 
 
 "My friend," was the reply, "you don't do 
 them much credit." 
 
 "Here is my god!" {Voild mon dieu!), said 
 another, pulling out his pipe and brandishing 
 it in the Marechale's face. 
 
 "You will need another when you come to 
 die." 
 
 "You want ovu- money!" shouted a third. 
 
 "What do you say? You say that again! 
 Say it! You dare not, you do not believe it, 
 you know that it is a lie." And taking this 
 man by the shirt collar, the Marechale led him 
 into the hall and up to the front seat, where he 
 sat listening most attentively for two hours. 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 85 
 
 Two rows of penitents sought pardon at the 
 close of the meeting. 
 
 In June the Grand Covmcil of Neuchatel 
 voted for the suppression of the Armee du 
 Salutj and Ziu-ich and Canton du Vaud soon 
 followed suit. It then became clear that the 
 only hope of getting these unconstitutional de- 
 crees rescinded lay in disobeying them. Jurists 
 who were consulted held that this was the best 
 way to compel the authorities to retrace their 
 steps. Many Swiss converts were ready to 
 suffer for conscience' sake, but the Marechale 
 resolved that she would herself, as a subject 
 of Queen Victoria, assert her right to worship 
 God on Swiss soU. In a new form she would 
 raise the Apostle's question, "Is it lawful for 
 you to scourge a man that is a Roman and un- 
 condenmed?" The interest of the situation was 
 heightened by the fact that it was now a 
 woman's question. All the spirit of the modern 
 world was in the Marechale's bold declaration, 
 "I am a British citizen." 
 
 After working for some months in the south 
 of France, she returned to Neuchatel and de- 
 liberately infringed the Cantonal decree. On 
 the afternoon of Sunday, September 9, she 
 
86 THE MARECHALE 
 
 conducted a meeting at Prise-Imer, in the Jura 
 forest, some five miles above the lake. In a let- 
 ter to England she described the scene. "It 
 was a day never to be forgotten. Long before 
 the hour the people met, and we had upwards 
 of 500 who had come out of Neuchatel to praise 
 God. The weather was beautiful. After so 
 much trouble, fatigue and a long jom-ney, we 
 could meet to talk of the things of God. 
 Hearts and voices rose together, and it cheered 
 me much to look into the faces of our brave 
 soldiers. There was no mistaking their zeal 
 and determination to go forward." 
 
 While the hymn "Come, Thou burning 
 Spirit, come" was being sung under the taU 
 pine trees, a sentinel who had been stationed 
 on the outskirts of the forest announced that 
 the Prefect in his carriage, attended by sixteen 
 policemen, was approaching. The Marechale 
 gave the news to the audience, and called on 
 everybody to be calm and confident. 
 
 "Take no notice. We shall have a glorious 
 meeting all the same." 
 
 The gendarmes found the congregation 
 kneeling, and formed a ring round it, the Pre- 
 fect himself taking his stand close to the 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 87 
 
 Marechale. He and his followers were all 
 overawed. For over two hours they listened 
 as men spellbound. They heard the Marechale 
 pray for the Government, for the nation of 
 Switzerland, for themselves. They heard her 
 speak of the end and aim of the Armee du 
 Salut — "to save the lost, to make all thieves, 
 drunkards, outcasts, and plagues of society 
 peaceful and loyal citizens, through the power 
 of Jesus to lead the nations to God." Then 
 they heard the testimonies of converted crim- 
 inals, one of whom told of his three years' im- 
 prisonment. Pointing to a plain-clothes de- 
 tective, he said, "That policeman over there 
 knows me ; he took me to jail ; but now I am a 
 changed man." No wonder that the Prefect 
 of Pohce was profoundly impressed. At the 
 end of the service, he took out his warrant with 
 trembling hands, and stammered — 
 
 "I have here ... I ought . . ." 
 
 "Yes, I know. You have a decree for my 
 arrest. Why didn't you give it me before?" 
 
 "Well, I could not." 
 
 "Yes, a higher Power than man was here 
 to restrain you." 
 
 He could not withhold his tribute of admira- 
 
88 THE MARECHALE 
 
 tion. "This is a magnificent work, if it does 
 but last. You do nothing but good. I be- 
 seech you not to hold me responsible for this 
 act. I, like others, had judged you without 
 seeing or hearing you." 
 
 He had, however, to obey his orders. The 
 Marechale and Captain Becquet, one of her 
 oflScers, were put under arrest. As they were 
 leaving that pleasant place, she exclaimed, 
 "How strange that we are not to be allowed 
 to worship God in these beautiful woods! 
 What a pity to see them standing silent and 
 unused!" To some of those who heard her 
 voice that Sunday evening, the spot was for 
 ever holy ground. In the audience was a 
 young Switzer, Constant Jeanmonod, one of 
 nature's gentlemen, who found salvation on 
 that day, gave himself body and soul to God, 
 and afterwards became one of the Marechale's 
 most devoted friends and comrades in many a 
 hard campaign. He is now at the head of the 
 work in Belgium. 
 
 The Marechale and Captain Becquet were 
 brought down to Neuchatel and conducted to 
 the house of M. Comtesse, President of the 
 Council of State, who said to them, "You are 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 89 
 
 my prisoners, and it is my duty to have you 
 locked up this night." The Marechale, how- 
 ever, had just received a telegram begging her 
 to attend the funeral of a brave young Geneva 
 convert, who had breathed a dying request that 
 she should speak at his grave-side. She asked 
 permission to fulfil this sacred duty, and was 
 liberated on bail of 6000 francs. 
 
 Next morning a service was held in the 
 garden of the farmhouse near Geneva where 
 Charles Wyssa had died, and there the Mare- 
 chale found a lifelong friend. Mrs. Josephine 
 Butler was present, and gave a brief address 
 which hved long in the memory of those who 
 heard it. Having spoken of her profoimd 
 sympathy with the work of the Armee du Salut 
 in Switzerland, she made a moving reference 
 to the fact that she had lost her only and dearly- 
 loved daughter, whom she had named Evange- 
 line in the hope that her hfe would be dedicated 
 to evangehsation. One fatal evening, when 
 the mother returned home after a long jour- 
 ney, her little daughter came running down- 
 stairs to meet and welcome her. In her ex- 
 treme eagerness to see her mother again, the 
 child forgot all danger, slipped over the stair- 
 
90 THE MAHECHALE 
 
 case balustrade, and was taken up crushed and 
 unconscious. In less than an hour her gentle 
 spirit had fled. 
 
 "At the coffin of that child," said Mrs. But- 
 ler, "I consecrated my life to the relief of my 
 sufi'ering and oppressed brothers and sisters. 
 My great desire was that she should become a 
 preacher of the Word of God. And now," 
 added the mother, throwing her arms round the 
 Marechale, "by another new coffin I have found 
 my long-lost daughter, an Evangelist chosen 
 and blessed of God." When the Marechale 
 had daughters of her own, she called the eldest 
 Catherine Evangeline and the youngest Jo- 
 sephine. 
 
 From that garden the company moved to 
 the churchyard, where the Marechale spoke on 
 the beautiful words, "Who are these which are 
 arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?" 
 Just as John Wyssa, the younger brother of 
 Charles, was throwing a handful of earth on 
 the coffin, and murmuring the words "Au re- 
 Voir, mon frere" the Mayor of the Commune 
 approached in order to arrest Miss Booth. 
 She saw at a glance that he was a coarse, bru- 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 91 
 
 tal fellow, very different from the Prefect of 
 Police in Neuchatel. He was putting his hand 
 upon her arm, when she turned upon him with 
 flashing eyes, and said, "Hands off ! this is holy 
 ground! Don't you see that we are in the pres- 
 ence of the dead? I finish this service, and 
 then wiU speak with you." 
 
 When the funeral rites were ended, the 
 Mayor thought his turn was at last come. He 
 was about to proceed with the arrest, when the 
 Marechale still objected. 
 
 "You can't arrest me!" 
 
 The Mayor stared in bewilderment. 
 
 "I say you can't arrest me!" 
 
 "May I ask why?" 
 
 "Because with the best will in the world I 
 can't go to two prisons in two Cantons at the 
 same time. I am due in Neuchatel." 
 
 The Mayor saw that she was right, and re- 
 tired crestfallen. 
 
 The Marechale retiu-ned to Neuchatel and 
 surrendered to her bail. The iron gates of the 
 grim jail closed upon her. The imprisonment 
 was shared by her faithful lieutenant, Kate 
 Patrick, who refused to leave her. 
 
92 THE MARECHALE 
 
 It was twelve days before the trial came on. 
 The Marechale was in delicate health, and fre- 
 quently became sick. The hunger-striking and 
 forcible feeding of these latter days would 
 soon have killed her. She tried to eat, but had 
 little appetite, and what little she had was de- 
 stroyed by the garlic in the food. Mice dis- 
 turbed her night's and in the early morning 
 the odours which came from the passages were 
 insupportable. The only way in which she 
 could get any relief was by putting her face 
 between the iron bars of the window and 
 breathing the air which came up from the lake. 
 She was always thankful that her face was 
 thin and just went through the cold bars. 
 
 One morning at five or six o'clock she was 
 awakened by happy voices singing dear fa- 
 miliar choruses outside the prison walls. She 
 was very ill, but she dragged herself from her 
 hard bed to the window, waved her hand, and 
 cried "Amen!" Then she attached her hand- 
 kerchief to a bar, and let it flutter like a flag. 
 The signal was received with shouts of "Amen, 
 Marechale — ^be of good cheer — ^hold on — ^hal- 
 lelujah!" 
 
 As the time passed, she was thrown in upon 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 93 
 
 herself, and went through a great soul-strug- 
 gle. She had lately been the victim of a sting- 
 ing article, grossly ignorant and cruelly un- 
 just, which had appeared in a religious paper, 
 written, rumour said, by the wife of a Swiss 
 pastor. It had accused her of unwomanliness, 
 immodesty, and vanity. She made the painful 
 discovery that she could not yet say, "None of 
 these things move me." The poisoned arrows 
 had gone deep, forcing tears from her eyes and 
 attacking her peace of mind. Chancing to 
 notice a little slate hanging on the wall of her 
 cell, she took it down and began to write on it 
 all the accusations which her enemies might 
 bring against her, asking herself as she did so, 
 "Could you write your name and say you ac- 
 cept that, and that?" Her conscience com- 
 pelled her to answer "No, there are some things 
 which I could not endure." She was appalled 
 as she thought of more and greater trials which 
 God might ask her to undergo. He might de- 
 prive her of health. He might send her to 
 Japan. He might take away her reputation 
 and make it impossible for her to defend her- 
 self. Could she bear such things? No, she 
 could not yet sign her name under the terrible 
 
94 THE MARECHALE 
 
 words she wrote. With sorrow she put the 
 slate back in its place, and for two days it 
 hung against the wall with its list of cruel 
 things which she could not accept. But during 
 those days she pondered and prayed. She re- 
 buked her doubts and fears. How could she 
 ever distrust her Lord, who had led her with 
 such infinite tenderness? How imagine that 
 He would ever lay upon her more than He 
 would give her power to bear? She soon crept 
 up close to His arms, and realised that nothing 
 was really unbearable except doubt. Taking 
 her slate down, she read over again aU that 
 she might be called upon to suffer, and signed 
 "Catherine Booth." Then the Angels of God 
 filled the prison cell; the peace and joy of 
 heaven flooded her soul; and from that hour 
 her communion with her Lord was so sweet 
 that she kissed the walls of her dungeon before 
 she was led forth to her trial. 
 
 On that day (September 19) she wrote her 
 exquisite prison song, "Best beloved of my 
 soul," and sent it to her father. It was sung, 
 while she was stiU in prison, at a great meeting 
 for prayer, in Exeter Hall, at which Mrs. But- 
 ler spoke. It was first written in French, the 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 95 
 
 language in which she now habitually thought, 
 and translated by herself into Enghsh. The 
 latter is well-known, and many readers will be 
 glad to have the French. 
 
 O Toi que mon ame adore^ 
 Je ne suis pas scale ici. 
 Car je T'y retrouve encore, 
 Et je suis au eiel ainsi. 
 
 Ma vie est a Ton service, 
 Je T'appartiens sans retour; 
 Corps et ame en sacrifice, 
 Je Te suivrai nuit et jour. 
 
 Combattons dans la souffrance, 
 Et les yeux baignes de pleurs; 
 Bien pres est la delivrance, 
 Voici THn mm e de douleurs ! 
 
 Sa voix chasse ma tristesse, 
 Mon chagrin s'est dissipe; 
 Je chante avec allegresse, 
 Mon cachet est transf orme ! 
 
 Au milieu de la tempete 
 Eien ne peut troubler ma paix; 
 Son amour que rien n'arrete 
 Peut me garder a jamais. 
 
 Le combat est dur, terrible, 
 L'enfer rugit contre nous; 
 Mais I'Armee est invincible : 
 Avec Dieu nous vaincrons tout. 
 
96 THE MARECHALE 
 
 During the twelve days of her imprison- 
 ment the Marechale received many letters of 
 sympathy and good cheer from Swiss friends, 
 whose words proved to her how deep and real 
 had been the work of the Armee du Salut in 
 the country. One of the most interesting was 
 signed by seventy-two mothers, who bore glad 
 testimony to the conversion of their sons and 
 daughters, and two more were signed by a 
 number of wives praising God for the conver- 
 sion of their husbands. 
 
 More intimate letters came to Catherine 
 from home, all breathing warm love, tender 
 solicitude, and ardent hope that good would 
 come out of evil. "I quite see with you," 
 wrote her mother, "as to God's hand being in 
 all this, and it appears that when communities 
 or nations get sodden in sin and darkness, there 
 is no way of arousing them but by such a flash- 
 ing of the truth in their midst as wUl provoke 
 persecution. God wants the attention of the 
 people, and this is the best way to secure it, 
 no doubt. . . . Perhaps you are right about 
 pleading your own cause, only you should have 
 some one at yom* elbow who knows the law. 
 You wiU not be up on points of law, I fear. 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 97 
 
 otherwise I have no doubt that God will give 
 you what you should say. I feel it a great 
 thing to have a child in prison for Jesus' sake; 
 there could be only one greater, namely to be 
 there myself; but one would hardly have 
 thought it possible in this age. How true that 
 the devil hates real saints as much as ever he 
 did, and that the spirit of persecution only 
 needs the real presence of the Spirit of God 
 to call it forth. . . . That the Lord comfort 
 and keep you and reveal Himself to you more 
 and more and make you a mother of nations, 
 prays your loving and sympathising mother, 
 Catherine Booth." 
 
 The next letter admirably reveals both the 
 father's and the General's heart. With the 
 deepest concern for his beloved daughter there 
 is combined a lively sense of the fact that his 
 enemies are overreaching themselves and doing 
 him and his cause the greatest possible service. 
 He wrote: "My darling, no one can tell the 
 anxieties we have all gone through concerning 
 you during this week. . . . We were awak- 
 ened by telegraph messenger with a wire from 
 Geneva to say 'Bliicher detained tUl trial. Pat- 
 rick with her — cared for.' The last sentence 
 
98 THE MARECHALE 
 
 fills us with relief. We interpret it to mean 
 Patrick is with you as your secretary or maid, 
 and you have all your wants supplied and no 
 hardships. . . . Enclosed is this morning's 
 Times. All the papers have notices of it, so 
 that it is flying all over the world. If you do 
 not suffer in your health, I don't care. It will 
 all work for good. But your health is of more 
 importance to me in my estimation than all 
 Switzerland. If you can only get assurance 
 of this! I am all uncertain whether this will 
 reach you. There will be a storm directly 
 and no mistake if these Swiss go on at this 
 rate. We all send you all our heart's love 
 and heaps of prayers and sympathy. God bless 
 and keep you! Remember me to Lieuf. 
 Patrick. Your affectionate father." 
 
 Mrs. Bramwell Booth, who as Miss Florence 
 Soper had been one of the Marechale's first 
 comrades in Paris, wrote her: "I feel as if 
 you had mounted away to a land where I can 
 call you 'Katie' no more. But I wiU say, and 
 I do say in my heart of innermost hearts, my 
 Saint Catherine, coimted worthy to suffer. 
 ... If only I could beseech you to remember 
 
FEEEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 99 
 
 that your health is everything. This is the 
 dawning of a glorious morning in your work 
 — the forerunner of a glorious victory. Will 
 you send some word through Patrick of the 
 whole truth — just let me know — just your Flo 
 — if it is as had as a prison cell, and is it do- 
 ing your body the least bit of harm? ... I 
 wish you could know, in your solitude, how 
 we all love you — I wish the breezes over the 
 lake could bring you some whispers of what 
 we have said of you. The glorious God is 
 our God for ever and ever, and His chariots 
 of fire are with you — His invisible army is 
 around you. Your own Flo." 
 
 Her sister Emma, who was now at the head 
 of the Training School at the Congress Hall, 
 wrote: "What can be said at such times com- 
 pared with what is felt? I will not attempt 
 to write. I am praying, AU hearts here hold 
 you up ceaselessly — ^your example is before 
 us ! In the night and the day I am with you — 
 in your sorrow I find your joy in what is to 
 come out of all. 'They know not what they 
 do,' and out of their very efi*orts to hinder 
 and stop God's work shall it spread beyond 
 restraint. The loss is great, my precious sis- 
 
100 THE MAKECHALE 
 
 ter, but the reward will be infinitely greater, 
 and in both you will have been allowed to 
 share. It would have been easier to be with 
 you, but I'll fight harder than ever in my cor- 
 ner here. Filled with deepest sympathy and 
 yearning desire for His kingdom to come in 
 Switzerland! Devotedly, Emma. PS. It 
 is your back I most tremble for — ^your poor 
 back! I wonder if you have pillows. Bless 
 your dear little Pattie [Miss Patrick]. Oh, 
 each moment I am with you! Jesus is — He 
 does love and choose and wiU honour you!" 
 
 Among those who wrote to the prisoner was 
 George Railton,^ whom she regarded almost as 
 an elder brother. He had lived with the family 
 during her childhood, and when she was a girl 
 of twelve and onwards she used to get up at 
 six in the morning — slipping downstairs on her 
 bare feet in order not to awaken mother — ^to 
 have a Bible lesson with him. She always re- 
 garded the talks in those morning hours as 
 among the great formative influences in her 
 life. Railton, who became the General's first 
 
 ^ Since these pages were written, this remarkable man 
 has died — as he wished — with his armour on, and been 
 "promoted to glory." 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 101 
 
 commissioner, watched her career with pro- 
 f omid and affectionate interest. He wrote on 
 September 25 : "Dear Marechale Prisoner, I 
 have just come from that tremendous prayer 
 meeting [in Exeter Hall, held as a protest 
 against her imprisonment], one of the biggest 
 and best this world has ever seen. . . . The 
 way the volleys burst out at the right time 
 and went ringing aU round the Hall sounded 
 splendid. And the sight of thousands stand- 
 ing up to give themselves to God, hundreds and 
 hundreds for foreign service, and all for serv- 
 ice somewhere, was magnificent. . . . My im- 
 pression is that as they [the Swiss] have out- 
 raged law all along they may very hkely do it 
 when it comes to sentence. . . . God only 
 knows what is coming next, but anyhow we 
 shall win," 
 
 Towards the end of her imprisonment 
 Catherine wrote: "God will open the door for 
 us through this storm. My will is God's. All 
 I want is to accomphsh His desire for the 
 world. Do not worry at all. Jesus is here. 
 There is such wonderful victory ahead that all 
 my cry is. Lord, make us equal to it! — ready 
 in every way! Ever fighting, in jail as well 
 
102 THE MARECHALE 
 
 as on the field, following on to know Him. 
 I have been looking at that wonderful sight — 
 Calvary. I must ever live in sight of it." 
 
 The trial took place at Boudry on Saturday 
 the 25th and Monday the 27th September. 
 It excited the greatest interest in Switzerland 
 and far beyond it. The Journal de Genbve 
 said: "This prosecution at Boudry has an im- 
 mense political significance in the highest sense 
 of that word, and the decision, whatever it may 
 be, wiU take its place in the history of Repub- 
 lican rights." Even the most sanguine scarcely 
 hoped for the acquittal of the accused. But 
 the unexpected happened, and the triumph of 
 righteousness was a woman's triumph. 
 
 The Public Prosecutor spent much time in 
 proving that Salvationists were mountebanks 
 and fanatics. A young Englishwoman had 
 flung an insult in the face of the Grand Coim- 
 cil, accusing them of violating the constitu- 
 tion. Her contempt for the law was the more 
 surprising as the EngKsh never rebel against 
 the law, however unjust it may be (!) . If the 
 Armee du Salut was not suppressed they would 
 have to enlarge their asylums. Christ, who 
 was, perhaps, the most religious man who ever 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 103 
 
 lived, favoured private rather than public 
 prayer. Silent communion with God was bet- 
 ter than getting up and shouting "I am saved!" 
 While the accused placed herself above the law, 
 the Queen of England was obliged to submit 
 to Acts of Parhament. Having not only 
 ignored, but dehberately violated the decree, 
 the Salutistes must bear the consequences, and 
 no doubt they would be happy to receive the 
 crown of martyrdom! 
 
 On the second day of the trial, after a 
 speech in the defence by M. Monnier, the 
 Marechale rose to plead her own cause. Though 
 she had passed twelve days in prison, and sat 
 many hours in the suffocatiug atmosphere of 
 a crowded court-house, she overcame her ex- 
 haustion, her spirit subduing the frail body. 
 She had been accustomed to face great crowds 
 since she was sixteen, and she was never more 
 completely master of herself or her audience 
 than she was in that critical hour. Her voice 
 was never clearer, nor her manner more com- 
 manding. Her brother Herbert, who was in 
 the court, said he was amazed at her power. 
 As she pleaded the cause of religious liberty, 
 her hearers felt that she had not come to be 
 
104 THE MARECHALE 
 
 judged but for judgment upon them all. Some 
 extracts will serve to indicate the quality of 
 her speech. 
 
 "What is the need of the Armee du Salut? 
 Allow me to read a passage from one of your 
 own journals: 'Cantonal Governments will 
 see with alarm the flood of demoralisation 
 rising menacingly higher and higher; and ia- 
 stead of seeking to destroy the causes of this 
 deluge, they only take away the remaining 
 dams.' It is needless to enlarge on the neces- 
 sity for an Armee du Salut in the face of these 
 facts. 
 
 "The Prosecutor has said, in speaking of 
 the work, that it moved the entire population, 
 and that there must be a cause for this. He 
 has reason to say so. I agree with him; there 
 must be a cause, far deeper than any that has 
 been mentioned here to-day. It is at this cause 
 that we strike — which exists in the heart of 
 man. 
 
 "As to our aim, we are trying to bring these 
 people who outrage yoiu* laws, who fight 
 against God, to the feet of Him who alone 
 can change them, to the only hope that exists 
 for them, the Saviour of the world. We work, 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD 105 
 
 we live, we suffer to do this. This is our one 
 hope and object — ^to bring the world to the 
 great Deliverer, Jesus Christ. 
 
 "Ah! The question of all questions, the 
 question which every intelUgent man ought to 
 face, is — ^What are we to do with the masses? 
 If they are not reached by the power of the 
 Gospel, a day wUl come when they will turn 
 round against you, occasioning terrible trouble 
 and disorder, and awful will be the conse- 
 quences. Then, gentlemen, you wiU have rea- 
 son to regret your action in this matter. If 
 these disturbers are capable of manifesting 
 such hatred, such rage against citizens who 
 pray to God, they wiU also be capable of mani- 
 festing the same rebellious spirit against any 
 other opinions, or any other law, which may 
 not please them. 
 
 "We have not made the people like this. 
 Bear in mind that we have not created this 
 terrible state of barbarism, which was let loose 
 aroimd that hall, and which has made my heart 
 bleed many times in witnessing. Who is re- 
 sponsible for this? We cannot be, for we have 
 only been in your town a few months. 
 
 "Although we have suffered terribly through 
 
106 THE MARECHALE 
 
 misrepresentations that have been wilfully cir- 
 culated about us, we are not discouraged! We 
 know that truth and justice will soon triumph. 
 I love Switzerland all the more for what we 
 have endured (Applause) . A little while and 
 Switzerland wiU love us. We shall win thou- 
 sands to righteousness, peace and heaven. 
 
 "The Prosecutor referred to the Queen say- 
 ing that even she was subject to the decrees of 
 Parliament, but that I placed myself above 
 her in refusing to become subject to the decrees 
 of the Grand Council. There is no parallel 
 between Her Majesty and myself. No act 
 has been passed to forbid her praying in a 
 wood, or I think Her Majesty would have 
 something to say on that subject (Sensation). 
 
 "One word in conclusion. You may punish 
 us; you may imprison us; you may prosecute 
 us as long as you are permitted; but what you 
 cannot do is to stop this work — to suppress it. 
 Beware what you do for your country's sake, 
 for Jesus Christ's sake. Take care that in 
 banishing us you do not banish the light, that 
 you do not banish Jesus Christ, and in that 
 great day when you are called to give an ac- 
 
FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD lOT 
 
 count you be found guilty of fighting against 
 God." 
 
 Such pleading was irresistible. The jury had 
 not the courage to enforce the law. To their 
 honour, they let themselves be swayed by con- 
 siderations of equity. They found that while 
 the accused had violated the decree she had 
 not acted with "culpable intention." In conse- 
 quence of this verdict she was acquitted. The 
 sentence was received by her friends in the 
 court with a burst of fervent "Aniens." And 
 the Marechale deserved the thanks of every 
 Swiss patriot. By her bold and successful 
 claim of right she had made history. At a 
 time when the old Republic was forgetful of 
 its noblest traditions, untrue to itself, she re- 
 stored its ideal. She vindicated for every man 
 and woman freedom to worship God according 
 to their conscience. She brought back to the 
 hiUs and valleys of Switzerland the crown 
 rights of the Redeemer. 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SOUL OF FRANCE 
 
 It is not easy to reach the ideal and spiritual 
 elements of character which are masked by 
 the light laughter or the polite scorn of the 
 typical Frenchman, who believes, or pretends 
 to believe, that religion is only for priests and 
 women. At the opening of a new hall in the 
 Rue Oberkamff, a big fellow shook his fist in 
 the Marechale's face and said, "An English- 
 man may accept rehgion — a German — or a 
 heathen, but a Frenchman — ^never!" "O God, 
 if You exist, save my soul, if I have one!" 
 was the prayer of another man, who had at- 
 tended the meetings for some time, and who 
 indicated with a strange pathos the bewildered 
 state of mind into which many of the educated, 
 as well as the ignorant, had sunk. "Let there 
 be no mistake," said a French writer, Louise 
 de CroisiUes; "it is by no means unnatural 
 that the Army should have taken root in India, 
 
 or even under Africa's biu-ning sun, but that 
 
 ui 
 
112 THE MARECHALE 
 
 it should be accepted in Paris, the centre of 
 free-thought and unbelief, that is a thing in- 
 credible." 
 
 Nevertheless the Frenchman suffers from 
 "the malady of the ideal," even as other men. 
 tHis heart is restless until it rests in God, and 
 it is sheer faithlessness to say that he cannot 
 be won by the grace of God. If he is sceptical, 
 it is because he has no conception of the fas- 
 cinating loveliness of Christianity; if he is a 
 scoffer, it is because he has never come in con- 
 tact with human Hves which suggest to him 
 the infinite goodness of God. 
 
 After the Marechale's great legal victory, 
 which was really a triumph of the Gospel over 
 its enemies, she returned to Paris and quietly 
 resumed her tasks. She was in nowise changed, 
 though public opinion regarding her was un- 
 doubtedly changed. She had become a person 
 of note. Editors of newspapers and maga- 
 zines sent reporters to her meetings at the Quai 
 de Vahny, or at the new headquarters in the 
 Rue Auber, and found piquant accounts of 
 her sayings and doings to be excellent copy. 
 Visitors to the city came to hear her. Artists 
 begged for the honour of painting her portrait 
 
114. THE MARECHALE 
 
 this result. The first of these was the visita- 
 tion of the cafes of Paris. One winter night 
 the Marechale and two young comrades, 
 Blanche Young and Kate Patrick, went out 
 with shawls on their heads, and made their way 
 to one of the boulevard cafes. The leader 
 passed the door, and passed it again. She 
 turned to her lieutenants and said, "You have 
 never known your Marechale till now ; you see 
 what a coward she is!" 
 
 "No, no, no!" they both protested. 
 
 At last she put her hand on the door, pushed 
 it open, ar^d went in. A man in a white apron 
 was selKng drink. Going up to him, she said, 
 "May I sing something?" 
 
 He stared open-mouthed. 
 
 Trembling from head to foot, she repeated, 
 "I should like to sing something." 
 
 "Very weU!" 
 She began: 
 
 "Le ciel est ma belle patrie, 
 
 Les anges y font leur sejour; 
 Le soldat qui lutte et qui prie 
 Y sera bientot k son tour." 
 
 While she sang, Blanche chimed in with her 
 guitar and her second voice. As they pro- 
 
THE M 
 
 {From the painting 0/ Baron 
 
fai/e 114 
 
 : IN THK f AM-: 
 
 mtr in the I'irlan tialtrrn (ij Slorhhol IJI) 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 115 
 
 ceeded, the smoking, drinking, and card-play- 
 ing ceased, and every face was turned towards 
 them. They sang on: 
 
 "En marche, en marche, 
 Soldats, vers la patrie! 
 En marche, en marche, 
 Soldats, vers la patrie!" 
 
 When they had finished the hynm, the Mare- 
 chale thanked her audience, adding that they 
 could hear her again at Rue Auber Hall; and 
 that she knew a Friend, of whom she wished 
 to tell them. As she and her comrades turned 
 to walk out, the man in the white apron bowed, 
 as if they had done him a service. 
 
 "May I come another time?" said the Mare- 
 chale. 
 
 "Certainly, Mademoiselle!" 
 
 They visited sixteen cafes that night, and 
 when she got home she felt she had never been 
 happier in her life, never nearer to Jesus. She 
 had tried in her own way to obey His com- 
 mand, "Let your light shine before men." 
 Since then, thousands and thousands of cafes 
 have been visited, and much good has thus been 
 done. Let one case stand for many. 
 
116 THE MARECHALE 
 
 There used to be a well-known resort in 
 Paris called the Cafe de I'Enfer, the windows 
 and walls of which were painted with lurid 
 scenes representing hell. There rouged and 
 powdered singing girls entertained people of 
 the dare-devil type, who sat drinking and smok- 
 ing at httle tables. From an open cofiin a 
 grim skeleton stared at everybody, and prizes 
 were given for the most audacious witticisms 
 about death. The more outrageous the blas- 
 phemies were, the louder were the roars of ap- 
 plause with which they were received. 
 
 But the Marechale and her young lieuten- 
 ants, "armed in complete steel" — ^the panoply 
 of God — ^were not afraid of the gates of hell. 
 Having obtained permission to sing, they 
 mounted the estrade, and rendered some of 
 their most attractive part-songs. The cafe 
 orchestra at once took up the airs as if it had 
 been paid to do so. The songs of Paradise 
 were well received even in those regions, and 
 then the Marechale, stepping forward, made 
 a little speech: 
 
 "You are very clever here. You play very 
 well. But it is a role that you play. Your 
 laughter is not real; I can tell you the source 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE llT 
 
 of true laughter and true joy. This is not life, 
 it is death; I can tell you what real life is. 
 This is not peace, it is an effort to drown care 
 and forget trouble; I can tell you the secret 
 of peace. Let me give you my address, where 
 you can hear us sing again." 
 
 It required as much moral courage to de- 
 liver that speech as to face all the jurists of 
 Helvetia. 
 
 When the Marechale was leaving, she passed 
 a lovely girl, in whose ear she whispered, 
 "What are you doing here? you ought to be in 
 bed." 
 
 "Who win give me a supper or a bed?" the 
 girl plaintively asked. 
 
 "I wiU!" exclaimed the Marechale; "come 
 with me, quick!" 
 
 She hailed a cab, put the girl in, and drove 
 away. The poor child, eighteen years of age, 
 had a sad tale to tell. She had noble blood in 
 her veins, and her mother and she had both 
 been cruelly wronged. The Marechale led her 
 to Christ and ultimately secured for her a posi- 
 tion in one of the best colleges of America, 
 where she was universally respected. Not long 
 after she was installed there, she sent the Mare- 
 
118 THE MARECHALE 
 
 chale 500 francs, with the pathetic message, 
 "Save another, as you saved me." 
 
 The Marechale's methods naturally gave 
 oiFence to those who had not the courage to 
 adopt them. Late one night she and some 
 comrades were standing at the door of a thea- 
 tre while it was emptying. One of her young 
 officers cried in clear, penetrating tones, "Pre- 
 pare to meet thy God!" The words seemed 
 to send an electric shock through the gay 
 crowd. Thereupon a gentleman came forward 
 to the Marechale and said: 
 
 "Mademoiselle, you are evidently young 
 girls of good family, and I am scandalised to 
 see you here at this hour. I, too, occupy my- 
 self with preaching, but I am shocked at your 
 behaviour." 
 
 "Really?" she replied, "and I am scandalised 
 that you are scandalised. You profess to be- 
 lieve the Gospel. How are you to get these 
 indifferent tens of thousands to hear of the 
 Saviour? They won't come to listen to you. 
 What more natural and more in accord with 
 the principles of Jesus, than to go to them and 
 compel them to hear?" 
 
 Ten minutes after, the gentleman returned 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 119 
 
 and slid a five-franc piece into her hand, say- 
 ing: 
 
 "It is you who are right!" 
 
 It was impossible for young girls to be in 
 the boulevards towards midnight vpithout be- 
 ing sometimes molested. But the leader would 
 instruct her soldiers thus: "If they say the 
 vilest things in the world to you, remember that 
 is only the outside. Think of their souls which 
 cost so dear to Christ. Say one or two sen- 
 tences that will remain with them, and pass on." 
 
 More than once she proved this method of 
 dealing to be very ejSfective. In a corner of 
 one of the boulevards a "gentleman" ap- 
 proached her and asked for a rendezvous. She 
 looked at him in silence, which he took for con- 
 sent. 
 
 "Where?" he asked, taking out his pencil 
 and note-book. 
 
 "Devant le Trone de Dieu!" (Before the 
 Throne of God!) 
 
 The man took to his heels, and ran. 
 
 That went all over France. One day the 
 same sword wUl pierce the conscience of every 
 roue in the universe. 
 
 The Marechale's second original idea was to 
 
120 THE MARECHALE 
 
 begin a series of Conferences (Meetings) in 
 the fashionable Lecture Hall of the Boulevard 
 des Capucines. Her increasing popularity 
 only deepened her sense of duty to the city of 
 her adoption, and suggested to her the possi- 
 bility of bringing Christ to the Boulevards as 
 well as to the ViUette. She could not live in gay 
 Paris without profoundly pitying the thought- 
 less, infidel Rich, for whom it is proverb- 
 ially so hard to enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 Her^idea of attacking the central stronghold 
 of the world's fashion and pleasure was a dar- 
 ing one for a woman, especially for a woman 
 of the Marechale's youthful years. About this 
 time she read the Life of Napoleon, and found 
 in his astonishing career many lessons for an 
 evangelist. She was especially struck by his 
 faith in his star, and his contempt for "ce Mte 
 de mot, impossible." She knew that she had 
 something better to trust than a star, and 
 stronger reason for holding that all things are 
 possible. 
 
 Her new plan of campaign was great alike 
 in its conception and its execution. From the 
 very first the Conferences for men were as- 
 tonishingly successful, and they were renewed 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 121 
 
 year after year. The audiences were very dif- 
 ferent from a Keswick or Northfield congre- 
 gation, in which the preaching is mostly to the 
 converted. Perhaps the best parallel to the 
 Marechale's Conferences is to be found in 
 Professor Drummond's Sunday evening meet- 
 ings for students (men only) in the Oddfel- 
 lows Hall, Edinburgh, which, by a strange co- 
 incidence, began in the same year. Having 
 enjoyed the friendship of both these evangel- 
 ists, and listened to them many scores of times, 
 I have often been forcibly struck by their like- 
 ness to each other, and for power to rivet the 
 attention and inspire the confidence of culti- 
 vated men of the world I have met nobody to 
 compare with them. 
 
 When the Marechale came to hold her first 
 Conference, the proprietor of the haU entered 
 her ante-room and advised her to dehver a sort 
 of ethical lecture, rather than speak of salva- 
 tion, as it was the worldly fashionable public 
 who would assemble, and he was afraid they 
 would not be pleased if they heard too much of 
 religion. But they listened with rapt attention 
 while she spoke on the text "Without God and 
 without hope in the world." Of the second 
 
122 THE MARECHALE 
 
 Conference Galignani's Messenger said, "The 
 subject, 'The Greatest Sin,' was treated with 
 a force of religious arguments which made a 
 visible impression on many persons in the audi- 
 ence. The attention was deep and respectful. 
 The Hall was crowded, and the doors were 
 vainly besieged by a numerous crowd, the 
 greater part of whom remained outside the 
 open windows to hear the address." Another 
 leading journal said, "She has profoundly as- 
 tonished the citizen sceptic, who has been out 
 of the habit of being astonished for a long 
 time." 
 
 Her brother Ballington was present at a 
 later meeting, and described the impression 
 made on himself as one who did not know 
 French. "I had to cover my face more than 
 once while our Marechale spoke. Her words, 
 though in a foreign language, yet seemed 
 understandable. The Spirit does not confine 
 Himself to words alone. He speaks through 
 the countenance, and eyes, and hands — He fills 
 the Temples of His children. Three things 
 struck me in that meeting: first, the rapt atten- 
 tion and interest of the audience, and there 
 seemed few who were not impressed at the 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 123 
 
 close; second, the manner in which the people 
 remained in the after-meeting on to the end; 
 third, the utter amazement, and yet perfect 
 solemnity of the congregation, when some sin- 
 ner came up through the aisles to seek peace, 
 even rising as though to make sure that what 
 they saw was a fact." Then he adds — and one 
 notes the beautiful transition — "I was also 
 present and took part in meetings at Paris in 
 which the very poorest were attending by hun- 
 dreds, and at which I saw men of the vilest 
 caste and Hf e getting saved." No small part of 
 the Marechale's charm lay in her flexibility and 
 adaptability — ^her Pauline habit of becoming 
 all things to aU men — ^to the rich and to the 
 poor, to the wise and to the unwise — that she 
 might win some. 
 
 At a later time the Marechale dehvered some- 
 what similar addresses in other cities of France 
 such as Nimes, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen, 
 Lyons — and she was everywhere astonished to 
 find that the French, who seem the most 
 thoughtless, are yet among the most thought- 
 ful people in the world. The result of such 
 Conferences as these cannot be tabulated. For 
 one thing, they made the Marechale more than 
 
124. THE MARECHALE 
 
 ever a mother-confessor and spiritual director. 
 The thoughts of many hearts were revealed to 
 her at private interviews of which no record 
 was kept, and in letters, one of which may be 
 given as containing the secret of the Mare- 
 chale's power — her possession of Christ's Spirit 
 — a second as showing the abyss of doubt f ronj 
 which many of her hearers had to be rescued, 
 and some others as indicating the wonderful 
 success which often attended her efforts. 
 
 The first runs as foUows: "I am glad you 
 accept my request to visit my home. You will 
 consider the intention in asking you to come 
 under my roof, like One before you, who had 
 the noblest Heart which ever beat for man- 
 kind. It is because this Great Heart has pos- 
 sessed yours to the degree of rendering you 
 like Himself, that you have profoundly moved 
 me and made me better. Certainly I wiU speak 
 with you on these vital subjects, but I need 
 more and more the moral and spiritual atmos- 
 phere of the meetings: this opens the heart 
 and at the same time deadens the opposition 
 of the mind. Oh, if the latter could hold its 
 peace! ... I have lived much in solitude, and 
 naturally these problems have been always with 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 125 
 
 me. I may say that the Infinite has tortured 
 me for twenty years: lately I have arrived at 
 the conclusion that one can know nothing. So 
 I shall be glad to speak with you and at 
 length." 
 
 A second correspondent wrote : "Your mar- 
 vellous faith, your simple and powerful elo- 
 quence so deeply moved me that I cannot but 
 thank you. I thank you as an artist, as a 
 sincere admirer of beautiful work, of great 
 characters ; I thank you as a man blase, scepti- 
 cal, benumbed and deadened. As a child I 
 adored Jesus, and now, after having thought 
 much and suifered infinite pains which you 
 cannot understand, I have said adieu to faith 
 and also adieu to hope ! I have become one of 
 those you call sceptics. Ah! do not say 'ter- 
 rible' sceptic, but unfortunate, pitiable, un- 
 happy sceptic. You are, Madame, a great, 
 beautiful, generous heart, and if ever earnest 
 good wishes have been worth anything, I have 
 cherished them for you, your work, and those 
 who fight by your side. You wiU believe me, 
 an unbeliever, who envies you, admires you, 
 and ideally loves you." 
 
 A third of her hearers wrote succinctly: 
 
126 THE MARECHALE 
 
 "Two of your meetings have sufficed to de- 
 stroy infidel convictions of twenty years' 
 standing." 
 
 A fourth, after testifying to his respect and 
 confidence, said: "What your soul yearns for 
 is conversion. You would like me to add, I 
 am converted. I cannot say that I am. But 
 you have made an incredible impression on me, 
 and you have made me love the Christ I never 
 loved." He evidently could not rest there, and 
 soon he sent a second letter, describing with 
 thankfulness how one night, in prayer and 
 agonising mental controversy, he had received 
 a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which had 
 finally slain his doubt and made him a believer 
 in God. 
 
 The twofold purpose of the Conferences was 
 to conquer the feelings and tastes, the etiquette 
 and conventionality, of people of the world, 
 and to awaken faith in unbehevers. One day 
 a very bad man thrust some bank-notes into 
 the Marechale's hand, saying while he did so: 
 
 "I believe in nothing." 
 
 "You believe in nothing, and yet you give 
 me these bank-notes !" 
 
 He replied, "I believe in you, and I wish yoa 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 127 
 
 had a hall in every town and hamlet and vil- 
 lage in my comitry." 
 
 "Pull out your watch," she said. "I believe 
 in your watch, I beheve that it keeps time, but 
 I do not believe in its maker ! . . . I am naturally 
 just as great a lover of ease and comfort as 
 you are. The motive power — la force motrice 
 — of my life, the spring upon which everything 
 turns, is the love of Christ. You believe in me ; 
 believe in Him who has made me what I am." 
 
 The Marechale's third new departure was 
 perhaps the most important of all — ^the f oimd- 
 ing of an ificole MHitaire, or school for cadets, 
 somewhat siaular to the Military School at 
 Clapton, over which her sister Emma at that 
 time presided. When Catherine first went to 
 France, a very noted Protestant pastor said 
 to her, "You wiU never get three Frenchwom- 
 en to live together in peace." But at the Train- 
 ing Home, Avenue Lumiere 3, in the Villette, 
 where the Marechale lived all the year round 
 with her officers, there were as many as forty 
 or fifty young women — among whom, at one 
 time, a Princess's daughters were side by side 
 with scullery maids — and the harmony, the 
 
128 THE MARECHALE 
 
 love, the spirit of "never mind me," which pre- 
 vailed was one of the miracles of the work in 
 France, 
 
 To the training of company after company 
 of young cadets — French, Swiss, English, Bel- 
 gian, German, Italian and Russian — ^the Mare- 
 chale gave a great deal of her time and 
 strength, her pattern heing ever our Lord's 
 own training of the Twelve. All obeyed her 
 joyfuUy and without question. She realised 
 intuitively that the highest thing in training is 
 not discipline, but something which discipline 
 follows as light foUows the sun. That some- 
 thing is the spirit, the atmosphere, which men 
 and women are brought into and which trans- 
 forms them. In the £cole Mihtaire it was the 
 selflessness of people who did not care what 
 became of them. Where that spirit takes pos- 
 session of any one, there is no need to say to 
 hini, "You shall do this or that." The law of 
 the spirit of life makes him obedient without 
 constraint. 
 
 When the Marechale read the Life of Gari- 
 baldij she was startled. She saw in him all she 
 ever aimed at as a leader. His followers un- 
 derstood his motives, realised his disinterest- 
 
THE SOUL or FRANCE 129 
 
 edness, saw that rewards and honours were 
 nothing to the man who was seeking the lib- 
 erty of Italy. Therefore they loved him so 
 much that they would have died for him. There 
 was no immense difference between the Staff 
 and the Field, and yet there was discipline, 
 obedience, devotion such as the world has 
 scarcely ever seen equalled. 
 
 That was the spirit which the Marechale 
 sought to impart to the ificole Militaire. 
 Everything else — ^how to study the Bible, how 
 to conduct meetings, how to use the voice, how 
 to deal with souls — ^was subordinated by her 
 to the one thing needful — the spirit of sacri- 
 fice. "We are sometimes told," she once wrote, 
 "that our uniforms, our young women speak- 
 ing in public, our tambourines and our proces- 
 sions bring contempt upon religion. It is a 
 mistake. That which is the laughing-stock of 
 the world and of hell is a rehgion without sac- 
 rifice. People will never believe in Christians 
 who, while professing to be disciples of Him 
 who had not where to lay His head, live in lux- 
 ury, seek first the comfort of their family, the 
 health and position of their children, and let 
 their souls perish for lack of that Gospel which 
 
130 THE MARECHALE 
 
 they profess to believe. There is the secret of 
 the unbelief of France; that is what makes the 
 young who are in search of the truth cry 'Com- 
 edy!' On the other hand, those faces which 
 radiate the light from on high, those young 
 people who rise up to give themselves to God 
 instead of the world, those men and women 
 who declare, with a sincerity which leaves no 
 room for doubt, that they consecrate their life 
 to God for the saving of souls, are more elo- 
 quent than the most beautiful discourses." 
 
 The faces of officers and cadets who sur^ 
 rounded the Marechale on her platform un- 
 doubtedly constituted a large element of her 
 power. Renee Gange, the Socialist, wrote a 
 fine appreciation of her and her comrades, in 
 which she confesses that what she- finds "re- 
 markable among these young girls, pretty as 
 well as plain, is the complete absence of the 
 ordinary feminine expression. ... In looking 
 with searching, scrutinising eye at the faces 
 enveloped in this ugly bonnet, we have not 
 deciphered the least vestige of this expression, 
 neither timidity, nor awkwardness, nor restless- 
 ness, nor the consciousness that people are 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 131 
 
 thinking of them. Nothing. These faces are 
 the free faces of free creatures." 
 
 One day a French Baron, who had received 
 a great blessing at the Marechale's Confer- 
 ences, said to her in the great hall at the Rue 
 Auber, "What you lack here is pictures; for 
 instance, the saints. Those beautiful faces, 
 with their sweet celestial expressions, diffuse 
 a sentiment of reverence and quietness, and 
 they would form such a beautiful background 
 to you. You should have the Virgin, and Saint 
 Francis, and many others. That is what you 
 lack in all your halls: could we not do some- 
 thing?" 
 
 "Baron," said the Marechale, "will you come 
 here next Sunday evening?" 
 
 "Yes, certainly. Are you going to speak?" 
 He never lost a chance of hearing her. 
 
 "Yes ; be sure you do not miss it." 
 
 On Sunday evening she marshalled her httle 
 group of officers. She filed them in, men on 
 one side, women on the other. She stood in 
 the midst of them and spoke. At the end 
 of the meeting the Baron came forward. 
 
 "Marechale," he said, "you have no need of 
 
132 THE MARECHALE 
 
 pictures. Those figures! those faces! they are 
 your pictures." 
 
 Her friend Frank Crossley was greatly 
 struck by this incident. He wrote: "I was 
 specially interested in the remark upon inspired 
 faces. I once heard Rendel Harris say of the 
 biblical critics, that they might tear the volume 
 into shreds, but never could rub oif the light 
 of God from the faces of His people." 
 
 One of the cadets of the £cole Militaire was 
 Constance Monod, daughter of the great Prot- 
 estant preacher whose hymn, "Oh, the bitter 
 shame and sorrow," is known everywhere. 
 Having received salvation and rich spiritual 
 blessings from attending the Marechale's meet- 
 ings, she became one of her most devoted offi- 
 cers and warmest friends. She was one day 
 put up to speak to a very rough audience of 
 lewd, low men, and one of the roughest and 
 lewdest of them said, with tears in his eyes: 
 
 "Oh, what extraordinary purity in that 
 face!" 
 
 That was the expression which gave so many 
 of the cadets their power in the cafes and in 
 the slums. It was what they were, far more 
 than what they said, that did the work. 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 133 
 
 Among the new cadets there was always a 
 great heart-searching. Were they sure of their 
 vocation? Had they a due sense of the seri- 
 ousness, the sacredness, the responsibility, the 
 opportunity of the call to work and fight for 
 God? If they were not right there, everything 
 was wrong. But if they had really left the 
 world, and come to learn to know GoD^ He re- 
 vealed Himself to them, and it was marvellous 
 how rapidly they grew in that heart-knowledge 
 which is always so much deeper than head- 
 knowledge. 
 
 Whenever troubles and difiiculties arose, the 
 ■Marechale's method was not to evade them, 
 but to grip things at the bottom. An invita- 
 tion to "come and have a cup of tea" would 
 lead to earnest talk and prayer, by which she 
 nipped many an evil in the bud. These "per- 
 sonals," as such interviews were called, were 
 remembered ever afterwards with gratitude. 
 
 The conquest of self, the triumph of the 
 spirit of love, was illustrated in small matters 
 as well as in great. One day a Frenchman, 
 Fran9ois, refused to clean the boots of another 
 cadet, who was a German. 
 
 "I clean a Gterman's boots? Never! never!" 
 
134 THE MARECHALE 
 
 The Marechale quietly said: 
 
 "The boots will be cleaned." 
 
 "Never by me!" 
 
 "By you." 
 
 "Well, not now, let them wait!" 
 
 The whole day passed, and the boots were 
 not cleaned. The Marechale knew what Fran- 
 9ois suffered inwardly, and got him alone in the 
 evening. 
 
 "Jesus died for the Germans," she said. 
 
 His lips remained tightly pressed. He suf- 
 fered, and she suffered with him. After a 
 moment's silence he burst into a torrent. 
 
 "We have endured too much ! Think of the 
 siege of Paris. That beast of a Bismarck! 
 Oh! our country has suffered. Clean a Ger- 
 man's boots? Never!" 
 
 He raved. The Marechale was quiet and 
 listened for a time. Then she said: 
 
 "AU that may be true; but you are going 
 to have a greater victory over the Germans 
 than ever the Germans won over you. The 
 triumph which they had over France was a 
 flea-bite in comparison." 
 
 She got his ear, and talked to him of the 
 highest things. The victory which Jesus won 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 135 
 
 on Calvary over Pilate and the Priests and 
 Judas, this must be rran9ois' victory. 
 
 "Go back to your trade unless you can win 
 this victory. This makes an apostle of Fran- 
 9ois, and nothing else. These boots are only 
 a detaU, but they have brought to hght some- 
 thing in you that is hindering the great vic- 
 tory." 
 
 And so they talked. She would not force 
 him. Next morning she gave a lecture, at the 
 end of which he came into her room and sat 
 down. There was a moment's silence, and then 
 he collapsed, falling all of a heap and sobbing 
 like a child. 
 
 "Marechale," he said, "I wiU clean the 
 boots!" 
 
 Such training inside the ificole made the ca- 
 dets ready for any conflict outside, and the 
 triumph of the spirit of love was in some in- 
 stances a preparation for death. The first of 
 the Marechale's cadets to win the martyr's 
 crown was Louis Jeanmonod. 
 
 He was a Swiss youth, finely built, nearly 
 six foot, and twenty-one years of age; a true 
 soldier, devoted, courageous, tender-hearted. 
 His months of training were almost over, and 
 
136 THE MARECHALE 
 
 in the last three weeks he developed wonder- 
 fully. He visited the cafes with great success, 
 singing and speaking, holding his auditors in 
 breathless silence. He had great power in con- 
 victing people, and often his opponents would 
 become his friends and ask him to continue to 
 speak to them. 
 
 On a January night in 1885 he was guard- 
 ing the door of the Hall at the Quai de Vahny, 
 when one of the roughs ran at him head fore- 
 most and butted him violently in the stomach. 
 Louis managed to shut the door, and next day 
 went on bravely with his work, even selling the 
 En Avant in the evening, till the pain became 
 very severe. The doctor found that a quan- 
 tity of blood had already settled in his lungs, 
 and soon after pronounced his case beyond all 
 human skill. 
 
 Louis was for a time delirious, but he had 
 never in his past life played the fool, and he 
 uttered no word that his mother would not 
 have wished to hear. He always seemed to 
 be starting on a campaign. Were the caps, 
 the bags, and everything else ready? Oh! 
 what glorious times were coming! 
 
 When the delirium passed, and his mind 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 137 
 
 became calm, his pallid face shone with a 
 strange light. As soon as the Marechale came 
 to his bedside, he saluted and said — 
 
 "Amen, Marechale, amen!" 
 
 What were his thoughts of the ruffian who 
 had dealt the deadly blow? He had only a 
 single thought — "One day he will be saved." 
 Detectives came to receive the dying man's 
 description of the assailant. A message from 
 them to this effect was conveyed to Louis, who 
 answered it in a single word: 
 
 "Jamais!" (Never!) 
 
 But he described the guilty man to the 
 Marechale, that she might know him and pray 
 for him. 
 
 Seeking her hand when the end drew near, 
 he said — 
 
 "Oh, I love so much to hold your fingers." 
 
 "Jesus will take your hands, Louis, and 
 guide you into the port." 
 
 "I will — let myself — ^be guided — ^by Him." 
 
 The Marechale prayed, and with the spirit 
 of Saint Stephen in his breast and the words 
 "It is too beautiful!" on his lips, he went to be 
 with Christ. BelleviQe and the Villette were 
 stirred to the depths by a martyr's funeral. 
 
138 THE MARECHALE 
 
 and at the grave Theodore Monod spoke words 
 which moved the hearts of all. 
 
 The young Marechale who gathered round 
 her men and women of this stamp — a willing 
 people in the day of the Lord's power, ready 
 for everything, faithful unto death — evidently 
 possessed high qualities of leadership, and ere 
 long the spirit of the I^eole Militaire was to be 
 found in every station of the Army throughout 
 Erance and Switzerland. Speaking at one of 
 the General's great meetings in Scotland, Pro- 
 fessor Henry Drummond said that after trav- 
 elling all over the South of Europe, visiting 
 many cathedrals and hearing famous orators, 
 he had landed at Marseilles, and felt more of 
 the presence and power of Christ in the Salva- 
 tion Army meeting-place of that town than 
 he had experienced in all his wanderings. The 
 General repeated this to the Marechale, and 
 she f oimd that the meeting which had so pro- 
 foundly impressed the Professor had beein 
 conducted by a young officer. Mile. Dormois, 
 who had recently left the Training School in 
 Paris. 
 
 That the authorities at home praised God 
 for the Marechale's work scarcely needs say- 
 
THE SOUL OF FRANCE 139 
 
 ing. Her father's appreciation found expres- 
 sion in every letter. Here are brief extracts 
 from three of them. 
 
 "My dear girl, my very precious girl, I 
 know you are after my own heart. I place 
 boundless confidence in your judgment and 
 resolutions. Do not be afraid of anything or 
 any one." 
 
 "You are a true heroine, a Joan of Arc, 
 indeed." 
 
 "You must have a fearful strain upon you. 
 Still a great part of your business is to keep 
 yourself quiet and free from wearing care. 
 To be cool and steady under fire is the quahty 
 of the very best soldiers. I fear I have not 
 excelled in this direction, and it is a very diffi- 
 cult property in our family, seeing how full 
 of sympathy and feeling our hearts and lives 
 are, but God can do much for us." 
 
 Every letter from her eldest brother Bram- 
 weU, who was the Chief of Staff, was a "Well 
 done!" from over the sea. Writing in 1885 — 
 the year of his and Stead's heroic crusade 
 against vice — ^he said: "I get more and more 
 dissatisfied with things human every day. The 
 world is all gone mad. If it was only bad, and 
 
140 THE MARECHALE 
 
 not mad, we could mend it, but being both I 
 get less and less hope instead of more! We 
 wiU now attend to quality more. If we could 
 get better people surely we should go faster. 
 I solemnly believe you are ahead of us on the 
 Continent in this direction." 
 
 In the following year he wrote: "Do not 
 think you wiU ever be less dear to me than you 
 have been. You cannot be. I love and admire 
 you, and if you were my general to-morrow 
 I should f oUow you to the last gasp and stick 
 while there was one limb of me left." 
 
WOMAN'S VOCATION 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 woman's vocation 
 
 "There can be neither Jew nor Greek; 
 there can be neither bond nor free; there can 
 be no male and female: for ye are all one in 
 Christ Jesus." After the lapse of many cen- 
 turies this great apostoHc saying is beginning 
 to yield up its meaning and its blessing. The 
 Mother of the Army was one of the first to 
 assert woman's liberty, and her daughters en- 
 tered into a sacred heritage. Having become 
 a pubhc speaker at fourteen, and seen the work 
 of faith rewarded with countless signs follow- 
 ing, the Marechale could never harbour any 
 secret fear that her ministry might be grieving 
 the Spirit of God. It was impossible, how- 
 ever, that she should work for years without 
 encountering many who had strong prejudices. 
 Our Lord's disciples "marvelled that He spake 
 with a woman," and there are stiU disciples who 
 marvel when a woman speaks for Him. 
 
 143 
 
144 THE MARECHALE 
 
 In the summer of her third year in France, 
 the Marechale attacked the old city of Nimes, 
 in the largely Protestant Gard — the first of a 
 series of campaigns which were the means of 
 bringing a blessing to a number of the prov- 
 inces of France. On her arrival she found that 
 M. Peyron, an eminent judge, who had greatly 
 benefited from hearing her before, had ar- 
 ranged a preliminary meeting of the orthodox 
 of Nimes— pastors and their wives and other 
 Protestant workers — to the number of about 
 120. He was anxious that they should be 
 won before her campaign began, but he had 
 no idea that he had prepared for her one of 
 the battles royal of her life. 
 
 The meeting being thrown open, the doc- 
 trine of holiness — God's power to keep His 
 children from sinning — first came up, and was 
 violently attacked by several pastors who con- 
 founded it with perfectionism. Their remarks 
 were loudly applauded, and one lady screamed 
 above the rest — 
 
 "Let him that is without sin get up and 
 testify." 
 
 Greatly daring, the Marechale whispered to 
 a comrade who sat beside her, "Rise, Bisson," 
 
WOMAN'S VOCATION 145 
 
 which he did, and in a few simple words testi- 
 fied, not indeed to his own perfection, but to 
 God's power to sanctify and keep as well as 
 justify. 
 
 After a momentary lull, the storm became 
 fiercer than ever, and the ministry of women 
 was now the cause of war. The Marechale 
 alluded to her mother's manifesto on the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "We have read it," said a lady, "and we do 
 not agree with it. Women are meant for the 
 home. They are commanded to be silent in the 
 churches." 
 
 "Besides," cried another, "you are not old 
 enough." 
 
 The Marechale quoted the words, "Let na 
 man despise thy youth," 
 
 "But that," retorted a pastor's wife, "was 
 said to a man." 
 
 Thereupon the babel of voices became deaf- 
 ening. 
 
 "Pretty and prepossessing girls," a matron 
 was heard to say, "should not show themselves 
 in pubhc." 
 
 "If you do speak," said a pastor, skilled in 
 
146 THE MARECHALE 
 
 distinctions, "you should speak to women only, 
 and not before men." 
 
 All through the storm the central figure was 
 quiet and self-possessed. But she was thinking 
 hard. The idea of a distinction in sex had 
 never come before her as a speaker ; it was new 
 and strange to her. When she at length spoke 
 again, she put the result of her thinking into 
 a simple, memorable, unanswerable dictum: 
 
 "But there is no sex in soul." 
 
 Perhaps somebody had said the same thing 
 before, but it was none the less original on her 
 part. Then she expanded the truth: 
 
 "The needs of a man's soul are the same as 
 a woman's, and vice versa. You do not get up 
 and say there are so many men and so many 
 women in a meeting. They all need salvation, 
 pardon, purity, peace; all the gifts and graces 
 of the Spirit are for men and women alike. Of 
 course," she continued, "if any woman is so 
 light and frivolous that she makes such a dis- 
 tinction, that certainly proves that she has no 
 vocation to be an evangelist, and I should send 
 lier home by the next train." 
 
 She felt that the atmosphere of the room was 
 very trying. Religious controversies, Uke re- 
 
WOMAN'S VOCATION 147 
 
 ligious wars, create a more painful spirit 
 than any other quarrels. Instead of prolong- 
 ing the discussion, the Marechale sank on her 
 knees and began to pray. She had won by 
 prayer many factories which were remembered 
 after long years. When she was a chUd of 
 fourteen, she attended a meeting of her moth- 
 er's at Ryde in the Isle of Wight. She sat far 
 back beside the door, listening till the address 
 was ended, and then she heard her mother ask 
 if some brother or sister would pray. As no- 
 body responded, and the sUence became too op- 
 pressive to bear, Katie rose and poured out 
 her heart to God in tones of passionate earnest- 
 ness, seeking for a victory ere the meeting 
 ended. When she got home, she was folded 
 in her mother's arms and covered with kisses; 
 and forty years after, when she was herself 
 conducting a mission at Ryde, a saintly lady 
 of ninety-two told her that no prayer lived in 
 her memory like that child's prayer. 
 
 It was such a prayer — long, intense, passion- 
 ate — ^that the JMarechale prayed among the 
 orthodox of Nimes. That night the eldest 
 daughter of M. Peyron, a beautiful, worldly 
 girl, was won for Christ. At seven o'clock 
 
148 THE MARECHALE 
 
 on the following morning two pastors, MM. 
 Challand and Babut, along with M. Peyron, 
 awoke the Marechale. They had come to say, 
 for themselves and others, how they deplored 
 the scene of the preceding night, and to beg 
 forgiveness. 
 
 On Sunday morning the campaign proper 
 was begun in the Alcasar, which was packed, 
 and the wives of several pastors were among 
 those who came in tears to the penitent form. 
 Albin Peyron, junior, who is to-day the leader 
 of the Army in Switzerland, began the new 
 life at a "Night with Jesus" which was held 
 after that meeting. In his youth he was the 
 founder of La Petite Armee, which did much 
 good work among the children of Nimes and 
 other towns of Southern France. 
 
 While the Marechale was always at home in 
 crowds, she loved quiet interviews with indi- 
 viduals if possible still more. In many of 
 these talks the subject was the victory of faith. 
 During one of her tournees, she was conduct- 
 ing meetings in a theatre at Cannes. On a 
 lovely September evening she was walking 
 towards the sea, lost in admiration of the sun- 
 
WOMAN'S VOCATION 149 
 
 set. Fatigued with her Sunday morning's 
 work, she was seeking a little repose. She ob- 
 served a priest slowly proceeding towards the 
 hill on which stood a little Catholic church. His 
 appearance struck her; he looked at once so 
 distinguished and so sad. An inner voice said 
 to her, "Speak to that priest." "I cannot," 
 she said, "he would think me mad." But the 
 voice said the same words a second time, and 
 then she instantly obeyed. Hurrying towards 
 the priest, she said — 
 
 "Good-evening, mon pdre. I presume you 
 are going to the church on the hill. May I 
 accompany you, for I would speak with you on 
 spiritual subjects?" 
 
 Uncovering his head, and bowing with great 
 respect, he answered, "Certainly, madame." 
 
 They walked on for a little in silence. Then 
 she said — 
 
 "What must I do to be saved, my father?" 
 
 "Keep the ten commandments," he an- 
 swered at once. 
 
 "But the rich young man who came to Jesus 
 could say with his hand on his heart that he had 
 kept them all, and yet had no assurance of sal- 
 
150 THE MARECHALE 
 
 vation. He was in great trouble. He said, 
 'What must I do to be saved?' " 
 
 "Oh, then you must take the holy Eucharist 
 very often." 
 
 "But those who take it, my father, are they 
 saved from sinning? Are they not the victims 
 of the power of evU, the same as others?" 
 
 "Oh! yes, madame, but then there is the 
 Confessional." 
 
 "But does not the same thing apply to the 
 Confessional, my father? You must know that 
 there are tens of thousands in France who con- 
 fess, but fall again the next day. They have 
 not found rest. Is not Christ ready to save 
 us if we are ready to be saved?" 
 
 "Alas ! madame, we shall sin always, always, 
 to the very end of our Hves." 
 
 "But, my father, were not St. Augustine, 
 St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, 
 Fenelon and many others, delivered from the 
 slavery of sin and self? They attained to 
 something definite — ^to holiness." 
 
 He turned with vehemence and said, raising 
 his voice — 
 
 "Ah! madame, but those were extraordinary 
 lives. Those people were saints." 
 
WOMAN'S VOCATION 151 
 
 "No, my father, they were men and women 
 like you and me. What God did for St. Au- 
 gustine or St. Catherine of Siena, can He not 
 do it for me if I am ready to fulfil the condi- 
 tions which He lays down? What does religion 
 do, what is it worth, if it cannot deliver us from 
 sin?" 
 
 He did not answer. He was silently think- 
 ing. 
 
 She went on, "Is Christ a Saviour, yes or 
 no?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes, yes, He is!" 
 
 "Has He saved you, my father?" 
 
 They stood still for a moment, and he turned 
 his face away, with a look of poignant sadness. 
 Then followed a confession — one of the deep- 
 est, most heartfelt cries she had ever listened 
 to — endiQg with the words, "Alas, alas! aU the 
 days of my hfe I sin, and I expect to sin to my 
 latest breath (d mon dernier souffle) " 
 
 The Marechale was profoundly moved, and 
 felt that she stood upon holy ground. At last 
 she spoke — 
 
 "Then Calvary is the greatest fiasco the 
 world has ever seen." 
 
152 THE MARECHALE 
 
 Stretching out his hand, he said, "Oh, ma- 
 dame, do not say that; it is blasphemy." 
 
 "But, my father, we are in the presence of 
 facts, not fancies. You have left what men 
 prize most. You have lived up to your light. 
 And what do I find? Torment instead of rest, 
 conflict instead of assurance, bondage instead 
 of dehverance. Surely, my father, Jesus did 
 not come to increase our burdens, but to reheve 
 them. You remember His word, 'Come unto 
 me and I will give you rest.' He said, 'My 
 yoke is easy and my burden is hght.' Are 
 these theories to be preached in pulpits, or are 
 they realities?" 
 
 By this time they stood on the summit of 
 the hill, and she said — 
 
 "You are going to preach to-night, mon 
 pere?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Would you like that we should go down 
 the hill together and resume our conversation?" 
 
 "It would be a great pleasure, madame." 
 
 He preached one of the best sermons she 
 had ever heard, partly inspired, she could not 
 help thinking, by their intimate talk. As the 
 congregation moved out, she stepped into a 
 
WOMAN'S VOCATION 153 
 
 Confessional box to wait for him. She saw 
 him turning this way and that with a look of 
 disappointment, and, stepping out, said to 
 him — 
 
 "I am here, mon phre." 
 
 They began to descend the hUl together. 
 "My father," she said, "I greatly enjoyed your 
 sermon. But how can you show others the 
 way of dehverance if you have not found it 
 yourself? How can you unbind if you are not 
 unbound? How can you heal if you are not 
 healed? How, my father? Do you not see 
 that all this is only from the head, not from 
 ihe life, the heart?" 
 
 "It is true! But I try, oh, my God, I try!" 
 
 "But it does not come in that way — by our 
 struggles." 
 
 "Then how?" he exclaimed in a tone of de- 
 spair. 
 
 "Does He not say, 'Abide in me, and ask 
 what you will, and it shall be done unto you'? 
 Does not St. Paul testify, 'I can do all things 
 through Christ which strengtheneth me.' How 
 many have given praise to Him who is 'able 
 to save to the uttermost' and 'able to present 
 
154 THE MARECHALE 
 
 us faultless' ! Put Him to the proof. If any 
 one has the right to salvation, surely you have." 
 They paused under a tree in the stillness of 
 evening, and, whUe he stood with bowed head, 
 she knelt beside him and prayed. 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EENUNCIATION OF HOME 
 
 Early in 1887 the Marechale became the 
 wife of Mr. Arthur Sydney Clibborn, an Irish 
 gentleman of Quaker extraction, whose early 
 life was spent in the model town of Bessbrook. 
 The visit of some representatives of Salvation- 
 ism to the town had turned the current of his 
 thoughts in the direction of the Army. As he 
 had spent some years at school in Switzerland, 
 and become proficient in French and German, 
 he was sent by General Booth to assist the 
 Marechale in France, and acted as her chief 
 of staff until their marriage. 
 
 The Marechale was now obliged to leave the 
 Training Home, where her vie apostolique 
 among her beloved officers and cadets, whose 
 every conflict and danger she shared, had often 
 seemed to her like fife in an earthly paradise. 
 But whatever new duties and cares came to 
 her in her little home in the Rue d'Allemagne, 
 
 157 
 
158 THE MARECHALE 
 
 she never allowed them to interfere with her 
 vocation. In the course of fourteen years God 
 gave her five sons and five daughters, among 
 whom hfe was infinitely sweet to her, yet all 
 her pubhc activities were maintained, while 
 her passion for sovds burned with a clear and 
 steady flame. 
 
 Loyalty to Christ now assumed a new as- 
 pect, and the conditions of discipleship an 
 added stringency. A great sentence in the 
 Gospel — "Verily I say unto you, there is no 
 man that hath left house, or brethren, or sis- 
 ters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, 
 or lands, for my sake, and the Gospel's, but he 
 shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, 
 houses and brethren and sisters and mothers 
 and children and lands, with persecutions, and 
 in the world to come eternal life" — ^burned 
 itself into the Marechale's soul, and she never 
 doubted that she received her centuple just 
 because she paid the price. 
 
 When she went to any of the towns of 
 France to undertake a difiicult campaign, it 
 was impossible for her to do her duty unless 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 159 
 
 she fixed her whole mind and heart upon the 
 work. Having to deal with the mass of sin 
 concentrated in a large mixed audience such 
 as she had to face in these towns, and knowing, 
 as she used to say, that every person had a 
 skeleton in the cupboard, she felt that she must 
 become, as it were, the scapegoat to bear the 
 sins of these people. There was a sense in 
 which she had to be Uke Christ in this respect, 
 and so co-operate and suffer with Him (Col. 
 i. 24). She must go and set herself apart to 
 hft up hands to God in favour of the city. She 
 must say to every preoccupation, every earthly 
 tie, "Stand thou there while I go yonder to 
 pray." She must live for that town and that 
 people for six weeks, or two or three months. 
 She might do a certain kind of work without 
 giving her life, but it would not be of the 
 apostohc kind. To get the hundredfold of 
 which Christ spoke she must leave father and 
 mother, home and child. In some very real 
 way she must sacrifice and suffer. She had 
 felt this from her childhood, and she now saw 
 it more clearly than ever; there was always a 
 
160 THE MARECHALE 
 
 price to pay. The secret of success was the 
 consciousness of a vocation, the holy fire of 
 selfless love, the personal dealing with the 
 Christ of Calvary. 
 
 How hard it became for the Marechale to 
 accept this cross may be indicated by a touch- 
 ing scene depicted by her secretary. Miss 
 Gugelman, who is now one of the bravest sol- 
 diers of salvation in India. 
 
 " 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.' How 
 clearly this was illustrated when, at a late hour 
 one evening, just at the close of her month's 
 meetings in Paris, the Marechale bent over her 
 little ones' cots to bid them good-bye before 
 starting on her three-months' tour through 
 France and Switzerland. Evangeline, the eld- 
 est, had kept awake, for she knew that her 
 mamma was going away. The httle arms were 
 flung round the warrior-mother's neck, when, 
 raising her sweet tear-stained face, little Evan- 
 geline stammered, 'Maman, stay with me, or 
 take me with you on your tourneesf Our 
 leader's all too human tears filled her eyes; she 
 kissed the little pleader, and then wrapped her 
 
i 
 
 Tr:?vr« - ■^^, V:^*'/ ^-"J^- • 
 
 THE irARECHALE 
 
 iFrnm n photograph by Fred. Boi.f.^onrtti.t. Paris, circa lft90) 
 
 _. t 
 
 \ragr ]«0 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 161 
 
 up in a blanket, and brought her into the study 
 to see us off. It was painfully clear to us who 
 were watching her, that the leaving of her little 
 ones for the war's sake was a heavy cross to 
 the Marechale. Thank God, she shirks it not. 
 Suppressing her feelings, she went out into the 
 cold and damp, and started her long all-night 
 journey." 
 
 That was in February 1894, and later in the 
 same year she had two of the finest campaigns 
 of her life — at Havre and Rouen. The turbu- 
 lent beginning at Havre was graphically de- 
 scribed by her friend the Princess Malzoff, 
 who accompanied the Marechale in order to 
 have a taste of the vie apostolique. "There 
 was a great tumult in the 'Lyre Havraise.' 
 The Marechale had come to publish the word 
 of love and salvation. An immense crowd 
 forced itself into the hall, and who would have 
 dared believe that they had all come simply to 
 present the world with the most scandalous, 
 the most vulgar and odious spectacle that one 
 can imagine? When the Marechale rose with 
 great dignity and calm . . . she could not make 
 
162 THE MARECHALE 
 
 herself heard. Every word was interrupted; 
 one could see that it was a prepared stroke. 
 One might imagine oneself to be in an asylum. 
 But she did not let herself be discouraged; she 
 persevered ; she walked straight into the midst 
 of the infuriated crowd. She did not tame 
 these wild beasts, but she came out victorious 
 all the same. Tall, beautiful, calm, sustained 
 by her divine conviction and with the strength 
 of a great heart, she came back again and 
 again — our admirable Marechale ! ... In the 
 midst of this infernal and ridiculous tumult a 
 few elite souls felt a noble enthusiasm for this 
 young woman who battled alone against a hos- 
 tile and wicked crowd. They came to grasp 
 her hand, to express their admiration for her 
 and their shame for those who had broken the 
 simplest laws of hospitahty, poUteness and civ-> 
 ihsation. Blessed be ovu* Marechale ; in her the 
 whole Armee du Salut was personified that 
 night in its strength, its faith, its persevering 
 love." 
 
 Tributes to "the Marechale under fire" were 
 extorted from all the reporters. After two or 
 three meetings the atmosphere was changing 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 163 
 
 and the tide of battle turning, when tidings 
 came from Paris that Augustine, the Mare- 
 chale's httle son of two summers, was alarm- 
 ingly ill. Then came an indescribable mental 
 conflict, which ended in her deciding to remain 
 at least another night and hope for better news 
 in the morning. She called her officers for 
 prayer, and that night spoke with a power and 
 tenderness which held the vast audience as 
 with a spell ; after which she had Havre for six 
 weeks in the hollow of her hand. 
 
 Next morning she received a reassuring wire 
 from home, and, sitting alone on the beach, she 
 wrote a hymn that gives perfect expression to 
 the thought of the Greater Love — a hymn that 
 has endeared itself in France as much to Cath- 
 oUcs as to Protestants. It begins: 
 
 Qui quitte famille et terre 
 Pour mon Nom, pour suivrt mes pas; 
 Qui quitte enf ants, pere ou mere^ 
 Regoit le centuple ici-bas. 
 
 When this hymn was sung in the "Lyre 
 Havraise" a night or two afterwards by one of 
 the Marechale's yoimg comrades, Mme. Jean- 
 
164 THE MARECHALE 
 
 monod, who had a beautiful soprano voice, ii 
 was received with a burst of sympathetic ap- 
 plause, and had to be sung over and over again., 
 till the audience knew it. 
 
 Then there was a great harvest of souls to 
 reap. A letter written at the time gives an 
 idea of the intensity of spirit with which the 
 leader threw herself into the work. 
 
 "Meeting superb ! Nothing of its kind since 
 the days of Geneva and Nimes, and even bet^ 
 ter in a sense than that, as the infidels rush to 
 hear me. Perfect order and people pleading 
 to get in. In these first audiences it has been 
 too risky and excitable to allow any to speak 
 but me. They applaud everything, that is, 
 when I have finished speaking, and I never felt 
 more free and regardless of man's opinion. I 
 am stronger with the rough element alone in 
 my weakness, so much stronger as I throw my- 
 self on them. Yes, I am filled with the hfe 
 and power of God for this town. This hour 
 may never come again. My soul is on the full 
 stretch, . . . Do you know what the 'Centuple' 
 is for me? That my children shall become 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 165 
 
 apostles ! Oh, I claim that of God, and do you 
 know there is an assurance in my heart." 
 
 In addition to the nightly crowds at the 
 Casino, the Marechale held afternoon meetings 
 for women only, at which she spoke on such 
 subjects as "The Role of Woman," "The 
 Mother of Jesus," "The White Robe." Noth- 
 ing impressed Havre more than the midnight 
 suppers she gave to the filles perdues of the 
 town, not a few of whom were constrained to 
 abandon the life of sin. And so generous were 
 the rich citizens in their offerings that at the 
 close of the campaign the Marechale was at 
 length able to reahse one of her cherished ideas 
 — ^the foundation of a Rescue Home in Paris. 
 
 After Havre, the Marechale had a short 
 breathing-space at home, and then Rouen had 
 to be faced. Again the shadow of the Cross 
 fell upon httle hearts and hves. Victoire, who 
 was nearly five, pleaded with upstretched 
 arms, "Don't go, mother! stay with us!" {Ne 
 pars pas, Maman! Beste avec nous!) Evan- 
 gehne, who had just turned six, had learned 
 the lesson of separation, and, throwing her 
 
166 THE MARECHALE 
 
 arms around her mother, said, "Maman, if you 
 do go to Rouen, will some souls be saved that 
 would not be saved if you did not go?" 
 
 "Yes; most likely so." 
 
 "Then go, Maman!" 
 
 And Maman went. 
 
 While the good Catholic of Rouen was 
 shocked, the man in the street was amused, at 
 the idea of worshipping God in the Theatre 
 Franpais instead of the stately cathedral, and 
 between them they contrived to make the thing 
 impossible. What, they asked, could be more 
 grotesque than preaching and singing hymns 
 on the stage? At the opening meeting the 
 Marechale herself obtained a fairly good hear- 
 ing, but a hostile element was present which 
 every now and then convulsed the audience 
 with laughter by some comical exclamation; 
 and when one of her comrades attempted to 
 close the meeting with prayer, the rout was 
 complete. Prayer in a theatre was the limit, 
 and next day the Marechale was informed by 
 the Mayor that he must pacify the public by 
 terminating these proceedings. 
 
 The great Casino, at the corner of the square 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 167 
 
 in which Joan of Arc was burned, was then 
 secured, and the Marechale began to deliver 
 a series of addresses on "The Holy Mother 
 of Jesus," "Nineteenth Century Miracles," 
 "Confession," "Restitution," "The Samts," 
 "The Pater Noster," "My Credo," "The Al- 
 tar." The crowds that filled the hall to over- 
 flowing were amazed to find that these subjects 
 were all dealt with quite unecclesiastically, and 
 with such an exclusive application to the indi- 
 vidual heart and life that sacerdotahsm be- 
 came, as it were, non-existent, while the sinner 
 and the Saviour were made manifest and left 
 face to face. The people who came with minds 
 alert left with hearts melted and consciences 
 aroused. Soon there were great numbers of 
 souls seeking spiritual help, and the Marechale 
 announced that she would meet the convicted 
 and anxious in one of the rooms of the Casino. 
 No fewer than four hundred sought private 
 interviews in that place, which thus became a 
 confessional of the simple, primitive order* 
 Not by priestly absolution, but through per- 
 sonal contact with the one High Priest and 
 Mediator, was sin remitted and salvation won. 
 
168 THE MARECHALE 
 
 So many Catholics were converted that the 
 head of one of the seminaries thought it neces- 
 sary to preach against the Armee du Salut. 
 An influential abbe, on the other hand, said: 
 "I cannot, of course, agree with the Salvation- 
 ists, but I am absolutely convinced of their 
 sincerity, and I am certain they are far nearer 
 salvation than the majority of Cathohcs." The 
 cure of the largest paroisse attended one day 
 in his soutane, gave an offering for the mis- 
 sion, and bought the pubhcations at the door. 
 ^When the Marechale was about to speak to 
 women alone on the Holy Mother, two priests 
 expressed their desire to be present, and she 
 had them concealed behind a curtain. At the 
 end they were deeply moved, and assured her 
 they had not heard a single word with which 
 they were not in heartiest agreement. Such 
 was the deep spiritual impression made upon 
 the town that a newspaper was published con- 
 taining nothing but accounts of her meetings 
 and the work going on in the Casino. 
 
 During all her years in France the Mare- 
 chale never posed as a Protestant and never 
 attacked Catholicism. Creeds, ceremonies. 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 169 
 
 penances, pilgrimages — ^these things were to 
 her neither here nor there. She always went 
 for the real, and she found in Christ not only 
 true divinity but perfect humanity. Her ser- 
 mon on the Virgin melted thousands of Catho- 
 lic hearts, and her fundamental doctrine of 
 sacrifice never failed to evoke a response from 
 the Latin races. She was an eager student — 
 so far as the "apostolic life" permitted — of the 
 writings of Catherine of Siena, Thomas a 
 Kempis, Madame Guyon and Fenelon, claim- 
 ing kinship with all who loved the Lord Jesus 
 Christ in sincerity and truth. 
 
 Thus she had great power over Cathohcs 
 as well as Protestants and infidels. One of 
 her most devoted officers, M. le Roux, had, 
 after a brilliant career as a Cathohc student, 
 completed his preparation for the priesthood 
 and received the tonsure, when he came under 
 her influence and found his life completely 
 changed. And the following letter received 
 from a lady-professor in Rouen indicates the 
 kind of impression which was made on many 
 Cathohc minds. 
 
 "Dear Marechale, I wish to do what I have 
 
170 THE MARECHALE 
 
 not yet dared to do when face to face with 
 you — ^that is, to express the pleasure which 
 I have found in your charming Conferences. 
 They have moved and troubled me to such an 
 extent, have thrown such hght in my heart and 
 mind, that I ask myself what is going on 
 within me. Your addresses, so simple and yet 
 so high, so suited to your hearers, so consecu- 
 tive, have influenced me more than aU the beau- 
 tiful sermons of the monks. You have made 
 me understand that God asks something else 
 from us than outward practices and empty 
 ceremonial, and I feel that you have renewed 
 a faith in me that had nearly disappeared. 
 You have made me taste, thanks to your deep 
 convictions and the warmth of your speech, 
 one of the purest joys I have ever known. . . . 
 Be blessed a thousand times, Marechale, for 
 having revealed my religion to be under a new 
 light, for having shaken this apathy which ren- 
 dered me incapable of every generous impulse, 
 for having made me more sensitive to the suf- 
 ferings of others. Be blessed in your children, 
 who one day I hope will reward you nobly for 
 all yoar sacrifices. Be blessed in humani^- 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 171 
 
 the great family which you have elected to live 
 for and which is the object of your care." 
 
 Does such a revival as this leave solid and 
 lasting results? Let one case out of many be 
 presented as evidence that it does. M. Matter 
 was a distinguished engineer and an ojQficer in 
 the French army. Extracts from two of his 
 letters teU what the Rouen campaign did for 
 him. 
 
 "Beloved Marechale, Three years ago to- 
 night a poor man entered the Casino through 
 what appeared mere chance. He was burdened 
 with sorrow, keenly conscious of his sins, but 
 never dreaming of asking the Armee du Salut 
 — ^which did not even excite his curiosity — ^to 
 help him, hardly beheving any more in the 
 possibiUty of salvation for him. God inspired 
 you; the Holy Spirit made your words pene- 
 trate even underneath the breastplate of sin 
 which covered my poor heai-t. Two days after 
 I was born to a new life. From that moment 
 God has strengthened, protected and directed 
 me. I seek to love Him with all my heart, and 
 I treasure a deep and loving gratitude to you." 
 
172 THE MARECHALE 
 
 And six years later: "I have made a pil- 
 grimage at night in the deserted streets to the 
 Casino where God found me and where you 
 were His ambassador." 
 
 This gentleman is now well known all over 
 France for his work among criminals and 
 drimkards, and his services have been recog- 
 nised by the French government. He gets into 
 personal touch with hundreds of convicts in 
 order to speak to them of the love of God, and 
 down in the Ardeche he has a Home for four 
 hundred little waifs, mostly the children of 
 criminals, whom he calls the Marechale's 
 grandchildren, he himself being her spiritual 
 son. 
 
 The last time she visited him in Paris, they 
 were engaged in eager and intimate talk, when 
 he said, "Do you see that ivory pipe? I have 
 engraved on it the day of my conversion af 
 Rouen; but since that time I have never had 
 any inclination to smoke it. And do you see 
 that pile of letters? These are from my boys 
 in prison. Let me read one of them to you." 
 Then he read the words of a convict who spoke 
 of prison walls lighted up with the glory of 
 
THE RENUNCIATION OF HOME 173 
 
 Christ's presence. And he added, "Do you 
 remember you said to me when I was in de- 
 spair over my past life, 'These hands, which 
 have done so much evil, will bring blessing and 
 salvation where I can never go.' Your words 
 have literally come true." 
 
THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 
 
 One night a little card was placed on the 
 table d'hote of the Hotel Meurice, in the Rue 
 de Rivoli, intimating to the guests that the 
 Marechale would speak at an informal meeting 
 in the salon after dinner. Among those who 
 came to see and hear her was a little Russian 
 lady with deep and thoughtful hazel eyes. She 
 was the celebrated Princess Nancy (properly 
 Anastasia) Malzoff of the Russian coxui. One 
 of the Czarinas died in her arms. She was a 
 friend of King Edward VII, and her brilliant 
 wit made her a welcome figure in every court 
 of Europe. She spoke eight languages. 
 
 She was now weU advanced in life, and 
 thought she had known everybody worth 
 knowing and seen everything worth seeing in 
 the world. But that evening was the begin- 
 ning of a new life of peace and joy such as 
 she had never dreamed of. From the moment 
 the Marechale opened her hps, she was f asci- 
 
 177 
 
178 THE MARECHALE 
 
 nated, first by the speaker, and then still more 
 by the message. Next morning' she came in 
 her carriage to the Villette. The Marechale 
 was scarcely well enough to receive her, but she 
 would not take a "No." When she entered 
 the Marechale's room, she threw herself by the 
 bedside and exclaimed, "Oh! tell me, how did 
 you get to know Him?" 
 
 This was the commencement of a seven 
 years' friendship, and during all that time she 
 was never out of reach without writing the 
 Marechale every second day. 
 
 The Princess was a member of the orthodox 
 Greek Church. Her mother had married her 
 off at sixteen, and she had eleven children by 
 the time she was twenty-eight. When she 
 found that her husband had become unfaith- 
 ful, she dismissed him with an emphatic "C'est 
 fini!" and for more than a quarter of a century 
 she had never seen him. 
 
 The Marechale listened with deep sympathy 
 to the story of her life, and then said, "You 
 must forgive him, if you would be forgiven." 
 
 "Never, never!" 
 
 "Yes, if you want Christ, forgive him. 
 
THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 179 
 
 Never mind what he has done, you must for- 
 give him." 
 
 The Princess could not. A struggle went 
 on in her mind for six weeks. She began to 
 come to the meetings at the Rue Auber, but 
 she had no peace. The Marechale opened the 
 question again. 
 
 "Come now, I want you to write and invite 
 him to meet you at your hotel, to dine with 
 him, and to forgive him." 
 
 A terrible inner controversy ensued, and the 
 Princess became ill over it. One can scarcely 
 imagine what it all meant to her, and yet thou- 
 sands have to go through the same. 
 
 CaUing one day, the Marechale f oimd her 
 in a cloud of cigarette smoke. 
 
 "Princess, how dare you smoke hke this?" 
 
 "Well, I am surrounded by a thousand 
 devils, blue, black and yeUow. You have been 
 neglecting me." 
 
 A ceaseless conflict was raging in her breast, 
 and ere they parted that day she wrote a letter 
 and said she would send it. 
 
 The Marechale called again, and found that 
 the letter had not been sent. Then the crisis 
 came. 
 
180 THE MARECHALE 
 
 "Princess, you are lost. If you do not for- 
 give, your heavenly Father will not forgive 
 
 you." 
 
 "I cannot, I cannot." 
 
 She was in agony of soul. 
 
 "Princess," said the Marechale, "are you 
 perfect? From the little I know of you I 
 should think you have a very bad temper." 
 
 "It is true, it is true." 
 
 "Your sins have not been his, but they are 
 sins before God, and have caused suif ering to 
 others. If you want God to forgive your bad 
 temper, you must forgive him." 
 
 The Marechale prayed, and bade her look 
 to the Cross and see how Christ forgave. Then 
 she told her again what to do. 
 
 "Darling, you are to invite him to your 
 apartments; you are to have a sweet little din- 
 ner for him and flowers on the table, and when 
 he comes you are to kiss him." 
 
 "But I cannot!" 
 
 "Yes, you will; and remember it is no for- 
 giveness unless you kiss him. Forgiveness 
 means kissing. Forgive him, and I know peace 
 wiU come." 
 
 "Very well, I will, I wiUr 
 
THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 181 
 
 The Marechale chanced to be leaving Paris 
 for a time, and said — 
 
 "You will send me a wire when you have 
 done it." 
 
 The Princess invited her husband. He made 
 a long night journey. She kissed him and for- 
 gave him. Next day the Marechale received 
 a wire which made her dance for joy. It ran: 
 "Tout s'est passe comme vous Vavez dit, et la 
 paix du Christ m'inonde: Malzoff." (All is 
 done as you said, and the peace of Christ floods 
 my soul.) 
 
 Her husband died after a few months, and 
 her thankfulness for what she had done was 
 profound. 
 
 The last years of her own life were beauti- 
 ful. In a letter which she wrote to General 
 Booth in regard to her friend's health she said: 
 "I owe a great deal to the Marechale. She has 
 given me a treasure greater than aU the treas- 
 ures of this world — she has given me a living 
 Christ; she has put Him not near me, but in 
 me, in my soul, and the gratitude I feel for 
 that blessing is great." An article from her 
 pen on the Army's work in Paris contains these 
 words: "The SaUe Auber is to me now a holy 
 
182 THE MARECHALE 
 
 place. I feel the presence of Christ ther? — 
 Christ who has personally become a living 
 Saviour to me since the Marechale brought me 
 to Him and cormnitted me to His Djvine 
 arms." 
 
 Hundreds of letters, the last of vs^hich was 
 written in St. Petersburg on the day before 
 her death, reveal an intensely ardent nature, 
 and prove that the heart which truly loves 
 never grows old. We translate a few extracts. 
 
 "I will use all my moral forces to prove to 
 you that our mutual affection has advanced 
 me in the path of holiness which you opened 
 to me the very first moments I heard you 
 speak. God had pity upon me and sent you 
 on my via dolorosa to open to me a new hori- 
 zon, a new heaven. He carried my heart to 
 you with an intensity of which I did not think 
 myself capable." 
 
 "I have found in you two beings equally 
 precious to me — ^the first is a friend I love hke 
 a dearly beloved daughter; the second the 
 Marechale of my Salvation, whose work, voca- 
 tion and power I admire — ^that moral power 
 which you only in the whole world exercise 
 
THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 183 
 
 over me. If I had known you earlier, you 
 would have made a saint of me." 
 
 "Not any affection in the world, not even 
 my children's, can replace yours for me. What 
 does it matter though everybody loves me if 
 f ou do not?" 
 
 "I know that it is because I have not yet 
 renounced my 'self,' my 'moif that your ab- 
 sence makes me suffer, but I cannot help it — 
 it is beyond my power. I know also that the 
 day my 'self wiU be chased away — ^which is 
 doubtfid — I shall love no one, for to love one 
 must be a self, one must have one's own heart." 
 
 "I doubt if there are any others who bear 
 you such a deep, complete, Uving, warm and 
 luminous affection. Not that you do not de- 
 serve it, but all natures are not alike, and you 
 know the fault of mine. I cannot love by 
 halves." 
 
 "I cannot believe that He must detach us 
 from everything to attach us to Himself — ^that 
 would make me very sad. On the contrary I 
 feel that it is only himian love, disinterested 
 love, but deep and living, which can make us 
 understand Divine love. It is only through 
 
184 THE MARECHALE 
 
 human experience that we can appreciate His 
 great, His mighty, His eternal love for us. 
 All the life of Jesus is filled with that palpable 
 love for His creatures, and that is why He is 
 so near to us. Let me therefore love you with- 
 out detachment, and the more I love you the 
 more I will love Him." 
 
 One of her letters is peculiarly interesting: 
 "I will see the Emperor in these days, and I 
 will seek strength to speak to him. You see, 
 my darhng, speaking is not enough, one must 
 in such a case pour out one's soul and feel that 
 a superior force guides one and speaks for 
 one." 
 
 It turned out as she hoped. One night she 
 was at the Palace in St. Petersburg. After 
 dinner the Czar came and seated himself be- 
 side her. Soon they were deep in intimate con- 
 versation. She began telling him what her 
 new-found friend in Paris had done for her. 
 She talked wisely as he listened attentively. 
 At length he said — 
 
 "But, Nancy, you have always been good, 
 always right." 
 
THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 185 
 
 "No," she answered ; "tiE now I have never 
 known the Christ. She has made Him real to 
 me, brought Him near to me, and He has 
 become what He never was before — my per- 
 sonal Friend." 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BUENING QUESTION 
 
 It was the often expressed wish of Mrs. 
 Josephine Butler that the Marechale might be 
 able to join her crusade against the infamous 
 White Slave TraflBc. In one of her earhest 
 letters to her friend she said: "Dearest 
 Catherine, the wicked party, as you know, have 
 triumphed in the elections in Switzerland, and 
 the Geneva government has passed that evil 
 Law which our friends were trying to stop. 
 . . . How nice it would be if you and I could 
 stand up together in Geneva, and denounce 
 their wickedness and proclaim the Saviour. 
 I should love to do so." At a later time she 
 wrote of her young friend, "Oh, I sometimes 
 think if she were in the work of our Federa- 
 tion, what a harvest she might bring us in, or 
 rather bring in for God!" 
 
 The Marechale regarded the wish of that 
 saintly and chivalrous woman as involving a 
 
 189 
 
190 THE MARECHALE 
 
 kind of sacred trust. Her own heart was 
 early and deeply troubled by the darker 
 aspects of our modern civilisation. When she 
 and her two brave comrades, Florence Soper 
 and Adelaide Cox, took their first flat in Paris, 
 they were shocked to learn that they had as 
 their nearest neighbours — above and beneath, 
 to the right and to the left — families uncon- 
 secrated by any marriage tie ; and in the course 
 of their ordinary work they found themselves 
 hourly confronted by all the devils of vice. 
 The lurid facts, of which most Christians, hap- 
 pily for their own peace of mind, know httle 
 or nothing, were burned into the souls of these 
 noble women, each of whom dedicated herself 
 to a battle a outrance against this most appall- 
 ing form of evil. And have they not faith- 
 fully kept their vow? Are there any living 
 Englishwomen who have done so much to pro- 
 tect our innocent children and raise our fallen 
 sisters as these three, who first toiled and suf- 
 fered and prayed together thirty years ago in 
 the Villette of Paris? 
 
 In redeeming her pledge, the Marechale not 
 only gave midnight suppers to the ftlles 
 dSchues of the great cities in which she con- 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 191 
 
 ducted her campaigns, not only founded Res- 
 cue Homes in Paris, Nimes, Lyons and Brus- 
 sels, but endeavoured to make the problem of 
 purity a national question, to be dealt with 
 in a statesmanlike manner by every patriotic 
 citizen. 
 
 She frequently addressed great meetings of 
 the men of Paris and other cities on this sub- 
 ject, making irresistible appeals to the heart 
 and conscience. It was astonishing how she 
 carried the most critical audiences along with 
 her, though now and then an indignant hearer 
 would leap to his feet and dash out of the haU 
 or theatre in which her meeting was held. 
 
 She steadily refused to believe that nothing 
 could be done for the morale of Frenchmen, 
 and her faith in the innate chivalry of the peo- 
 ple was amply justified. The respect with 
 which she was heard was a tribute not only to 
 the personal magnetism of a consecrated life, 
 but to the Christian ideal of chastity. She was 
 often told by journalists that any one else, man 
 or woman, daring to utter half the home truths 
 to which she gave expression would have been 
 hissed out of the town. Explain it as one 
 
192 THE MARECHALE 
 
 will, when she pleaded the sacred cause of 
 womanhood, men applauded to their own hurt. 
 "Gentlemen," she would exclaim, "I am not 
 French, but I love your nation. I have made 
 your country mine, and I realise what France 
 might be but for the worm which gnaws at the 
 root of your national life. It makes me shud- 
 der to think — it makes me literally sick to see 
 — ^how many thousands of my sisters, and your 
 sisters, in your beautiful city are ministers of 
 vice. So many, your policemen tell me, under 
 twenty, so many under seventeen, so many 
 under fifteen, and there are even those known 
 to the police who are not in their teens. Gen- 
 tlemen, they do not sin alone, for we are all 
 solidaires. They are like your own girls, your 
 wives, your sweet little daughters. They have 
 hearts, they have brains, they are intelligent, 
 they would make beautiful mothers, our com- 
 rades in life's jovirney, helping us and sharing 
 our burdens. And, alas, what have you made 
 of them? Any nation which can look at that 
 going on in its cities day by day and night by 
 night, without a word, without a protest — 
 which can see this splendid asset, woman, who 
 should bear its sons and daughters, sacrificed 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 193 
 
 and sold to vice, disease, and early death, — 
 that nation is on the decline. Do not teU me 
 that a man worthy of the name can be sUent 
 in face of these stupendous facts. Such a man 
 is not a Frenchman. 
 
 "I am told that things have always been so, 
 and will always be so. I hear it said on every 
 hand that this vice is a necessity. That some 
 women — that the daughters of the poor — 
 should be sacrificed is regarded as inevitable. 
 Well, then, gentlemen, as you say it is for the 
 public utihty, foUow your reasoning to its own 
 logical conclusion, be just to these poor crea- 
 tures; do not despise them, do not call them 
 lost, fallen, prostitutes ; be honest and acknowl- 
 edge them ; allow them to stand at least on the 
 same level as our soldiers who sacrifice them- 
 selves for their country. Far from being- 
 ashamed of them, honour them for their ser- 
 vice to our sons and our nation. 
 
 "But you say 'it is only une fille/ and one of 
 your senators has publicly said that 'we are 
 come to a fine pass if an honest man cannot 
 buy himself une bonne fortune/ Only a fillet 
 Your mothers were once only filleSj your wives 
 
194 THE MARECHALE 
 
 were only files, and what are your own daugh- 
 ters? Wherein lies the difference? 
 
 "An honest man! I am not a nun; I am not 
 a man-hater stalking through the world. I all 
 but worship man. He is half a god. Look at 
 his works in every domain — ^the king of crea- 
 tion, given that wonderful command to subdue 
 and rule, having everything under his feet. 
 When he rises to his destiny, and becomes a co- 
 worker with God, and puts his hfe and ex- 
 ample — ^that wonderful miracle called influence 
 — on the side of righteousness, he rises to the 
 subhme. The sum of happiness, of pure joy 
 and peace, that one good man can bring to the 
 little group at home, and then to the commim- 
 ity,to the city, to the world, cannot be estimated. 
 But the sum of misery, the curse, the bhght 
 that one man can bring to a woman, to chil- 
 dren, to every one he touches — ^that, too, cannot 
 be estimated. An honest man! He does not even 
 stop where the cows and horses do. He goes 
 a thousand miles beneath them! And yet the 
 indulgence of the passions is no more a neces- 
 sity than the drinking of alcohol is a necessity 
 for an infant of a year old. It is society that 
 awakens those evil desires, and they unfold 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 195 
 
 themselves under the influence of a baneful 
 education. 
 
 "Gentlemen, you say that a bad woman is 
 worse than a bad man. Have you ever re- 
 flected that the wrongs done to her are far 
 deeper? Have you realised that her make-up 
 is a thousand times more dehcate and complex 
 than yours, and that as a consequence this sin 
 makes shorter work of her? Her despair is 
 blacker and she is reckless. You take from 
 her the hope of ever having a little home of 
 her own, of ever having a real husband, of 
 ever hearing herself called mother. You have 
 done that before she can realise what you have 
 done. She does not wait, does not estimate. 
 The realisation comes to her later on in hfe. 
 And when it comes, is it any wonder that she 
 flies to drink and becomes a demon? Would 
 not I? Would not you? 
 
 "Say all that you please against woman. 
 Reckon up the sins on your side and on hers. 
 Still your page is black as ink compared with 
 hers. Think of the generous, the absolute, the 
 totally blind ways she loves. 
 
 'Woman's heart runs down to love 
 As rivers run to seas.' 
 
196 THE MARECHALE 
 
 "You have your life, your work, your amuse- 
 ments ; but love is her whole existence. She is 
 created in that way. That makes your sin in 
 deceiving a trusting heart infinitely greater. 
 
 "You may go and have a good marriage 
 afterwards, and be proud of your charming 
 wife's sweet looks, but does not the vision of 
 another, a pale face sometimes flit across your 
 mind? And when you look at your little cot, 
 do you not see another baby face — another 
 little life you have never owned, of which you 
 are the author, and which is equally yours be- 
 fore God? A woman's heart has been broken, 
 and there will be retribution." 
 
 While the Marechale stood alone, pleading 
 as a woman the cause of woman, her audiences 
 of educated Frenchmen were sometimes so 
 deeply stirred and convicted that they would 
 rock and sob under the power of emotion; 
 and when they rose at the end to sing a hymn 
 that she wrote as a young girl — a hymn which 
 has been translated into many languages — 
 
 Ote tous mes peches ! 
 Ote tous mes peches ! 
 Agneau de Dieu, je viens a toi, 
 Ote tous mes peches. 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 197 
 
 the words and music would sweep over the 
 audience hke a wave, sending many away with 
 consciences tortured and faces bathed in tears. 
 
 One morning, after such a meeting, there 
 was a ring at the Marechale's door, and a lady 
 was ushered into her presence. Coming for- 
 ward without a word, she took the Marechale's 
 face between her hands, and warmly embraced 
 her in the French fashion by kissing both her 
 cheeks. The Marechale inquired what was the 
 meaning of this sweet affection. 
 
 "Oh!" said the stranger, "you have restored 
 to me my husband. He was listening to you 
 last night, and when he came home he fell at 
 my feet and begged me to pardon him, vowing 
 that he would never again be untrue to me." 
 
 That was but one of the many fruits of these 
 addresses. 
 
 Sometimes the Marechale would read to elite 
 audiences a letter which a man of high social 
 standing wrote to a charming young girl whom 
 he ought to have made his wife. Having met 
 her at Carnival, he awoke in her heart an ador- 
 ing love, deceived her with a promise of mar- 
 riage, put a ring on her finger, and after three 
 
198 THE MARECHALE 
 
 years abandoned her and her baby boy. The 
 Marechale took the letter to an eminent jurist 
 and senator, who confessed that for cold- 
 blooded cruelty he had never seen anything to 
 equal it; but he sorrowfully added — such are 
 the laws of Christian lands — that nothing 
 could be done to right the wrong. The letter 
 ran as f oUows — 
 
 "LiTTIE MaeiEj 
 
 "Once again I must ask pardon for aU the 
 harm I have done you. I hope, however, that 
 you will be strong in trouble, stronger than you 
 have been up to the present. This will be a 
 very great consolation to me. I owe many 
 thanks for the resolutions that the good little 
 Marie made yesterday, in spite of her heart 
 and all her feehngs. Believe that I shall never 
 forget it, and that it cost me much before de- 
 ciding to break your ideal — but, as I told you, I 
 prefer to be sincere. As long as my heart was 
 free from other passion I always considered 
 you as the best friend I possessed. If I was 
 not completely happy, it was that living with- 
 out love was not to live — ^but you, poor little 
 Marie, you suffered! 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 199 
 
 "You are worth a hundred times more than 
 I, and precisely on account of that we could 
 not understand each other. You who are so 
 good — ^too good — permeated with the most del- 
 icate sentiments, you could not conquer an 
 ambitious man, for I am very ambitious. 
 
 "Whilst you dreamed of a simple, quiet life 
 with me, you must understand that violent pas- 
 sions, riches, and a luxurious life are for me 
 essential. In a word, our ideals are completely 
 different, and it is a divorce of souls which I 
 have accomplished in leaving you. Fate made 
 us meet, and fate separates us. Don't have 
 any ill-feeling towards me. My dream now is 
 to create for myself quite a new hfe made up 
 of goodness, of love, and above all faithfulness 
 in a serious affection. 
 
 "I sacrifice you, it is true, but if it were 
 otherwise, think of the torture you would have 
 inflicted on me. Is it not better to separate, 
 each of us keeping a good memory of what 
 made our union? Think also how my life is 
 insupportable in this muddle now that I love 
 truly. 
 
 "You are good, Marie; be courageous now. 
 The sacrifice that I ask of you is enormous, I 
 
200 THE MARECHALE 
 
 know, but do it for love of me, and I will be 
 eternally obliged to you. 
 
 "You wiU put all your tenderness in the 
 little Gustave, whom I shall never forget, and 
 above aU remember that he who loves well 
 chastises well. Au revoir — au revoir! 
 
 "Once again pardon me, and don't suffer 
 too much by your exile. My only hope is that 
 Gustave wiU recompense you largely for aU 
 the suffering you have endured, so little mer- 
 ited during these long years. 
 "I remain, 
 
 "Your devoted ." 
 
 Marie was human, and when the marriage 
 day drew near there was a fierce flaming-up of 
 resentment in her young heart. She thought 
 of making a scene at the church and spoiling 
 the bridegroom's joy. Her brother fanned her 
 burning sense of wrong, and promised to back 
 her up if she would seek revenge. But the 
 Marechale pleaded with her, the love of the 
 Crucified constrained her, and on the morning 
 of the wedding she wrote the following pa- 
 thetic little note: "He is to be married to-day. 
 The wedding bells are ringing. ... It is all 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 201 
 
 over, dear Marechale, and I am on my knees 
 in my little room. All is well; the peace of 
 Christ is in my heart, and I have the victory." 
 This is no romance, but a bit of real life. 
 Which of us would have done as little Marie 
 did? She did not know it, but she was worthy 
 that morning of the company of angels — the 
 shining ones who have never sinned and never 
 suffered. 
 
 Sometimes the Marechale would tell her 
 audience a story to prove what wells of love 
 there still are in the hearts of the most aban- 
 doned. Dm-ing a three months' campaign at 
 Lyons, resulting in one of the most remark- 
 able revivals in which she ever took part, she 
 was giving a midnight supper. Her officers 
 had gone to the most notorious houses and left 
 a card containing the words : "A lady who is 
 devoted to the cause of women desires to speak 
 to them on subjects which deeply interest them, 
 
 in HaU, at twelve to-night. Supper, 
 
 music and singing." 
 
 The city had been moved, and the rich dem- 
 onstrated their sympathy with this effort. 
 Having had frequent experiences of the risks 
 
202 THE MARECHALE 
 
 attending midnight gatherings, the Marechale 
 enlisted the interest of the poHce, who on this 
 occasion gave her all possible assistance. 
 
 Late in the evening the table vt^as covered 
 with damask cloths and adorned with flowers. 
 A supper of roast beef, vegetables, fruit and 
 black coffee was prepared. Towards midnight 
 the piano began to be played, that those who 
 entered the hall might be welcomed with cheer- 
 ful music. 
 
 Some girls came in laughing, and quickly 
 went out again, evidently thinking there must 
 be some deception. They did not believe that 
 banquets were spread for nothing. Sometimes 
 it was very difficult to convince them that the 
 thing was not a farce. 
 
 Presently a horrible old hag appeared — ^it 
 would be difiicult to imagine a more ugly, re- 
 pulsive woman. Coming up to the Marechale 
 she said — 
 
 "You are the Holy Virgin. I know it. Oui, 
 vous etes la Sainte Vierge^ je le sais." 
 
 The Marechale did not know what to say, so 
 much was she taken aback. 
 
 "You are the Holy Virgin," the old woman 
 repeated. 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 203 
 
 "Come along and have a talk with me," said 
 the Marechale, "and take supper. I am de- 
 lighted to see you." 
 
 The woman laughed. "No, no, no, it isn't 
 me that you want — Ce n'est pas moi qu'il vous 
 faut." 
 
 "Yes, it is you. I am happy, helieve me I 
 am so happy, to see you. It is you whom I 
 want. Do sit down." 
 
 At last, with great difficulty, she was per- 
 suaded to be seated. But she stayed only a 
 minute. The Marechale turned to speak to 
 somebody, and the old woman darted out of 
 the hall. She was gone like a flash. 
 
 "We won't see her again, Marechale," said 
 one of the officers. 
 
 The Marechale began to blame herself. 
 Why did she not inspire the poor creature with 
 confidence? Why could one not make her feel 
 at rest? Why had she run away? She had 
 seemed to suspect something. It was a sore 
 disappointment. 
 
 After some waiting, the girls began to come, 
 and the tables filled up, but every time the 
 door opened the Marechale turned her eye 
 towards it in the hope of seeing her old woman 
 
204 THE MARECHALE 
 
 return. A gloom had been cast over her spirit 
 because that woman had gone out, not believ- 
 ing that she was welcome, thinking she was 
 too old and too ugly. 
 
 The beautiful grace, "Nous Te benissons" 
 was sung, prayer was offered, and sweet music 
 filled the air while the plates were handed 
 roimd. Some of the guests were pretty and 
 some ugly, some young and some old, some 
 clad in rags and some dressed in the height 
 of fashion. Some poor famished creatures 
 asked for a plate of meat four or five times, 
 while others, having already supped, merely 
 touched a Kttle fruit with their dainty fingers 
 and sipped a cup of black coffee. 
 
 The supper was nearly ended, and the Mare- 
 chale was preparing to speak, when the door 
 burst open, and in came our old woman, with 
 a pretty young girl, fair as a lily, on one arm, 
 and a dark one, equally young and beautiful, 
 on the other. Up she came to the "Holy Vir- 
 gin," with her dear old face radiant. 
 
 "Voild! I have gone and f oimd them. It's 
 these that you want ! For me it is too late, but 
 show them the other side of the medal." 
 
 The Marechale could not speak. Her eyes 
 
THE BURNING QUESTION 205 
 
 filled with tears. The words cut her through. 
 The woman did not know what an act she had 
 done, nor what an unforgettable phrase — le 
 revers de la medaille — she had used. 
 
 "I have spent a long time in seeking them," 
 she said. "I am pleased — Je suis contente." 
 
 "And I, too, am happy," said the Marechale, 
 "but especially because you have come." 
 
 "Moi! for me it is finished. For me it is 
 too late. But these — ^they are young, they are 
 pretty, they have life before them. It is these 
 that you want!" 
 
 The three sat down, the Marechale taking 
 the old woman next to her. And she never 
 served a cup of coffee with such pleasure in 
 her Hf e. 
 
 In after years she would sometimes tell the 
 story of that old woman on a Sunday morning 
 to an EngKsh congregation, and then ask the 
 searching question, "Which of you has ever 
 spent two hours day or night seeking for a 
 lost soul as she did?" 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PRODIGAL SON 
 
 FsANqiois DE Saint RidaLj the eldest son of 
 the Baron of that name, was born at Bordeaux, 
 and brought up in a family of strict Catholic 
 traditions. He studied at the College de Ti- 
 voli and the Lycee, but he cared for little ex- 
 cept sport and pleasure. After he had wasted 
 much of his father's substance in riotous hv- 
 ing, he was informed that his allowance would 
 be entirely cut off unless he went abroad for a 
 time. Leaving home in disgrace, he sailed for 
 New York, and was beginning to taste the bit- 
 terness of exile, when, chancing one day to 
 enter a big restaurant, he was astonished to 
 meet his cousin, the Viscount of X., who, hav- 
 ing inherited a f ortime of two milhon francs, 
 was making haste to squander it. Falling 
 upon each other's necks, they at once became 
 companions in pleasure. Giving themselves 
 up to all kinds of insanity, they spent immense 
 sums in a few months. 
 
 209 
 
210 THE MARECHALE 
 
 Fran9ois was afraid to give himself a single 
 moment of reflection on the enormity of his 
 errors. He was inwardly miserable, and found 
 that everybody else who was pursuing pleasure 
 was as unhappy as himself. One night, at a 
 dance in Montreal, he said to the queen of the 
 ball, admired by everybody for her beauty and 
 charm — 
 
 "Would that 1 could find out how to enjoy 
 myself again!" 
 
 She answered, "If I seem to be gay, I have 
 no reason for being so. Oh, how I suffer!" 
 
 The yotmg man felt that existence became 
 more and more mechanical, the days succeed- 
 ing one another in an endless monotony of un- 
 satisfying amusements. He seemed to be 
 living in a bad dream. 
 
 After a while he returned to France, and 
 one evening he was sitting, sad at heart, on 
 the balcony of the Cafe de la PaiXj wondering 
 to what place of pleasure he should turn his 
 steps, when some Salvationist girls came to 
 offer their journal to the customers. They 
 were greeted with the usual pleasantries. 
 .Saint Ridal asked the waiter if he knew who 
 these people were. 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON 211 
 
 "Oh, yes. Monsieur, they are the SalutisteSi 
 and if you want to have a good laugh, you have 
 only to go to the Rue Auber, which is quite 
 near by; they have a hall there where you could 
 spend a good evening." 
 
 His curiosity awakened. Saint Ridal went 
 to the place indicated, taking a fille de joie 
 with him. The Salutistes were attracted by 
 the fair-haired young man who sat at the bot- 
 tom of the hall laughing. That evening there 
 were "testimonies," which somehow arrested 
 Saint Ridal's attention. He could not help 
 asking himself how these young people seemed 
 so happy. Then a young officer read the 
 words, "The wages of sin is death, but the free 
 gift of God is eternal hfe through Christ 
 Jesus oiir Lord," and delivered an address 
 which was not correct in language, but ex- 
 tremely incisive. Frangois said to himself, 
 "He knows my history, and speaks to me." As 
 he went out, he bought some pubhcations which 
 were exposed for sale at the door, and spent 
 the night in reading them. He came next even- 
 ing alone, and a great spiritual conflict began. 
 He continued to come, and one night remained 
 behind, being in an agony of soul. Sobbing 
 aloud, he confessed that he had led a wild and 
 
212 THE MARECHALE 
 
 wicked life, dishonoured his name, and broken 
 his mother's heart. At one o'clock in the morn- 
 ing he gave himself to God. 
 
 The Marechale saw that he was afraid of 
 himself in Paris, and opened her doors to him. 
 For six months he lived partly at her house 
 and partly at the headquarters in the Rue Au- 
 ber. She soon came to know him through and 
 through, and was struck by his simplicity and 
 absolute sincerity. He had broken completely 
 with the past, and never had one ariiere pensee. 
 He was ready for any sacrifice and for the 
 humblest service. 
 
 One day a police agent came to teU the 
 Marechale that she had somebody living in her 
 house and wearing the uniform of the Armee 
 de Salute who was passing himself off as the 
 son of Baron de Saint Ridal. She called Fran- 
 cois, and, while the two men stared at each 
 other, said, "This is the son of Baron de 
 Saint Ridal." The official apologised and 
 withdrew. 
 
 Francois had written to tell his parents of 
 his conversion, but received no answer. After 
 six months the Marechale had to begin a 
 tournee at Bordeaux, and told Francois that 
 she would seize the opportunity to go and visit 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON 213 
 
 his parents. He was overjoyed. He hoped 
 for much, and said he would pray. 
 
 When the Marechale, clad in uniform, drew 
 near to the gates of the Baron's chateau, a 
 complete stranger stopped her and exclaimed, 
 "My poor child, what are you going to do in 
 that house?" She only smiled and walked on, 
 but the question came back to her mind after- 
 wards. 
 
 Ringing the bell, she was shown into a lux- 
 urious room, and presently the Baron, the Bar- 
 oness, and their daughter appeared. She was 
 received as stiflBy as if she had been the repre- 
 sentative of the Queen, and found it hard to 
 begin. Making an effort, she said they had 
 probably learned from their son that a wonder- 
 ful change had taken place in his life. She 
 was happy to be able to confirm it. For six 
 months she and her officers had witnessed his 
 life, and had noticed nothing in word or look or 
 act inconsistent with this marvellous change. 
 
 There was no answer. The parents and 
 daughter simply stared at their visitor. She 
 continued — 
 
 "I know that his fife has been bad, but I 
 
214 THE MARECHALE 
 
 thought that you would be glad to hear of his 
 conversion." 
 
 Then the Baroness could no longer contain 
 herself. A torrent of words fell from her lips. 
 She depicted the scandalous life of her son, 
 who had been a real prodigal in every sense of 
 the word, gambling away their wealth, and dis- 
 gracing their name. 
 
 "But," said the Marechale, "that was before 
 his change. Do not bring up what he once 
 was. Think of what he is now. He has been 
 living among my children, and I can trust him 
 to go in and out with them. I know some- 
 thing of real conversions, and I think I can 
 judge. I assure you that he has become a new 
 man« with new desires, new aspirations, a new 
 nature." 
 
 These assurances only led to another real- 
 istic description of his sins. 
 
 "But," pleaded the Marechale, "that was 
 when he was Saul; now he is Paul." 
 
 They stared, evidently not comprehending 
 the meaning of her words. 
 
 "Let him come back to the Catholic Church," 
 said the Baron. That his son should profess 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON 215 
 
 to have been saved outside the holy Mother 
 Church was evidently a last blow to his pride. 
 
 "That is surely a secondary matter," said 
 the Marechale. "Considering what a sinner 
 he has been, you should not mind by whom the 
 change has come. He has been converted in 
 the Armee du SdLut, but there is only one God 
 and one Saviour. Catholic and Protestant are 
 alike if they have no life." 
 
 But the Baroness drew herself up in her 
 beautiful robe, and said — 
 
 "Let him come back to the Catholic Church, 
 or he win never receive another sou from us." 
 
 The Marechale saw that it was time to end 
 the interview. 
 
 "Very well. Baroness," she said, rising, "I 
 will buy your son clothes and boots. I will be 
 his mother." 
 
 With that she left their house disappointed 
 and weary, having spent hours under their 
 roof pleading their son's cause, but they had 
 never offered her so much as a cup of tea. 
 
 On her return to Paris, she called Francois. 
 His face fell when she began to speak. She 
 bade him be brave, described to him her inter- 
 view with his people, and ended by saying, "I 
 
216 THE MARECHALE 
 
 will be a mother to you, and you shall never 
 lack for anything." 
 
 He worked on with her in Paris for some 
 months, and then he received a telegram, 
 "Come quickly, father dying." The Mare- 
 chale rushed him off, and he afterwards gave 
 her an account of his eventful journey. 
 
 When he got home, he found the house 
 silent, every sound muffled without and within. 
 
 "Am I too late?" he asked. 
 
 "No, hush! He has been asking for you all 
 the time. Come quickly." 
 
 Upstairs he went to his father's room. En- 
 tering, he saw two thin white hands on the 
 coverlet, and heard a voice — 
 
 "Is it my son?" 
 
 "Yes, father!" 
 
 With one bound he was at the bed-side, and 
 fell on his knees. With breath coming thick 
 and fast, his father said faintly — 
 
 "Oh, my son, your religion is better than 
 mine. Forgive your old father for not forgiv- 
 ing you." 
 
 Holding his hand, his son spoke to him of 
 the Saviour, and sang to him some of the 
 choruses he had learned in the Army. Father 
 
THE PRODIGAL. SON 217 
 
 and son were a thousand miles away from 
 Catholicism and Protestantism. They were 
 simply in the presence of the Saviour. With 
 words of salvation in his ears, and filial arms 
 around him, the old Baron passed away. 
 
 Himself now Baron de Saint Ridal, Fran- 
 9ois came into his fortune. However bad an 
 eldest son has been, he cannot, by French law, 
 be disinherited. 
 
 For the next four years Fran9ois was an 
 officer in the Armee du Salut. In Paris and 
 Nimes, England and Belgium he worked with 
 ardour for the salvation of souls. He was with 
 the Marechale in her Brussels campaign.^ 
 
 He married MUe. Babut, the daughter of 
 the weU-known pastor in Nimes. As a girl she 
 had been brilliantly clever, but very wilful, 
 closing her heart to aU who sought to influence 
 her for good. When the Marechale came to 
 Nimes she went, like everybody else, to the 
 meetings, taking with her girl friends whom 
 she excited to mock and laugh. But a strange 
 power seized her. In vain she tried to escape 
 by ridiculing what she heard. "One evening," 
 to use her own words, "the Marechale — di- 
 
 ^ Described in chap. xiii. 
 
218 THE MARECHALE 
 
 rected by God — ^turned her eyes full on me and 
 said, 'Young woman, you have not the right 
 to waste your life.' Clear, pointed, cutting 
 like a sword, this truth penetrated me, and 
 with it the conviction, 'I ought to yield to God 
 here and now.' " Three months later she was 
 in the Training Home in Paris. 
 
 The Baron and his wife afterwards became 
 missionaries in Madagascar. They gave them- 
 selves heart and soul to the work. When his 
 health began to fail, they returned home, 
 and he continued to labour for Christ as long 
 as he had any strength left. His end came in 
 1911. Pastor Babut said he had been attend- 
 ing death-beds for fifty years, but had never 
 seen anything so beautiful as the Baron's lat- 
 ter end. 
 
 "Courage!" said someone to the dying man. 
 
 "I do not need it when heaven is open to 
 me." 
 
 "Do you see the Lord Jesus near you?" 
 
 "But I am with Him!" 
 
 "God has used you to work for Him." 
 
 "All I have done counts for nothing, only 
 the immense grace and love of God remain." 
 
so GREAT FAITH 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 so GREAT FAITH 
 
 It was mid-winter, and the ground was cov- 
 ered with snow. There was no little anxiety 
 in the Villette. Forty hungry mouths had to 
 be filled at the !filcole MUitaire, and there was 
 nothing for dinner. The simple fact was that 
 the cash-box was empty, and it was difficult 
 not to have a heavy heart. But the maxim of 
 a SaluUste is "Keep believing!" God had 
 never forsaken the Marechale when she trusted 
 in Him. Depression and melancholy she re- 
 garded as lack of faith. She bade her secre- 
 tary call a fiacre. When they got in, the of- 
 ficer said — 
 
 "You have the fare, Marechale?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "But " 
 
 "The Lord have mercy upon you! Where 
 is your faith? Get down on yoiur knees and 
 pray!" 
 
 The officer instantly obeyed. They botH 
 
 221 
 
222 THE MARECHALE 
 
 prayed — it was real prayer — and their hearts 
 became lighter. 
 
 The fiacre drew up at the gate of a beautiful 
 house in the Champs l&lysees. It had to be 
 kept waiting, for there was no money to pay 
 the cocTier. 
 
 The Marechale was ushered into a luxurious 
 apartment, and was soon talking with a Rus- 
 sian Countess about her soul. They had never 
 met before, but they found common ground. 
 
 "I too," said the Countess, "adore the Christ! 
 Come and see. . . . Look, the Christ!" 
 
 They stood before a beautiful picture of the 
 thorn-crowned Redeemer. 
 
 "I adore Him!" she repeated. 
 
 "But it is one thing," said the Marechale, 
 "to adore Him here in these charming sur- 
 roundings, and another thing to adore Him 
 amidst the filth, the immorality and the misery 
 of the Villette, where I live night and day 
 among the poor and the dying, and where I 
 have devoted young comrades who have left 
 comfortable homes and bright prospects, and 
 are now labouring for Christ and receiving 
 nothing for it. What is your adoring Christ 
 compared with theirs?" 
 
so GREAT FAITH 223 
 
 The Countess was silent, and evidently felt 
 bad. She had suddenly received a new ray 
 of light upon the adoration of Jesus, and, 
 realising that deeds are better than words, she 
 left the room for a minute, to return with an 
 offering of 500 francs. 
 
 It was by such gifts that the Army was 
 maintained on the Continent. The Marechale, 
 it is somewhat strange to discover, was not 
 only the apostle but the financier of the Armee 
 du Salut in France. Others, of coiu"se, could 
 administer the funds, but on her f eU the bur- 
 den of replenishing the exchequer. As years 
 passed and the work extended, the task became 
 more and more heavy. Officers had to be sup- 
 ported, the rent of houses and halls paid, the 
 Training Home, the Rescue Homes, the Or- 
 phanages, the Homes of Rest maintained, and 
 to meet all this outlay the Marechale toiled, 
 travelled, and wrote countless letters. Those 
 who adored the Christ sent her their gifts from 
 many lands. 
 
 While there were many generous support- 
 ers of the Army in France and Switzerland, 
 the largest contributions came from the home- 
 country. We have noted that the General did 
 
224 THE MARECHALE 
 
 not like to see Catherine's hand-writing, be- 
 cause he thought of her weak spine. Yet in 
 one day she and her secretary would some- 
 times write over a hundred letters with their 
 own hands, which at the end were too cramped 
 to go on with more. Experience had taught 
 her the value of a personal appUcation. Many 
 a weU-wisher who would have given £5 in re- 
 sponse to a typewritten letter, did much better 
 on receiving a warm appeal in the leader's own 
 handAvriting. She even made it a rule to write 
 receipts herself. 
 
 Lean months tested the spirit of the Train- 
 ing Home. Though there was nothing to eat 
 but a plate of cabbage-soup and a potato, the 
 cadets never murmured. "C'est la vie aposto- 
 lique" they cheerfully said one to another. 
 And it was easy to bear any hardship when 
 their leader shared it with them. One who was 
 an officer with her for years wrote: "In all 
 things she was our example. If you wished 
 to incur her displeasure, you had but to give 
 her something to eat which the workers did 
 not have. As she was in delicate health, some- 
 times those around her would try to get a 
 little luxury to tempt her appetite or strength- 
 
so GREAT FAITH 225 
 
 en her. They would be met with the answer: 
 'Whatever is this? It is not for me, I hope, 
 because, though it is very good of you, I did 
 not want it, and will not have anything of the 
 sort.' Then she would share it all round." 
 
 Whenever it became known that the ex- 
 chequer was almost empty, the officers and 
 cadets knew that this was a call to prayer. 
 On one occasion the rents of the Rue Auber 
 and Quai de Vahny halls were due; there was 
 nothing to meet them; and there were but three 
 days of grace. These were days of agony. 
 All the officers who had anything to spare 
 gave it. The children in the orphanage gave 
 three francs and ten centimes. But when ihe 
 best had been done, not a tithe of the necessary 
 3000 francs was in hand. 
 
 Everybody met for prayer. The Marechale 
 spoke on the words, "Though the fig-tree shall 
 not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines 
 . . . the flock shall be cut off from the fold, 
 and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet 
 will I rejoice in the Lord." She rang the 
 changes on that "rejoice," asking, "Are we 
 there?" Yes, they were aU there — anxious for 
 
226 THE MARECHALE 
 
 nothing, but in everything by prayer with 
 thanksgiving telling God their needs. 
 
 At such times the leader of the little band 
 felt that God had to take care of His name. 
 His honour ; He had to send what was required. 
 Who will call such a faith ia question? Did 
 not the German people say of Luther, "Look, 
 there is the man who gets from God whatever 
 he asks?" When the Marechale was travel- 
 ling with her secretary in a third-class carriage 
 in the West of France, the poor people got in 
 with their baskets of vegetables, and one of 
 them said in a loud whisper, "Take care what 
 you say; these people when they pray get from 
 God all they want." 
 
 To return. On the morning of the last day 
 of grace the Marechale received a letter from 
 Scotland containing a draft for £100, a "God 
 bless you," and nothing more. She never knew 
 what kind human heart had been moved to send 
 the letter. But she never doubted that God 
 had sent it. 
 
 Such occurrences were not solitary. Here is 
 the testimony of M. Grand jean, who was for 
 years one of the Marechale's best officers. "I 
 think with gratitude to God of the difficult 
 
so GREAT FAITH 227 
 
 days in which our faith was severely tested, 
 when I was cashier in Quai de Vakny, and I 
 had not a shilling, and we had to pay the 6000 
 francs for rents and other expenses. I shall 
 never forget my overwhelming joy when one 
 night I appealed to the cadets who could pray 
 with faith, and when five or six of us prayed 
 with me in the little kitchen of the Quai de 
 Vahny. The next day the Marechale received 
 by the first post a cheque of 6000 francs from 
 some one who did not know that we were in 
 need." 
 
 In one of her tournees the Marechale was 
 labouring down in the South of France, 
 Though she was in the greatest need and had 
 a heavy heart, she went on with her meetings, 
 when a lady who had been wonderfully blessed, 
 and two of whose children had been saved 
 through her ministry, was moved to give her 
 a thankoffering of 5000 francs. Having to 
 travel aU night on the way back to Paris, and 
 finding herself alone among a lot of working- 
 men, the Marechale put the money in her 
 bosom and prayed, "Now keep Thy httle one," 
 but did not dare to sleep. 
 
228 THE MARECHALE 
 
 Among the Army's unfailing supporters in 
 France were the Marechale's personal friends. 
 One of the dearest of these was Madame de 
 Bunsen, nee Waddington, who wrote In Three 
 Legations. They first met in Cannes, where 
 the Marechale was conducting a campaign in 
 the theatre; and a great bundle of letters, 
 partly in French and partly in English, testi- 
 fies to the warmth of their friendship. Madame 
 de Bunsen once persuaded the Marechale to 
 rest for some weeks in her castle on the Rhine; 
 and another time she tried to induce her to 
 visit Florence, but the Marechale could never 
 quite get over the feeling that taking holidays 
 was backsliding. 
 
 Another of her constant supporters was 
 Mr. Frank Crossley, that high-souled man of 
 business whose Life has been admirably writ- 
 fen by Professor Rendel Harris. Soon after 
 the Marechale went to France he wrote to ex- 
 press his "ardent sympathy" with her work. "I 
 have," he said, "met and known well several 
 Christian workers — ^D. L. Moody, Miss EUice 
 Hopkins, Miss MittendorfF, and others — ^but I 
 will tell you that perhaps none of these have cre- 
 ated the same impression that you have done." 
 
so GREAT FAITH 229 
 
 She received hundreds of letters from him, 
 and they are very interesting reading. What 
 chiefly attracted him to the Marechale was her 
 intimacy with Christ, which was the reward, 
 as he saw, of self-sacrifice. His words on this 
 theme go very deep. 
 
 "It is a struggle hard and long, but it is 
 only the struggling, who spend their life-blood 
 in the cause, that can claim &ZooJ-relationship 
 with the Lord Jesus. The rest are second- 
 cousins or not even as near as that. They 
 don't know Him very intimately or feel much 
 at home with Him when they pay Him a 
 morning call. . . . He makes the entrance 
 high and the gate strait that it may be prized 
 when gained — I believe that is the key to the 
 mystery of life, or at least to a large part of it. 
 To let us up to the top for the prayer of a 
 moment and the sacrifice of nothing would in 
 many cases at any rate be impossible and use- 
 less. Tell me soon more of how to climb. I 
 am a slow learner." 
 
 Mr. Crossley's nature had a pensive strain 
 which the Marechale's friendship helped to 
 modify. Regarding such a matter he felt that 
 "speech should not go near the length of feel- 
 
230 THE MARECHALE 
 
 ing," but ere long we find him writing, "Das 
 hallelujah Vogelein singt in meinem Herzen." 
 His donations to the work of the Army both 
 at home and in France were very generous. 
 He gave the Marechale many thousand pounds 
 a year. His liberality was part of his wor- 
 ship of Christ. Nothing could be finer than 
 the following: "I know you will be thinking 
 it is a serious slice off my capital. Well, it 
 is a branch oif the tree. 'They broke off 
 branches from the palm trees and strewed them 
 in the way and shouted Hosanna,' and so do I." 
 And again: "You are very grateful to me 
 for what I have been able to give you, but if 
 you knew how indebted and grateful I also 
 felt to you, you would see how God makes us 
 unequal that we may teach ourselves by the 
 aid and necessary services He enables us to 
 render." Mr. Crossley wished the Marechale 
 to accept a gift of £10,000 for the mainte- 
 nance of her family, that she might be per- 
 sonally free from financial care, and also pro- 
 posed to build her a home outside Paris; but 
 she declined both these offers, not wishing to 
 be in a different position from the other offi- 
 cers of the Army. 
 
so GREAT FAITH 231 
 
 In 1891 the Marechale went to America to 
 raise funds for the work in France. Accom- 
 panied by her secretary, Mme. Peyron — ^who 
 was her Geneva convert Mile. Roussel — she 
 sailed in October by the Columbia for New 
 York, and visited twenty-eight of the princi- 
 pal cities of the States and Canada, holding 
 sixty meetings, travelling sometimes for thirty 
 or forty hours at a stretch, and once with the 
 added experience of being snowed up for 
 twelve hours. She was everywhere very cor- 
 dially received, and all the buildings in which 
 she spoke were densely crowded. Ministers 
 offered her churches in which a woman had 
 never spoken before. After one meeting she 
 received invitations from a Bishop and seven- 
 teen pastors to address congregations on her 
 work. 
 
 The reporters everywhere found her and her 
 utterances good copy. "She was not able to 
 see representatives of the press in New York, 
 although they came by dozens," as one learns 
 from the Boston man who claimed to be "her 
 first American interviewer." He found that 
 "her life in France has given a Gallic twist to 
 this Englishwoman's tongue. She is quite as 
 
232 THE MARECHALE 
 
 French in manner as her staff -captain, 
 Madame Peyron, the dark-eyed Frenchwoman 
 who travels with her." 
 
 One morning she got a great reception from 
 the divinity students of Yale, to whom she 
 spoke at length on the qualifications necessary 
 for "saving souls," namely, the possession of 
 a pure heart and the baptism of the Holy 
 Spirit. "When she had finished her address 
 she said she was willing to answer any ques- 
 tions they might have to ask, and for half an 
 hour the students and several of the profes- 
 sors poured a host of questions upon her that 
 would have embarrassed and muddled the 
 clearest-brained ministers of the country under 
 similar circumstances. She, however, showed 
 that she had answered questions before, and 
 gave answers that brought both laughter and 
 applause, for her wit is keenly cultivated." 
 
 It is interesting to see her through Yale eyes. 
 "Her face is a study the like of which an ar- 
 tist or a sculptor might seek for years without 
 finding. In repose it reminds one of the pic- 
 tures of the Madonnas of Michael Angelo, 
 but when she speaks its earnestness is so in- 
 tense that it is almost stern. Her voice is one 
 
so GREAT FAITH 233 
 
 that any actress might well covet for its depth 
 and strength. It is the equal of the great 
 Bemhardt's, and yet it is sweet and soft, and 
 has none of the harshness of the masculine 
 tone. Her accent is something charming, for 
 it has all the attractiveness of the Enghsh 
 tongue made even more sweet by long famili- 
 arity with the French language. From her 
 long acquaintance with the lower classes, the 
 sociahsts and aU free-thinkers of France, she 
 has acquired that fiery directness and ease and 
 attractiveness in her speaking which is so char- 
 acteristic of French oratory and so fascinat- 
 ing to Americans. It is no injustice to this re- 
 markable woman to say that, had she chosen 
 the stage for her role in life, her name would 
 have certainly been as famous in that profes- 
 sion as it is to-day as the Marechale of the 
 French Salvation Army." 
 
 In America she had the immense happiness 
 of being reunited with her brother BaUington, 
 who, being a year older than herself, had been 
 her chum in chUdhood, and his wife, nee Maud 
 Charlesworth, who had been her brave girl- 
 comrade in the first days of persecution in 
 Switzerland. 
 
234 THE MARECHALE 
 
 In the end of January, 1892, the Marechale 
 returned to France, after an absence of three 
 months and a half. America had given her 
 $60,000 for her work, and memories of un- 
 limited kindness. 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BEAUTY FOR ASHES 
 
 "You have added a new word to the French 
 language," said M. Sarcey, the famous critic, 
 to the Marechale; "I mean the word 'Salu- 
 tiste.' " In 1881 there was not a single Sal- 
 vationist in France or Switzerland. After fif- 
 teen years there were 220 stations and outposts, 
 over 400 officers, headquarters in five cities, 
 and four weekly papers. 
 
 But these bare facts only feebly indicate 
 what the Marechale did for France. In a mo- 
 ment of depression at the thought of French 
 infidehty, the Princess MalzofF once remarked 
 to her — 
 
 "The French have no soul." 
 
 "How dare you," asked the Marechale, "say 
 such a thing?" 
 
 Her friend rephed with charming inconsis- 
 tency, "But you have found the soul of 
 France!" 
 
 237 
 
238 THE MARECHALE 
 
 That was perhaps the highest tribute ever 
 paid to her. 
 
 If one asks some Frenchman who knew the 
 Marechale in those days how she won the heart 
 of France, one gets the answer, "But it is 
 natural — she has the French temperament; 
 and, besides, elle aime la France." If one asks 
 some convert of hers how she found the soul 
 of France, the reply is, "Ah! she brought us 
 the Christ, who is victorious everywhere." Both 
 questions were answered together by one who, 
 speaking for many, said, "She bought us at 
 the price of tears and sacrifice." 
 
 When she was at the zenith of her power in 
 France, an admirable appreciation of her was 
 written^ by one of the saints of the modern 
 calendar. Miss Frances E. WUlard. We ex- 
 tract a few sentences. "She inherits, it is said, 
 beyond any other of the endowed and conse- 
 crated eight children of the General and Mrs. 
 Booth, their special gifts, graces, and grace. 
 . . . The Marechale's career already fulfils 
 her father's prophecy that women wUl, if once 
 left free in their action, develop administra- 
 tive powers fully equal and oftentimes supe- 
 ^ The Review of the Churches, Feb. 1894. 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 239 
 
 rior to those of men. . . . *I love France,' she 
 said to me, with sparkling eyes: 'it is a great 
 and wonderfid country, an3 I love its people 
 every bit as much as ever I loved my own. 
 I have become familiar with its peasants in the 
 provinces; have sat down with the French 
 women who clatter about in sabots ; have shared 
 their chestnuts with them, heard of their sor- 
 rows as weU as their joys, and, beheve me, the 
 human heart is just the same in France as it 
 is everywhere; and if you classify the saints 
 whose histories have come down to us, France 
 would occupy the front rank. The nation that 
 has produced a Lacodaire, a Pascal, a Fenelon, 
 and a Madame Guyon, does not lack the germs 
 of spiritual life.' " 
 
 In 1896, however, her career in France 
 came to an end. She received the com- 
 mand to go and devote herself to the work 
 of the Army in Holland, and loyally prepared 
 to obey. 
 
 Catholics and Protestants ahke were dis- 
 mayed at the news. One of her dearest 
 friends, the Catholic scholar M. Lassaire, 
 iwhose exquisite translation of the four Gospels 
 
240 THE MARECHALE 
 
 had the honour of being put upon the Index 
 Expurgatorius, came to her and said — 
 
 "You ought not to leave us. God has given 
 you the ear of the nation as it is given only 
 once in a hundred years," 
 
 "But I am commanded." 
 
 "If the angel Gabriel descended from 
 heaven and bade you go, you ought not to leave 
 France!" 
 
 Theodore Monod, whose own family had 
 been greatly blessed through the Mareehale, 
 deeply sympathised with her, and grieved over 
 her departure almost as if she had been his own 
 daughter, but tried to comfort her by saying, 
 "You leave us your hyrrnis!" 
 
 The day on which the Mareehale left France 
 was one of the two or three dark days of her 
 life. She felt somewhat like the young Scot- 
 tish Queen who said as she gazed at the re- 
 ceding shores of Calais — 
 
 "Adieu! charmant pays de France, 
 Adieu ! te quitter c'est mourir." 
 
 And yet she believed in her heart that God 
 [»70uld work out His gracious purpose, which 
 no circumstances can ever alter. 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 241 
 
 That she loved France with a deep, pure, 
 passionate love does not need to be said. How 
 France appreciated her in return may be in- 
 dicated not only by M. Sarcey's emphatic dic- 
 tum, "The devil take the coimtry where she 
 was born! she is French in her soul," but by 
 any letter taken at random from hundreds 
 which she received from men and women of 
 France. 
 
 The following extract, faithfully translated, 
 shows the calibre of the people whom the 
 Marechale was able to reach, as well as the 
 warm, generous style in which the Latin races 
 habitually express themselves. 
 
 "The evening in which you spoke of the 
 scene on Calvary and the words of the peni- 
 tent thief, 'Remember me,' that simple story, 
 told by a believing soul, had more effect upon 
 me than all the theses, quotations and theologi- 
 cal arguments of aU the doctors I have ever 
 heard. That expression, that attitude, that 
 conviction, that certitude, that assurance, that 
 living faith which affirmed itself before me in 
 an apostle, a new disciple of Christ, and that 
 melodious voice, completed my transformation. 
 I beheved that I was the penitent thief and you 
 
242 THE MARECHALE 
 
 the Christ who said to me, 'When I am in 
 Heaven I will remember thee,' and that af- 
 firmation transported me. . . . 
 
 "I marvel at the courage with which you 
 endure fatigue, mockery, journeys, labours of 
 all kinds to conquer for truth and light the 
 millions of savages who are still in France, 
 plunged in the darkness of error and supersti- 
 tion. Permit me to express once again my 
 sincere admiration, and to offer you in the 
 name of my country (I am perhaps a little 
 presumptuous to speak in the name of France, 
 but I have the right, as much as the other ten 
 millions of citizens) — in the name of my coun- 
 try, and in the name of civilisation, my warm 
 gratitude. Deign to accept the homage . . . 
 of a very humble soldier and disciple of 
 Christ." 
 
 Swiss love, too, was now deep and strong, as 
 will be sufficiently proved by a single letter, 
 which enclosed a thankoffering. 
 
 "Dear Marechale — (How much that word 
 contains of affection, admiration, and venera- 
 tion, I cannot express), — These thousand 
 francs fulfil their end where they do the most 
 good and give you the greatest pleasure. You 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 243 
 
 always think of yourself last, if you think of 
 yourself at aU; that is why others must think 
 of you. I would have hked to relieve you, 
 dear Marechale, you particularly and person- 
 ally. But you are devoured by the zeal of 
 your divine work, and all goes that way. Be 
 it so! God will relieve you directly by His 
 hand. He will, but do not forget yourself en- 
 tirely, I beg of you. Care for yourself, for 
 the sake of those who love you, and who need 
 your help, and who find so much happiness in 
 your heavenly affection. ... In the love of 
 Christ, your devoted, A. S." 
 
 In the end of that year the Marechale needed 
 words of good cheer, and they were not lack- 
 ing. Her sister Eva was one of her comfort- 
 ers, sending many tender messages across the 
 Atlantic. Just after Christmas Day — Eva's 
 own birthday — she wrote: "I cannot say how 
 much you have been in my thoughts. I wished 
 I could have popped in and had a sister's birth- 
 day kiss and a good talk, but the Lord came 
 very near to me, and I was cheered that His 
 birthday found me very busy on mine seeking 
 the poor lost souls of men. The years pass, 
 but then what matters? Every day brings 
 
244 THE MARECHALE 
 
 us nearer our Eternal home, does it not, and 
 then we will live and love together for ever 
 and ever, all of us. Dear, darling Katie, I 
 don't like to hear you say the year has been a 
 sad one. You are treasured by us aU, by 
 God and the world, and how much you have 
 done for the Kingdom as well. . . . There are 
 some fond memories I treasure which have to 
 do with you and me, when I made you laugh 
 and gave you baked potatoes! I will write 
 again soon. TUl then and for ever after al- 
 ways the same, Eva." 
 
 Commissioners E. D. and Lucy Booth-HeU- 
 berg — ^the General's youngest daughter — ^who 
 took over the command of the Army in France 
 and Switzerland, wrote in their first Annual 
 Report (1896) : "One of the last links in the 
 long chain of desperate efforts for the salva- 
 tion of France, put forth with undiminished 
 love and faith by the Marechale, was the Lyons 
 campaign, which lasted for six weeks during 
 the months of January and February. Sup- 
 ported by a number of believing and hard- 
 working officers, she conducted a series of truly 
 remarkable meetings in the Salle Philhar- 
 monique, which was filled on every occasion 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 245 
 
 with an attentive and largely sympathetic audi' 
 ence. The results of the campaign were most 
 encouraging and of a decidedly permanent na- 
 ture. The local corps, which up till then had 
 led a very struggling existence, received a pow- 
 erful lift and is now in a healthy condition. 
 Fmiihermore a considerable amount of preju- 
 dice against our work was removed and a num- 
 ber of friends and sympathisers were made, 
 the immediate result of which was the estab- 
 lishment of a Rescue Home for women in that 
 city." 
 
 Had the Marechale been sent to another of 
 the Latin races — for example, the Italians or 
 the Spaniards — ^her gifts might still have been 
 used to the highest advantage. She once con- 
 ducted a brief campaign in a great haU at 
 Turin. At the beginning she encountered a 
 storm of opposition. While she dedicated the 
 child of one of her former officers, her voice 
 was drowned in an uproar which turned the 
 solemn service into a fiasco. The audience got 
 completely out of hand, and, as a final stroke 
 of devilry, a troop of students, headed by a 
 
246 THE MARECHALE 
 
 big fellow with an evil, cynical face, came 
 marching up the aisle, shouting, yelling and 
 brandishing sticks. The ringleader had made 
 a bet that he would kiss the Marechale. Her 
 officers began to think it was high time to 
 close the meeting. But she was not near the 
 end of her resources. Giving her famihar or- 
 der, "Leave them to me, and pray!" she 
 stepped to the edge of the platform, and, when 
 the leader was within a foot of her, fixed her 
 eyes on his face, raised her finger, and sang — ^ 
 
 Si tu savais comme II t'aime, 
 Sans tarder tu viendrais a Lui, 
 Tu viendrais a I'heure meme, 
 Tu viendrais des aujourd'hui. 
 
 The clear, sweet notes went vibrating through 
 the great hall, and Italy knows the power of 
 song. The ringleader stood staring as if he 
 had been petrified, and his followers did not 
 advance another step. While the Marechale 
 sang on, she was heard in breathless silence. 
 Then she spoke for an hour. The af ter-meet- 
 
 ^ This hymn was composed by one of her officers, M. 
 Grandjean. The tune was one of the sweetest operatic 
 airs of the day. 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 247 
 
 ing lasted till midnight, and the leader of the 
 students, completely broken down and sobbing 
 like a child, said, "Oh, stay with us, you will 
 make angels of us all!" 
 
 In Holland, where the Marechale laboured 
 six years, she was heavily handicapped by the 
 fact that most of her speaking had to be done 
 through an interpreter. She had not that Open 
 Sesame to the heart of a people — ^the mastery 
 of its language. She learned, however, to 
 sing beautifully in Dutch, and the translation 
 of her addresses was admirably done by her 
 secretary. If she could not deny that her 
 heart was still in the Rue Auber of Paris, she 
 repressed her tears and took her new task — a 
 very tangled one — ^resolutely in hand, doing 
 some deep and lasting spiritual work in Am- 
 sterdam and other towns, where she sometimes 
 had as many as forty or fifty penitents in one 
 night. 
 
 She was lacking in what a statesman called 
 "Batavian grace," being cast in a very dif- 
 ferent mould, yet she came ere long to feel 
 quite at home among the warm-hearted Dutch 
 people. She had taught Paris to sing her 
 hymn, "Aimez toujours, et malgre tout aimez 
 
248 THE MARECHALE 
 
 toujours" and now she put the lesson into 
 practice in Holland. Preaching and living 
 the gospel of love, she had many tokens of suc- 
 cess among all classes. Best of aU, she awoke 
 in others the wistful desire to imitate her ex- 
 ample. One of Queen WiUiehnina's cabinet 
 ministers brought his daughter, a thoughtful 
 young girl, to a meeting conducted by the 
 Marechale, and when those who were wiUing to 
 give themselves to Christ and His service were 
 invited to show it in some way, up went the 
 hand of this eager girl. Her father at once 
 whisked her out of the meeting. But the deed 
 was done, and now there is no one who is 
 doing a nobler work among the poor and 
 sunken classes of Holland than Miss Rose 
 Pierson. Of that happy day in her life she 
 wrote long afterwards : "When I first heard the 
 Marechale speak I was a girl of seventeen. 
 I remember stiU every word she spoke. I know 
 it was a revelation to me what a reality Christ 
 could be to a soul. I believe that was what im- 
 pressed me — ^her perfect assurance of Christ's 
 presence and her own ardent love of souls." 
 HoUand gave the Marechale two of her most 
 efficient secretaries. Miss Van der Werken and 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 249 
 
 Miss de Zwaan, who ideally fulfilled all the 
 requirements of the office — ability and willing- 
 ness to nurse a babe, make a cup of tea, write 
 a letter, cook a decent dinner, talk in two or 
 three languages, keep the door of a hall, preach 
 a sermon, and generally make the best of 
 everything! 
 
 It is possible that the Marechale's exile from 
 France deepened and enriched her nature, 
 drawing out stops not so often used before, 
 especially the vox Jiumana — the voice of sym- 
 pathy with all human pain and sorrow. At 
 the same time she began to have a more tragic 
 sense of the world's sin, which prompted one 
 of her strangest and yet most characteristic 
 impulses, and issued in what was in some ways 
 the most remarkable of all her campaigns. 
 
 One midnight, while she lay awake in Am- 
 sterdam, she heard a clear inner voice saying to 
 her, "Go to Brussels; go in sackcloth and ashes; 
 go and tell of sin; let everything in your per- 
 son speak of sin and awaken conscience; then 
 proclaim, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh 
 away the sin of the world." 
 
 Without waiting to take counsel with flesK 
 
250 THE MARECHALE 
 
 and blood, she went with her nurse-secretary 
 Swaan and her babe Frida, the child of peace, 
 to Brussels, and hired for three weeks the most 
 beautiful haU in the city, the SaUe de la Grande 
 Harmonie — ^the same in which fair women and 
 brave men danced on the eve of Waterloo. 
 
 When she at length divulged to one of her 
 comrades the fact that she was to appear in 
 sackcloth and ashes, he answered — 
 
 "You cannot! never!" 
 
 "I must, it is so commanded." 
 
 So a robe de bure was made for her — a 
 single-seamed garment of the coarse brown 
 stuif worn by monks, with a hole cut out for 
 the neck and two for the arms, and a hempen 
 rope for the waist. 
 
 Before the opening meeting she had intimate 
 dealings with her officers. "It is necessary," 
 she said, "that one die for the people. I want 
 to bring that thoughtless, frivolous city into 
 touch with God. I wish your faces to speak 
 of another world. It is your minds and hearts 
 that I seek. If you are going to think of 
 your own people and your own concerns, if 
 you are going to be preoccupied with a hun- 
 dred and one things, go back at once. I am 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 251 
 
 going to live these three weeks as if they were 
 the last on earth. I have left home and httle 
 ones and am going to exist for this town. If 
 Christ laid down His life for us, we have got 
 to lay down our lives for the salvation of 
 Brussels." There were heart-searchings and 
 confessions and tears among the officers ; fresh 
 alhances were made with God; and the Mare- 
 chale believed that this was one of the secrets 
 of the wonderful success of that campaign. 
 
 On the evening of the first meeting, she 
 clothed herself in the robe de hure, and put real 
 ashes on her head. But if ever the devil in 
 person attacked any poor soul, the Marechale 
 felt herself so assailed in those moments when 
 the great hall was filling and she was waiting. 
 What shafts of ridicule were hurled at her as 
 by a spiritual foe! Could any dress be more 
 ridiculous, any realism more contemptible? 
 How comical was that assumption of the role 
 of prophet ! What a miserable fiasco the whole 
 performance would prove! She was seized 
 with a paralysing fear, and when Antomarchi 
 • — ^her "St. Francis" — came to announce that 
 the audience was ready, he found her white as 
 a sheet and shaking from head to foot. 
 
252 THE MARECHALE 
 
 "Have I made a mistake?" she asked. 
 
 "No! Marechale, go on! go on! it is all 
 right!" 
 
 "Tell them to sing and pray, and then I 
 will come." 
 
 Her soul gathered strength from the strains 
 of her own hymn, "O toi! bien-aime fils de 
 I'homme" with the chorus— 
 
 Viens, Jesus t'appelle; 
 
 Ne sois plus rebelle. 
 
 Viens au bien-aime Fils de Dieu, 
 
 Crois en sa tendresse eternelle — 
 
 as well as from the succeeding silence in which 
 she knew that faithful hearts were praying 
 for her. The clouds vanished, the fear of men 
 was gone, and only the awe of the unseen 
 world remained upon her spirit. 
 
 Slowly she walked onto the platform, not 
 raising her eyes from the ground. The audi- 
 ence seemed petrified by the strange appari- 
 tion. After a moment of deathly silence, her 
 clear, penetrating voice sounded through the 
 hall. 
 
 " 'He was despised and rejected of men, a 
 man of sorrows and acquainted with grief 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 253 
 
 . . . and we esteemed Him not. Nous n'en 
 avons fait aucun cos.' 
 
 "If I wear mourning to-night, it is the bet- 
 ter to express the feelings which are in the 
 depths of my heart. Your people, who are 
 capable of great things, are going to their 
 ruin. On all hands there are nameless miser- 
 ies, despairing cries of women and children 
 without defence and exposed to shame and the 
 most frightful misery, and why? Because you 
 have made Him — Christ — of no account. I 
 mourn your sins, the sins of your country; 
 the drunkenness, the debauchery, the selfish- 
 ness, the wrongs which are seen everywhere; 
 your rejection of the Christ of God, the Sav- 
 iour of the world. This fills me with sorrow, 
 and this, unless it is forsaken, will bring upon 
 you the judgments of God." 
 
 Thus she unburdened her soul, and thus be- 
 gan not a three weeks' but a two months' 
 campaign, which from the first moment — in so 
 strange contrast to the tumultuous openings at 
 Havre and Rouen — was marked by a beautiful 
 reverence and solemnity. The services of the 
 police were never required during the whole 
 time. Four or five evening meetings were held 
 
254 THE MARECHALE 
 
 every week, besides afternoon gatherings, sa- 
 Ion meetings, and midnight suppers. All Brus- 
 sels was moved. An eminent statesman said 
 to the Marechale, "Everybody has been ridi- 
 culed here except you. Ridicule kills every- 
 thing; you have killed ridicule." 
 
 In the full tide of the mission she wrote to 
 her father: "Most marvellously is God work- 
 ing here in Brussels. Last night I had the con- 
 cert-hall crowded and a great number were 
 turned back at the door. The silence, the at- 
 tention is unbroken, and there is conviction 
 among all kind of persons. Worldly and 
 Catholic papers speak beautifully of us. Four 
 journals have given leading articles to me. 
 Praise God, it is all His work ! This morning 
 I had a conversation with a senator who is at 
 the head of the party of progress here, and he 
 says that the movement is the most remarkable 
 the city has seen for a hundred years and that 
 the effects are profound and astonishing. An- 
 other senator has sent me £20. I feel more 
 than ever now I ought to continue and push 
 the battle. We shall be able to do something 
 extraordinary and put Belgium on a new foot- 
 ing." 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 255 
 
 The first senator referred to in the letter 
 was M. le Jeune, who said to the Marechale — 
 
 "The bar, the artist world, society. Catholic 
 and Protestant — they have all come to hear 
 you. You are universal, Madame." 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "the Christ is xmiver- 
 sal." 
 
 During these two months she had daily in- 
 terviews with men and women crushed under 
 the burden of all kinds of sin — a burden that 
 weighed so heavily on her own spirit that some- 
 times, instead of delivering an address, she 
 could only faU on her knees and cry to God 
 to forgive all the sins that come from the heart 
 of man — murders, adulteries, thefts, unclean- 
 ness, lies, blasphemies — all of which had been 
 confessed to her. 
 
 It was a time of wonderful spiritual bless- 
 ing for aU her comrades, who, like her, literally 
 "lived for the people." One of them said, "We 
 have grown as much with you in these weeks as 
 in twenty years." 
 
 To a thousand men of the elite of Brussels 
 she delivered an address — ^which was after- 
 wards published — on "The Greatest Injustice 
 of the Century." It was a woman's mournful, 
 
256 THE MARECHALE 
 
 tender, passionate protest against man's sins in 
 a city which had its twelve thousand so-called 
 files de joie, many of them of the teriderest 
 years. One of her audience, a typical Brussels 
 man of the world, covering his face with a 
 hand on which flashed a diamond ring, and 
 shaking with great sobs of anguish, cried, "I 
 am a leper — damned already!" "Madame," said 
 an editor, "they would hiss anybody else who 
 said these things to them. They bear them 
 from you, because they feel you love them." 
 
 One day she received an invitation to dine 
 with a dozen anarchists. Her comrades told 
 her she would be blown up with bombs, but she 
 went, and enjoyed herself, for extremes meet. 
 
 "So you are come to talk to us," said Elisee 
 Reclus ^ with a smile, "of justification by faith 
 and sanctification by faith," etc. 
 
 "Oh, no, no! I do not talk of doctrines. 
 They never troubled me in my life. I care only 
 for realities. You have suffered; I too have 
 suffered. Let us begin there, and compare 
 
 ^ Exiled from France as an anarchist, he had become 
 a Professor in Brussels. He was the greatest geogra- 
 pher of modern times, the writer of Une nouvelle geO' 
 graphic universelle (19 vols.). 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 257 
 
 notes. Some of you have been in prison; I 
 have been in prison. You have been exiled; 
 so have I. You have wept over the injustice 
 and cruelties of the world; so have I wept, so 
 do I weep." 
 
 And thus they found common ground, 
 agreeing in their diagnosis of the diseases of 
 society, differing only as to the remedy. "You 
 believe in anarchy," said the Marechale. "One 
 of your number said at one of my meetings 
 that anarchy is the most beautiful of all re- 
 ligions. I know a more excellent way — a 
 shorter cut to making the world better. You 
 fling your bombs to destroy Ufe ; how can peo- 
 ple be converted when their heads are gone? 
 Christ said 'Follow me to Calvary!' He shed 
 His own blood. No one else's. He bids us 
 save the world by denying ourselves and tak- 
 ing up the Cross." 
 
 That evening Elisee Reclus drove her in his 
 carriage to her meeting at the Salle Harmonie, 
 and in her little ante-room they prayed to- 
 gether. 
 
 A Brussels sculptor begged the Marechale 
 to pose for him in her robe de hure, but she 
 declined. Renee Gange, the heroine of the 
 
258 THE MARECHALE 
 
 Belgian socialists, after passionately embrac- 
 ing her before a thousand eyes, published a 
 charming pen-and-ink portrait of "this enig- 
 matic woman," comparing her to a serene, calm 
 statue that almost smiles. "The fine and slen- 
 der figure of the Marechale will long remain 
 one of the most curious, the most strange ap- 
 paritions in the midst of our society of money- 
 makers and machine-constructors." 
 
 The prophet, the mystic, the saint will always 
 be a mystery to the art and science, not to 
 speak of the sin and selfishness, of the world. 
 This truth was finely expressed by a writer 
 in L'Art moderne of Brussels. "The Mare- 
 chale does not seek to 'demonstrate' anything. 
 I have seen her shrug her shoulders a little and 
 smile when some one wished to reason or dis- 
 cuss with her. She could do it, for she is in- 
 telligent and mervdlleusement intuitive. But 
 her faith does not 'demonstrate' itself. It lives 
 and expands itself. It affirms itself. And 
 those who, now numerous, have some psycho- 
 logical tact have felt that this woman obeyed 
 something more powerful than herself. Per- 
 haps she is the happy and unconscious instru- 
 ment of an expansive force too much ignored. 
 
BEAUTY FOR ASHES 259 
 
 too little recognised and obeyed, as necessary 
 for our preservation as the law of self-preser- 
 vation itself. . . . Her addresses are neither 
 "weighed nor balanced. But they have the col- 
 our, the life, the strong suggestiveness, the 
 moving sincerity of an inspiration come from 
 one know^s not vphere, from above us, from out- 
 side us — ^mysterious impulses of things eter- 
 nal." 
 
AS A LITTLE CHILD 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AS A LITTLE CHILD 
 
 When the Marechale was about to begiii 
 that memorable campaign in the Salle Har- 
 monie of Brussels, she was invited to be the 
 guest of Professor Jensen. Wishing to take 
 her httle babe Frida with her, she wrote from 
 Amsterdam to assure him that Frida was a 
 very peaceful child, worthy of her name, who 
 would never give any trouble, and this proved 
 to be perfectly true. 
 
 On arriving at Professor Jensen's house she 
 found a very nice room made ready for her, 
 and she procured a clothes basket which served 
 Baby as a cot for the night and a cradle by 
 day. In this Frida often lay so silent, while 
 her mother was dealing with difficult cases, 
 that the visitors got a shock of surprise when 
 they heard a httle movement at the end of the 
 apartment. 
 
 "Ah!" one of them would say, "I never 
 knew there was anything alive in the room." 
 
 263 
 
264 THE MARECHALE 
 
 But now the question arose, what was to be 
 done with Baby when the Marechale and her 
 Secretary Zwaan were conducting the meet- 
 ings at the great Salle Harmonie? Plucking 
 up courage, she went down to the Professor. 
 
 "M. Jensen," she said, "I have a great 
 favovu" to ask of you. Allow Baby to remain 
 in your bureau while I and my secretary are 
 away at om- meeting." 
 
 Up went his arms. "Oh, no! this is impos- 
 sible. What do I know of children?" 
 
 The Marechale answered, "Listen to me, 
 now. She will not disturb you in the least ; she 
 may lie awake and play with her fingers and 
 make little sounds, but further than that she 
 wiU not demand any attention from you; then 
 she wiU go to sleep, and you wiU not be aware 
 of her existence." 
 
 Again he made protestations. "But if she 
 cry, what shall I do? Shall I fetch in the 
 woman next door?" 
 
 "Nol Can you not trust me? If she dis- 
 turbs you to-night, I shall never ask you to 
 do this again. But you see it is necessary for 
 me to have my secretary with me." 
 
 So the matter was at length settled. They 
 
AS A LITTLE CHILD 265 
 
 brought down the basket, and placed it behind 
 the screen in the Professor's bureau, Baby 
 cooing with a finger between her hps. The 
 Professor was a picture as he stooped down 
 with his long flowing beard and gazed at the 
 little one. Her mother left her awake, and 
 went off with her secretary to the Salle 
 Harmonie. 
 
 It was one of those meetings in which she 
 forgot everything but the work immediately 
 in hand. The more she talked the more the 
 people seemed eager to hear, and the hands of 
 the clock were nearing midnight when all of a 
 sudden, while deaUng with some httle groups, 
 Baby came into her mind. "Zwaan," she said, 
 "think of Baby; we are long after time; call a 
 cab and let us get home as quickly as we can." 
 
 On the way she put her head out of the 
 window, wondering if all was well, but with a 
 perfect trust. And at the door of the house, 
 under the hght, she saw the tall, venerable 
 figure of Jensen. The thought crossed her 
 mind, had anything happened? Hurrying up 
 the steps, she stood with an inquiring look. 
 
 "Oh, Marechale," he said, "it happened just 
 as you said. One reads of such children, but 
 
266 THE MARECHALE 
 
 one finds them never {On lit de telles enfanls, 
 mais on ne les trouve jamais). Baby never 
 moved." 
 
 So every night the basket was drawn into 
 the Professor's bureau. He grew very at- 
 tached to the child, and in a park near by, 
 where the Marechale used to push Baby's little 
 pram, he would join her and say, "Let me do 
 it, while you sit down and rest." 
 
 They had interesting talks together, and he 
 gave her some chapters from his own hfe. For 
 one phrase in a book he had spent years in 
 German State prisons, and he told her stories 
 of the awful, almost unbelievable, cruelty 
 practised in those prisons, till she and Zwaan 
 had to beg him to stop. 
 
 Then they had talks on religion. He could 
 not believe in the invisible. One evening he 
 remarked that he thought he had heard her 
 talking to someone in her room. 
 
 "Oh!" she answered, "I am sorry I dis- 
 turbed you. I was praying." 
 
 "Ach, now! To think of an inteUigent 
 woman hke you speaking to someone who is 
 not in the room!" 
 
 "But He was there!" 
 
AS A LITTLE CHILD 267 
 
 "Now, now, now, it seems to me incredible!" 
 
 "M. Jensen," she said, "will you come to- 
 night to the service?" 
 
 "No, I do not believe. It's no use my 
 coming." 
 
 "You might come but once." 
 
 The Professor was like a father to his guest 
 all the time she was in his house, while his one 
 lame daughter was exceedingly kind. And the 
 Marechale asked the Lord to give her his soul. 
 At last he came down one morning and said 
 at breakfast, "I'm coming to-night." 
 
 He entered the great hall a little late, and 
 as he stepped up the aisle all eyes seemed to 
 turn towards his striking figure. He was well 
 known, and his presence excited much sur- 
 prise. "It is Jensen!" one whispered to 
 another. He sat and listened while the Mare- 
 chale spoke, and the meeting culminated in a 
 solemn pause, when she asked those who had 
 the desire, without any thought of past, pres- 
 ent, or f utiu-e, to know Him of whom she had 
 spoken — ^those who felt that their life was a 
 blank without Him — ^to come forward! There 
 was a room at the back, she said, where she 
 
268 THE MAKECHALE 
 
 could introduce them to Him, or help them 
 in this greatest step of aU their hfe. 
 
 For a moment no one moved, and there was 
 a dead silence, when aU of a sudden M. Jensen 
 rose from his seat and quietly came up to the 
 front. It was a scene which the Marechale 
 could never forget — an answer at once so ex- 
 pected and so unexpected. It moved her 
 because she knew what it meant to the Pro- 
 fessor. She went down to him, and he said, 
 "You know well I cannot pray; I've lost the 
 habit. I used to do it at my mother's knees; 
 never now. But you can. You pray for me; 
 I want to know Him." 
 
 They went aside together and knelt down. 
 He sought and found. When the last of the 
 meetings was over, they parted. Some years 
 afterwards, when he was on his death-bed, he 
 wrote the Marechale a letter, which was for- 
 warded to her by his daughter — a beautiful 
 letter in which he told her that his only regret 
 was that he had not known Christ earlier, 
 followed Him longer, and served Him better. 
 
 He entered the Kingdom of Heaven as a 
 little child. 
 
A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A MIDNIGHT INTEETIEW 
 
 Among the social and religious reformers 
 of the nineteenth century none cultivated "the 
 simple Ufa" more sincerely than the great 
 Russian writer, Count Leo Tolstoi. Im- 
 pressed with the conviction that the peasant's 
 mental ease is the result of a hfe of physical 
 toil, he renounced his own class and went to 
 work in the fields, ploughing and sowing, cut- 
 ting and reaping. And beheving that what 
 makes a man good is having few wants, he set 
 himself to Umit his wishes rigidly, detaching 
 his heart from all treasured objects. He dis- 
 seminated his ideas in works of genius which 
 were read everywhere, and not a few men of 
 the highest culture thought they saw in his 
 theories a cure for many of the maladies of 
 modern social hfe. 
 
 Among his followers was Professor von 
 Ress, of the University of Amsterdam, who 
 became the Marechale's friend when she was 
 
 271 
 
272 THE MARECHALE 
 
 at the head of the Army's work in Holland. 
 His home was at Hilversum, a beautifiil town 
 lying a little to the south of the great com- 
 mercial city, on a hilly stretch of pine woods 
 and sandy heaths, where many of the upper 
 classes had their villas. The first time the 
 Marechale spent a day out there, she could 
 not help contrasting her own humble head- 
 quarters in the heart of the city, overlooking 
 a sluggish canal in front and a cemetery be- 
 hind, with the lovely homes on the breezy 
 upland within sight of the Zuyder Zee. 
 
 Understanding that she was about to begin 
 a series of meetings in Hilversum, the Pro- 
 fessor gave her a warm invitation to come and 
 be his guest, bringing her baby Frida with her. 
 
 He had the face and eyes of an idealist. On 
 two occasions he was asked by artists to sit as 
 a model for the figure of the Christ. And he 
 had built himself a lovely home. On arriving 
 at his villa in the evening, the Marechale sud- 
 denly found herself, as she expressed it, in a 
 kind of fairyland. The large entrance hall, 
 bathed in subdued light, and adorned with 
 flowers and fountains, had a low gallery aU 
 around it, seated with luxurious chairs and 
 
A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 273 
 
 couches, whereon if you once sat down you 
 felt you would hke to rest for ever. But the 
 Marechale had come to work. After looking 
 round for a moment in silent wonder, she ex- 
 claimed, "Oh, Professor, what a beautiful 
 place for a meeting!" 
 
 "A meeting, indeed!" he answered; "you 
 don't mean that." 
 
 "Yes, I do ; it would be ideal." 
 
 "Oh, but the people I would get, you would 
 not care for; scientists, sociahsts, Tolstoyists. 
 — ^that is the class I hve and move among, and 
 you wouldn't care to address them." 
 
 "But I would ! They are the very people I 
 love to talk to, for among them I break fresh 
 groimd." 
 
 The matter was soon settled. The Pro- 
 fessor chose a day, and began to get his invita- 
 tions out. The response his friends made was 
 remarkable. They came, and came, and came, 
 until it seemed as if they would never stop 
 coming. The beautiful hall was packed. 
 Stepping onto a kind of tiny rostrum, with an 
 immense fern towering over it, the Marechale 
 began to speak. 
 
 Taking as her theme Augustine's words^ 
 
274 THE MARECHALE 
 
 "Learn to love, and do as you like," she spoke 
 for an hour, telling what a mistake it had been 
 — ^the greatest of all mistakes — ^to have hved 
 without knowing Him who alone has the key 
 to our problems, the answer to our questions. 
 "You may get all you like out of hfe," she 
 said, "but it is a huge error never to have 
 sought and found Him who would have 
 changed everything. If He remains unknown 
 to you, life is an enigma; without Him you 
 have missed its meaning. You may have 
 everything else, but you have nothing." 
 
 Few in the room, if any, had ever seen the 
 King in His beauty as they did that evening. 
 "Why did it end?" asked one lady, with tears 
 in her eyes. "I could have listened all night." 
 
 The Marechale had spoken in French, but 
 she finished by singing the Dutch version of 
 one of their own hymns: 
 
 "With Thee will I tarry, O Christ, my Lord." 
 
 Above her, on the right, was a fine organ, at 
 which the Professor, who added music to his 
 other accomplishments, played while she sang, 
 and as she glanced up at him she saw that his 
 
A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 275 
 
 eyes were filled with tears. His heart had been 
 touched, his soul deeply stirred. 
 
 Slowly the people took their departure. At 
 dinner the Professor expressed his dehght, 
 while his wife, a German lady as gifted as 
 himself, remained rather silent. The Mare- 
 chale went to rest early, tired, but very thank- 
 ful that something had been done for her 
 Lord. She was in bed, with Baby asleep be- 
 side her, when there was a knock at the door. 
 In response to her "Come in," the door opened, 
 and a figure stepped forward in the darkness, 
 and sank down at her bedside, sobbing. 
 "It is I — ^the Professor's wife." 
 "What is the matter, dear madam?" 
 "Oh, I wish you would go down and speak 
 to my husband. This villa is up for sale — ^this 
 beautiful house, his own design. And don't 
 you know he has given in his resignation 
 (demission) at the University? He has got a 
 kind of a bam, where he is going to have a 
 hundred young men working with him. He is 
 going to dig potatoes, and I am going to dig 
 potatoes, and the children are going to dig 
 potatoes! Yes, he is a Tolstoyist, and that is 
 how he is going to live. I have never seen 
 
276 THE MAKECHALE 
 
 him so impressed as he was to-night. Would 
 you go down and speak to him? He is now 
 alone." 
 
 "Very well. Go you to bed, and I wiU go 
 down and talk to him." 
 
 She went down, knocked at the study door, 
 and found the Professor smoking. Then en- 
 sued the following conversation, which has 
 been a blessing to thousands. 
 
 "Professor," she said, "I have come down 
 to have a little talk with you." 
 
 That was just what he, too, desired. 
 
 "I am a Tolstoyist," he said, and at once 
 began to tell her of his theories. "We must 
 work out our own salvation. All men are 
 naturally equal, no one superior, no one in- 
 ferior to another, and all should Uve the simple 
 life, the hfe of nature." 
 
 "Professor," said the Marechale, "this kind 
 of talk is a reflection on God who made us. 
 We are not aU made with the same faces, nor 
 with the same gifts. My mother could not 
 wash clothes; if she tried it she would faint 
 away. Why should we all attempt to do the 
 same work?" 
 
 He flung away his cigar and exclaimed. 
 
A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 277 
 
 "Look at those people round about in these 
 villas! I don't want my children to grow up 
 and just be like them. They do nothing but 
 live for themselves. They all go the general 
 roimd with everybody else." 
 
 "What are you going to do. Professor?" 
 
 "I have taken a farm, where a hundred of 
 us are going to hve the life of peasants, wear- 
 ing blouses, and titling the soil." 
 
 "You won't be there four-and-twenty hours 
 before you will have quarrels and disputes. 
 I have had some experience in dealing with 
 humanity, and with all the gifts and graces of 
 the Spirit it is difficult to keep people in love 
 and harmony. Without that it wiU be a great 
 failure." 
 
 Then he broke out again. The only thing 
 to put the world right was human effort, 
 mechanic labour, the simple life according to 
 nature. And so he ran on and on, eloquently 
 expounding his theories. It was now about 
 one o'clock, when the Marechale said: 
 
 "Listen to me. One thing strikes me. You 
 have never said a word aU this time about sin. 
 That is the great fact which confronts us in 
 
278 THE MARECHALE 
 
 every nation, community, family, and you 
 have never mentioned it — sin." 
 
 "Oh," he said, "we don't say sin, we say 
 sickness." 
 
 "I am not going to quarrel with you about 
 ierms. Express the thing as you will, there is 
 the great fact. You shelve it, but you have to 
 face it. There is the great obstacle to all im- 
 provement — ^this fact of sin, selfishness, call 
 it what you please." 
 
 All Holland was at that time ringing with 
 the case of a man tried for murder. Recalling 
 the facts, the Marechale put the question, 
 "Now, Professor, what would you say to him? 
 This man is very sick indeed. Yes, and where 
 is the doctor?" 
 
 He looked into the fire with his dreamy blue 
 eyes, and made no answer. She touched his 
 arm and said, "Here's a drunkard. He has 
 Jried a hundred times to give up drink and 
 failed. Professor, I bring him to you. What 
 have you to say to him?" 
 
 Speaking in Enghsh with his Dutch accent, 
 he answered, "I viU tell your drunkard that he 
 is to egserzize his vill." 
 
 "Is that all? Nothing more? You would 
 
A MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW 279 
 
 insult my poor drunkard, telling him to exer- 
 cise his will. He has no will to exercise." 
 
 The Professor again dropped his head, 
 looked into the fire, and was silent. 
 
 "Do you not see," she continued, "the will is 
 broken — fallen with the rest of us? It is 
 powerless, as tens of thousands would cry out. 
 There is where we need a Saviour — a Divine 
 hand that will take hold of our poor human 
 need and hft us up — some One who will come 
 into our hearts and bring new aspirations, new 
 desires." 
 
 It was about two o'clock when the Professor 
 turned to her and said, "I throw up the 
 sponge!" and the Tolstoyan, groping after the 
 truth and sincerely eager to find it, added, 
 "Pray for me, Marechale. Live for us, give 
 us the faith that will change us all." 
 
 He asked her to speak in the great Volks- 
 palast of Amsterdam, which holds four thou- 
 sand people. She consented, and asked him, 
 "What shaU I say?" 
 
 "Say to them what you have said to me. 
 Just tell them the same thing." 
 
 Some time afterwards, when she was giving 
 midnight suppers in Amsterdam, with some of 
 
280 THE MARECHALE 
 
 the worst and some of the best types of human 
 nature present, he wrote her asking if he might 
 come and play the organ. He hired a beau- 
 tiful instrument for the purpose. He was 
 deeply moved while she talked to yoimg girls 
 who had fallen into evil ways. And he ac- 
 knowledged that while sin — self-love — smocks 
 all our ideals and prevents them from being 
 reahsed, while sin keeps us moving in an end- 
 less circle like a dog running after its tail, 
 while we can no more save ourselves from sin 
 than we can escape from our own shadow, the 
 love of Another introduces us into a new 
 world, gives us a new nature, and makes all 
 things possible, even growth into the likeness 
 of Christ, who not only breaks the power of 
 sin, but makes us partakers of His holiness. 
 
 The Professor had learned that the "simple 
 hfe" of obedience to Christ is for all men and 
 nations the divine way of victory and progress. 
 The ideahst had found his true Ideal. 
 
 He is now with Him, seeing Him face to 
 face, changed into His image. 
 
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 
 
 "Katie," said the General in Victoria Sta- 
 tion, when she was starting on her second 
 journey to France, "you have remarkable in- 
 stincts; follow them, and you will never go 
 wrong." Twenty years after, her friend MUe. 
 Constance Monod, the daughter of the great 
 French preacher, wrote to her, "I would be- 
 seech you to trust yourself, trust your divine 
 instinct, which God has developed so, so won- 
 derfully in you." 
 
 Heredity, training and experience had com- 
 bined to give her the instincts of a true 
 soul-winner. The grace of God had imparted 
 to her "a spirit of wisdom and revelation." 
 Her intuitions were at once her strength and 
 her safety. Her instinctive love of the true, 
 the beautiful, and the good, her instinctive 
 hatred of the false, the sordid, and the selfish, 
 formed the touchstone to which she brought 
 everything in the moral, social and rehgious 
 
 283 
 
284 THE MAHECHALE 
 
 life of the modern world. Great numbers of 
 the elite of Paris and other cities, who were 
 technically far better educated than she, came 
 and sat at her feet, because they bowed to the 
 authority of the Christ-Spirit in her. And her 
 instincts of sympathy with poor, sick, suffer- 
 ing souls drew multitudes who were outside 
 the pale of the Church to the Saviour. 
 
 She always maintained that she went on her 
 mission as a simple Enghsh girl, doing only 
 what any other girl, with the same opportuni- 
 ties and the same faith, might have done. 
 There is a divine power in a woman's instincts 
 of purity and righteousness which puts the 
 baseness of men to shame. That power, many 
 believe, will be the chief factor in the salvation 
 of the modern Church and modem society. 
 Ours is an age which needs Deborahs and 
 Huldahs with their divine instincts. The 
 Song of Songs tells how a simple Hebrew girl, 
 tempted by the glory of the world, but strong 
 in her passion of holy love, merited the won- 
 derful ascription, "Fair as the moon, clear as 
 the sun, terrible as an army with banners." 
 If the Christian womanhood of the twentieth 
 century rises to that level, the future of the 
 
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 285 
 
 Ejngdom of God will be far more glorious 
 than its past. 
 
 The Marechale's instincts for the beautiful 
 in nature and in art doubtless constituted no 
 small part of her charm for the Latin races. 
 She looked at all the glory of heaven and 
 earth with a poet's eyes. During her early 
 crowded life of evangelism in England, her 
 father once took her on a tour through the 
 Trossachs of Scotland, and the memory of 
 that vision of beauty ever afterwards haunted 
 her like a passion. "Let me stay here!" she 
 said to the General, whose reply, calling a 
 soldier to arms, equally remained in her 
 memory: "Men are more interesting than 
 scenery." If she scarcely ever took holidays 
 in after life, it was not that she did not some- 
 times sigh for the wings of a dove that she 
 might fly away and be at rest. There was a 
 hfelong conflict between the natural and the 
 ascetic in her. 
 
 She had never had time to cultivate any art 
 except music, but her sense of everything 
 lovely in form and colour and sound was 
 exquisite, and she became without study a 
 supreme artist in at least one department. At 
 
286 THE MARECHALE 
 
 the time of the coronation of Queen Wilhel- 
 mina of Holland, there was a grand Exhibition 
 of all that women can do in the modern world. 
 A deputation waited on the Marechale and 
 begged her to give an address along with two 
 other well-known lady speakers. She agreed 
 to come, provided she should be allowed to 
 choose her own subject. Consent was readily 
 given, and she delivered an address in French 
 upon what Christ has done for Woman and 
 \vhat Woman for Christ. She gave no thought 
 to the manner of deUvery; she merely realised 
 that she had a golden opportunity of proclaim- 
 ing her Saviour to a magnificent audience. 
 She had never in her hfe received a lesson in 
 elocution, and to have done so might have 
 seemed to her wicked backshding. But she 
 was awarded the palm of eloquence. 
 
 If her scholastic education was somewhat 
 defective, she was wonderfully guided by her 
 instincts in her later self -education. During 
 her American tour she was taken one day 
 by three white-haired professors to see the 
 greatest library in the United States. Her 
 unsophisticated mind was bewildered by all 
 
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 287 
 
 that mass of learning. "Surely," she said, "it 
 must strike despair into the minds of the stu- 
 dents!" 
 
 One of her guides questioned her about her 
 own favourite books. 
 
 "Well," she answered, "I have never been a 
 reader; I think I have only two." 
 
 "What might they be?" 
 
 "One of them you know." 
 
 "Yes, the Bible; what is the second?" 
 
 "The Heart of Man. I am always at it, on 
 land and sea, in the streets and in railway car- 
 riages, morning, noon and night. It helps me 
 with my first book better than any com- 
 mentary." 
 
 She came to know the Bible with a thor- 
 oughness which not one man in ten thousand 
 ever attains. Her spiritual instinct seized, and 
 her extraordinary memory retained, the vital 
 and the essential. She never studied the Bible 
 in the ordinary way, sitting down with lexicon 
 and concordance. There was no time for that 
 in her busy life. She took her spiritual food 
 from the Bible as the bee sips honey from 
 flowers. The Bible was her companion and 
 she read it for pleasure. She absorbed and 
 
288 THE MARECHALE 
 
 assimilated it without effort. That she knew 
 much of it by heart was of less importance than 
 the fact that it became part of herself. Therein 
 lay her power of expoimding and applying it. 
 
 The truths by which she lived came to her 
 intuitively. Her rehgion did not consist of 
 commandments and dogmas. It was life, 
 light, liberty, and, above all, love. AEke in 
 what she accepted and what she rejected she 
 acted instinctively — she could do no other. 
 She had an aversion to rehgious controversy. 
 Arguments made little or no impression upon 
 her mind. She might sometimes be over- 
 whelmed with theological doctrines, the truth 
 of which she could neither affirm nor deny, but 
 in the end she would emerge with the naive 
 remark, "I am a very simple child, and I must 
 have a child's religion." She always held that 
 Christ'^s religion is for the multitude, and that 
 the multitude are children. The essence of 
 Christianity can be assimilated by boys and 
 girls who do not know how to read and write, 
 and they may become saints and saviours. 
 
 A glance at the Marechale's well-used Bible 
 suffices to prove that for her the heart of the 
 Old Testament is in Hosea, the prophet of 
 
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 289 
 
 love, and Isaiah the prophet of atonement, 
 while the heart of the New Testament is in the 
 story of the returning prodigal or the penitent 
 Magdalene. If there were parts of the much- 
 loved Book from which she could not preach, 
 she was here, too, guided by her instincts. 
 One day she was reading to her yovmgest chil- 
 dren the story of Daniel in the lions' den. All 
 went well till she came to the words, "And the 
 king commanded, and they brought those men 
 who had accused Daniel, and they cast them 
 into the den of the hons, them, their children 
 and their wives ; and the lions had the mastery 
 over them, and brake all their bones in pieces." 
 At this point Evelyn, a blue-eyed maid of six, 
 whose face had suddenly become very grave, 
 said, "C'est assez; ferme le livre!" (That's 
 enough; shut the book!) Her Christian in- 
 stinct would not accept the death of innocent 
 women and children. Sir Walter Scott's little 
 friend, Pet Marjory, commented on a similar 
 passage in the Book of Esther, "But Jesus 
 was not then come to teach us to be merciful." 
 It is written: "Out of the mouths of babes 
 and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise." 
 "A httle child shall lead them." "Thou hast 
 
290 THE MAKECHALE 
 
 hid these things from the wise and prudent, 
 and hast revealed them unto babes." 
 
 The Marechale's fidehty to instinct gave her 
 also the tender touch and heahng skill of a 
 true "mother-confessor." As a soul-winner 
 she never gave the impression of condescend- 
 ing. She did not need to stoop ; by nature and 
 by grace she tvas meek and lowly in heart. 
 What drew multitudes of poor sinners to her 
 was their assurance that she would hear with 
 human sympathy their tales of sin and sorrow. 
 At one of her midnight suppers a French lady 
 said to her, "I have been here all these years 
 trying to bring these poor girls together. 
 How is it that you succeed where I fail, in 
 getting them to open their hearts to you?" 
 
 "Perhaps," said the Marechale, "it is be- 
 cause I do not make them feel that there is a 
 difference between them and me." 
 
 One dark winter night she was passing 
 along the Seine embankment on the way to her 
 place of meeting on the Quai de Valmy. She 
 noticed a girl gazing at the dark, cold waters, 
 and a quick instinct told her that she was medi- 
 tating suicide. Touching her arm she said: 
 
 "Don't look at those black, cruel waters. 
 
THE MAEECHALE 
 (From a photograph by Moffet, Chicago, 19Si) 
 
 [Page 290 
 
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 291 
 
 Come with me and have a nice cup of coffee. 
 You seem to be in trouble." 
 
 The girl, whose face was dark and sullen, 
 looked at her suspiciously, and did not speak. 
 The Marechale gently pleaded with her to 
 come and hear a lady sing. 
 
 "She sings beautifully, and you will find 
 light and warmth and comfort, and you will 
 have a good cup of coffee. Do come with me." 
 
 The girl at length consented and came. She 
 heard the Marechale herself sing. She sat 
 right through the service without opening her 
 hps and with a hard look on her face. At the 
 end the Marechale went down beside her, asked 
 if she had enjoyed the meeting, and said a 
 word to her about the goodness of God. At 
 the mention of the name of God, the girl biirst 
 into passionate speech. 
 
 "God! Don't talk to me of God! I hate 
 Him. What has He done for me? Why did 
 He take my mother? He doesn't care for me. 
 If He did. He would not have let me be bom 
 in prison. What have I done to deserve such 
 a life as this? It isn't my fault." 
 
 But while the Marechale talked with her and 
 prayed with her, the girl's heart was softened. 
 
292 THE MARECHALE 
 
 She began to attend the meetings, and soon 
 gave her heart to the Lord Jesus. That 
 was thirty years ago, and she has never gone 
 back. She still lives in Paris, and in her whole 
 appearance and manner she has the gentle re- 
 finement of one who abides in fellowship with 
 the living Christ. 
 
 The same instinct has often enabled the 
 Marechale to see at a glance that backsliders 
 are fighting against their better selves, and 
 only need the touch of sympathy to restore 
 them to God, who Himself says, "I will heal 
 their backshding, I will love them freely, for 
 mine anger is turned away." These sketches 
 may end with the grateful tribute of one whose 
 erring footsteps were thus tvu-ned again into 
 the way of hfe. 
 
 "I had been used in the past in the conver- 
 sion of hvmdreds of souls, but I made a com- 
 promise^ and it has spelt ruin to my soul. No 
 one knows how vile I have been, meriting 
 desertion by God and man. ... I had re- 
 solved to end my existence, but somehow I was 
 brought to a meeting to hear you speak about 
 that Russian lady. Even then I determined 
 
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE 293 
 
 you should not influence me, but God somehow 
 through you gripped my life. I saw myself in 
 the true light as (I say the words not in their 
 usual sense) a 'blasted hypocrite.' Don't for- 
 get to echo and re-echo the words that reached 
 me, 'Compromise with the world spells ruin.' 
 That burnt into my soul. ... I remember 
 while you spoke a big lump rising in my throat, 
 and just as you were closing your address the 
 thought came, 'I wonder if she would under- 
 stand,' Ay, more, I remember how you 
 received me that day. God bless you. I came 
 out of heU. I have a clear sky. I want to let 
 you know that the consciousness of forgiveness 
 of the past has come with almost an over- 
 whelming force, and an awful load has gone. 
 No daughter ever loved mother more than I 
 love you, I know that. Why is it? Because 
 God made you the means of my salvation. My 
 heart just bursts with love and gratitude. So 
 I am yours, and at that last great day you 
 wiU see it if I come through at last. . . . Dear 
 one, have you ever thought of this? — some one 
 by a gallant effort rescues hves from fire or 
 shipwreck; the world applauds and honours 
 
294 THE MAKECHALE 
 
 the deliverer. You (by the grace of God) res- 
 cued me from shipwreck of soul. Christ will 
 own it before His Father and all the countless 
 multitudes." 
 
 THE END 
 
SOME APPRECIATIONS OF 
 THE EARLIER EDITIONS OF 
 
 'THE MARECHALE" 
 
 "Any narrative written with the literary skill of the 
 author would be attractive, but the Marechale's career 
 is romantic and dramatic in the extreme, and the book 
 is one of poignant interest from beginning to end." — 
 Missionary Record. 
 
 "It is admirably written, and it does no more than 
 justice to a noble woman who has left the mark of her 
 gracious personality and her wonderful influence upon 
 France and other countries, and who is still bringing 
 the Gospel message to a sinful world." — Life of Faith. 
 
 "It is a stirring story that Mr. Strahan tells. The 
 late General Booth's children have aU strongly-marked 
 personalities, and Mrs. Booth-Clibborn (Catherine) is 
 perhaps the most original of all. . . . She acquired a 
 complete mastery of the French language, and her 
 career became highly dramatic — a series of sensational 
 victories over Paris mobs and Parisian ridicule." — 
 Christian World. 
 
 "What shall we say about the book? That it is 
 well written? Mr. Strahan is a master of the English 
 language. But we do not think of the writing. What 
 we must say about it is that it moves us not less 
 surely and not less searchingly than one of the 
 Marechale's own addresses. The Salvation Army 
 and every other agency or Church that has the preach- 
 ing of the Gospel at heart, should send it out by the 
 thousand." — Expository Times. 
 
 "General Booth's eldest daughter is one of the most 
 attractive personalities in the religious world of to- 
 day, and she found an ideal biographer The 
 
 writing of this book has been to him a labour of love. 
 
SOME APPRECIATIONS— CoTOfowMetZ 
 
 and he has produced, not a conventional eulogy, but 
 a ■work of delicate sympathy and tender surprises. 
 This is by far the best book we have ever read on the 
 Salvation Army, and it will live when more ambitious 
 efforts are forgotten. It will open doors and hearts 
 everywhere." — British Weekly. 
 
 "It is a sparkling draught of living water. It 
 touches our spirits — however far we may be from 
 Salvation Army methods and terminology — with the 
 sense of something original and vital; something that 
 goes below all religious differences and calls to the soul 
 at its deepest and best." — Presbyterian, 
 
 "The story of the earlier years of Catherine Booth's 
 life is a record of self-sacrificing but triumphant devo- 
 tion to the work of the Army in France and other 
 Continental countries, and it reveals the Marechale as 
 a hardly less striking figure than the General himself." 
 — Daily News. 
 
 "It is a fascinating story, and the reader who once 
 takes it up will be unwilling to put it down untU he 
 has finished." — Christian Commonwealth. 
 
 "One turns from it with hunger in the heart, and 
 tears in the heart as well as hunger. ... It moves 
 one to the deep and quickens to the very finger-tips." 
 — Sunday at Home. 
 
 "The story of her efforts, her trials, her experiences, 
 her work and enthusiasm for 'saving souls,' is a thrilling 
 one, and her life work is a fact that cannot be ignored 
 by the student, whether of religion, psychology, or social 
 reform. The book is enriched with four portraits of this 
 saintly woman, and a reproduction of Baron Ceder- 
 strom's painting representing 'La Marechale dans le 
 Cafe.' " — Queen. 
 
 "A beautiful life, worthy of the child of such splendid 
 parents." — Lady. 
 
SOME APPRECIATIONS OF THE WORK 
 OF THE MARECHALE 
 
 "A -work such as Mrs. Booth-Clibbom has done should 
 be known by all as it is a fine illustration of the present 
 and actual power of God. We too often lose sight of 
 the fact that God's power is still among his creatures and 
 that the day of miracles has not passed." 
 
 William Jennings Bryan, 
 
 Ex-Secretary of State. 
 
 "This book of the experiences of Mrs. Booth-Clibbom, 
 in her campaign in France, as the Marechale of the 
 Salvation Army, is the most extraordinary illustration of 
 the force of personal religion that I have ever come 
 across. It at once stimulates and condemns every 
 
 H. Martyn Hart, Denver, Colorado. 
 
 "Whatever our theories may be in regard to the 
 ultimate philosophy of religion, the essential significance 
 of the Minor Prophets, or other such matters, we may 
 all recognize here a book vibrant with the martial thrill 
 of the world's greatest battle — always being fought, and 
 never ended — a chronicle of doings which wipe out the 
 old-established limits of possibility. If lack of worthy 
 motive be the heart-sickness and paralysis of our age, 
 here is, at least, one epic of people radiant with the 
 power of love, and avid with an insatiable hunger for 
 souls." 
 
 Peopessor James Taft Hatfield, M.A., Ph.D. 
 
 Northwestern University. 
 
 "Mrs. Booth-Clibborn is personally known to me, and 
 I regard her as a personal worker of great and remark- 
 able power, gifted with a sympathetic influence which 
 tells in unlikely and difficult quarters." 
 
 Hanley C. J. MouLE, D.D., 
 
 Lord Bishop of Durham.