Angel Adjutant of Twice Born Men | Page 9

for Penarth, in Wales,
with Kate as her lieutenant. Her way lay through London, and she
knocked at the home door one night. A quick, light step flew to answer
it. 'My captain!' cried Kate. 'My lieutenant!' cried Lucy, as they clasped
one another. Happy tears glistened in their eyes as they held each other
at arms' length to get a good view of each other in the full glory of their
respective uniforms, and in the eyes of the little mother, who, learning
to walk by faith, was finding the joy as well as the pain of sacrificing
her treasures upon the altar of Christ.

III
WOMAN'S POSITION IN THE ARMY

We write in a matter-of-fact way that Captain Lucy and Lieutenant
Kate Lee received an appointment to this or that corps, and the
statement is received as it was written--without surprise or reflection.
But, in truth, behind such a sentence lies one of the most notable
achievements of The Salvation Army as a world force--the right to
public service for women.
Looking over the fifty-five years of the life of The Army, and further
back still, we can trace clearly the guiding hand of God in the
formation and direction of this instrument of His choosing.
When, in the order of Divine providence, William Booth was chosen to
be Founder of the Salvation Army, by strange, devious, suffering ways,
God led him, chastened him, disciplined him in preparation for his
great work. At the same time, Catherine Mumford, by the hand of God,
was being fitted to be the Mother of The Salvation Army.
She was a delicate, retiring, but highly intelligent young woman of
twenty-four years of age, when she heard her minister, in the course of
a sermon, give expression to the view that women were mentally and
morally inferior to men. At this suggestion Catherine Mumford felt a
strong native resentment rise within her. Until that hour she had held
the view that God had made men and women equal in gifts of mind and
heart; now she made a thorough study of the subject in the light of the
Word of God and of history, and as a result she formed a reasoned
opinion from which she never swerved. In a letter, remarkable for its
logic and its command of vigorous English, she set forth her views to
her pastor. She admitted that prejudice and custom had relegated
woman to positions inferior to those occupied by men; but argued that,
given similar advantages of education and opportunity, woman is man's
equal, fitted to be his partner, and able, with great advantage to enter
with him into all serious and practical counsels for the benefit of the
race.
In championing the cause of her sex, Catherine Mumford found she had
to take the field almost alone. Even William Booth, to whom she was

then engaged, did not share her views. Mr. Booth believed that while
woman carried the palm in point of affection, man was her superior in
regard to intellect. Miss Mumford would not admit this for a moment;
and by degrees, chiefly by the charming power of her own personality
and also by argument, she wholly carried her beloved to her view-point.
In the 'Life of Catherine Booth,' by Commissioner Booth-Tucker, we
find records of the young husband, soon after their marriage, urging his
wife to lecture on various subjects.
The next move along the track which all unconsciously Mrs. Booth was
blazing for a host of women to tread, publishing the Salvation of God,
was in defence of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, a consecrated American
evangelist who, in company with her husband, was conducting
powerful mission services in England. Mrs. Palmer's ministry,
notwithstanding the fact that it was more honoured of God in the
conversion of souls than that of her husband, excited a vigorous attack
from a clergyman of a large church in Sunderland. In Catherine Booth's
breast again flamed that powerful resentment she had felt on the
occasion previously mentioned. She wrote her mother saying that for
the first time in her life she felt like taking the platform in order to
answer the false views propounded concerning female ministry. Instead,
she wrote a well-reasoned and convincing paper on woman's right to
preach--a pamphlet of some thirty- two pages. By this time her husband
was so entirely with her in this matter that he encouraged her to make
her defence. And we find Mr. Booth copying the pamphlet from his
wife's manuscript and preparing it for the press.
But while Mrs. Booth was the most powerful advocate in England of
woman's right to preach, she herself had never attempted to speak in
public.
At last there came a day when she realized that her silence was not
consistent with her profession and