Reprinted from The Warriors’ Library by With a Preface by General Bramwell Booth...

Colonel Duff has, at my request, written the following very interesting and touching account of my dear Mother; and she has done so in the hope that those who read it will be helped to follow in the footsteps of that wonderful servant of God. But how can they do so? Was not Mrs. Booth, you ask, an exceptional woman? Had she not great gifts and very remarkable powers, and was she not trained in a very special way to do the work to which God called her? How, then, can ordinary people follow in her

’Parents who love God best will not allow their children to learn anything which could not be pressed into His service.’– Mrs . Booth . The Mother of The Salvation Army was born at Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, on January 17, 1829, and God gave to her the very best gift He can give to any child–a good and holy mother. Katie Mumford, as she was then called, had no sister to play with, and of her four brothers only one lived to be a man. But her dear mother more than made up for every lack, and from h

’No soul was ever yet saved who was too idle to seek.’– Mrs . Booth . Perhaps you, the Corps Cadet, for whom I am especially writing this little book, have been tempted to break your vows by becoming engaged to some one who does not want to be an Officer. And you think, perhaps, that no one understands your feelings. You will be surprised, then, to know that our Army Mother had just such a battle to fight when she was a girl. She had a cousin, a little older than herself, who was tall and very c

’What a need there is for effort and energy; or real religion and common sense!’– Mrs . Booth . One Sunday, when Catherine and her mother went to the Meeting as usual, they found a ‘Special’ there, taking the services. He was quite different from the other Specials, and Catherine could not help noticing him with extra interest. He spoke to the people’s hearts, and was not so much occupied in preaching a good sermon as in getting some one converted. But he did preach a very good sermon for all th

’Since I came to the crucifixion of myself, I have not cared much what men might say of me.’– Mrs. Booth . At the time when our Army Mother married The General’s work was, as we have seen, that of an ‘Evangelist’ or ‘Travelling Minister.’ He would stay in a town for some weeks or months, as the case might be, preaching and holding Meetings, and getting people saved, both in the town itself and the places round. It was a blessed and useful life, but very wearying; and we can fancy how trying it m

’I will never speak to sinners so that one man or woman in my audience can stand up and say, “You might have warned me more faithfully, spoken more plainly than you did.” I would rather die than that should be the case.’— Mrs. Booth . No one must think that Mrs. Booth became a great speaker all in a moment, or by any ‘royal road.’ She started when about eighteen, as many a Corps Cadet has since done, by just taking a class or Company on Sundays, never dreaming of doing more. An elder girls’ Comp

’A lady once said to me, “How have you managed to get your children converted so early?” “Oh,” I said, “I have been beforehand with the Devil."’— Mrs. Booth . I have already told you how Mrs. Booth had the true mother spirit when but a little child, loving and tending her dolls as if they had been real babies; you will, therefore, guess that with her own children she was the best and most careful of mothers. She began early to train them in the right way, and never left them unless forced to do

’What the Lord wants is, that you shall go about the business to which He sets you, not asking for an easy post, nor grumbling at a hard one.’— Mrs. Booth . If she had not been a worker, our Army Mother would have done little with her life. The wonderful call which came to her, her great gifts, the zeal and love which filled her heart, would all have been useless had she not been willing to work, and to work hard, and to work every day. Stop and think about this. No life accomplishes anything un

’I see more than ever that the religion which is pleasing to God consists in doing and enduring His will, rather than in good sentiments and feelings. The Lord help us to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.’— Mrs. Booth . When our first General stood on that October evening by the grave of his beloved wife, and spoke to us with a breaking heart of our Army Mother, he unfolded to us the three great qualities which made her character so beautiful. First, and foremost, she was good; secondly, sh

The truest love must ever seek the highest good of its object; sometimes even with forgetfulness of important smaller advantages.’— Mrs. Booth . The second great quality in Mrs. Booth’s character, as given by the first General, was her love. ‘She was love ,’ he says. ’Her whole soul was full of tender, deep compassion. Oh, how she loved, how she pitied the suffering poor! How she longed to put her arms round the sorrowful, and help them!’ ‘How,’ asked Mrs. Booth once, ’are we to put heart into p

’Fighting is hard work, whatever sort of fighting it is. You cannot fight without wounds of body, heart, or soul.’— Mrs. Booth . ‘Lastly,’ said The General in that same beautiful tribute to our Army Mother that I have already quoted from,’ she was a warrior . She liked the fight. She was not one who said to others, “Go,” but “Here, let me go”; and when there was the necessity she said, “I will go!” I never knew her flinch until her poor body compelled her to lie on one side.’ Our Army Mother was

’As I look back on life I do not remember the houses I have lived in, the people that I have known, the things of passing interest at the moment. They are all gone. There is nothing stands out before my mind as of any consequence, but the work I have done for God and Eternity.’— Mrs. Booth . If The General and those who loved our Army Mother best had been able to choose for her, they would most likely have said: ’Let her live and fight and work on, up to within a few days of her promotion to Glo