Our Church Mothers

Chapter 6 The Army Mother, Catherine Booth

Our Destiny on a Soapbox

One evening, my husband was particularly unsettled about his calling in ministry. He decided to go for a walk, which turned out to be a very long walk, finding himself at Mile End Waste. Half again as long as its name, this infamous alley housed a variety of illicit commerce, from petty dealers, quack doctors, to shooting ranges and more.⁵⁰ It was not uncommon in “darkest England” to find people lying in the gutter, either unconscious or dead, overcome by disease, alcoholism, or starvation. London’s three million residents lived together on two thousand miles of streets and alleys, the equivalent of two hundred people per acre, which swelled to two hundred ninety per acre in the East End.⁵¹ During his walk, William stopped outside the Blind Beggar Tavern to listen to some street evangelists, who invited him to preach after they finished. Such a location provided a new challenge. Dutifully, he stepped atop their wooden soapbox. Freedom of speech in England was guaranteed, but the law required you must be six inches off the ground when giving a speech in public. A wooden box, designed as a case for soap bars, met the requirements perfectly. Turned upside down, the box had enough room for two big feet.

Atop the street podium, William began, “There is a heaven in East London for everyone.”⁵² A rotten egg whistled past his ear and splattered on the bricks behind him. But thirty minutes later, six destitute men knelt on the ground and gave their lives over to the Lord! When my husband returned home after midnight, he was exuberant. “Darling,” he announced, bursting open the door, “I have found my destiny!”⁵³ I wasn’t aware that it had been lost. Yet there was earnestness in William’s words that night. He said to me, “I seemed to hear a voice sounding in my ears, ‘Where can you go and find such as these and where is there so great a need for your labors?’ I offered myself, and you and the children, to this great work. Those people shall be our people, and they shall have our God for their God.”⁵⁴ He paused. He was waiting for an answer from me. I stared silently into the smoldering coals of the fireplace. I knew what this meant; with no church affiliation, our living expenses came from whatever offering our listeners gave. Now we would depend on the generosity of the poverty-stricken East Enders. Ah, but the poor would be generous; they always are. I heard myself say, “If you feel you ought to stay there; then stay. We have trusted the Lord before for our support; we can trust him again.”⁵⁵ Those words came from the heart (they certainly did not come from the head).

The East London Christian Mission

A few days later, the same street preachers knocked on our front door to ask William to preach at their tent meetings in Whitechapel. On Sunday, July 2, 1865, in a drafty tent pitched on an old graveyard, William conducted what became the first meeting of the Christian Mission .⁵⁶ Soon the Rev. Booth was fully in charge as the others recognized his natural leadership ability. The group never intended to form a church because there was a chapel or mission hall on every street in East London, yet with little effect. The purpose was to convert the people and send them to the churches, but this idea failed utterly. The people would not go when sent. You can guess why this was so; they were not wanted. The poor did not dress properly, speak correctly and were not perceived as equals to the better educated churchgoers. Moreover, the new believers were the hardest workers and most effective witnesses to the saving love of Christ at the mission. It was obvious that we needed these people as much as they need us. Our mission would be their spiritual home.

After the Mission’s only tent grew tattered and useless, a dance academy hall was purchased for a meeting place. For eighteen months, the two-story building was filled twice every Sunday. Local pubs were deserted when the meetings were on; their patrons needed to inspect what the fuss was all about. William instinctively knew that unusual methods were needed to attract the broken East Enders, who saw the church as harsh and irrelevant mirroring a frozen-hard God. Who wanted a cold heaven over a warm hell? William’s commitment to reach these souls was remarkable, but after several years, we realized that we were attracting more churchgoers instead of the poor to which we felt especially called. Something had to be done, something to breathe new life back into the cause. One Saturday in 1878 William found me in the kitchen, elbow-deep kneading dough (one of my least favorite activities). The Mission Annual Report in hand, he had a serious question, “Do you think the Christian Mission, organized as a Christian army in a military fashion would be Scriptural?” I so appreciated how my husband valued my opinion. As he spoke of troops, bombardments, and battle plans I prayed and thought of the Israelites at war with the Amorites, Hittites, Jacobites and the mosquito bites. Then the vision of the Prophet Joel came vividly to mind. I bid William wait until I could read aloud these words from my Bible:

“Blow the trumpet in Zion;

sound the alarm on my holy hill….

The LORD thunders at the head of his army;

his forces are beyond number…

I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth,

blood and fire and billows of smoke.

And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.”

(Joel 2:1, 11, 30, 32)

There it was. William was as excited as I was. It was right for England, the timing was perfect.

An Army it would be; an Army of deliverance, and a Salvation Army!