Resurrected writers: Catherine Booth

The dead still speak
An occasional series by Maxwell Ryan

N

early 118 years ago, in the English coastal town of Clacton-on-Sea, heaven became richer as one of the best minds of the Victorian era - Catherine Booth, mother of The Salvation Army - slipped loose her hold on earthly life.  At 61 years of age the woman who was among the most compelling speakers of her era (one of her many biographers wrote that she was “one of the most remarkable woman who has ever lived”) succumbed to the ravages of cancer, her husband William and her children by her bedside.

Catherine was born in 1829 and from an early age, despite ill health as a child, revealed the qualities that would mark her as an extraordinary person.  She was ardent, yet her passion was joined to a formidable intellect and command of language. By age 12 she had read the Bible through eight times, the knowledge thus gained playing a large part in her later trenchant public sermons and lectures.

William T. Stead, a well-known Victorian newspaper editor who supported the fledgling Salvation Army, wrote: “Of those who in the last quarter of the 19th century have most influenced the religious life of England there are few who can be compared with Mrs. Booth.” A leading Wesleyan minister and author of the 20th century, Dr. William Sangster,  referred to Catherine in his monumental study of Christian sanctity as a saint. She was a slightly built woman about five feet six inches in height. In speaking her delivery was calm, precise and clear. As her son, Bramwell Booth, wrote: “The light upon her face shone from the windows of another world.”

In the writings of Catherine Booth is to be found the authentic voice of the early Salvation Army. She wrote, in Popular Christianity, “Of the thousands of souls who are resting their hopes of salvation on the fact that they have been baptized, not only such as believe in the delusion of baptismal regeneration, but amongst ordinary church and chapel going people.  As I look at our Army congregations and note the signs of sin, debauchery and crime on many faces, I say to myself, I suppose all these people have been baptized, but at least they do not claim baptismal regeneration. Thank God! It is only genteel sinners who can bring themselves to believe in such a palpable sham. What an inveterate tendency there is in the human heart to trust in outward forms, instead of seeking inward grace.”

Today Catherine Booth is known mainly as the person who championed the right of women to preach.  When she was born, in 1829, woman had no rights over their property, their children or their own persons and certainly not in the Church.

In her late 20s, now married to William Booth, Catherine was keenly following revival services conducted in England by American evangelists Walter and Phoebe Palmer.  A local clergyman, angry that Mrs. Palmer was preaching, published a pamphlet denouncing women preachers as unscriptural.

Catherine responded in a brilliant letter that was logical, clear, vigorous, concise and scriptural.  William encouraged her to expand the letter into a pamphlet and Female Ministry, subtitled “Woman’s right to preach the gospel,” was published in 1859. The pamphlet was included in Practical Religion, a later collection of her addresses.

She and George Scott Railton were the Army’s first theologians and influenced William in his decision regarding the sacraments.  She was a convinced Wesleyan and, along with her husband, ensured that the Army was known primarily as a holiness movement.

Catherine’s writings were mainly a compilation of her sermons and addresses, many of which were given to some of society’s notables in the West End of London. Her words were compelling in their forceful clarity. With her there were no half measures; she did not suffer fools gladly, though her warm and compassionate heart reached out, especially to the downtrodden. Typical of her words were these, taken from an 1881 address on Christian charity: “I would rather be in everlasting warfare in company with that which is fair, and true, and good, than I would walk in harmony with that which is hollow, and rotten, and vile, and destined to the bottomless put. The Lord help you to make the same choice!”

During an influential series of lectures given in the Cannon Street Hotel, London, in March 1883 she spoke of “the probable future of The Salvation Army”. “When people discover that we are teaching no sentimental sanctification but practical holiness, that we teach that a man cannot be right with God while he is doing wrong to men, in short, that holiness means being saved from sin, saved to the uttermost and filled with love to God and man, they say, ‘Well this is scriptural, that must be right’.”

Even though life in the early Salvation Army was not easy,  this attracted rather than repelled many Christians to commit their lives to this unusual revival movement. Wrote Catherine during the 1880s, certainly the heyday of the Army’s growth:  “A very important item to be borne in mind in calculating the future of the Army is the youth of its officers. They are mostly under 25 years of age – young men and women full of fire and energy, numbers of them having sacrificed home, or friends, or situations, or offers to marriage. Think of the heroism such people are capable of and what they are likely to become!”

There are a number of excellent biographies of Catherine Booth. Her published writings include the following: The Salvation Army in relation to the Church and state, published by The Salvation Army in 1883 and now out of print. The Salvation Army, USA Southern Territory, reprinted the following books in 1986:  Practical Religion, Godliness, Popular Christianity, Aggressive Christianity, Life and Death, and The Highway of our God all were originally published by The Salvation Army’s International Headquarters in the late 1880s. Female Ministry, first published in 1859, was reprinted in pamphlet form. Most of these publications should be available at various Salvation Army Trade Departments.

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement he is a part-time chaplain in a Salvation Army hospital in Winnipeg, Canada, a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of theRubicon series called Thinkaloud.

Tags: Catherine Booth, writing

No comments yet.

Leave a comment