Army Officers verily believe in the aphorism that change of work is as good as a rest. When heavy campaigning at one corps had over-wearied Adjutant Lee, and it was suggested that she might conduct a party of emigrants to Canada, she hailed the opportunity with the joy of a child. To cross the ocean; to see something of the great Dominion; passing over thousands of miles of prairie, mountain, and river, and coming in touch with the throbbing cities of that great country, and all the while to be about her Master’s business, was pure delight in prospect.
Captain Winifred Leal, who was at that time engaged in the Emigration Department, and had to do with the party which was committed to Adjutant Lee’s charge, furnishes some reminiscences of the impression which she made upon herself, and also upon the officers of the boat upon which the party sailed. She writes:–
At that time these parties were crossing the Atlantic weekly, and sometimes three times a week. In advance of each sailing, full particulars were mailed to The Salvation Army officers who were responsible for meeting the boat at the port of landing, and also to The Salvation Army officers at the various centres throughout the Dominion, at which individual settlers were to arrive for distribution in outlying districts. Thus, no responsibility with regard to placing the newcomers upon arrival rested with the conductor, whose work it was to be spiritual adviser and friend to each member and unifier of the party as a whole, during the voyage. Whilst crossing the bridge that spans the distance between the known and unknown, hearts are tender. The mind, too, takes stock of the failures, mistakes, and successes of the past; fresh resolutions are made. It is a time propitious for the re-birth of souls. The Angel Adjutant said she felt it to be so.
Her party was an interesting one: wives and children joining husbands and fathers, who had set sail, with The Army’s help, some months previously; single women and widows going to domestic service; parents whose married children in the Dominion offered them a home with them; and not the least interesting, a party of Scotch boys, aged from fourteen to seventeen. (These boys were orphans. In Edinburgh and Glasgow they had started to earn their living in the streets. Under The Army’s wing they were now to be placed on Canadian farms.)
It fell to me to introduce Adjutant Lee to the members of her party, and her sympathy went out to each one of them. The Adjutant was undoubtedly nervous of her powers, when embarking upon an enterprise so new as this, and she asked if I could not accompany the sailing from Glasgow to Liverpool. A period of about twenty-four hours, as near as I can remember, was involved in the interval of embarking at Glasgow and setting sail from Liverpool. This was arranged, and three vivid impressions of this remarkable woman, whom I had not met previously, remain with me.
The first sitting of third-class passengers were seated around the table in the dining-room for their substantial meal, special tables having been allocated to the hundred or more members of the party under Salvation Army guidance. Adjutant Lee, who was standing by the tables, managed in a natural manner, and without any preliminary fuss to get the entire party on to their feet, singing,
We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,But more because of Jesus’ blood;Let manna to our souls be given,The Bread of Life sent down from Heaven.
Few, if any, of the party were Salvationists, but the singing was hearty, stewards and stewardesses looking on approvingly.
During the evening the Adjutant appeared in her bonnet, with her concertina, on the third-class upper deck. She began to play an appealing Salvation Army song. Several hundred passengers gathered round and settled into a singsong. Before long this drifted most naturally–or rather, was ably piloted–into a pulsing meeting with the accompaniment of testimony, a solo from a young man, and an earnest, direct appeal to seek Salvation from the leader of ceremonies, who now seemed not so much completely at home as entirely oblivious of herself. Her eyes travelled searchingly from face to face, and all listened eagerly.
Third and second-class accommodation being fully booked up, the steamship company found it most convenient to give the Adjutant a berth in the first class. When the bugle sounded at seven o’clock for dinner, we were in the midst of an argument. The Adjutant declared that she must go to dinner in her bonnet; she must at once show who and what she was. I replied that if she so chose, she could have breakfast, lunch, and tea, in her bonnet, but that it would be much better to appear at dinner inconspicuously bareheaded. My argument prevailed, though she declared she would be much more comfortable in the beloved bonnet. At the close of dinner the passengers at our table presented the Adjutant with their choice buttonholes, so that she was able at once to take a bouquet of roses and carnations to her third-class passengers. I left the ship next morning at Liverpool, feeling that it would have been interesting to have accompanied the Adjutant throughout the journey.
About a year later I happened to cross on theHesperianin charge of a party. Many Salvation Army conductors had crossed and re-crossed in that vessel since the journey of Adjutant Lee, but from the ship’s officials, chief stewards and stewardesses, one name was mentioned persistently to me. There were many inquiries as to when Adjutant Lee was likely to cross again.
The effect of her influence upon the party actually under her care must have been very blessed. I was not privileged to see anything further of that. But amongst those who dwelt in the deep on that ship, it was apparent that her coming had left a streak of Salvation love and light.
Landing at Quebec, the Adjutant proceeded to Winnipeg with her party. A private tourist car was provided, and the train journey occupied four days and nights, and carried the party through wonderful scenery.
Delivering her charges, her work completed, the Adjutant gave herself up to a week or two of pure enjoyment. She was entertained at The Army Lodge for young women immigrants in Winnipeg, and from this base, visited all The Army institutions in the city. She was specially interested in the juvenile court attached to the detention home for young offenders, a government institution officered by The Salvation Army.
The splendid Grace Maternity Hospital was another centre of Army work which delighted the English visitor. Over the border into the United States went Kate Lee, and in Chicago saw The Army at work in the self-same way as elsewhere.
A Sunday evening visit to the prison court cells was a memorable experience. Standing where she and her companions could command several cells, they were able to speak to the prisoners who awaited trial next day. Some of the listeners were white, others coloured. Several of them in the private conversations which followed, expressed a desire for Salvation. One woman, whose curse had been drink, knelt with tears, and sought deliverance, as the Adjutant pointed her to God.
Back in Canada, the Adjutant plunged into a programme of meetings and the visitation of Army institutions and the prisons. Her fame as a specialist in dealing with criminals gave her an entrance and a welcome to Canadian jails. She visited the Dovercourt Prison, and conducted a meeting with two hundred long-sentence prisoners. She told of men she had known to be delivered from desperate sin, when in penitence they cried to God; and at the conclusion twenty men raised their hands as an evidence of their desire, then and there to seek Salvation. The Governor of the short-sentence prisoners sent the Adjutant an invitation, and she held two meetings at the prison with the women and with the men the day she was leaving the city. Kate Lee was struck with the Canadian prison system, and the evident aim of the whole treatment to uplift those under detention, and give them a chance of better things. She longed that the free opportunity for Army officers to help the prisoners might be extended to her own country.
A visit to Niagara was included in ‘the time of her life,’ as she described her overseas trip to her sister. Niagara, that mighty manifestation of natural force with its limitless possibilities in the service of man, when captured and controlled, impressed her deeply, for in her jottings book are found some vigorous notes on the harnessing of Niagara. Still, it was on the souls saved in the prisons that she dwelt as her special delight.
Kate Lee’s local officers speak of her in relation to that particular section of the corps to which they were attached during her stay amongst them, and laugh as they recall how hard she worked them. The treasurers and secretaries tell of her cleverness in financial affairs. The sergeant-majors chuckle and still marvel over her capacity for work and getting others to work; the bandsmen are enthusiastic over her ability to manage them; the ward sergeants of her working of the ward system; the recruiting sergeants over her care for the converts; the publication sergeants over her interest in the papers and magazines; the young people’s workers remember with gratitude her love for the coming Army.
But there is one work which all local officers and also the soldiers unite in recalling with wonder and warm appreciation–her visitation. To get amongst the people in their homes, to share in their joys and sorrows, to understand something of their sins! This, Kate Lee believed was the key to their souls. Like the Apostles she visited ’from house to house.’
To make this possible, with the many other claims of her commands, her life was subjected to stern discipline and governed by method. She rose at seven, breakfasted at eight; an hour was devoted to prayer and study, an hour to business, and by ten o’clock, she and her lieutenant left the house to visit. It would have been a mutual pleasure for the officers to have gone together, but as one lieutenant tells us, ’The Adjutant said, “We must sacrifice our feelings, dear, in order to cover more ground."’ So both went separate ways, the lieutenant returning to the quarters at twelve o’clock to have dinner ready by one. After dinner, they set out again, visiting until six o’clock, and even then, visiting was not entirely ruled out. Whenever a call came or a need arose, Kate Lee responded and when wrestling for a soul she took no account of time.
Lieut.-Colonel Thomas says:–
Some years ago I visited Adjutant Lee’s corps to conduct a campaign. We had just finished the Saturday night’s meeting when a little woman pushing a perambulator with two children in it, ran into the hall, asking for the Adjutant. Her husband was at home in delirium tremens, threatening terrible things. The Adjutant went back with her, soothed the poor madman, got him to bed, and sat with him until the early morning. Soon afterwards that man was soundly converted, and is to-day an Army bandsman, while the elder child who was wheeled in the perambulator, is a corps cadet.
Stories abound of her early morning visits to pray with converts before they faced the world. To catch the factory hands at Reading she would be at their home by six o’clock. To earlier workers she has called as early as half-past five.
A ship-owner in Sunderland had read of the Angel Adjutant, and afterwards attended her meetings. He was not impressed by her conversational powers nor her platform gifts, and often questioned in his mind where the secret of her influence upon desperate characters could be. One Monday morning, he had cause to go to his office early, and tells how he met Adjutant Lee in the street. ‘Out so early, and on a Monday morning, Adjutant?’ he remarked pleasantly. ’I would have thought you needed rest after your heavy Sunday.’ The Adjutant smiled, and hesitated. The gentleman continued, ‘May I ask why are you out so early?’ She replied, ’Well, last night we had two remarkable cases seeking Salvation, and when ungodly men are broken up and come to the penitent-form, that is only the commencement of the work. I have been down to these men’s homes to pray with them and see them safely into the works.’ Says this friend, ’Then I understood the secret of her power. It was the same love that took Christ to the Cross to save sinners, working in this woman to the same end. I no longer wondered at her success.’
Brigadier Southall, of Canada, relates an incident connected with a Sunday’s meetings, which he conducted at one of the Adjutant’s corps, which illustrates her midnight visitation.
Having heard something of her work, I looked forward to the day with anticipation. We had good crowds, and there were a few seekers at night, but no thrilling incident occurred during the day. However, after Sunday night’s meeting a young man who had come to the penitent- form, hesitated about leaving the hall. When Adjutant Lee spoke to him, he told her he was afraid to go to his home, from which he had been absent some time. He confessed to having robbed his parents on two previous occasions, and his father had told him never to come back again. The Adjutant determined to accompany him home. Arriving there she knocked, and in reply a voice from an upstairs window inquired her business. She explained that she had come upon an important matter, to which the reply came that as the family had retired, would she not indicate her business without bringing them downstairs? She replied that she must speak with them quietly. She kept the young fellow out of sight when the door was opened a few inches.
By tactful moves, Kate Lee got into the hall, and told of the son’s confession and his desire to live a new life. This produced a storm of protest. They could not trust him any more. The Adjutant pressed upon the mother the precious quality of forgiveness, and the necessity of exercising it if we would desire the love of God extended to us. She gained her way. At about two o’clock in the morning, the whole family professed to accept the mercy of God, and the erring boy was received again into the home.
One of the Adjutant’s special visitations was to the police station on Saturday night. Her friends the police were glad to see her, and willingly allowed her to interview the detained prisoners, with whom she prayed and left a copy of ‘The War Cry,’ for Sunday’s reading. At least one soul was led to God by this means.
‘When she got her sleep, I do not know,’ says a faithful armour-bearer at one corps.
From her various corps come stories of her sick visiting. Here, a child at the gates of death; there a bedridden old man, whose room she tidied and breakfast she prepared. Again, a drunken woman, whose body she nursed to health, while she brought her soul to the Great Physician. An outside friend tells that once entering a barber’s shop he found the topic of conversation to be The Salvation Army, which was coming in for a drubbing. ‘Wait a minute,’ broke in a rough workman; ’You don’t say a word against The Salvation Army while I’m about. This Adjutant Lee is a dear soul. We were in an awful hole at our place. Missis and the youngsters all ill at the same time, and this Adjutant heard about us; didn’t know a thing of us except we were in need, and she came in and nursed them all well.’
For her soldiers who were in health, spiritually and physically, the Adjutant had little time to spare; none for tea-drinking and social calls. She expected her soldiers to practise self-denial as she did. One soldier, feeling rather deprived on this account said, ’Must I go on the booze to get a little of your attention?’ Searching her face carefully, the Adjutant replied, ’You are all right, my dear; you must spare me for those who need me.’
She expected to be guided to souls who needed help, and was, as the following incident shows.
Two local officers moved, with their family, from a distant corps to London where they had undertaken heavy business responsibilities. The wife was tired and anxious, and felt that now they had slipped out of a corps where they had seemed indispensable, it would be better for them to remain undiscovered. She had, in fact, decided to withdraw from the fight. When visiting, the Adjutant stumbled upon them, muddled and tired, as they sat amongst their packing cases. Her radiant face and gracious spirit soon drew out of the little woman the confession she had meant to hide. ‘When I came in,’ says the husband, ’there was the Adjutant sitting on one of the boxes chatting so happily, she had mother feeling she was needed as much as ever, and simplymustbe in the fight. She came just at the right moment, and we have never looked back again; that is more than ten years ago.’
The Adjutant, in order to get about quickly, used a bicycle. One of her local officers says, ’She almost lived on her wheel, and when she heard of the motor attachment she wrote and asked me to inquire about one for her so that she might go faster.’
A comrade tells that when Kate Lee was stationed in the country, she went one day to see her, unexpectedly. ’I met her carrying a large basket, and on inquiry found that it contained the proverbial loaves and fishes, which she was taking to one of her converts who was out of work. She made sure that the family had their dinner, then started the husband off to sell the fish.’
Amongst the sinners in those terrible places, where respectable people and officers of the law are unsafe, the Adjutant’s figure and face were most familiar. When after her death, Kate Lee’s photo appeared in ’The War Cry,’ the call came from many of these haunts, ’Get me that Angel’s picture, we want it down here.’ She won some of her gems in those quarters. From one locality she persuaded three women to go to one of our Homes and none returned to their evil ways.
Her visitation was often discouraging. A lieutenant tells that the Adjutant spent much time and effort upon a man and his wife who were very wicked and in wretched circumstances. They lived in apartments. The Adjutant visited them persistently, but they seemed to become more and more hardened in sin, and she did not have the joy of seeing them converted. She grieved much and was tempted to wonder whether the time spent had been wasted. One day she was asked to visit a man in the room next to that occupied by this couple. He told the Adjutant that he had looked forward to her visits next door, and always placed his ear near to the wall so as to hear her pray. Through her prayers he had sought and found salvation.
Dr. Carse, of Sunderland, says:–
I met Kate Lee in all kinds of houses, and at all hours of the day and of the night, and she was always on the one mission–seeking souls. One morning, at half-past two, I was coming out of one of the worst slums in Sunderland, and met the Adjutant and her lieutenant. They were radiant. The Adjutant had gone to settle a family brawl; had reconciled husband and wife, got them converted, and broken their whisky bottles in the gutter. I met her also in the houses of the rich, and they would have kept her there, but she never stayed after she had finished her Master’s business.
But Kate did not attempt to encompass the fruitful work of visitation merely with her lieutenant’s assistance; she organized a band of visitors at her corps, generally godly, married women, who were timid of public service. They met at the hall one or two afternoons each week, and went two and two to certain districts. The Adjutant and her lieutenant initiated these comrades into the way of getting into the homes of the people. At an appointed hour they returned to the hall and reported any special case of sickness or sorrow to the officers, who followed it up. This method was a great feeder to the corps meetings, and provided an outlet for the awakened spiritual energies of some Salvationists who hitherto had been soldiers in name only.
She hungered for souls, she sought them everywhere. One morning, scanning the daily paper to see if there were some call for help in its pages, she noticed the case of a man awaiting trial for a serious offence. She remarked to her lieutenant, ‘I must try to help that man.’ Straightway she prayed, then wrote the governor of the jail asking permission to visit the prisoner. This was granted, but the Adjutant was not allowed to see him alone. She was conducted to a triple cage; a warder occupied one compartment; the prisoner another; Kate Lee the third. As she gazed at the man through the bars, to introduce herself to him, and so to establish friendly contact and to reach his soul, seemed impossible. She spoke to him for a considerable time and prayed, but the face before her was like a sphinx, and he did not answer a word. Kate Lee came away from the prison with a sad heart, feeling that she had accomplished nothing.
At the trial, the man was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. The Adjutant continued to pray for the convict, and at last, to her great joy, she received a letter from him. The prisoner told her that on returning to his cell, he had thought over all she had said to him; not only had conviction of sin come to his soul, but hope. He had asked God to forgive the past and to give him a new heart. God had answered his prayer. Good conduct shortened the criminal’s sentence, and Kate Lee saw him discharged, placed him in the care of The Army, and after a term at the Land Colony at Hadleigh, in Essex, he was restored to his friends. Until the end of her life, this man corresponded with the Adjutant, whom he always addressed as ‘Dear Mother.’
If staying for a night at a house, the Adjutant endeavoured to leave some blessing behind her, and the Spirit of God, resting upon quite commonplace words and actions, made them beautiful and blessed to the receivers. One woman writes, ’She billeted with me when my husband and son were soldiering. It was such a cheer to have her presence in the home. She wrote in a book for me her name, and “Be true to the Flag.” I treasure this very much.’
In another and different kind of home where she was the guest for a night, the daughter of the house, a bright, talented girl, given up to worldliness, accompanied the Adjutant to her room to make sure that all her needs were supplied. They fell into conversation about spiritual matters and talked on till the small morning hours, then knelt in prayer, and the girl gave herself to God. ’She used to call to see us, but try as we would we could never persuade her to rest for even one hour in our home,’ writes a girl from another home of comfort.
With her voice trembling with love and emotion, a woman soldier told me the following incident:–
When the Adjutant was stationed here, I was living away from home at service, but coming back for a holiday, I found my father ill, and stayed to nurse him. One evening I had a feeling I should bring the Adjutant to him. He was a man who went to no place of worship and made no profession of religion. I went to the officers’ quarters, and the lieutenant said that the Adjutant had gone out of town for a meeting; she did not know what time she would return. The feeling that I must get her that night grew on me, and I walked about the streets until I saw her coming home. It was nearly midnight, and I caught sight of her face in the light of a street lamp. She looked like a ghost, so tired and white, and I shouldn’t have had the heart to ask her to start out again, but for the strong feeling that had come to me. ‘Certainly I will come,’ she said brightly. Well, she came and talked to father, told him the way of Salvation, prayed with him, and he prayed, and she left him at peace with God, and happy. An hour after she had gone, he became unconscious and never regained his senses. He died that morning. Just caught his soul in the nick of time, she did. That’s the big thing about Adjutant Lee that stands out for mother and me, but I couldn’t begin to tell you all the little things she did.Aye, but she bothered about us, she did. I never knew the like.
The year that Kate Lee was born, the artist Dietrich gave to the world a picture, which, if not destined to become one of the immortals of religious art, has about it an irresistible charm for the ordinary eye. The Saviour stands with outstretched arms saying, ’Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.’ About Him are gathered people representing almost every condition of need and woe. The charm lies not so much in the central figure as in the adoring love of the sorrowing and the sick for the One who loves them; little children cuddle about His robe in utter contentment; a weary mother with babe at her breast, has brought her sick daughter; husband has carried a crippled wife; a woman ‘that was lost’ bends at the Saviour’s feet in an agony of repentance; an aged, blind man is led by his daughter; a maniac, whose tortured soul looks out of haggard eyes, frames a prayer with clasped hands.
When in a remote city, I first saw a print of this picture, a line from James Russell Lowell–’His Throne is with the outcast and the weak’– seemed its best title. But as I look at it to-day, all the sorrowful, needy people who have spoken to me of Kate Lee, seem to gather around that picture and I seem to hear the words, ’Aye, but He bothered about us,’ and there comes to my heart a realization of the triumph of Jesus in this servant of His, who grew to be so like her Master. Surely the world is heart-sick for such souls great in compassion, self-forgetful, and triumphant in faith as was Kate Lee.
Kate Lee had been a Salvation Army Field Officer for fifteen years, when suddenly she became famous. In gathering material for the writing of ‘Twice Born Men,’ Harold Begbie had been no less impressed by the sweetness and wisdom of the woman who had won from sin to righteousness several of the notable characters with whom the book deals, than he was with the miracle of their conversion. Throughout the book we catch glimpses of Kate Lee-her loveliness of character, her guileless wisdom, and her strength of purpose-as Mr. Begbie saw her. Vividly describing Shepherd’s Bush, the locality in which the Norland Castle corps operates, Mr. Begbie pictures the incessant, roaring traffic of the main roads, the ceaseless procession of humanity on the pavements, the exhibition of wealth and extravagance in the shops-almost frightening to those who know of the terrible destitution which exists only a stone’s throw distant– the crowded street markets of the poor, the shabby residential streets, and continues:–
One turns out of the respectable streets where the children are playing cricket, cherry-bobs, hopscotch, hoops, and cards, and suddenly finds himself in streets miserable and evil beyond description.
These are streets of once decent two-storied villas, now lodging- houses. The very atmosphere is different. One is conscious first of dejection, then of some hideous and abysmal degradation. It is not only the people who make this impression on one’s mind, but the houses themselves. Dear God, the very houses seem accursed! The bricks are crusted, and in a dull fashion shiny with grime; the doors, window-frames, and railings are dark with dirt only disturbed by fresh accretions; the flights of steps leading up to the front doors, under their foul porches, are worn, broken, and greasy; the doors and windows in the reeking basements have been smashed up in nearly every case for firewood. Here and there a rod is missing from the iron railings–it has been twisted out and used as a weapon.
In these streets on a summer evening you find the flight of steps occupied by the lodgers, and the pavements and road-ways swarming with their children. The men are thieves, begging-letter writers, pickpockets, bookmakers’ touts, totters (rag and bone men), and trouncers (men paid by costermongers to shout their wares), and bullies. The women add to their common degradation–which may be imagined–the art of the pickpocket, the beggar, the shoplifter, and the bully....
If you could see these bareheaded women, with their hanging hair, their ferocious eyes, their brutal mouths; if you could see them there, half dressed, and that in a draggle-tailed slovenliness incomparably horrible; and if you could hear their appalling language loading their hoarse voices, and from their phrases receive into your mind some impression of their modes of thought, you would say that human nature in the earliest and most barbarous of its evolutionary changes had never, could never, have been like this.
Concerning the men, one thing only need be said.... There was cunning in their faces, there was every expression of ... underhand craft, but they looked and lowered their eyes.... They seemed to me ‘consciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy.’
But more than by anything concerning the men and women of this neighbourhood, one is impressed by the swarm of dreggy children playing their poor little pavement games in the shadow of these lodging-houses. Some–can it be believed?–are decently clothed and look as if they are sometimes washed.... The mass of these children, above five or six years of age, are terribly neglected. I have never seen children more dirty, more foully clothed, more dejected looking.... I saw many children with sores and boils; I saw some children whose eyes looked out at me from a face that was nothing but a scab.
A mortuary chapel has had to be built for this neighbourhood. The rooms of the houses are so crowded that directly a person dies the body must be moved.
Mr. Begbie now introduces Kate Lee:–
Into these streets come day after day, and every Sunday, the little, vigorous corps of The Salvation Army, stationed in this quarter of London. The Adjutant of the corps some years ago was a beautiful and delicate girl. She prayed at the bedside of dying men and women in these lodging-houses. She taught children to pray. She went into public-houses and persuaded the violent blackguards of the town to come away; she pleaded with the most desperate women at street corners; she preached in the open streets on Sundays; she stood guard over the doors of men, mad for drink, and refused to let them out.
On one occasion this little woman was walking home through evil streets after midnight, when a drunken man asked her if he might travel by her side. After going some way the man said, ’No, you aren’t afraid,’ and then he mumbled to himself, ’Never insults the likes of you, because you cares for the likes of us.’
It is to the work of this wonderful woman–so gracious, so modest, and so sweet–that one may trace the miracles whose histories are contained in the following pages. The energy, resolution, and splendid cheerfulness of the present corps, some of them her own converts, may likewise be traced through her influence. She has left in these foul streets the fragrance of her personality, a fragrance of the lilies of a pure soul. ‘Ah,’ exclaims an old jail- bird, showing me the photograph of this woman, ’If anybody goes to Heaven, it will be that there little Angel of God.’ They call her the ‘Angel Adjutant.’
We see the Angel Adjutant again in the book, visiting the ‘Puncher’ at his work; braving the abominations of ‘O.B.D.’s’ den, as she made friends with that sodden drink slave and his wife, piloting him to the hall and mothering the first signs of grace in his stupefied soul. We see her mothering the ‘Criminal,’ weeping over the fall of ‘Rags and Bones,’ endeavouring to hold the ‘Failure’ to his moral and spiritual obligations, and, despite his falls, refusing to give him up.
’That man, Mr. Begbie, is wonderful. He’s got those men’s very images on paper,’ says one of Kate Lee’s converts, referring to the ’Twice Born Men’ characters. None the less truly did he get Kate Lee’s photograph on paper, and sent it round the world for all to see, and for thinking people to admire, to wonder over, to praise and give thanks for.
‘Twice Born Men’ was a great success. Its first edition was immediately absorbed, while its present edition is the twenty-seventh, and its English circulation has reached over a quarter of a million copies. It has had, likewise, an enormous sale in the United States and Canada. It has been translated into French, German, and Swedish.
Few books of its time appealed to so widely differing minds and classes. The professor of psychology, the theologian, the prize-fighter, Christian mother, the school-boy, in common interest bent their heads over its pages. The Press discussed it from many aspects in a chorus of favour.
‘The Angel Adjutant’ became an entity whom people all over the world desired to know. After she had been thus discovered to the world, wherever she went she was received with honour. Churches besieged her with invitations to occupy their pulpits. Civic authorities paid deference to this spiritual and moral specialist.
How did the glare of the limelight affect Kate Lee? A comrade who knew more of her inner life than almost any other, lets in a sidelight upon her association with ‘Twice Born Men.’ Her experiences in connexion with the book were not entirely sweet. She felt the sting of jealousy, that hurtful thing which, while uncleansed human nature is what it is, will continue to inflict wounds upon those chosen for honour, but Kate Lee bore it with meekness and in silence. ‘It is not easy to bear success,’ she said on this subject. ’When I have been lifted up, it has meant a cross rather than a throne for me.’
It is not easy for a noble soul to bear a representative honour, unless it is patent to all that itisrepresentative and not personal. No one realized more fully than Kate Lee that other women officers had worked and are working amongst the masses just as she worked, actuated by the same spirit as moved her, and achieving the same results as those in which she rejoiced. She would rather that another than herself had been thrown upon the world’s screen to illustrate the work. A few weeks before she died, she spoke of this to her old friend, Brigadier Elizabeth Thomas, adding, ’Whenever “Twice Born Men” is mentioned, I want to run and hide my head.’ But while she felt all this, her keen sense of true values withheld her from putting a trumpet to her lips and declaring it. Rather, with that Christlike modesty and dignity that characterized all her public service, she entered every door that publicity opened to her and gave her message. She occupied many important pulpits, filling great churches with interested and sympathetic congregations.
As ever she was about her Father’s business. Far from attracting attention to herself, she brushed aside preliminaries, and got directly to her subject. For the title of her lecture, she did not always choose ‘The Terrible Ten’ or ‘Modern Miracles’ or ‘Twice Born Men’; sometimes she gave a plain Salvation address, or a simple call to professing Christians to live the life of Christ. One lady who heard her, tells how on one occasion she held a great congregation in the hollow of her hand. Tears had flowed; heads were shaking in depreciation or nodding approvingly, as she pictured the sorrows and the sins of the poor, and God’s power to save them to the uttermost. Then she ‘turned her guns’ upon her hearers. How didtheystand before God in relation to sin? ’Society is often a cloak for sin that is terribly present in the heart. The law deals with sin that isfound out: God deals with it as it is in the soul. You and I are each going to the bar of God to be judgedas we are. How is it with your soul?’
A strange silence came upon that select audience, as the people pondered straighter and more personal questions than they were accustomed to hear addressed to them.
A lieutenant tells of a railroad incident, which reveals how truly Kate Lee loved to be unknown, and how she would screen herself from praise, when to accept it could serve no definite end. She says:–
We were returning from some Councils, and a clergyman got into our compartment. He was very friendly, and in conversation we found him enthusiastic over ‘Twice Born Men.’ He said how he would count it an honour to meet the ‘Angel Adjutant,’ and express to her his thanks for the help he had received by her example. I felt so proud of her, and wanted to tell the clergyman that the ‘Angel Adjutant’ was my Captain; but catching a warning glance from her, I had to keep quiet.
A few hours after he heard of Kate Lee’s death, Harold Begbie penned the following tribute to her memory:–
There seems to me something in the death of Kate Lee at this moment which has a mystical significance.
The world has just received ‘The Life of William Booth,’ and is making up its mind what to think of him. His son, Bramwell, with a courage which is part of his religion, allowed the biographer of William Booth to write freely what he believed to be the truth, and the whole truth, of the great Founder of The Salvation Army. There in that book for all men to behold, in the very habit of his daily life, stands William Booth, revivalist, social reformer, colonizer, organizer, husband, father, and man.
And now there ascends into the glory of God one of the most radiant spirits that ever blessed the darkest places of the earth with a light truly from Heaven, little Kate Lee, the Angel Adjutant of Notting Dale; the saint of the worst men that ever lived, the adored angel of souls once as foul and brutal and besotted with iniquity as ever corrupted human life, and but for William Booth she herself might have perished.
I am one of those who cannot think of William Booth as a saint. His wonder for me, and his greatness, lies in the fact that he made saints; this turbulent and tremendous power, this unresting energy, he made saints; that is to say, he made the most beautiful and gentle thing that can exist in human life, the spirit that loves the worst; that descends with joy into the pit of pollution; that is happier there than in the abodes of the sanctified; that is wholly content to be unknown and unheard of; that can save the worst and transfigure the most hideous, and itself remain utterly unspotted by the world.
I was far away in the dales of Yorkshire when I heard of Kate Lee’s death. My first feeling was one of gladness, for I loved to know she was beyond the touch of pain. Then I fell into a fit of sorrow.Why had I not made this miracle of William Booth more real in the biography?Is there anything in life so important, or anything at this moment of the world’s history that calls so urgently for proclamation, as the miracle of conversion?
Kate Lee seemed to be at my side. I saw the harassed statesmen of the nations attempting to piece together the broken pieces of this war-shattered world, and they seemed to me no greater figures than children playing with the parts of a world which they themselves had taken apart. And Kate Lee seemed to say, ’There is no hope for the world, no hope at all, but the changed heart. Until men love God, they will never love each other. And until they love each other there will be poverty and crime, revolutions and wars.’
Her life goes on in the lives of others. She is immortal here upon earth. For ever and ever some men and women will be better because in her lifetime she made other people good who were bad, happy who were unhappy. But I would that her spirit could penetrate into the whole life of humanity.
How modest she was, how unassuming, and how tranquil! She had seen the most evil depth of the human heart, and yet she believed, with a smile of unclouded gladness, that the human heart is of God. She loved the worst people in the world. She was tender and patient with the most stupid and dull. She never despaired of any soul that looked at her with eyes of hunger. The Pharisee might turn away with disgust, the judge might condemn, science might pronounce the case hopeless; she smiled and waited, waited at the prison door, waited in the pit of abomination, waited at the hard heart. And while she waited she prayed, quietly, and calmly; and while she prayed so great was the love of God in her heart, she smiled. There is no hope for the world until the love that was in Kate Lee is in us. Let every Salvationist assure himself with every day of life that his work lies only with the unhappy, the foul, the horrible, the repulsive. To this end came William Booth preaching in the slums and alleys of great cities, and on this mission of his went Kate Lee with a song in her heart and a smile on her lips.
I never looked into human face so full of the love of God, so shining with love of humanity, as the face of this ‘Angel Adjutant.’
During the week of the announcement of Kate Lee’s death, her name was upon the lips of millions of people. Newspapers throughout the country published her photograph and told of how she sought the lost. In the saloons around London the topic of conversation was the loveliness of the ‘Angel Adjutant.’ Almost wherever Salvationists appeared, people sympathized with them in the loss of so brave an officer as Kate Lee.
Beyond the seas, illustrated journals carried the picture of her pure face and the story of her love and devotion to her Saviour and the sinful, and mothers gave thanks for her life and prayed that their daughters might have her spirit.
Her casket was borne through streets lined with thousands of silent, reverent spectators and carried to the grave by men once deep-dyed in sin, now cleansed and ennobled by the Salvation she had proclaimed.
To queens has less honour been shown than to this girl who was born in crowded Hornsey, who lived a life of toil and struggle, and died penniless. Why? Because the human heart, despite its crookedness and failings, recognizes that love is the greatest thing in the world, and pays tribute accordingly.
Perhaps no class of people voluntarily work harder or longer hours than Salvationists. When the ordinary worker quits toil for recreation, the Salvationist drops his tools to work at his religion, and for no reward in this life. But for all that, the Salvationist has his compensations. The most precious thing about The Army, he will tell you, is its comradeship.
The uniform of the military means something of fellowship on service, nothing on leave; but the Salvationist is always on service, and the sign of cap, bonnet, or even the small Salvation Army brooch or tri-coloured ribbon, serves as an introduction, which includes a welcome, when Salvationists meet in any clime or country.
The uniform stands for the acceptance of certain convictions, principles, and consecration to one purpose in life, which knows no barrier of nation, colour, nor class. Salvationists are comrades of a single purpose, the bringing of all men to knowledge of God. Mr. Harold Begbie describes this bond of comradeship which he found illustrated in a prayer meeting which he attended amongst Salvationists in India. He writes:–
Those Officers represented many nations. Among them were a Brahmin, a Singalese, Malayali, a Tamil, a German, a Norwegian, a Swede, an Australian, an Englishman, and a Scot. All were praying. The voices of those various nationalities rose into the air as a cry inspired by love for a sinful world, with a compassion and a longing, uttered for the need of a common humanity, and all those separate voices and different words rose in a perfect unity like the prayer of a single family under a father’s roof.
Constitutionally Kate Lee was not dependent; she did not know what it was to hunger for society; to pine for a ‘yarn’; to ache with desire to discuss with a chum small talk of The Army. The passion of her life swept her beyond such things and the springs of her refreshment ran deep. Her business was to seek and to save that which was lost–to shepherd the sheep–and these she sought with a love that never wavered. Nevertheless, fellowship with her comrades was one of her chief joys. She delighted in Officers’ Councils where all were bent upon seeking guidance for the furtherance of the Salvation War. Whenever she was thrown into the company of her comrades her heart was at once at leisure from itself, and she sought and found pleasant and profitable point for contact.
She felt herself to be a poor conversationalist, and her success in fellowship lay in drawing out the interests of others. She was a good listener, rather than an entertainer. Humility was one of her greatest charms and she had no hesitation in confessing her limitations. ’I enjoy the fun, but I can’t make it; do help me,’ she said to a comrade, when once she found herself responsible for guiding the conversation of a party of officers.
Tributes come from comrades of all ranks, from the shy lieutenant, to the veteran commissioner, telling of the sweetness of her communion in comradeship.
But so great was the pressure upon her life, that during any period of respite from her work, she longed, not for change or entertainment, but rest.
One cannot talk with Kate Lee’s people without discovering that they regarded her as a person apart from all others. She would drink tea in a hovel with outcasts, or lead a volunteer brigade in scrubbing her halls; handle hammer and nails as a man; collect produce for the harvest festival with a donkey-cart, and perform a hundred and one other ‘unladylike’ offices. But about her was an atmosphere of intrinsic superiority, that the most untaught felt and appreciated. Amongst the most rough and ready people she is never mentioned with familiarity; but one constantly hears references to ‘that heavenly woman,’ ’an angel if ever there was one,’ and ‘that lovely lady’; also mention of ’her private means!’
Incidentally, a pathetic interest attaches to the illusion of ’her private means,’ for, except for her small Army allowance, Kate Lee had no private funds. Reserve and independence are characteristics of the Lee family, and are, despite warm affection, observed within their tiny family circle. When the mother joined her Officer daughters in their home, Lucy and Kate realized that if she were aware of the smallness of their allowance, she would feel that a third person could not share it without causing strain, and such knowledge would be a continual sorrow to her. So they never enlightened her, and during the years spent together, they endeavoured, by touching little self-denials, to keep their table and wardrobe as in the home days. So the little mother lived in peace, and died, and never guessed the truth. It was a good training for Kate, and later in life few women could get more value out of money than she. Her uniforms were turned, mended, and worn to the last. Her single indulgence was books, and these were few and well chosen. By dint of the habit of constant watchfulness over her purse, and the blessing of God, her little store became like the widow’s cruse of oil, and she gave her tenth and more to the Lord’s work. But it was the graciousness with which she gave that made her gifts appear large in the estimation of those who received.
While Kate was received and made much of by high and low alike, she made no pretence of being well born or well educated; nor did she assume airs. She was a perfectly natural woman, who, realizing that she was a daughter of the Heavenly King, sought to rightly represent Him. Nothing rough, mean, nor trivial would become a member of the heavenly household; but joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, goodness–the graces of the Spirit should be seen in her. And they were. The consciousness of her heavenly relationship also gave her a dignity that held itself graciously in any company, and with gentle, unafraid eyes, she met the gaze of all. Kate believed that if we ’walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other,’ and from a heart free from selfishness and guile, she looked out upon her neighbours, asking for nothing but to understand and bless them, and be blessed. The hearts of all but those who hate and reject the good, rose to salute her, and called her friend.
Of those who loved her and whom she loved there is no count; but here and there upon the fields where she fought, there are some to whom her soul clave in a particular way.
In and out of the homes of the rich she went, bearing sunshine and gathering gold wherewith to push her campaign; but she had no time to make friendships there. A certain leisureliness is inseparable from the life of the well-to-do; time to talk; to be interested in a variety of subjects; to be amused; time even to eat and rest in correct form. With Kate, life was terribly real. On every side her eyes saw men, women, and little children weighed down with sin and sorrow, and her soul joined in the consecration of the great soul who wrote:–
My every sacred moment spend.In publishing the sinner’s Friend.
Thus, while many rich friends opened their beautiful homes to her, placed their cars at her disposal, and begged for her company, she passed on her way with a smile that was wholly free from censoriousness. And there may have been another reason. In her nature was a deep love for the beautiful, the harmonious. Maybe she recognized in the good things of life a temptation which she needed to hold at arm’s-length, if all her spikenard were to be poured out for her Lord.
In any case, it was to Bethany-like households, where, as a rule, the occupants did their own serving, but were rich in love and in full sympathy with her spirit and purpose, that she tarried to gain strength or refreshment.
One of these friends, Mrs. Taylorson, is a bedridden saint, a remarkable woman in her ninetieth year, of charming countenance, keen, vigorous intellect, great heart and spiritual vision. In the school of affliction and discipline she had sought and found the blessing of Full Salvation, and though a prisoner in her home, her interests are wide, and her influence, by the ministry of prayer, great.
Hearing of Adjutant Lee’s arrival in the town, she sent for her, and from their first meeting this aged saint rightly estimated the beauty and greatness of the Adjutant’s soul, and felt there was a part she could play in her campaign. Mrs. Taylorson says:–
I realized that my ministry to her was to look after her bodily welfare. I took to my bed whilst she was stationed here: and living quite near to me, she would often slip in for a few moments. Her sweet face would come round the door like a ray of sunshine. She would give me a warm kiss, tell me the latest news –this case or that problem to pray over–then she was off again. But I saw to it that my maid always had something nourishing on hand to help that dear, worn body. How my maid loved her! The Adjutant’s influence so led her into touch with Christ, that life became changed for her.
Oh, how Kate Lee worked! Far beyond her strength. Often, after her quest for souls, she would pass this house at two o’clock in the morning. When I would remonstrate with her, she would reply, ’Oh, but I had such acaselast night.’ Then she would relate to me the story. Once, kneeling by my bed, she said, ’Granny, last night I was afraid for the first time. Oh, this place, this place! The sin, the sin is terrible!’ And she described to me the horrors of iniquity she had seen in our town.
The transparent hands were tensely clasped; the strong alert features relaxed into contemplation, and my eyes lifted from the face of the aged saint to the wall beside her bed where hung a motto, ’Prayer brings victory.’ It was easy to realize how Kate Lee had gathered strength for the fight in that little sanctuary of faith and hope, and love, with the practical addition of a strengthening cup, ’always ready, that the Adjutant might not be hindered.’
Kate met her beloved old friend only once after her term of three years at Sunderland. When leaving London to spend a week there, she received a wire from her old lieutenant, then on duty amongst the troops in France, ‘Coming on leave; want to spend week-end with you,’ to which she replied, ‘Going to Granny’s. Come.’ It was a happy party that gathered in that old home. The joys of reunion were still fresh, when in the doorway another figure appeared–Lucy Lee, also home on leave from France. Heaven seemed to come down to earth for those four women. Three from the rush of the battle, bubbling over with stories of the Holy War, the fourth–her faculties fresh as those of the youngest–delighting to linger on the brink of eternity, that she might hold up the hands of these, her adopted daughters in battles for God and souls.
Perched on the crest of a hill overlooking a seashore town, is a tiny cottage–two rooms up and two down. There are flowers in the windows and garden, and within, simplicity and sweet homeliness. The dwellers there are an old pensioner and his daughter. The daughter, a semi-invalid, keeps house. Her face is calm as a lake resting in the sunshine; her eyes blue as the sky on a spring day, and her voice musical and soothing as rippling water. Almost twenty years ago, Kate Lee conducted a battle for souls in the little town nestling below the hill. The suffering woman listened to her call to arms, at first from a distance. By degrees the full meaning of the officer’s life dawned upon her; she knew she could never be a leader; but she could, perhaps, be an armour-bearer; so she came nearer, and nearer, till she took a place at Captain Kate’s side, ready to perform any service possible.
A sufferer who triumphed had a peculiar charm for Kate Lee. This woman, caught in the furnace of affliction, had yielded herself to the fire, and found the Son of God keep company with her there, and she grew like Him.
When nerves were tingling, and body and soul were weary with sins and sorrows of the world, to no place did Kate turn her steps more readily than to the tiny house on the hill.
’Why can you love to come here? I have so little to offer you. Rich people would love to have you, and give you what I cannot,’ said her friend.
’And you can and do give me what no money in the world could buy: understanding, and love, and rest.’
On a sunny day, Kate would take a rug and a cushion, a book or some sewing, and her friend would accompany her to a little knoll, a stone’s throw from the house, which commanded a sea view for many miles. And there, mostly in silence, she would sit, and sun and rest for a day or two, and then hie back to the fight.
A mother with a child in an invalid chair, followed The Army march many a Sunday night during one summer. The band charmed the child, the sweet face of the officer soothed and strengthened the mother. One night, mother and child ventured into the meeting. At the conclusion of the first service, Adjutant Lee was shaking hands with the people as they left the hall, and urging them to return, and she beamed on the mother and child, and later, visited their home. A typical home of millions of working people, but true love reigned there, and made it a more pleasant place than many a mansion. The mother had spinal disease and her child seemed to have been born only to die. Doctor and friends had striven in vain to unlock the bands of mother love, and let the little suffering life escape, but the mother refused. If love and ceaseless care could make a child live, he should live. Mother and child nestled under the protection of a great, loving husband and father. The coming of the Adjutant to that home was like the visit of an angel; but she gathered as she gave, for the soothing atmosphere of those tiny rooms fell upon her spirit like dew. As well as love there was music. The father sat at the organ, and as he played and sang, his strong, tender spirit seemed to ring through the hymns. ‘Just one verse!’ the Adjutant would say, as she dropped in to give five minutes’ cheer.
The Adjutant lay ill in her quarters. Bronchitis had, as usual, laid her low during a foggy week. She had sent her lieutenant out on a round of work, and, feverish and weak, gave herself up to rest. There was a movement on the stairs and a face appeared at the bedroom door. It was little invalid mother. ‘Howdidyou get here?’ the Adjutant asked. ’Through a window, and you’ll not talk. Just eat this bit of steamed fish.’ Every day, until the Adjutant was able to be about her Master’s business again, the little woman ministered to her with tender, joyful love.
‘Would you mind letting me look at your back?’ she asked the little mother, when she had come to be regarded as the dearest friend of the small family. She looked, and her eyes filled with tears. For a woman with such a back, to work, as this mother worked, to watch and wait and refuse to give up hope for love of her child, this was love indeed. Kate Lee would love sin-sick souls in this way. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, ‘you have inspired me.’ During her stay the little boy, then six years of age, definitely yielded his heart and life to the Saviour. When he was fourteen he begged to be allowed to join The Army Young People’s Band. ‘Impossible,’ said the doctor. ’But, doctor, you know how he has lived in spite of many contrary opinions, and we wish him to devote his life to The Army,’ pleaded the mother. A tall lad with purposeful face, playing in an Army band, is a joy to his Salvationist parents who carry in their hearts the faith of Kate Lee, that one day their son shall be an Army Officer.
Such were a very few of the friends of Kate Lee. Many, because of their great love for her, and conscious of her love for them, will, perhaps, feel a touch of disappointment that they are not included in the number, but the pages of our book will not stretch. As I think of them all, as I have seen them in their homes, and know of the many I have not been able to meet–I am reminded of strangely similar company, fishermen, clerks, and a company of humble, holy women who ministered to Kate Lee’s Lord and Master in the days of His flesh.