Catherine Booth

But you get women like Amy McPherson.

Amy Carmichael, Catherine Coleman, Catherine Booth, who used to go out on the street and preach like she was a fiery preacher and she had stuff thrown at her while she was preaching.

And as it was thrown at her, she just got more intense with her preaching.

And the other thing, the

The experience of a clean heart is a wonderful tonic, saving from doubt, inflaming with zeal, and giving boldness to speak the word of invitation.

It was this experience that transformed Mrs. Catherine Booth, the most timid of women, into the great preacher and power of the Salvation Army.

John Wesley testifies again and again in his journal that when the church has this experience, its work prospers in all departments.

This is the true power for service, a heart cleansed and filled.

You probably know this.

I love sort of like heroes of faith, and one of those would be Catherine Booth, who co-founded the Salvation Army.

I know Salvation Army gets a bit of a bad rep, but there's some really awesome things about it, and there certainly were some really awesome things about it.

Anyway, she co-founded it with her husband, and there's a story about her, and she's on her deathbed literally a few days or whatever before she's going to die, and she's editing her husband's new book, and in this book, William Booth is sort of I don't know, he's almost like casting vision for how to end poverty and end homelessness.

Mm-hmm.

And so we're gonna be talking about Catherine Booth.

And-

Yeah.

[laughs]

Uh, and so maybe let- let's start, start right at the beginning.

When, when did you first hear the name Catherine Booth?

Mm.

A Handful of Stars, Texts That Have Moved Great Minds by Frank W. Boreham.

Catherine Booth's Text Who that was in London on October 14, 1890, can forget the extraordinary scenes that marked the funeral of Catherine Booth? It was a day of universal grief.

The whole nation mourned, for Mrs. Booth was one of the most striking personalities and one of the mightiest spiritual forces of the 19th century.

To the piety of a Saint Teresa she had added the passion of a Josephine Butler, the purposefulness of an Elizabeth Fry, and the practical sagacity of a Francis Willard.

The greatest in the land revered her, trusted her, consulted her, deferred to her.

The letters that passed between Catherine Booth and Queen Victoria are among the most remarkable documents in the literature of correspondence.

Mr. Gladstone attached the greatest weight to her judgment and convictions.

Bishop Lightfoot, one of the most distinguished scholars of his time, has testified to the powerful influence which she exerted over him.

Infidels and skeptics, Pharisees or hypocrites, it matters not, all men fly to behold this phenomenon that at least promises hope for the soul.

After Catherine Booth had been for a while in Paris organizing the Salvation Army among the poor, she hired a fashionable ballroom not far from the Grand Opera and went there to preach the gospel in the simple, plain, straightforward way that has given the Salvation Army its mighty power.

All Paris was stirred.

The boulevard without was blocked with carriages bringing ladies dressed as for the opera.

Some of the ladies, who had not come prepared to weep, were, however, unable to keep back their tears, which washed away the rouge, and as they wiped away the tears, they wiped the paint with them, making their handkerchiefs red and their faces pale.

And this plain, simple, straightforward, positive message of man's sin and God's willingness to save through Jesus Christ had the same effect among the poor in that wicked city of Paris.

Mrs. Ballington Booth tells of the first convert Catherine Booth made in a miserable little hall in the poorest part of Paris.

She made her way to the back of the hall one evening and sat down beside a poor, dissolute working woman.

I said, "It's interesting when I say something about John Wesley, nobody has a problem with me.

'Oh, you're one of those Wesleyans.' Or when I'm talking about Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, who is [chuckles] looked up in a big way, and I'm talking about the Holy Ghost, you know, it's interesting, nobody says, 'Oh, he's one of those Baptists.' Or, or when I, when I talk about William and Catherine Booth, I don't hear anybody, 'Oh, you're one of those Salvation Army people.' Or when I talk about Martin Luther, 'Oh, oh, you're one of those Lutherans.' That's not what I hear.

The minute I say election or predestination, you know what they do? They have lodged into their minds John Calvin, and then they say Calvinism.

I w- I want you to understand something.

that.

No, William Booth and Catherine Booth were Methodists.

And the Methodist church in London and England at that time was pretty disappointing

and