Though Catherine's spine difficulty was better, she was still very
delicate, and at the age of eighteen every one felt sure she was going
into a decline. But, sick or well, her soul grew stronger, and her desire
to please and serve God better increased every day.
'I do love Thee,' she wrote in the same little diary, 'but I want to love
Thee more.'
It was not till many years later that Catherine received the blessing of
a clean heart; but even now she had begun to desire and long for it. She
also writes at this time: 'I see that this Full Salvation is very
necessary if I am to glorify God below, and find my way to Heaven. I want
a _clean_ heart. Lord, take me and seal me.'
Some people, even after they are converted, are too proud to own
themselves wrong, or to confess when they have sinned. Catherine was not
of that sort. In one of her letters to her mother she ends with these
words:--
'Pray for me, dear mother, and believe me, with all my faults and
besetments, your loving child.'
Her hunger after a holy life was real and practical. She knew she must
learn to live by method--that is, doing right, whether she liked it or
not--and not by feelings, if she was to be of use in the world.
So at the end of the year she wrote some new resolutions; and as they may
be of help to you, I will copy them for you just as she put them down:--
'I have been writing a few daily rules for the coming year, which I hope
will prove a blessing to me, by the grace of God. I have got a paper of
printed rules also, which I intend to read once a week. May the Lord help
me to keep to them! But, above all, I am determined to search the
Scriptures more attentively, for in them I have eternal life. I have read
my Bible through twice during the past sixteen months, but I must read it
with more prayer for light and understanding. Oh, may it be my meat and
drink! May I meditate on it day and night! And then I shall bring forth
fruit in season; my leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever I do shall
prosper.'
She had also her own private ways of denying herself, not for the sake of
earning money or praise by it, but simply because she felt it was right.
One of these rules was to do without dinner, and butter at breakfast,
once in the week, because she felt it helped her in her soul.
I cannot end this chapter without telling you of the one great sorrow
which darkened all her early years. Some of you, I know, will enter into
her feelings so well.
Her father, at one time saved and earnest about the souls of others, had
grown cold and backslidden, and now never even went near a Meeting. You
can fancy what agony this was to both Mrs. Mumford and her daughter. They
prayed and wept in vain--he only seemed to get more indifferent.
Catherine would sometimes write her feelings and her sorrow in her diary,
and there we read:--
'I sometimes get into an agony of feeling while praying for my dear
father. Oh, my Lord, answer prayer, and bring him back to Thyself! Never
let that tongue which once delighted in praising Thee, and in showing
others Thy willingness to save, be engaged in uttering the lamentations
of the lost! Oh, awful thought! Lord, have mercy! Save, Oh! save him in
any way Thou seest best, though it be ever so painful. If by removing me
Thou canst do this, cut short Thy work, and take me Home. Let me be bold
to speak in Thy name. Oh, give me true courage and liberty, and when I
write to him, bless what I say to the good of his soul!'
For many years this prayer of Catherine's was not answered; but she held
on, as you must do for those you love, in faith and prayer; and at last
she had the unspeakable joy of seeing her dear father come back to God
through one of her own Meetings which he had attended. His last years
were full of peace, and were spent in serving God and rejoicing in His
Salvation.