She was just like a mother. I would go and ask her advice when I had
done anything wrong. She never scolded me, but would look serious
and say, 'Well, you know you ought not to have done that.' And
somehow, in a minute, I could see what I ought to have done, and
would promise to try to do better. How could you help getting on
when all the while she was smiling on you, giving you some work to
do, and believing you to be good.
Her mothering love for souls sharpened her really wonderful faculty for
remembering faces. Years after she had left a corps, if she met a comrade
or friend, her face would light with recognition, and she would greet the
person by name. The pleasure this afforded is mentioned all over the
country.
Motherlike, she could not bear to feel that at night the door was shut
upon any wandering child, and her sergeant-majors tell, 'No poor fellow
who came to the penitent-form went without a bed. She kept bed tickets
for emergencies. She might give away a good number to people who did not
deserve help, but she would rather do that than fail one who did.'
'It's because of all she taught me, and the nice way she taught me, that
I have been able to take such good places,' says a little maid, with
quivering lips and shining eyes.
One motherless girl followed her from corps to corps for years, taking a
situation in the town where she was stationed so that she might catch her
smile now and again, and hear a few words of mother love. Married
women's eyes fill with tears as they recall her tenderness in sorrow and
her wisdom in difficulties. How she took a poor little widow, distracted
by sudden bereavement, and nursed and soothed her. How 'she stayed up
all night with me when my sister died.' How 'she buried my mother and was
so kind I can never forget her.' How 'she helped me to nurse sonny, when
no one else dared come near.'
Women old enough to be her mother felt the pleasure of childhood when the
Adjutant, revisiting an old corps and finding them doing the same
faithful work as during her term, would beam upon them and remark,' Still
at it, you dears!'
'She got me the job I've been in this fourteen years,' says an
ex-drunkard. 'I had worked my way along after I was saved; then I heard of
a good job becoming vacant, and I asked her if she would mind saying a word
for me. She was up and away before breakfast next morning, interviewed
the manager, and got me the job. Like a mother she said, with her nice
smile, "Now, don't you let me down!" And I haven't.'
Kate Lee oozed motherliness-that love that is capable, wise, patient,
tender-the love that never fails!
One of the sweetest fruits in her spiritual children is that after she
had left them they continued to perform the services she loved. One man,
saved from nameless sins, slow to speech, and clouded in intellect, would
spend his money on Testaments, and 'War Crys,' and walk miles to visit
gipsy camps to read and pray with these wanderers, and other isolated
people. He knew that 'mother,' as this middle-aged man always called the
Adjutant, would be pleased.
When Kate Lee received farewell orders from a corps, she suffered as a
mother does in leaving her family. Her eyes hungered as they rested upon
the men and women whom, with great travail of spirit, she had brought
into the Kingdom of Grace. She had striven to teach them the ways of
life, but they were not strong, and temptations were many. Laying hold of
godly comrades of the corps, she would plead with them to continue to
care for these children in the Lord, after she had left them.
And her heart often wandered back. She knew that no voice sounded to them
just as hers did. There were, perhaps, thirty or forty trophies of grace,
who now and again received a letter of encouragement in her swift,
legible handwriting. Just a few words fresh as the dew, bright as the
sunshine, with her voice ringing in them, pointing these souls, uplifted
from the depths, to God, and holding them up to the standards she had
raised.
When, during the war, the men of England were scattered over the world's
battlefields, no mother suffered more anxiety for her sons than did Kate
Lee for her sons in the Gospel. Separated, as many of them were, from
Army meetings and helpful influences, and surrounded by sin and
temptation, her letters came like angel messages. No one knows how many
she kept in touch with, but from unlikely sources up and down the
country, one hears, 'she was the only one who wrote to me.'
For the 'Twice Born Men' she felt a special solicitude. To the 'Criminal'
at the front in France, she wrote every week, sending him 'The War Cry,'
and occasionally a parcel. An early one contained an Army jersey. 'Wear
it, Joe, and always live up to it,' she had written. He wore it till it
dropped to pieces, and then cut out the crest and brought it home. One
can understand how her thoughtful love helped that trophy of grace, when,
coming half-frozen out of the trenches, he refused the hot tea he craved
for, because it contained rum.
For the 'Copper Basher,' away at the Dardanelles, separated from every
Salvation Army comrade, she prayed especially. She wrote him regularly.
Once, motherlike, she inquired if there were anything he would like her
to send him. Tommy is a contented soul; the only thing he could think of
was a luminous watch. Kate Lee managed to send him one, and as in the
darkness of night the shining figures spoke to Tommy, so Kate Lee's faith
and love made the Saviour's face to shine for him in the darkest hour.
She rejoiced exceedingly that not only did Tommy refuse to sin, but that
he let his light shine before his buddies. In the evenings when they
would be drinking, swearing, and singing wild songs, Tommy would bring
out his Bible to read his portion before 'turning in.' Sometimes, small
men jeered at the man, who, before conversion, they might well have
feared; another time they would say, 'Old Tommy'll read to us to-night.'
He would read aloud and pray, then 'turning in' would say, 'Good-night,
chaps. Now Tommy'll go to sleep.' And he was left in peace.
The Memorial Service of Kate Lee was being conducted at one of the great
corps the Adjutant had commanded, and one of her trophies was called upon
to give his testimony. The man stood upon the platform, from whence he
had heard his spiritual mother invite him to Jesus. It all came back, his
sinfulness and misery; her winsomeness; her wonderful faith; her
patience; her rejoicing through all the years since his conversion. He
could not speak. The man stood and wept; his tears the greatest tribute
he could pay to the woman who had mothered his soul to God.
When days are no more, and the things of this life are judged, one thinks
to see a radiant spirit before the Throne of God, surrounded by a band of
Blood-washed ones, and to hear Kate Lee say, with joy, to her Lord, 'The
children whom Thou gavest me.'
In nothing did her motherliness show itself more beautifully than in the
patient love that refused to abandon the most hopeless objects of her
efforts, even though they shamed her and caused her sore distress. The
love of many a parent for a prodigal child is quenched when son or
daughter brings shame upon the family. But Kate Lee's love was deeper and
stronger than shame. One comrade tells of her, that finding one of her
converts backslidden, and drinking in a public-house, she sat beside him
while he drank of the cup of his destruction, then took him home.
A lieutenant speaks of a criminal whose soul Kate Lee wrestled for; after
giving good promise, he broke into sin again and got into jail. She went
to meet him at the gates upon his discharge, and brought him home to
breakfast. He gave her his prison loaf; and she kept that loaf of
bread--that slight evidence of gratitude--for quite a long time.
But--for our encouragement be it recorded--she did not always succeed in
delivering the prey from the terrible. One notorious sinner, the terror
of a certain city, she tried hard to win, but without success. Meeting
him one day in the principal street, she took him into a restaurant and
ordered dinner for two. The landlord called her aside, and inquired
anxiously if she knew the character of her companion. 'Oh, yes,' she
replied; 'one of my friends whom I am hoping to help.' Another time she
met this man in the street, mad drunk. A sister-soldier was with her;
Kate took the man's arms, piloted him to the sister's home; had a great
pot of tea prepared, and made him drink cup after cup in quick
succession. He wanted to fight, to smash the furniture; but she soothed
him, and saved him from the lock-up. This man steadied considerably, but
would not entirely renounce his sin. He still drinks; but when he meets
Kate Lee's old friends, he speaks about that 'heavenly woman,' and
declares he'll meet her in Heaven.
Only one instance can I discover when the Adjutant gave expression to the
least discouragement concerning weak, wobbling converts. This was when
she remarked to a beloved comrade who helped her to wrestle for the most
hopeless, 'Shall we ever get to an end of it? Oh, that the Lord would
take them Home!'