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 simply _must_ be 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.