I thank God for sending her into my life. For years she was The
Salvation Army to me, all I knew of it; and years before I was
permitted to go to a Salvation Army meeting, I had determined
that God and The Army would have all my life.
Her life was wonderful. Even though ill and on rest she had a
plan for every hour of the day. Sometimes she would visit the
people. If they disappointed her she would try the harder to
win them. She was always hunting round to help families in need.
She spent a great deal of time in writing, and when I would
persuade her to leave her desk and come for a walk, she would
give me what she termed, 'Field Drill.' Oh, those talks; how I
treasure the memory of them! On one of the last occasions she
said to me, 'The sins of the world will do one of three things
for you; they will either harden your heart, or break it, or
soften it. _I want you to have a soft, tender heart_.'
Sometimes she would commend me; but, as a true friend, she would
also reprimand me when I needed it, yet always in love, showing
me where I might be better. She taught me how to study the Bible,
and infused into my heart some of her love for it. 'I mean to
make the Bible my one book. It is one of my New Year's
resolutions,' she told me at the beginning of this year, and at
the same time mentioned a new idea which would make study of the
Word of God more easy.
She taught me by example, as well as by what she said, to conquer
by prayer.
When she was not writing articles or revising subject notes, she
wrote letters to those she had been the means of blessing.
Beautiful letters they were; sometimes she delighted me by
dictating them and letting me type them for her.
Although she found her long periods of rest trying because of
her great love for souls, she maintained a bright, beautiful
spirit, and had a smile whenever one saw her. She compared her
last few years to a long dark tunnel, and just before she died,
when anticipating her new appointment, she said, 'I really
believe I'm coming to the end of it at last.'
Surely one of the most beautiful pictures in Kate Lee's life is here.
Ill, in a sense alone and amongst strangers, yet triumphant, filling the
days with any little services that came to her hand, performing them as
faithfully as she had performed her field duties in the glare of the
limelight, and seeking to bring into one young life the spirit that would
give to the world a warrior after her own heart, against the day that her
own feet could no longer be swift and beautiful for God.