'The rocks and the mountains will all flee away. And you will need a hiding-place that day.'
There was instantaneous silence over the whole house; after singing two or three stanzas, she stopped and announced her text, 'Let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like His.' While she did so nearly every head in the gallery was uncovered, and within fifteen minutes both she and every one of the fifteen hundred people present were completely absorbed in her subject, and for forty minutes no one stirred or spoke among that unruly crowd, until she made her concluding appeal, and called for volunteers to begin the new life of righteousness, when a great big navvy-looking man rose up, and in the midst of the throng in the gallery exclaimed, 'I'll make one!' He was followed by thirty others that night."
[Illustration: CATHERINE BOOTH (_From a portrait by Edward Clifford, exhibited at the Royal Academy and presented to Mrs. Booth_)]
Well might the General's hopes regarding the young soul-winner be high and confident. "Papa," wrote Mrs. Booth, "says he felt very proud of her the other day as she walked by his side at the head of a procession with an immense crowd at their heels. He turned to her and said, 'Ah, my lass, you shall wear a crown by-and-by.'"
With what desires and prayers the mother of this _Wunderkind_ followed such a career is indicated by her letters. "Oh, it seems to me that if I were in your place--young--no cares or anxieties--with such a start, such influence, and such a prospect, I should not be able to contain myself for joy. I should indeed aspire to be 'the bride of the Lamb,' and to follow Him in conflict for the salvation of poor, lost and miserable man.... I don't want you to make any vows (unless, indeed, the Spirit leads you to do so), but I want you to set your mind and heart on winning souls, and to leave everything else with the Lord. When you do this you will be happy--oh, so happy! Your soul will then find perfect rest. The Lord grant it you, my dear child.... I have been 'careful about many things.' I want you to care only for the _one_ thing.... Look forward, my child, into eternity--_on_, and ON, and ON. You are to live _for ever_. This is only the infancy of existence--the school-days, the time. Then is the grand, great, glorious eternal harvest."