She implored Dr. Dowie to take her husband and ordain him without her, but he emphatically refused to do so.
The following paragraph, taken from her diary, shows in what a painful predicament she found herself. Speaking of a friendly adviser, she says: "He said, as I was the wife, the responsibility was on my husband, and I must stand by him, even if he was in error, and God would forgive me if it was a mistake." I felt so much taken aback by the way he looked at the matter that I turned the key of my heart.
To one of her dearest friends she wrote a long letter, which was a cry out of the depths: "I am not easily given to discouragement or despair, but my position must make angels weep, if they can weep. I cannot bring myself to accept Dowie, so much in him violates the highest spiritual instincts I have.... The forcing of me outwardly does not convince me. I have yielded all along the line, and now here I am ... but I am not in despair. I have been. It seems to me as if God, who has seen the long agony, will himself open the door. I cannot go further in this direction.... I feel a fear over everything. I never was so unutterably unhappy in my life, never. Oh, will you not help me?"
One day the prophet was attacking some noted evangelists of the day. Presently he began to fulminate against the Salvation Army, and accused the General of failing to reprove the sins of the rich. The Maréchale leapt to her feet, and facing the prophet with outstretched finger and flashing eye, an image of outraged justice, exclaimed, "That is an untruth! No man has been more faithful in reproving the rich than my father and it is cowardly of you to attack a man who is not here to defend himself." The prophet visibly quailed under the withering rebuke. It was the first time any one had withstood him to the face. With an hour of thundering oratory he tried to obliterate the impression made on the vast audience, but for once he was evidently checkmated.
At length Dr. Dowie, seeing he could not overcome the Maréchale's opposition, and that her unwilling presence in the city was a disturbing factor among his people, requested her and her husband to withdraw. Mr. Booth-Clibborn, of whose absolute sincerity there can be no doubt, was keenly disappointed at having to turn his back upon Zion, which had become to him, as the Salvation Army in its early days a cause to live for, and if need be to die for.