William’s mind whirled at these words. There wasn’t a single person in London who would not understand the comparison between a horse’s needs and the needs of a human being. Over a period of several days, William came up with the “Cab Horse’s Charter.” He rushed into Catherine’s room to explain it to her. “Just think,” he said, “if every person in England were entitled to the same care and consideration as a cab horse. That wouldn’t be too much to ask, would it?”
“I suppose not,” Catherine replied. “Tell me exactly what you are thinking.”
“Well,” William said, seating himself in a chair beside his wife’s bed, “what it means is that in London when a weary, careless, or stupid cab horse falls down and blocks traffic, people do not stand around debating whether it should be helped back on its feet and whether it will fall again if they do. No, all necessary energy is spent on getting the animal up and the traffic flowing again. His load is taken off, his harness unbuckled or even cut. In fact, we do everything we can to help him on his way again.”
“I see,” Catherine said. “So you are saying that we should help the destitute before we stop to ask how they got in that condition. Get them moving, and then when they are clean and fed, find out how they got so low.”
“Precisely, my dear. If we can do that for a London cab horse, why can’t we do it for a person? But there’s more.” William stood up and paced the floor. He was too excited to sit down any longer. “A London cab horse has three things: shelter for the night, food to eat, and work given to it so that it can earn its corn. And that’s what I’m going to call the Cab Horse Charter in my book. When a man is down, he is helped up, and as long as he lives, he has the right to food, shelter, and work. What do you think?”
Catherine smiled at William and nodded.
William went on. “It is such a humble standard, but one that’s unattainable by one tenth of our population. I’m going to call them the ‘submerged tenth’ because hardly anyone ever thinks about their needs and rights. That is a shame on all of us, much more of a shame than if we left fallen horses to die in the streets. But we would never do that!”
William sat down once again and held Catherine’s hand. “My dear, I am so glad you are here to listen to my ideas. You have helped me shape so many of them. This book will go on as a legacy from both of us; I am sure of that. Positive, in fact.”
It was Sunday morning, September 14, 1890, when W. T. made a triumphant announcement to William. “It’s finally finished!” He tied a string around the pile of manuscript pages for In Darkest England and the Way Out. “This work will echo around the world,” he concluded, “and I will rejoice with exceeding joy when it does.”
Catherine, who was lying on the couch, replied in a husky whisper, “And I will rejoice, too. Thank God.”
“Yes, thank God indeed!” William replied. “It has been a long labor, but I am pleased with the result. It’s one thing to explain how many destitute people there are in England, but adding ‘The Way Out’ section gives people ways to help the poor out of poverty. I have decided to donate the royalties from the book to my Darkest England fund, and I aim to raise a million pounds more for the fund to bring the schemes outlined in the book to life.”
“That’s a lot of money to raise and to spend, but if anyone can raise it, you can,” W. T. said.
“Yes, it is a lot of money,” William said, “but not so much if you compare it to other things. When King Theodore of Abyssinia captured two diplomats, the British government spent ten million pounds to rescue them. And the failed attempt to rescue General Gordon from Khartoum cost many more millions of pounds than that. If the British government spends such amounts of money to rescue a few people, why not raise and spend a million pounds rescuing the poor?”
“And think of the consequences if something is not done to help them,” Catherine said. “I remember challenging the bishop of Carlisle many years ago. I said to him, ‘My dear sir, the day is coming when these masses will require to be dealt with. Will it not be better to face them with the gospel than with the sword?’ As I recall, he never gave me an answer.”
“Quite right,” William said. “In fact, I think I shall raise that point in my wedding sermon on Thursday.”
“Ah, the wedding,” Catherine sighed. “I’m so sorry that I will be too weak to go. Please give Herbert and Cornelie my love. Set me a chair at the service and put my portrait on it so that I can be there in semblance if not in reality.”
William nodded, too overcome to speak. He hated to leave Catherine and go to London for their son Herbert’s wedding, but she insisted. And so he went, and at the service he did as she wished, placing an empty chair and her portrait at the front of the hall. As soon as the wedding was over, William raced back to Clacton to be at Catherine’s side and tell her about the wedding and the latest news of the Salvation Army’s work around the world.
Two weeks later, on October 1, Catherine suffered a massive hemorrhage. The family was summoned from all over England. Bramwell, Eva, Marian, and Lucy hurried to their mother’s side. Herbert arrived later, having been away on his honeymoon. The other Booth children were all serving overseas and could not be there right away.
The children gathered around their mother’s bed, alternately singing hymns and the old Salvation Army songs they had been reared on and praying. At night William asked to sit alone with Catherine, and the couple talked about the old times together. They reminisced about when Catherine interrupted William during the service back in Gateshead. It was many years ago now, but that incident had launched her preaching career. And they remembered mixing Christmas puddings with the children and boiling them in the copper in the laundry. They remembered the smiles that came to the faces of those who received the puddings. Those smiles alone had made it all worthwhile being out in the slums on Christmas morning. The Salvation Army still continued the practice, giving out thousands of puddings to the poor on Christmas day. These and so many other memories flooded back to William and Catherine.
On the night of October 3, as William sat beside her, Catherine slipped the wedding ring off her finger and pressed it into William’s hand. Looking him in the eyes she said, “By this token we were united for time, and by it now we are united for eternity.”
William bowed his head and let the tears fall onto the Salvation Army flag that was draped over Catherine’s bed like a quilt. “You have all my love,” he replied, “and you always will.”
The following afternoon, Saturday, October 4, 1890, Catherine pointed to the framed text over her bed. Bramwell lifted it down and placed it on the bed so that she could read it. It said, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
After she had read the text, Catherine beckoned each of the children to her side and kissed them. Finally it was William’s turn. As he bent down and put his arms around his wife, she smiled one last time and died.
Early that evening George Railton arrived at the house and offered to take over the funeral arrangements. William gratefully took up his offer, and the next day a plain oak coffin with a glass cover arrived at the house. Catherine Booth’s body was laid in the coffin, which was then draped with the Salvation Army flag and carried out to a wagon for the trip to London.
William accompanied his wife’s body to London, where the “Army Mother” was laid in state at Clapton Congress Hall. Next to her coffin was placed the empty chair and portrait from Herbert’s wedding. When he saw the chair and portrait, William recalled Catherine’s words: “Set me a chair at the service and put my portrait on it so that I can be there in semblance if not in reality.” Tenderly he bent over and kissed the portrait. He knew that Catherine, his wife of thirty-five years, would be with him every day for the rest of his life, her words of encouragement echoing in his mind as he pressed on.
Over the next five days more than fifty thousand mourners filed past Catherine’s coffin. They came from every walk of life. Salvation Army captains walked next to chimney sweeps, and lawyers followed grooms and boot polishers.
On the morning of October 13, the coffin was taken from Clapton Congress Hall to Olympia Hall, where thirty-six thousand people had jammed inside for the funeral. The service was unlike any other funeral ever held in London. Flags flew, representing all of the countries where the Salvation Army now worked. White streamers fluttered from the stage, and in true Salvation Army style, everyone wore a white armband of victory, not the usual black band to symbolize mourning.
The crowd sat silently as George Railton reminded them all of the message Catherine sent to the Salvation Army’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration three months before. “My place is empty, but my heart is with you. You are my joy and crown. Your battles, suffering, and victories have been the chief interest of my life for these twenty-five years. They still are… I am dying under the Army flag, and it is yours to live and fight under. God is my salvation and refuge in the storm.”
William sat through the service with his right hand in his pocket fingering Catherine’s wedding ring.
Once the service was over, the coffin was placed in a hearse, and William climbed into an open carriage immediately behind it. As he stood in the carriage, he caught a glimpse of the immense crowd that had gathered to watch the funeral procession. Behind were three thousand Salvation Army officers standing at attention awaiting George’s orders to accompany the hearse. Soon the great procession moved off. William stood ramrod straight in the carriage as he looked out over the throng that lined the streets. They had come to pay their last respects to the woman he had known and loved.
Herbert and Bramwell Booth rode on horses behind William, and William’s five daughters, Kate, Emma, Marian, Eva, and Lucy, followed in a second carriage. The only child not at the funeral was Ballington, who had not been able to get there from North America in time.
The funeral procession took four hours to wind its way from Queen Victoria Street along the Thames Embankment to the Abney Park Cemetery. William did not allow himself to sit for one minute of the procession.
When they arrived at the cemetery, the people all arranged themselves in an orderly fashion, and several of the Booth children said a few words. Then William held up his hand. He had found the strength to speak. He began in a faltering voice to explain that whenever he and Catherine had been apart, as they often were, he had counted the days and hours until they could be together again. And now that she had been “promoted to Glory,” he asked the crowd if he should spend the rest of his life in limbo waiting to rejoin his wife. He answered himself with a resounding no.
“What, then, is there left for me to do?” William continued. “My work is plainly to fill up the weeks, days, and hours and cheer my poor heart as I go along with the thought that when I have served my Christ and my generation according to the will of God—which I vow this afternoon I shall do with the last drop of my blood—then I trust that He will bid me to the skies as He bade her.” William then bent down and gently kissed Catherine’s coffin.
When William had finished speaking, a hymn that Herbert had written years before was struck up and Catherine Booth’s coffin was lowered into the ground. George Railton said a few quiet words, then turned to the crowd and pronounced a benediction. “God bless and comfort the bereaved ones! God keep us who are left to be faithful unto death! God bless the Salvation Army!”
A chorus of “Amen” echoed around the cemetery.
William was relieved to think that Catherine’s two-and-a-half-year struggle was over. And even though he hated to admit it to anyone, he was weary himself and hoped to have a long rest before returning to the “battle line.” However, this was not to be. Three days after the funeral, William found himself in the middle of a publicity storm. In Darkest England and the Way Out was finally published and hit the streets. The howls of protest started immediately. Some church leaders were kind enough to merely label William an impossible dreamer. Did he really expect to start an international missing persons bureau or a farming program for poor city dwellers? Others, like Thomas Huxley, a staunch proponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, were more scathing. Although Huxley was five years older than William, he rallied to oppose William’s plans with the energy of a man half his age. He wrote twelve brusque letters to the London Times, giving blow-by-blow accounts of why he found everything about William Booth and his Salvation Army detestable.
