Part 9 (2/2)

'THE ANGEL ADJUTANT'

Kate Lee had been a Salvation Army Field Officer for fifteen years, when suddenly she became famous. In gathering material for the writing of 'Twice Born Men,' Harold Begbie had been no less impressed by the sweetness and wisdom of the woman who had won from sin to righteousness several of the notable characters with whom the book deals, than he was with the miracle of their conversion. Throughout the book we catch glimpses of Kate Lee-her loveliness of character, her guileless wisdom, and her strength of purpose-as Mr. Begbie saw her. Vividly describing Shepherd's Bush, the locality in which the Norland Castle corps operates, Mr. Begbie pictures the incessant, roaring traffic of the main roads, the ceaseless procession of humanity on the pavements, the exhibition of wealth and extravagance in the shops-almost frightening to those who know of the terrible dest.i.tution which exists only a stone's throw distant--the crowded street markets of the poor, the shabby residential streets, and continues:--

One turns out of the respectable streets where the children are playing cricket, cherry-bobs, hopscotch, hoops, and cards, and suddenly finds himself in streets miserable and evil beyond description.

These are streets of once decent two-storied villas, now lodging-houses. The very atmosphere is different. One is conscious first of dejection, then of some hideous and abysmal degradation. It is not only the people who make this impression on one's mind, but the houses themselves. Dear G.o.d, the very houses seem accursed! The bricks are crusted, and in a dull fas.h.i.+on s.h.i.+ny with grime; the doors, window-frames, and railings are dark with dirt only disturbed by fresh accretions; the flights of steps leading up to the front doors, under their foul porches, are worn, broken, and greasy; the doors and windows in the reeking bas.e.m.e.nts have been smashed up in nearly every case for firewood. Here and there a rod is missing from the iron railings--it has been twisted out and used as a weapon.

In these streets on a summer evening you find the flight of steps occupied by the lodgers, and the pavements and road-ways swarming with their children. The men are thieves, begging-letter writers, pickpockets, bookmakers' touts, totters (rag and bone men), and trouncers (men paid by costermongers to shout their wares), and bullies. The women add to their common degradation--which may be imagined--the art of the pickpocket, the beggar, the shoplifter, and the bully....

If you could see these bareheaded women, with their hanging hair, their ferocious eyes, their brutal mouths; if you could see them there, half dressed, and that in a draggle-tailed slovenliness incomparably horrible; and if you could hear their appalling language loading their hoa.r.s.e voices, and from their phrases receive into your mind some impression of their modes of thought, you would say that human nature in the earliest and most barbarous of its evolutionary changes had never, could never, have been like this.

Concerning the men, one thing only need be said.... There was cunning in their faces, there was every expression of ... underhand craft, but they looked and lowered their eyes.... They seemed to me 'consciously wrong, inferior, and unhappy.'

But more than by anything concerning the men and women of this neighbourhood, one is impressed by the swarm of dreggy children playing their poor little pavement games in the shadow of these lodging-houses. Some--can it be believed?--are decently clothed and look as if they are sometimes washed.... The ma.s.s of these children, above five or six years of age, are terribly neglected.

I have never seen children more dirty, more foully clothed, more dejected looking.... I saw many children with sores and boils; I saw some children whose eyes looked out at me from a face that was nothing but a scab.

A mortuary chapel has had to be built for this neighbourhood. The rooms of the houses are so crowded that directly a person dies the body must be moved.

Mr. Begbie now introduces Kate Lee:--

Into these streets come day after day, and every Sunday, the little, vigorous corps of The Salvation Army, stationed in this quarter of London. The Adjutant of the corps some years ago was a beautiful and delicate girl. She prayed at the bedside of dying men and women in these lodging-houses. She taught children to pray. She went into public-houses and persuaded the violent blackguards of the town to come away; she pleaded with the most desperate women at street corners; she preached in the open streets on Sundays; she stood guard over the doors of men, mad for drink, and refused to let them out.

On one occasion this little woman was walking home through evil streets after midnight, when a drunken man asked her if he might travel by her side. After going some way the man said, 'No, you aren't afraid,' and then he mumbled to himself, 'Never insults the likes of you, because you cares for the likes of us.'

It is to the work of this wonderful woman--so gracious, so modest, and so sweet--that one may trace the miracles whose histories are contained in the following pages. The energy, resolution, and splendid cheerfulness of the present corps, some of them her own converts, may likewise be traced through her influence. She has left in these foul streets the fragrance of her personality, a fragrance of the lilies of a pure soul. 'Ah,' exclaims an old jail-bird, showing me the photograph of this woman, 'If anybody goes to Heaven, it will be that there little Angel of G.o.d.' They call her the 'Angel Adjutant.'

We see the Angel Adjutant again in the book, visiting the 'Puncher' at his work; braving the abominations of 'O.B.D.'s' den, as she made friends with that sodden drink slave and his wife, piloting him to the hall and mothering the first signs of grace in his stupefied soul. We see her mothering the 'Criminal,' weeping over the fall of 'Rags and Bones,'

endeavouring to hold the 'Failure' to his moral and spiritual obligations, and, despite his falls, refusing to give him up.

'That man, Mr. Begbie, is wonderful. He's got those men's very images on paper,' says one of Kate Lee's converts, referring to the 'Twice Born Men' characters. None the less truly did he get Kate Lee's photograph on paper, and sent it round the world for all to see, and for thinking people to admire, to wonder over, to praise and give thanks for.

'Twice Born Men' was a great success. Its first edition was immediately absorbed, while its present edition is the twenty-seventh, and its English circulation has reached over a quarter of a million copies. It has had, likewise, an enormous sale in the United States and Canada. It has been translated into French, German, and Swedish.

Few books of its time appealed to so widely differing minds and cla.s.ses.

The professor of psychology, the theologian, the prize-fighter, Christian mother, the school-boy, in common interest bent their heads over its pages. The Press discussed it from many aspects in a chorus of favour.

'The Angel Adjutant' became an ent.i.ty whom people all over the world desired to know. After she had been thus discovered to the world, wherever she went she was received with honour. Churches besieged her with invitations to occupy their pulpits. Civic authorities paid deference to this spiritual and moral specialist.

How did the glare of the limelight affect Kate Lee? A comrade who knew more of her inner life than almost any other, lets in a sidelight upon her a.s.sociation with 'Twice Born Men.' Her experiences in connexion with the book were not entirely sweet. She felt the sting of jealousy, that hurtful thing which, while uncleansed human nature is what it is, will continue to inflict wounds upon those chosen for honour, but Kate Lee bore it with meekness and in silence. 'It is not easy to bear success,'

she said on this subject. 'When I have been lifted up, it has meant a cross rather than a throne for me.'

It is not easy for a n.o.ble soul to bear a representative honour, unless it is patent to all that it _is_ representative and not personal. No one realized more fully than Kate Lee that other women officers had worked and are working amongst the ma.s.ses just as she worked, actuated by the same spirit as moved her, and achieving the same results as those in which she rejoiced. She would rather that another than herself had been thrown upon the world's screen to ill.u.s.trate the work. A few weeks before she died, she spoke of this to her old friend, Brigadier Elizabeth Thomas, adding, 'Whenever ”Twice Born Men” is mentioned, I want to run and hide my head.' But while she felt all this, her keen sense of true values withheld her from putting a trumpet to her lips and declaring it.

Rather, with that Christlike modesty and dignity that characterized all her public service, she entered every door that publicity opened to her and gave her message. She occupied many important pulpits, filling great churches with interested and sympathetic congregations.

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