CATHERINE BOOTH BIOGRAPHY, MINISTRY, DEATH, & LESSONS FROM HER LIFE

CATHERINE BOOTH BIOGRAPHY, MINISTRY, DEATH, & LESSONS FROM HER LIFE

CATHERINE BOOTH BIOGRAPHY

Catherine Booth (née Mumford) was a co-founder of The Salvation Army together with his husband. Due to the impact she had in the founding and structuring of The Salvation Army, she was called “Mother of The Salvation Army”.

EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND

She was born on the 17th of January 1829 and went to be with the Lord on the 4th of October 1890. She was born as Catherine Mumford in Ashbourne Derbyshire, England to her parents John Mumford and Sarah Milward whose are Methodist.

Catherine’s father was a lay preacher and carriage maker. From her time in where she was born to when her parents moved to Boston, Lincolnshire, she was known as a serious and sensitive girl.

She was raised well as a girl from a Christian family and it was reported that she had read the Bible eight times by the age of 12.

A spinal curvature kept her idle by force during her adolescent days. She was buys though and her concern was the problem of alcoholism. She served as secretary of a Juvenile Temperance Society writing articles for them.

She was expelled by Wesleyan for not condemning Methodist Reformers in 1850.

MINISTRY

She began as a committed worker at Brighouse. Catherine enjoyed working with young people and was courageous to speak in children’s meetings.

Catherine met a model American Wesleyan revivalist Phoebe Palmer. She wrote a pamphlet titled “Female Ministry: Woman’s Right to Preach the Gospel” in defense of American preacher Mrs. Phoebe Palmer’s ministry who was facing criticism for her preaching.

The pamphlet addresses three major areas which she was convinced about. The first is, women are not inferior to men either morally or naturally. Secondly, she believed that scripturally, they cannot be denied public ministry.

The third one is that what the Bible desired, the Holy Ghost had ordained and blessed, and so must be accounted for.

These were days where women found it hard to speak in adult meetings. But she held the conviction that women had equal right to speak.

She was a great partner for William’s work before she realized her own space as a powerful preacher. She does hold cottage meetings for converts and she later started her own campaigns. Her popularity was widely known by both men and women especially those in the ministry.

At the start, she was sharing the ministry with her husband. They both went about as traveling evangelists, but she came into great demand as a preacher in her own sphere.

THE CHRISTIAN MISSION

The couple started The Christian Mission in 1865 in London’s East End. The husband would preach to the poor and needy while the wife would preach to the wealthy trying to gain their financial support for the demanding ministry.

She was known as the “Mother of The Salvation Army” when the name was changed to The Salvation Army in 1878. She was involved in the changing and restructuring of the ministry at the time,

DEATH

She died of breast cancer at the age of 61 at Crossley House. It was a house she loved because it had a sea view.

WORKS

• Practical Religion (1878)
• Godliness (1881)
• Aggressive Christianity (1883)
• Life and Death (1883)
• Highway of our God (1886)
• Popular Christianity (1887)
• Life of Catherine Booth: The Mother of the Salvation Army (1892)
• Female Teaching

Read Also: William Booth Biography

MARITAL AND RELATIONSHIP STATUS

She met William Booth who was expelled by the Wesleyans for reform sympathies. He was reciting a temperance poem “The Grog-seller’s Dream” that Catherine loved.

Not long after, they fell in love and got engaged. She always wrote letters to William Booth as he carry out his work as a preacher during their three years of engagement.

They got married on June 16, 1855, and were blessed with eight children.

QUOTES

“You are not here in the world for yourself. You have been sent here for others. The world is waiting for you!”

“If we are to better the future we must disturb the present.”

“If Christ cannot supersede the Law, then I am lost, and lost forever.”

“Do not give way to lowness while you are young. Rise up on the strength of God and resolve to conquer.”

LESSONS FROM HER LIFE

Boldness is one thing to take from her life. She refused to be intimidated by the opposition for what she believed in. How far can we stand for what we believe in? Her determination to stand in the face of the opposition gave birth to generations without struggles. Shalom!