Mrs. Booth, when she answered like this, had no idea of all that was to
follow. She never dreamt that, from The General's standing alone in
Whitechapel, a mighty wave of Salvation would sweep over the earth, nor
that God was about to raise up an Army of which she and The General were
to be the leaders.

But, as always before, she willingly agreed to whatever would be for
God's glory and the Salvation of souls; and we all know to-day how, from
that little Whitechapel beginning, grew the Christian Mission, and how,
at last, the Christian Mission became The Salvation Army.

Do not think, however, that our dear Army Mother's consecration stopped
here! No, indeed. One by one, as they became old enough, she gave up her
children to the Work, and we shall never know all we owe as an Army to
her beautiful spirit of devotion and sacrifice.

Let us stand together by her open grave in the autumn twilight. Her
twenty-six years of fight and toil in The Salvation Army are over now,
her spirit has been summoned Home. Listen. The Army Founder himself is
the speaker. He is recalling the forty years which he and our dear Army
Mother had trod together, and his words sum up better than any other
words could do what she was to our Leader:--

'If you had had a tree,' he said, speaking to the vast crowd that stood
round the grave, 'that had grown up in your garden, under your window,
which for forty years had been your shadow from the burning sun, whose
flowers had been the adornment and beauty of your life, whose fruit had
been almost the stay of your existence, and the gardener had come along
and swung his glittering axe and cut it down before your eyes, I think