A Path of Repentance
As personal sins came to mind, he would repent and make restitution, if possible. There was the matter of a silver pencil case he had wrested from some friends through trickery; though he had to swallow a good bit of pride to face them, he returned it.
A Sense of Certainty
In the coming days, William reached a certainty that he belonged to God. Years later, he would describe his sense of certainty in this way: “My brethren, if you have salvation, you are sure of it. This is not because you have heard it preached; not because you have read with your eyes or heard read by others in that wonderful book, the wonderful story of the love of God to you; not because you have seen with your eyes transformations of character wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost – changes as marvelous, miraculous and as divine as any that ever took place in the apostolic or any other days. These things may have led up to it but, these things, wonderful as they may be, have not power to make you sure of your part and lot in the matter of salvation. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but God Himself, by His Spirit, has made this known.”
Seeking God
William started attending every service and Bible class he could at the Wesleyan Chapel, filling himself with the Word and fire of God. While others were assembling in the streets to riot or preach social reform, William was seeking God.
A Life of Purpose
With his talents and his enthusiasm, William easily might have become a successful politician or a revolutionary had God not reached him first; but because God did get to him first, he would do more to reform the social ills of his nation than any other person in the nineteenth century.
Catherine Mumford’s Early Life
Some three months before William’s birth, Catherine Mumford, the only daughter of John and Sarah Mumford, was born on January 17, 1829, in Ashbourne, Derbyshire. The Mumfords also had four sons but only one of them lived beyond childhood. Catherine’s mother, Sarah, was a devout believer from her youth.
A Sickly but Devoted Child
Catherine was a sickly child, and she was fragile and unwell for her entire life; yet there burned within her something that rendered such frailty rather unimportant – a compassion and intensity of feeling unparalleled in anyone but her future husband. Catherine was anything but an unhappy child. Constant illness kept her indoors most of the time, but, because of this, she grew to love books and treasured no book above the Bible. Her mother so prized God’s truth that she allowed no novels or other fiction books into their household – she saw them as foolish and a waste of time. To Be Continued …
To be continued…
Tale Tuesday 079
Date: 26th March, 2024
Title: : William & Catherine Booth (Part 4)
Source: God’s generals- The Revivalists
Author: Roberts Liardon
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