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The War Cry | JULY 2015
I
n the annals of Salvation Army history, two significant
events occurred in 1865. The first was the Christian
Revival Association, which became the East London
Christian Mission and finally The Salvation Army (1878). A
second birth, on Christmas day, 1865, was nearly as momen-
tous--Evangeline Cory Booth entered the world as the 17th
child of William and Catherine Booth.
In the Booth family, neither gender,
age nor birth order exempted the chil-
dren from their expected service in the
fledgling Salvation Army. As small chil-
dren, they dramatized Biblical scenes
and distributed Christmas cheer before
any family observance of that sacred
day. Little Eva Booth was quite the sol-
dier, saluting her sib-
lings whenever they
met and creating a uniform for her pet
monkey, Jeannie. The uniform did not
improve the monkey's behavior, so her
mother made her remove the Salvation
Army ribbon, commenting, "Eva, [the
monkey] doesn't live the life."
Unlike Jeannie, Booth lived the life
throughout her 85 years. She was disap-
pointed that she was too young for the
expedition to start the Army's work in
America in 1880, lamenting to the pio-
neer Emma Westbrook, "If only I could
go too." But by the next year, Booth was
in uniform herself, selling the War Cry
on the streets of London. Soon she was
assigned to the women's training home
with her sister Emma, and helped to
develop and supervise the first Cellar,
Gutter and Garret Brigade, a program of
the Slum Sisters.
In her next assignment in Maryle-
bone, she traded her beloved uniform for
the tattered dress and shawl of the
flower girls at Piccadilly Circus, deter-
mined to know what it felt like to be cold,
poor and lonely. Her nightly meetings at
by
MAJOR JOANN SHADE
Evangeline Booth
The Sent One
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