We write in a matter-of-fact way that Captain Lucy and Lieutenant Kate
Lee received an appointment to this or that corps, and the statement is
received as it was written--without surprise or reflection. But, in
truth, behind such a sentence lies one of the most notable achievements
of The Salvation Army as a world force--the right to public service for
women.

Looking over the fifty-five years of the life of The Army, and further
back still, we can trace clearly the guiding hand of God in the formation
and direction of this instrument of His choosing.

When, in the order of Divine providence, William Booth was chosen to be
Founder of the Salvation Army, by strange, devious, suffering ways, God
led him, chastened him, disciplined him in preparation for his great
work. At the same time, Catherine Mumford, by the hand of God, was being
fitted to be the Mother of The Salvation Army.

She was a delicate, retiring, but highly intelligent young woman of
twenty-four years of age, when she heard her minister, in the course of a
sermon, give expression to the view that women were mentally and morally
inferior to men. At this suggestion Catherine Mumford felt a strong
native resentment rise within her. Until that hour she had held the view
that God had made men and women equal in gifts of mind and heart; now she
made a thorough study of the subject in the light of the Word of God and
of history, and as a result she formed a reasoned opinion from which she
never swerved. In a letter, remarkable for its logic and its command of
vigorous English, she set forth her views to her pastor. She admitted
that prejudice and custom had relegated woman to positions inferior to