Note 13 — Chapter III

Colonel Clibborn, who was a member of the Society of Friends, speaks thus further on these points:—“My attachment to our Society remains as deep and strong as ever, while at the same time the conviction of being in the place where the Lord would have me is equally strong. The grand characteristics of early Quakerism will prove to be again the power of this work upon the Continent—the belief in and the enjoyment of a full salvation; the baptism of the Spirit; the ‘annointing’ of that Spirit, the one qualification for service; opportunity for all to ‘prophesy’ in the Spirit; liberty for the exercise of all gifts; open and avowed separation from the world, and confession of Christ; the right of women to preach. Almost all the best known Evangelistic movements on the Continent refuse women this right, or at most barely tolerate women’s ministry; and here is just one of the great advantages of the Army work. It seems to me strange that so many are blind to the fact that any day a great war may break out, which will claim all the French men evangelists. Our perfect liberty for all, calls out all the gifts of all the converts at the earliest moment, and thus raises a band of workers which no war can drain, and no persecution exterminate. And now, when the cruel war laws of these nations claim the bodies of all their young men from three to five of their most vigorous years, and maintain the right to send nearly all their able-bodied men to be food for powder, God is raising up a band of women in our Army who can carry on the work without interruption, come war or peace. Mrs. Booth’s pamphlet on Women’s Ministry is now being sold all over the land, and has already produced a marked effect. The prejudice against women’s ministry was one of the chief sources of the ‘religious’ opposition which our work met with in Switzerland.”