Bannister, Catherine

The Salvation Army during the first ten or even twenty years of its life was simply a campaigning force. Out of the depths of the will of God, it sprang into being, and, looking out upon the millions of souls held captive by the Devil, it attacked the strongholds of sin and released the captives. It attacked again and conquered, and, turning its prisoners of war into Soldiers, still pressed forward.
The essential qualities of the Staff Officer of that period were those of the Crusader—entire self-sacrifice, courage, decision, action, mobility, and the determination to win through or die. Men and women of such spirit responded to the Founder’s call to arms, and rallied to his standard, prepared for poverty, weariness and early death if they might but share in setting up the kingdom of righteousness.
Victories continued to crown the arms of this Army of Salvation and a different order arose. The acquired Territory needed organizing, administering; the welfare of the conquered called for consideration; the family, the children, the aged, the poor, the untrained, needed care and guidance. Departments to deal with these new responsibilities came into being, and Officers of parts differing from those of the pioneer—the organizer, the administrator, the manager, the teacher, the musician, the doctor, the nurse, and besides, the man for the records and the writings, were required.
As the quality of the conquest in the front lines depended upon the character of the attacker, so the quality of the kingdom forming behind the lines depended upon the character of the builders to whom this important work was entrusted. If the attackers settled down to the comforts and usages of peace time, their successes were feeble, and if the administrators who are removed from the smoke of the battle and the muck of the trenches, lost vision, lived softly, or became perfunctory in their spirit and work, the fiber of their kingdom-building deteriorated.
Paul, in his day, realized the inevitability of various conditions of life and service, and spoke concerning them to the Corinthians, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are differences of administrations but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all and in all.” Lest one section of his Officers should misunderstand another, Paul used the illustration of the body composed of its various members, adding, “God hath set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.”
For a character typical of the Founder’s ideal as a leader of attack, it would be difficult to choose a better example than Catherine Bannister. From the first consecration of her life to Army service her abnegation was complete; her passion for souls, white-hot; her devotion to duty, absolute; her courage, without bounds; her faithfulness, to the end; her success, abundant. A sketch of her career is here presented, not so much as representing an all-round Officer—though there is every indication that she would have been successful in any branch of work to which she might have been appointed—but as an illustration of the spirit which should possess the Staff Officer whatever his work. Called to Missionary Service, she grasped the torch of Salvation and waved it, and waved it, and still chose to wave it, dispersing heathen darkness, until still clasping it she lay down to die.
Catherine Bannister, a daughter of the Church of England, was reared in an atmosphere unworldly and loyal in its love to the Lord Jesus. Her father, by profession a solicitor, provided her with the comforts of a refined home and gave her a sound education. Her invalid mother sowed in her daughter’s heart the seeds of righteousness, and by example and precept pointed the way of entire consecration to the service of God.
At the age of sixteen Catherine was converted. It was the custom of the family to have one of Spurgeon’s sermons read aloud at Sunday morning’s breakfast, and it was during one of these readings that the Heavenly vision shone clearly for Catherine, and with great certainty and joy she stepped out of nature’s darkness into the light of Grace.
For years hers was a hidden life, which moved in a narrow groove on account of her mother’s illness, for Catherine was her devoted nurse.
After her mother’s death, Catherine and her sister organized a mission in their village, employing lay-preachers for the public service whilst they busied themselves with the visitation of the sick, and such other ministrations as were, in those days, considered suitable for young ladies.
A winter in London introduced the sisters to The Salvation Army. This event changed the whole course of their lives. Accepting an invitation to attend a select gathering at which Mrs. Booth, The Army Mother, was to speak, the sisters found themselves listening to a solemn charge concerning the responsibility of believers for the Salvation of the unsaved. Life, after that Meeting, could never be the same to Catherine Bannister. Determined to see more of the Salvationists, she found out the Great Western Hall, and arrived in the vicinity one evening as the march was coming down Edgware Road. It was composed of poor people, and a hostile crowd jostled them as they marched singing songs of Salvation. Miss Bannister, walking on the footpath, was shaken by deep emotion as she realized that these people were bearing the shame and cross of Jesus in a way she was not prepared to accept.
The following Sunday morning found her at the Hall in time for the Holiness Meeting. When the march came in there were many bruised heads amongst the Soldiers, and much torn clothing, but radiant faces and an atmosphere of triumph. The call of the Meeting was for the presentation of bodies as well as souls to Christ, and Catherine Bannister’s mind was fully made up when, in the final dedication, she rose and yielded herself entirely to God.
Before returning to their village home, the sisters made another opportunity for hearing Mrs. Booth. On this occasion her message made plain the difference between workers and Soldiers. Catherine Banister had been an earnest worker, but now she saw sin entrenched against righteousness; she realized she must fight it and deliver the captives of the devil. In the “Call to Arms” at the conclusion of the Meeting she rose and covenanted with God to take, henceforward, open, active sides with Him in the Holy war. Obtaining an interview with Mrs. Booth, she asked what she should do. The Army Mother, divining that the Holy Spirit would be the best Counselor for this inquirer, simply replied: “Go right forward.”
Returning home, the sisters “opened fire” in the village street. The next Saturday night the Hall was full of roistering roughs of whose very existence the sisters had hitherto been ignorant. Souls were saved, and it is not surprising to chronicle that a few months later Miss Bannister asked Headquarters to take over her uniformed little Corps—which, incidentally, had been modeled after the dictates of the Regulations, and she and her sister entered Training for Officership.
At the time the Consul, then shortly to be married to Commissioner Booth-Tucker, was making up “The Wedding Fifty” for India, Captain Bannister was appointed to open Tring as a Garrison Corps. She arrived at the house, where was to be the Depot, while the workmen were still renovating; neither furniture nor supplies had arrived. But she carried in her baggage a small saucepan and a little tea, and gathering some shavings she boiled water and a pinch of tea, which—having no cup—she allowed to cool, and drank out of the saucepan; then, rolling herself in her traveling rug, she lay on the boards and went to sleep. The Captain described these pioneering experiences in a letter to a friend who was the Consul’s Secretary. The Consul knew Bannister—her consecration and ability, but here was a new characteristic. Surely a woman able to make fun out of unexpected hardships had qualities invaluable in a Missionary Officer. Catherine Bannister was included in “The Wedding Fifty” and received the Indian name Yuddha Bai—“Warrior Sister.”
Yuddha Bai’s first appointment in India was in charge of her comrade Officers during their training in native customs and the language study. She was also in charge of a Corps in Bombay.
These were trying days for the party of young Englishwomen. The heat, the mosquitoes (for there were few curtained beds in those days), the coarse native food, the difficult language, and the almost overpowering sense of the greatness of the work to which they had come, combined to test them—body, soul, and spirit. Yuddha Bai was a tower of strength to her comrades. She, who had enjoyed more comforts than others, put almost every comfort from her, and led the way along every new and difficult path. In study, she took three lessons a day to the others’ one—often sitting up far into the night with her feet in a pail of disinfectant to keep off the mosquitoes. Soon she was leading her Meetings in the vernacular, and buying the food from the bazaars for her large family. She led in adapting herself to the customs and manners of the people. She gloried in the native uniform, and the simple naturalness of Indian life. One large room sufficed for sleeping, dining, and study, with no furniture to keep in order, seeing the floor met the need of bed, table, and chairs, and left the time saved from housework for soul work.
She led on the march, her tender feet first treading the sharp stones and burning sands. She led in the face of a hostile native crowd, speaking until men listened to her message, and, when a flung stone cut open her face, she staunched the blood with the end of her sari and continued to deliver the message.
With such an example before them, it needed few words from Yuddha Bai to hold her sister comrades to a high consecration; but if one showed signs of flagging she would eye her quietly and say, “It was for this we came; if you can’t stand it you had better go home.” Little wonder that many of those women are still fighters on the Indian Field.
When “The Wedding Fifty” had acquired sufficient of the language to take appointments, they scattered to the four points of the compass. Staff-Captain Yuddha Bai was commissioned as Divisional Officer for Marathi villages, but she had to form her own Division. Her Headquarters, built in native style, was at Dhmari. A large room was used for general purposes, dining, interviews, and the lesser Meetings, and a smaller, eight feet by ten, was her own little sanctuary. It contained no furniture at all, just a raised mud platform which did duty for bed, chair, and desk, but it was the one corner to which she could retire from public gaze and for prayer, though for her greater prayer battles she was known to go further afield to meet with God alone.
We catch glimpses of those early days in letters written to her sister in England. The following describes the opening of her Headquarters:
“I am now settled in my new home. I think I told you that I have been put in charge of a village district, and some huts have been erected in a Central Village for the Divisional Staff. We did not move in as soon as we expected as the rains came before the roofs were on, washed the walls down again, soaked the floors and hindered and troubled us much. However, at last we got them fairly finished, made a push, and went in. The floors were very wet, and the roof not finished, but the Lord kept the rains off and we got very little harm.
“We are completely off the high road; there are no real roads to any of the villages, only wild mountain or jungle paths, or, at best, rough cart tracks. But our district is growing. We now have six Corps.”
Describing a “Boom March,” the method by which new villages were captured in those early days, she wrote:
“It was a most romantic time, and I have come home better in every way. There were forty-five of us. Eight lasses with myself. We were out nineteen days, visited twenty-three villages, opened nine Corps and two Districts, appointed eighteen Field and two District Officers, and saw 550 souls on their knees seeking Salvation. We marched altogether 150 miles.
“A party of pioneers went before us to prepare the villages for our coming. We would arrive in the evening, pitch our tent, and go straight into the Meeting, where we would find all the people assembled to hear us. The next morning we held another Meeting and sometimes left a party to do another night, then, if it seemed promising, we made it into a Corps and left two Officers to work it. We were on entirely new heathen ground, untouched by any previous effort, so our reception and success were very encouraging.
“We lasses slept in a tent, the men slept mostly under the trees. We had two small carts for our luggage—bedding, cooking utensils, tent, drum, food and clothes. Not much room for luggage for forty-five people, but we learn to do without here. Each was allowed two blankets, one change of clothing, Bible and Hymn Book; nothing else; but that was all we needed. Of course our food was of the coarsest, but what did that matter? We had two cooked meals in the day. One at 11a.m., consisting of rice, split peas, and onions. The other about 3 p.m., of tea and chappaties, a sort of pancake. Our worst enemy was cold; our hands and arms were cracked and bleeding at night, yet during the daytime it was scorching hot.”
God blessed this loving sacrifice, and as we have read, many souls were saved, and foundations laid which have proved to have been well laid. The most hopeful young men who felt called to Officership were brought into a Training Home, and Yudda Bai travailed in spirit to see Christ formed in them. Concerning the commissioning of her first batch of Cadets, she wrote:
“You can imagine what this means to me of joy and anxiety. I was anxious to improve the occasion as much as possible, so had a farewell tea with them, and afterwards a solemn consecration Meeting which lasted five hours. We had a grand time; the power of the Holy Ghost seemed to fall upon us. I prepared a Covenant which each newly-appointed Officer repeated aloud. It is something like this in Marathi. ‘I, ──, before God and my comrades, offer myself to God to be faithful in the work and responsibilities to which He has called me. Forsaking my own will I will daily do His will alone. For His sake I will gladly go into dark, sinful places to seek the lost and sin-defiled, and give them the message of Salvation. For their Salvation I will spend my life as a separated man. I will live apart from all worldly things, and will keep my thoughts, desires, power, time, affections, and members sacred, under the control of Jesus Christ. Though weak, yet in His strength, with my mind fixed on Him, and holding His hand, I believingly make this promise.’
“Seven of our present Cadets are Hindus; that means being completely cut off from parents, home, and friends. It is hard for them. They need more than leaders, they need affection in their temptations and sorrows, and if they fall one who does not too hastily condemn.”
The great yearning love which had taken possession of her heart for the Indian, shines through much of her writing, as for instance, to her sister:
“Were you here you would take up their cause as vehemently as we used to take up the ‘roughs’ in England, only more deservedly, for these Indians are superior in wit, devotion, eloquence, and every other good gift. If I could see the Flag of Calvary really established in the Marathi country, I think I would say, ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’”
She lived to see that day sooner than she expected, but when it arrived, she was not glad to depart. Her Division increased to a Territory within ten years. It was her intention never to leave India even for a furlough, but at last she received farewell orders, and by command of her General, turned her face homeward to rest.
After the refreshment of a stay amongst her own people, Yuddha Bai was appointed to the charge of the Punjab Territory and returned to (North) India. This move necessitated the learning of a new language, and Yuddha was then in middle life. But she gave herself to the task and not only succeeded in mastering Hindustani, but also the corrupted dialect of the villages. She was greatly pleased when she overheard some of her Soldiers discussing a difficulty, and adding, “We will go to the Colonel, she understands our tongue.”
In the beginning of her career Yuddha Bai’s sister comrades of less morale than she, stood in awe of her Spartan spirit, but constant contact with her Savior in ministry for the poor, the weak, and the dull, worked in her a wondrous tenderness and tolerance toward all, and while never to the last relaxing her personal rigorous self-denials, she became generous toward others. At one time her chief Divisional Commander—an English woman-comrade—had to confess that she had fallen in love and wished to link her life with that of “a continual comrade.” Yuddha Bai had carried her out of the battle to a little rest hut in the hills, and she chose the moment of confession, when one afternoon they were lying on the floor resting. Yuddha Bai sat bolt upright. “Never! Impossible!” she exclaimed at the thought of losing so valuable a helper, and also, perhaps, that one who led in the van with God, could consider a proposal to surrender her perfect freedom. “But it is true,” replied the Officer in as even a voice as she could command, albeit with quaking heart. Yuddha became very quiet. When her comrade stole a glance at her, tears were rolling down her face and presently she said, “I am glad for your sake. I have been anxious about your health, and besides . . . it is the right thing.” That little hut became a sanctuary and this woman, who rarely mentioned herself, whose life was so set apart for God as to seem beyond the pale of human desires, told of the laying aside of an early love for duty’s sake, and of longings, sometimes during the years of battle, for a love all her own. But that had not been God’s will for her. Very sweet and pleasant she made her comrade’s courtship, and later conducted her wedding.
The mother-spirit of her nature grew with the years. Her people were the children of her soul, and with wondrous love she reared and trained them; but even this ministry did not altogether satisfy the maternal craving—she must have little children about her, and her comrades recall how when engaged in writing or translating there was generally a little brown baby cuddling in her lap or rolling on the floor beside her, while two or three toddlers careered about her, coming at will for a word or touch of love.
Of the diseases of the East, Yuddha Bai had no fear. In epidemics of cholera and plague, when her people were dying in every direction, she moved amongst them, doctoring, comforting, and directing. Her presence inspired confidence, secured attention to hygienic precautions, and restored hope.
After commanding the Punjab Territory for seven years, Colonel Bannister was again ordered home on furlough. While enjoying rest and communion in her own home, one day she slipped on the stairs; later she found a lump had arisen where, in the fall, she struck herself. A specialist ordered an immediate operation. This was performed with seeming success and at the earliest opportunity she returned to her beloved India. It was indeed going home, for she was reappointed to the charge of the Marathi Territory. For two years she labored with great happiness and increasing freedom and usefulness amongst her own Converts. Then the growth reappeared and was found to be malignant. The doctor having ordered her to return to England if she wished for an operation, Yuddha Bai decided to remain in India so that she might die with the beloved people of her adoption. She was glad that nothing she had suffered in India had caused her death blow.
For ten months she continued at her post working until a few weeks before the end, her last labor of love being the revision of the Marathi Songs which had been her first work of translation. Still sitting in her chair, Yuddha Bai was Promoted to Glory.
She was laid to rest in the presence of her beloved sister, who some years previously had joined her in her work on the Indian battle-field, and of the people whom she loved more dearly than even those of her own land.
And their love for her? Their reverence can never be told in a strange tongue. An Indian Staff Officer says of her, “She was my mother. I still do the things she would wish.” He smiles and adds, “She comes to me in my dreams.”
What would Catherine Bannister say if now she could speak to us of her Indian warfare? We find some answer to this question in words she wrote a little while before her death:
“It is strange for me to realize that I was born in another land. I came out here with the Lord and because He brought me. How little I then knew what a world of joy He was preparing for me, nor what treasures of darkness, and hidden riches in secret places He was going to unfold bit by bit before my fascinated gaze in this new land, and to give into my hands as part of the hundredfold of His wonderful promise.
“Truly I came because the Lord enticed me here, yet had I known what He was bringing me to—the new and deeper love for souls—because they were so hopeless, and so helpless, and so despised—the joy of a sacred consecration to a land chosen for me not by accident of birth but by Divine choice and commission—I would have leapt to come out years before.
“I have had my days of loneliness and sickness; days when the object I sought seemed far beyond my reach; days when the barrier between me and the souls I longed to reach seemed to rise mountains high, and mock every effort of my faith to remove it, but never have I regretted that I came! No, thank God, never! I have always been able to see by faith an Army of dear Blood-washed Indian warriors singing and fighting their way through persecutions and difficulties to save their fellow-countrymen and women.”
Some words of the General (then the Chief of the Staff) written of Colonel Yuddha Bai at the time of her death suggest a fitting conclusion to our consideration of this consecrated, triumphant life:
“Compare such a life with its travel, its thrilling adventure, its wonderful intercourse with many ranges of human thought, its fine ambitions and its abiding fruit, with that of the easy-going woman of ease and education who spends her time in the trifles she calls pleasure, or in the narrow cares which she calls duty!
“There was no break in this devoted woman’s service. She held fast to the simple principles of Salvation Army teaching, and set a high example of obedience, when that obedience—as was sometimes the case—seemed very irksome; of poverty in the face of very attractive opportunities of entering very different circumstances; of prayer, for her life was a life of prayer in the truest sense. This is a comrade of whom we may well say, her life speaks to us. Her achievements speak to us. Her testimony in death speaks to us. The message is, ‘Be true to the end and give glory to God.’”—Mrs. Col. Carpenter.