My Pastor during my early teens: Wm Booth-Clibborn

In my last “Then and Now” blog I mentioned my pastor during my early teens, William Booth-Clibborn?  Some have written showing interest in this story… and I have sent them the additional information below.  If you are interested, read on:  

William Booth-Clibborn was the son of La Marechale (The Marshall) Catherine Booth, eldest daughter of William and Catherine Booth who founded the Salvation Army.  La Marechale founded the Salvation Army in France where my pastor was raised.  She also founded the Salvation Army in Switzerland where she was imprisoned for preaching in the open air.**  My pastor was baptized in the Holy Spirit at 15 years of age while studying in a boarding school, then called to ministry and traveled for years as an evangelist.  After a sad divorce and now as a single man… he planted and built Immanuel Temple in Portland, Oregon where I attended.  He was an excellent violinist and wrote many songs, his most famous was “Down from His Glory” for which he borrowed the melody from “O Sole Mio.”  He was an unusually brilliant preacher who could make the Bible characters come to life upon the stage.  And he preached Jesus as I never heard any other do.  Late in life he left that pastorate to travel the world again as an evangelist and finally retired and married a widow lady while he continued to write books.  I visited in his home several times.  He was vibrant and seemed always in the process of writing several books simultaneously.

In 1969 I visited him in the hospital while I was in Portland on furlough from Argentina.  He was aged and very ill.  He was hooked up to tubes and could not turn over to face me, but he could still could give orders that made you obey.  He told me to open a certain drawer.  I did and it was full of copies of a new book he had just published, named “Saved by Sight.”  It is an amazing treatise on seeing Jesus through the revealed Word.  He ordered me to now turn to page 68 and read it out-loud to him.  I read a few paragraphs, but hardly realized what I was reading without the context.  He stopped me and said, “That is what you need down there in Latin America!  Put 5 dollars in the drawer and take that book with you.”  I did.  The next day I went back to the hospital to return his glasses that I had accidently put in my pocket… and I found that he had passed away! 
 

The book sat on my shelf in Argentina for several years.  Then when I was preparing a Bible study to give at a national pastors retreat in the Cordoba mountains of Argentina, I picked up his book and was captivated by its message.  And when I got to page 68 I immediately recognized what he was referring to when he directed me there.  It followed a chapter called “Look and Live”… and opened a new chapter called “The Brazen Serpent Sign.”  He starts with the bronze snake on a pole that Moses raised up in the desert and then leads up to the cross.  But in this chapter he tells how the bronze snake was kept and later worshipped by the Israelites and had to be destroyed by King Hezekiah.  (2 Kings 18:4)  The scriptural account declares that it became a worthless idol (Nehushtan).  Then he compares it with the crucifix seen everywhere in Latin America and wherever Roman Catholicism is prevalent.  He postulates that the image of a dead or dying Jesus hanging on the cross actually tends to hide from our eyes the true revelation of the crucified and now resurrected Christ.  And in his book he denounces vehemently the Roman Church for its pomp and idolatry.  

**La Marechale, Catherine Booth-Clibborn, my pastor’s mother, was thrust into the Neuchatel prison in Switzerland for defying the government orders by preaching to several hundred of her converts in an isolated clearing in the forest.  From that prison cell, while suffering a stench so nauseating that she pressed her face against the window bars to breathe, she wrote a beautiful poem, “Best Beloved of my Soul” that was put to music by Victoria Booth-Clibborn Demarest, one of her daughters.  It was first sung in a prayer meeting at Exeter Hall in England while La Marechale was still in prison.  I copy it below for your inspiration and enjoyment.  She wrote it first in French, but then translated it herself into English.  (The Maréchale by James Strahan, D.D., Marshall Morgan and Scott, LTD.  London : : Edinburgh  Chapters 5 and 6)    

I often go to my keyboard and sing this song… and can seldom finish without weeping in the presence of my beloved Savior. 

Ralph

 

Best Beloved of my soul,                                                                                                           I am here alone with thee 

And my prison is a heaven

Since Thou sharest it with me.

 

All my life is at thy service

All my choice to share Thy cross

I am Thine to do or suffer

All things else I count but dross.

 

Wicked men may persecute

Banishing to solitude

They should know my joy is Jesus

Whom they never understood.

 

At His voice my gloom disperses.

Heavenly sunshine takes its place.

Bars and bolts cannot withhold Him.

Hide from me His lovely face.

 

Love almighty, changeless love

More than mother’s love is Thine

Can my heart be ever lonely

Comforted by Love divine?

 

Calm amid the raging tempest

We can well afford to wait.

Truth and justice soon shall triumph.

Christ, his cause will vindicate.

 

Best Beloved of my soul

I am here alone with Thee!

 

(These words were written by Catherine Booth-Clibborn

Daughter of General Booth of the Salvation Army

Written in Neuchatel Prison, Switzerland

Where she was imprisoned for preaching the Gospel)

 

Song and music from "Victory Songs No. 4 Special edition for The Demarest Campaigns"