“Tall, slender, with a fine intellectual face, deep, serious eyes, aquiline features, and a graceful head, covered with tiny curls. A voice like a bell or, perhaps, more like violin, strangely sweet, pleading, reciting, commanding. Here is a pen-portrait of Commissioner Eva Booth, the most persuasive and eloquent of her sex.”
That sentiment was echoed again and again during the eight years (1896-1904) Evangeline Booth commanded the Canadian Territory of The Salvation Army. She was, by general acclaim, not merely a capable administrator, but a brilliant speaker, a talented musician and, most notably, an actress of rare ability. Her ‘religious performances,’ especially her ‘Miss Booth in Rags,’ entranced the nation, from St. John’s to Vancouver. She was, as most critics later avowed, ‘the Sarah Bernhardt of The Salvation Army.’
In this book R.G. Moyles offers fascinating vignettes of Evangeline Booth’s term as Canadian Commander –her frequent travels across the nation, even as far as Dawson City, her bicycle campaigns, her love of animals and children, and her theatrical performances –as well as offering glimpses of her personality and personal interactions with Salvationists, prominent Canadians and the press. She was, without any doubt, a most remarkable person.
