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A Computational Introduction to Digital Image
Processing 2nd Edition Edition Alasdair Mcandrew
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Alasdair McAndrew
ISBN(s): 9781482247350, 1482247356
Edition: 2nd Edition
File Details: PDF, 45.98 MB
Year: 2015
Language: english
A COMPUTATIONAL INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING
2nd ed. Alasdair McAndrew Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
9781482247350

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warrant the accuracy of the text or exercises in this book. This book's use or discussion of MATLAB®
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particular pedagogical approach or particular use of the MATLAB® software.

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Front Matter
1 Introduction
2 Images Files and File Types
3 Image Display
4 Point Processing
5 Neighborhood Processing
6 Image Geometry
7 The Fourier Transform
8 Image Restoration
9 Image Segmentation
10 Mathematical Morphology
11 Image Topology
12 Shapes and Boundaries
13 Color Processing
14 Image Coding and Compression
15 Wavelets
16 Special Effects
Back Matter

Front Matter
Dedication
To my dear wife, Felicity, for all her love, support and understanding during my writing of this book.

Preface
Human beings are predominantly visual creatures, and our computing environments reflect this. We have
the World Wide Web, filled with images of every possible type and provenance; and our own computers
are crammed with images from the operating system, downloaded from elsewhere, or taken with our
digital cameras. Then there are the vast applications which use digital images: remote sensing and satellite
imaging; astronomy; medical imaging; microscopy; industrial inspection and so on.
This book is an introduction to digital image processing, from a strictly elementary perspective. We have
selected only those topics that can be introduced with simple mathematics; however, these topics provide
a very broad introduction to the discipline. The initial text was published in 2004; the current text is a
rewritten version, with many changes.

This book is based on some very successful image processing subjects that have been taught at Victoria
University in Melbourne, Australia, as well as in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The topics
chosen, and their method of presentation, are the result of many hours talking to, and learning from, the
hundreds of students who have taken these subjects.

There are a great many books on the subject of image processing, and this book differs from all of them in
several important respects:

Not too much mathematics. Some mathematics is necessary for the explanation and
discussion of image processing algorithms. But this book attempts to keep the mathematics at a
level commensurate with elementary undergraduate computer science. The level of mathematics
required is about one year's study at a tertiary level, including calculus and linear algebra.
A discrete approach. Since digital images are discrete entities, we have adopted an approach
using mainly discrete mathematics. Although calculus is required for the development of some
image processing topics, we attempt to connect the calculus-based (continuous) theory with its
discrete implementation.
A strong connection between theory and practice. Since we have used a mainly discrete
approach to explain the material, it becomes much easier to extend the theory into practice. This
becomes particularly significant when we develop our own functions for implementing specific
image processing algorithms.
Software based. There are image processing books that are based around programming
languages: generally C or Java. The problem is that to use such software, a specialized image
processing library must be used, and at least for C, there is no standard for this. And a problem
with the Java image processing libraries is they are not really suitable for beginning students.
This book is based entirely around three different systems: MATLAB® and its Image Processing
Toolbox, GNU Octave and its Image Processing Toolbox, and Python with various scientific and
imaging libraries. Each system provides a complete environment for image processing that is
easy to use, easy to explain, and easy to extend.
Plenty of examples. All the example images in this text are accompanied by commands in
each of the three systems. Thus, if you work carefully through the book, you can create the
images as given in the text.
Exercises. Most chapters finish off with a selection of exercises enabling the student to
consolidate and extend the material. Some of the exercises are “pencil-and-paper”; designed for
better understanding of the material; others are computer based to explore the algorithms and
methods of that chapter.

What Is in the Book

The first three chapters set the scene for much of the rest of the book: exploring the nature and use of
digital images, and how they can be obtained, stored, and displayed. Chapter 1 provides a brief
introduction to the field of image processing, and attempts to give some idea as to its scope and areas of
practice. We also define some common terms. Chapter 2 shows how images can be handled as matrices,
and how the manipulation of these matrices forms the background of all subsequent work. Chapter 3
investigates aspects of image display, and looks at resolution and quantization and how these affect the
appearance of the image. Appendix A provides a background in the use of MATLAB and Octave, and gives
a brief introduction to programming in them.

Chapter 4 looks at some of the simplest, yet most powerful and widely used, of all image processing
algorithms. These are the point operations, where the value of a pixel (a single “dot” in a digital image) is
changed according to a single function of its value.

Chapter 5 introduces spatial filtering. Spatial filtering can be used for a vast range of image processing
operations: from removing unnecessary detail, to sharpening edges and removing noise.

Chapter 6 looks at the geometry of an image: its size and orientation. Resizing an image may be necessary
for inclusion in a web page or printed text; we may need to reduce it to fit or enlarge it.

Chapter 7 introduces the Fourier transform. This is possibly the single most important transform for
image processing. To get a feeling for how the Fourier transform “works” and what information it
provides, we need to spend some time exploring its mathematical foundations. This is the heaviest
mathematics in this book, and requires some knowledge of complex numbers. In keeping with our
philosophy, we use discrete mathematics only. We then show how images can be processed with great
efficiency using the Fourier transform, and how various operations can be performed only using the
Fourier transform.

Chapter 8 discusses the restoration of an image from different forms of degradation. Among these is the
problem of noise, or “errors” in an image. Such errors are a natural consequence of electronic
transmission of image signals, and although error correction of the signal can go a long way to ensuring
that the image arrives “clean,” we may still receive images with noise. We also look at the removal of blur.

Chapter 9 addresses the problems of thresholding and of finding edges in an image. Edges are a vital
aspect of object recognition: we can classify the size, shape, and type of object by an analysis of its edges.
As well, edges form a vital aspect of human visual interpretation, and so the sharpening of edges is often
an important part of image enhancement.

Chapter 10 introduces morphology or mathematical morphology, which is an area of image processing

very much wedded to set theory. Historically, morphology developed from the need for granulometry, or
the measurement of grains in ore samples. It is now a very powerful method for investigating shapes and
sizes of objects. Morphology is generally

defined in terms of binary images (which is what we do here) and then can be extended to grayscale
images. With the latter, we can also perform edge detection and some noise reduction.

Chapter 11 investigates the topology of digital images. This is concerned with the neighborhoods of pixels,
and how the exploration of different neighborhoods leads to an understanding of the structure of image
objects.

We continue the investigation of shapes in Chapter 12, but from a more spatial viewpoint; we look at
traversing the edges of an object, and how the traversal can be turned into descriptors of the size and
shape of the object.

Chapter 13 looks at color. Color is one of most important aspects of human interpretation. We look at the
definition of color, from physical and digital perspectives, and how a color image can be processed using
the techniques we have developed so far.

Chapter 14 discusses some basic aspects of image compression. Image files tend to be large, and their
compression can be a matter of some concern, especially if there are many of them. We distinguish two
types of compression: lossless, where there is no loss of information, and lossy, where higher compression
rates can be obtained at the cost of losing some information.

Chapter 15 introduces wavelets. These have become a very hot topic in image processing; in some places
they are replacing the use of the Fourier transform. Our treatment is introductory only; we show how
wavelets and waves differ; how wavelets can be defined; how they can be applied to images; and the affects
that can be obtained. In particular, we look at image compression, and show how wavelets can be used to
obtain very high rates of lossy compression, with no apparent loss of image quality.

The final chapter is intended to be a bit more light-hearted than the others: here we look at some “special
effects” on images. These are often provided with image editing programs—if you have a digital camera,
chances are the accompanying software will allow this—our treatment attempts to provide an
understanding into the nature of these algorithms.

What This Book Is Not

This book is not an introduction to MATLAB, Octave, Python, or their image processing tools. We have
used only a small fraction of the many commands and functions available in each system—only those
useful for an elementary text such as this. There is an enormous number of books on MATLAB available;
fine general introductions are provided by the texts by Attaway [2] and Palm [20]. Python is equally well
represented with texts; the texts by Langtangen [28], McKinney [30], and Howse [19] are all excellent
basic references, even if Howse uses a different imaging library to the one in this text. Octave is less well
represented by printed material, but the text by Quarteroni et al. [36] is very good. To really get to grips
with any of these systems or their image processing tools and libraries, you can browse the excellent
manuals online or through the system's own help interface.

How to Use This Book

This book can be used for two separate streams of image processing; one very elementary, another a little
more advanced. A first course consists of the following:

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2 except for Section 2.5
• Chapter 3 except for Section 3.5
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9 except for Sections 9.4, 9.5 and 9.9
 • Chapter 10 except for Sections 10.8 and 10.9
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14, Sections 14.2 and 14.3 only

A second course fills in the gaps:

• Section 2.5
• Section 3.5
• Chapter 6
• Sections 9.4, 9.5 and 9.9
• Sections 10.8 and 10.9
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Section 14.5
• Chapter 15

As taught at Victoria University, for the first course we concentrated on introducing students to the
principles and practices of image processing, and did not worry about the implementation of the
algorithms. In the second course, we spent much time discussing programming issues, and encouraged
the students to write their own programs, and edit programs already written. Both courses have been very
popular since their inception.

Changes Since the First Edition

The major change is that MATLAB, the sole computing environment in the first edition, has been joined
by two other systems: GNU Octave [10], which in many ways is an open-source version of MATLAB, and
Python [12], which is a deservedly popular general programming language. Python has various libraries
for the handling of matrices and images, and is fast becoming recognized as a viable alternative to systems
such as MATLAB.

At the time of writing the first edition, MATLAB was the the software of choice: its power, ease of use, and
its functionality gave it few, if any, competitors. But the world of software has expanded greatly since then,
and the beginning user is now spoiled for choice. In particular, many open-source systems (such as GNU
Octave) have reached a maturity that makes them genuine alternatives to MATLAB for scientific
programming. For users

who prefer the choice that open-source provides, this has been a welcome development. MATLAB still has
an edge in its enormous breadth: its image processing toolbox has over 300 commands and functions—far
more than any competitor—as well as a very mature graphics interface library. However, for basic and
fundamental image processing—such as discussed in this text—MATLAB is equalled by both Octave and
Python, and in some respects even surpassed by them.

Octave has been designed to be a “drop-in” replacement for MATLAB: standard MATLAB functions and
scripts should run unchanged in Octave. This philosophy has been extended to the Octave Image
Processing Toolbox, which although less comprehensive than that of MATLAB, is equal in depth. Thus, all
through this text, except in a very few places, MATLAB and Octave are treated as though they are one and
the same.

Python has several imaging libraries; I have chosen to use scikit-image [53]. This is one of several toolkits
that are designed to extend and deepen the functionality in the standard Python scientific library SciPy
(“Scikit” is a shortened version of “SciPy Toolkit”). It is designed to be easy to use: an image is just an
array, instead of a specialized data-type unique to the toolkit. It is also implemented in Python, with the
static library Cython used when fast performance is necessary. Other imaging libraries, such as Mahotas
[9] and OpenCV [4, 19], while excellent, are implemented in C++. This makes it hard for the user (without
a good knowledge of C++) to understand or extend the code. The combination of scikit-image with the
functionality already available in SciPy provides very full-featured and robust image processing.

Many teachers, students, and practitioners are now attempting to find the best software for their needs.
One of the aims of this text is to provide several different options, or alternatively enable users to migrate
from one system to another.

There are also many changes throughout the text—some minor and typographical, some major. All the
diagrams have been redrawn using the amazing TiKZ package [31]; some have been merely rewritten
using TiKZ; others have been redrawn for greater symmetry, clarity, and synthesis of their graphics
elements. Programs (in all three systems) have been written to be as modular as possible: in the first
edition they tended to be monolithic and large. Modularity means greater flexibility, code reuse, and often
conciseness—one example in the first edition which took most of a page, and 48 lines of small type, has
been reduced to 9 lines, and includes greater functionality! Such large programs as are left have been
relegated to the ends of the chapters.

All chapters have been written to be “system neutral”: as far as possible, imaging techniques are
implemented in MATLAB and Octave, and again in Python. In Chapter 2, the section on PNG images has
been expanded to provide more information about this format. Chapter 5 has been extended with some
material about the Kuwahara and bilateral filters—both methods for blurring an image while maintaining
edge sharpness—as well as a rewritten section on region of interest processing. In Chapter 6 an original
section on anamorphosis has been removed, on account of difficulties obtaining a license to use a
particular image; this section has been replaced with a new section containing an example of image
warping. For readers who may pine for anamorphosis, the excellent recent text by Steven Tanimoto [50]
contains much wonderful material on anamorphosis, as well as being written in a beautifully approachable
style. Chapter 7 has had a few new diagrams inserted, hopefully to clarify some of the material. Chapter 9
includes an extended discussion on Otsu's method of thresholding, as well as new material about the
ISODATA method. This chapter also contains a new section about corner detection, with discussions of
both the Moravec and Harris-Stephens operators. The section on the Hough transform has been
completely rewritten to include the Radon transform. In Chapter 11, the algorithms for the Zhang-Suen
and Guo-Hall skeletonization methods have been rewritten to be simpler. Chapter 12 contains a new
discussion on Fourier shape descriptors, with different examples. Chapter 13 contains a new section at the
end introducing one version of the retinex algorithm. Chapter 14 implements a simpler and faster method
for run-length encoding, and includes a new section on LZW compression. Chapter 15 has been simplified,
and more connections made between the discrete wavelet transform and digital filtering. Also in this
chapter a new wavelet toolbox is used, one that amazingly has been written to be used in each of MATLAB,
Octave, and Python. In Chapter 16 the greater modularity of the programs has allowed a greater
conciseness, with (I hope) increased clarity.

Finally, new images have been used to ameliorate licensing or copyright difficulties. All images in this
book are either used with permission of their owners, or are the author's and may be used freely and
without permission. They are listed at the end.

Acknowledgments
The first edition of this book began as set of notes written to accompany an undergraduate introductory
course to image processing; these notes were then extended for a further course. Thanks must go to the
many students who have taken these courses, and who have discussed the subject material and its
presentation with me.

I would like to thank my colleagues at Victoria University for many stimulating conversations about
teaching and learning. I would also like to thank Associate Professor Robyn Pierce at the University of
Melbourne, for providing me with a very pleasant environment for six months, during which much of the
initial programming and drafting of this new edition was done.

Sunil Nair and Sarfraz Khan, of Taylor and Francis Publishing Company, have provided invaluable help
and expert advice, as well as answering all my emails with admirable promptness. Their helping hands
when needed have made this redrafting and rewriting a very pleasant and enjoyable task.

I am indebted to the constant hard work of David Miguel Susano Pinto (maintainer of the Octave Forge
image package under the alias of Carnë Draug), and his predecessor Søren Hauberg, the original author of
the image package; also Stefan van der Walt, lead developer of the Python scikit-image package. They have
made lasting and valuable contributions to open-source imaging software, and also have answered many
of my questions.

I would also like to thank the reviewers for their close and careful reading of the initial proposal, and for
their thoughtful, detailed, and constructive comments.

Finally, heartfelt thanks to my long suffering wife Felicity, and my children Angus, Edward, Fenella,
William, and Finlay, who have put up, for far too long, with absent-mindedness, tables and benches
covered with scraps of papers, laptops, and books, and a husband and father who was more concentrated
on his writing than their needs.

A Note on the Images

Some of the images used in this book are the author's and may be used freely and without restriction. They
are:
MIT Press has kindly allowed the use of the standard test image

The following images have been provided courtesy of shutterstock.com:

The image
has been cropped from the NOAA image anim0614.jpg, a photograph of a caribou (Rangifer tarandus)
by Capt. Budd Christman of the NOAA Corps.

The image

has been taken from http://www.public-domain-image.com; more particularly from

http://bit.ly/18V2Z57: the photographer is Andrew McMillan. The image

has been taken from www.pixabay.com as an image in the public domain; the photographer is Marianne
Langenbach.

The iconic image

showing the last known living thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, at the Hobart zoo in 1933, is now in the
public domain.

The x-ray image

has been taken from Wikimedia Commons, as an image in the public domain. It can be found at
http://bit.ly/1Az0Tzk; the original image has been provided by Diego Grez from Santa Cruz, Chile.

MATLAB and Simulink are registered trademarks of The Mathworks, Inc. For product information, please
contact:

The Mathworks, Inc.

3 Apple Hill Drive

Natick, MA 01760-2098 USA

Tel: 508-647-7000

Fax: 508-647-7001

Email: info@mathworks.com

Web: www.mathworks.com
1 Introduction
1.1 Images and Pictures
As we mentioned in the Preface, human beings are predominantly visual creatures: we rely heavily on our
vision to make sense of the world around us. We not only look at things to identify and classify them, but
we can scan for differences, and obtain an overall rough “feeling” for a scene with a quick glance.

Humans have evolved very precise visual skills: we can identify a face in an instant; we can differentiate
colors; we can process a large amount of visual information very quickly.

However, the world is in constant motion: stare at something for long enough and it will change in some
way. Even a large solid structure, like a building or a mountain, will change its appearance depending on
the time of day (day or night); amount of sunlight (clear or cloudy), or various shadows falling upon it.

We are concerned with single images: snapshots, if you like, of a visual scene. Although image processing
can deal with changing scenes, we shall not discuss it in any detail in this text.

For our purposes, an image is a single picture that represents something. It may be a picture of a person,
people, or animals, an outdoor scene, a microphotograph of an electronic component, or the result of
medical imaging. Even if the picture is not immediately recognizable, it will not be just a random blur.

1.2 What Is Image Processing?

Image processing involves changing the nature of an image in order to either

1. Improve its pictorial information for human interpretation

2. Render it more suitable for autonomous machine perception

We shall be concerned with digital image processing, which involves using a computer to change the
nature of a digital image (see Section 1.4). It is necessary to realize that these two aspects represent two
separate but equally important aspects of image processing. A procedure that satisfies condition (1)—a
procedure that makes an image “look better”—may be the very worst procedure for satisfying condition
(2). Humans like their images to be sharp, clear, and detailed; machines prefer their images to be simple
and uncluttered.

Examples of (1) may include:

• Enhancing the edges of an image to make it appear sharper; an example is shown in Figure
1.1. Note how the second image appears “cleaner”; it is a more pleasant image. Sharpening edges
is a vital component of printing: in order for an image to appear “at its best” on the printed page;
some sharpening is usually performed.

Figure 1.1: Image sharpening

 Figure 1.1: Image sharpening

• Removing “noise” from an image; noise being random errors in the image. An example is
given in Figure 1.2. Noise is a very common problem in data transmission: all sorts of electronic
components may affect data passing through them, and the results may be undesirable. As we
shall see in Chapter 8, noise may take many different forms, and each type of noise requires a
different method of removal.

Figure 1.2: Removing noise from an image

 Figure 1.2: Removing noise from an image

• Removing motion blur from an image. An example is given in Figure 1.3. Note that in the
deblurred image (b) it is easier to read the numberplate, and to see the spikes on the fence behind the car,
as well as other details not at all clear in the original image (a). Motion blur may occur when the shutter
speed of the camera is too long for the speed of the object. In photographs of fast moving objects—
athletes, vehicles for example—the problem of blur may be considerable.

Figure 1.3: Image deblurring

Examples of (2) may include:

• Obtaining the edges of an image. This may be necessary for the measurement of objects in
an image; an example is shown in Figures 1.4. Once we have the edges we can measure their
spread, and the area contained within them. We can also use edge detection algorithms as a first
step in edge enhancement, as we saw previously. From the edge result, we see that it may be
necessary to enhance the original image slightly, to make the edges clearer.

Figure 1.4: Finding edges in an image

• Removing detail from an image. For measurement or counting purposes, we may not be
interested in all the detail in an image. For example, a machine inspected items on an assembly
line, the only matters of interest may be shape, size, or color. For such cases, we might want to
simplify the image. Figure 1.5 shows an example: in image (a) is a picture of an African buffalo,
and image (b) shows a blurred version in which extraneous detail (like the logs of wood in the
background) have been removed. Notice that in image (b) all the fine detail is gone; what
remains is the coarse structure of the image. We could for example, measure the size and shape
of the animal without being “distracted” by unnecessary detail.

Figure 1.5: Blurring an image

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 The Project Gutenberg eBook of The
Maréchale (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
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laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The Maréchale (Catherine Booth-Clibborn)

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Release date: November 3, 2016 [eBook #53446]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARÉCHALE

(CATHERINE BOOTH-CLIBBORN) ***
THE MARÉCHALE
 THE MARÉCHALE
(CATHERINE BOOTH-CLIBBORN)

BY
JAMES STRAHAN
AUTHOR OF "HEBREW IDEALS," "THE BOOK OF JOB," ETC.

HODDER & STOUGHTON

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
The right of translation is reserved

Dedicated
WITH REVERENCE AND AFFECTION TO
THÉODORE MONOD
WHO TAUGHT US TO SAY TO OUR DIVINE MASTER
"NONE OF SELF AND ALL OF THEE"
 PREFACE

This book is the unexpected result of a brief visit which the

Maréchale paid her daughter and the writer in the spring of this year.
She was daily persuaded, not so much to talk of the past, as to live
parts of her life over again, for in her case the telling of a story is
the enacting of a drama. At a meal-time she rarely keeps her seat,
though she is apparently unconscious of leaving it and surprised that
she requires to return to it. She begins to describe an incident, to
recall a conversation, to sketch a character, and straightway she is
suiting the word to the action, the action to the word, holding the
mirror up to nature, using her brilliant dramatic gift, which is as
natural to her as singing is to birds, to call up faces, to bring back
voices, to restore scenes, which are all, whether grave or gay,
summoned out of a dead past that has suddenly, as by the wave of
a magician's wand, become once more alive.
One day I said to her, "Have you never thought of giving all this
to the world?" She answered, "I am often asked to do so, and some
day I may." Soon after she surprised me by saying, "I have come to
the conclusion that something ought to be written now, and you
must write it."
A mass of materials in English, French and German—reports,
letters, diaries, magazines, and other documents—has therefore
been put at my disposal. I have not used a tithe of what I have
received, and much of what is left is as good as what has been
taken. More will ere long, I doubt not, see the light. One of my best
sources of information has been the Maréchale's own phenomenal
memory, which I have tested times without number, and found
invariably accurate, except in dates. Events are apt to be associated
in her mind not so much with years as with homes and children,
which are much more interesting.
With regard to the subject of the fourteenth chapter, the
Maréchale would have preferred not to break the silence which she
has maintained for a number of years, but after reading her letters
and diaries I have urged her to let a brief statement be published,
first because I feel that she owes something to her old comrades in
the fight, and second for the sake of her own and her family's future
work. Members of the family who have been consulted, as well as
other friends, desire this even more strongly than the writer does.
This book consists of a few sections from a life which, like Mrs.
Browning's pomegranate, "shows within a heart blood-tinctured." To
a heart of love add a spirit of fire, and you have the Maréchale.
Blood and fire—that is what she was at the beginning, and that is
what she will be to the end. One has often heard her say that she
has never been more in her element than when, on entering some
town, she has found herself confronted, in a theater or casino, by
"all the devils of the place." She is happy whenever "Jesus is going
to have a chance for a night." In the natural course of things her
greatest battles are still before her. England has need of her, France
perhaps still greater need. May it be long before the Maréchale
reaches her last campaign! Meanwhile the old battle-cry, En Avant!
The subject of this sketch—written during a brief respite from
other work—is at present far away, but I know that what she desires
to give to the world is a sense of the Divine, the miracle-working
power which rewards a child-like faith, and that she will be glad if
every reader closes the book with a Gloire à Dieu!
J. S.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Finely Touched to Fine Issues

CHAPTER II
A Girl Evangelist

CHAPTER III
The Secret of Evangelism

CHAPTER IV
Christ in Paris

CHAPTER V
Freedom to Worship God

CHAPTER VI
The Soul of France

CHAPTER VII
Woman's Vocation

CHAPTER VIII
The Renunciation of Home

CHAPTER IX
The Friendship of Christ
 CHAPTER X
The Burning Question

CHAPTER XI
The Prodigal Son

CHAPTER XII
So Great Faith

CHAPTER XIII
Beauty for Ashes

CHAPTER XIV
To Thine Own Self Be True

CHAPTER XV
Sursum Corda!

LIST OF PORTRAITS

The Maréchale . . . Frontispiece

Catherine Booth . . . 32
(From a drawing by Edward Clifford, exhibited in the Royal Academy
and presented to Mrs. Booth)

The Maréchale in the Café . . . 114

(From the painting of Baron Cederström)

The Maréchale . . . 160

(From a photo taken in Paris, circa 1890)

The Maréchale . . . 302

(From a photo taken in London in 1913)

CHAPTER I
FINELY TOUCHED TO FINE ISSUES

In the summer of 1865 William Booth, Evangelist, found his life-

work. For some time back his imagination had been more than
usually active. He could not help thinking that all his past efforts had
been but tentative solutions of a difficult problem. He felt the spur of
a vague discontent. He seemed to be groping his way towards an
unrealised ideal. At length he got the inner light he needed. While he
was conducting a series of meetings in a tent pitched on the disused
Quaker burying-ground at Baker's Row, Whitechapel, he saw his
heavenly vision and heard his divine call. He accepted a mission
which was no less real than those of Hebrew Prophets and Christian
Apostles. The words in which he describes his vocation form part of
the history of Christianity in England. "I found my heart," he says,
"strongly and strangely drawn out on behalf of the million people
living within a mile of the tent, ninety out of every hundred of
whom, they told me, never heard the sound of the preacher's voice
from year to year. 'Here is a sphere!' was being whispered
continually in my inward ear by an inward voice ... and I was
continually haunted with a desire to offer myself to Jesus Christ as
an apostle for the heathen of East London. The idea or heavenly
vision or whatever you may call it overcame me; I yielded to it; and
what has happened since is, I think, not only my justification, but an
evidence that my offer was accepted."
Thus it was that on a memorable June night, having ended his
meeting and after-meeting, he rushed home, tired as usual, but with
a strange light in his face which indicated an unusual glow in his
heart.
"Darling," he exclaimed to his wife, "I have found my destiny!"
His unexpected words, like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, proved
the quality of his life-mate's womanhood. For a moment she
trembled under the test. While her husband poured out his burning
words about the heathenism of London, and expressed his
conviction that it was his duty to stop and preach to these East End
multitudes, she sat gazing into the empty fireplace. The voice of the
tempter—so she imagined—whispered to her, "This means another
new departure, another start in life." She thought of five little heads
asleep on their pillows upstairs, and remembered that she had
already passed through more than one time of domestic anxiety. But
no woman living at that time was more ready for acts of daring
faith; few, if any, were so animated by scorn of miserable aims that
end in self. After silently thinking and praying for some minutes, she
said:
"Well, if you feel you ought to stay, stay. We have trusted the
Lord once for our support and we can trust Him again."
 Thus the die was cast, and the day ended with one of those
scenes by which our common humanity is ennobled. "Together," he
says, "we humbled ourselves before God, and dedicated our lives to
the task that it seemed we had been praying for for twenty-five
years. Her heart came over to my heart. We resolved that this poor,
submerged, giddy, careless people should henceforth become our
people and our God their God as far as we could induce them to
accept Him, and for this end we would face poverty, persecution, or
whatever Providence might permit in our consecration to what we
believed to be the way God had mapped out for us."

One feels perfectly certain that these two modern apostles would
have fulfilled their destiny even if they had stood alone; but it could
scarcely have been so ample and glorious a destiny if God had not
given them children who inherited their gifts and helped them to
realise their ideals. It is the simple truth that the ruling passion of
each of their eight sons and daughters has been the love of souls;
each of them has exulted to spend and be spent in the service of
Christ, which is the service of humanity; and if one of them has been
too feeble in her health to be a militant Salvationist, the great
Captain of our salvation accepts the will for the deed.
Among all the bold and original acts by which the breath and
the flame of a new life have been brought into the modern Church,
none is more striking, and yet none more simple and natural, than
the revival, after all these centuries, of the apostolic ministry of
women. Like Philip the Evangelist of Cæsarea, William and Catherine
Booth "had four daughters who did prophesy"; brave and gifted
English girls who, baptised with the Holy Spirit, used their dower of
burning eloquence to bring sinners to the mercy-seat. If to-day "the
women that publish the tidings are a great host," the fact illustrates
the power of example. In every new movement there must be
daring pioneers and self-sacrificing leaders. For woman's "liberty of
prophesying," as for every other form of freedom, the price has had
to be paid. The purpose of this little book is to sketch the life of the
eldest of General Booth's four daughter-evangelists, who was called
to carry the spirit of the Gospel—Christ's own spirit of love—first into
many of the cities of England, and afterwards, in fulfilment of her
distinctive life-work, into France and Switzerland, Holland and
Belgium. If her story could be told as it deserves to be, it would
stand out as one of the most remarkable modern records of
Christian work, for there is perhaps no one living to-day who has
seen so much of what Henry Drummond used to call "the
contemporary activities of the Holy Ghost."
Catherine Booth the elder, the Mother of the Army, was already
in her thirty-second year when she wrote her famous brochure upon
Female Ministry, and, not without fear and trembling, delivered her
first evangelistic address in the Bethesda Chapel at Gateshead-on-
Tyne, where her husband was minister. Little Catherine, who had
been baptised in that chapel, was in her second year when her
mother began public speaking, and in her seventh when her father
found his destiny. Probably no child ever had greater privileges than
she enjoyed. Her earthly home was a house of God and a gate of
heaven; and from the first she seemed to respond to all that was
highest and best in her environment. She was one of those happy
souls who have no memory of their conversion, who cannot recall a
time when they did not heartily love the Lord Jesus Christ.
 Her father was the centre of all her childish thoughts and most
vivid recollections, and nothing could ever really dislodge him from
the first place in her affections. An interesting page from her earliest
memories may be reproduced. When she was three or four years
old, her father was a Wesleyan Pastor in Cornwall, where his
ministry led to a revival in which hundreds of souls found salvation.
One night Katie was taken by her nurse to the meeting, and, on
arrival, found herself before a flight of steps leading up to the
gallery. Thinking herself quite a big girl, she wished to climb, but
nurse, fearing the crowd, snatched her up and carried her to the
top. At length they were inside, and what the child then saw and
heard remained for ever vividly impressed on her imagination. The
great building was crammed. Away down on the platform stood her
father, with her mother sitting beside him. He was leading the
singing, keeping time with his folded umbrella, and this was the
chorus:

Let the winds blow high, or the winds blow low,

It's a pleasant sail to Canaan, hallelujah!

How well did the eager-hearted little maid enjoy that voyage, and
how proud she was of her captain! The winds blew low and the sun
shone upon her in those days. But it could not always be fair
weather. Often since that far-off Cornish time have the winds blown
high, and sometimes the mariner has felt herself tossed, chartless
and rudderless, on dark tempestuous seas; but ever the winds have
fallen, the sun has shone out again over the waves; and to how
many tens of thousands has this daughter of music sung, with sweet
variations, her father's song—"It's a pleasant sail to Canaan,
hallelujah!"
The Booth children were left in no mist of doubt as to their
future. There was an end, a point, a purpose, in their life. They grew
up in an atmosphere of decision. Many children are made timid,
diffident, ineffective by their training. They are constantly told how
naughty they are, till they begin to believe that they are good for
nothing. The Booth parents acted on a different principle. They had
faith in their children and for their children. When Katie was still a
little girl in socks, her mother would say to her, "Now, Katie, you are
not here in this world for yourself. You have been sent for others.
The world is waiting for you." What a phrase that was to send a little
girl to bed with! There she turned the words over and over in her
own mind. "Mother says the world is waiting for me. Oh, I must be
good.... How selfish I was in taking that orange!" The lesson was
worth £1000 to a child. In the development of Katie's mind and
character her mother's influence was naturally very strong. The
fellowship between them soon became peculiarly intimate, and it
was the mother's joy to find her alter ego in the daughter who bore
her name.
Katie's memories of her early London life were bound up with
the Christian Mission. Hand in hand with her sister Emma, and often
singing with her "I mean with Jesus Christ to dwell, will you go?" she
walked every Sunday morning along the great road leading to
Whitechapel. Ineffaceable impressions were made on her sensitive
mind by the open-air preaching at Mile End Waste, Bethnal Green
and Hackney; by the apostolic spirit of holy enthusiasm; by the
Friday morning prayer-meetings, where the officers met alone to
plead with God and wrestle in tears for more power. All this became
the warp and woof of her own spiritual life, preparing her for her
high calling. And, though she could not remember the day of her
new birth, she clearly recalled several times when she consecrated
herself, body and soul, to God. In a great whitewashed building in
the East End her father preached on "The King's daughters are all
glorious within," and she prayed that she might have the inner purity
which would make her a child of God. From a meeting of Christian
workers she ran home to her room, shut herself in, and deliberately
gave her heart and life to Christ. She could not, perhaps, realise all
that her covenant meant, but one thing she understood—that she
was called to yield herself completely to do His will and to save
souls.
There was plenty of laughter and fun in that home. The Booth
children were all born with the dramatic instinct, and the spirit of the
Christian Mission invaded the nursery. Not only were the great
dramas of the Bible—Joseph and his brothers, David and Goliath,
Daniel and the lions, and a score of others—enacted there, but the
meeting and the penitent form, the drunkard and the backslider, the
hopeful and the desperate case were all reproduced in the plays of
the children. Katie and Emma brought their babies to the meeting,
and the babies generally insisted on crying, to the despair of
Bramwell or Ballington, who stopped preaching to give the stern
order, "Take the babies out of the theatre," against which the
mothers indignantly protested, "Papa would not have stopped, papa
would have gone on preaching anyhow." But the dramatic
masterpiece was Ballington dealing with an interesting case—
generally a pillow—coaxing, dragging, banging the poor reluctant
penitent to the mercy-seat and exclaiming, "Ah! this is a good case,
bless him! ... Give up the drink, brother." That is a scene which is
still sometimes re-enacted to the delight of new generations.
Jesus Himself watched the games of the children who piped and
mourned in the market-place. Life is none the less strenuous for its
interludes of mirth. Catherine, who was dramatic to the finger-tips,
was very early mastered by a sense of the sacredness of duty. The
moral ideal set before her was the highest, and her conscience was
tremulously sensitive. She was oppressed with the sense of what
ought to be, and inconsolable when she failed to attain it. A word of
rebuke cut her like a knife, and she would sometimes weep far into
the night if she thought she had put pleasure before duty. It is a
great thing to make religion real to children, and especially to give
them a sense of the obligation to please Christ in everything. Mrs.
Booth found Katie ready to go all lengths with her, and even to
outrun her, in her ideas of what was right and what was wrong for
Christians. It is amusing to hear that when the mother was going
out one day to buy new frocks for her little girls, Katie's words to her
were not "Do buy us something pretty!" but "Mind you get
something Christian!" and that when Mrs. Booth came home with
her purchases, and Katie rushed downstairs to meet her, the child's
first inquiry was, "Are they Christian?"
But the sense of duty may become morbid if it is not
transmuted by love. Many servants of God never learn the secret
which makes Christ's yoke easy and His burden light. They have to
confess to themselves that they cannot say, "To do Thy will, O Lord,
I take delight." It would have been strange if any of the Booth
children had not learned the secret. Catherine discovered it early,
learned it thoroughly, and it became in after years one of the hidden
sources of her power. As a child she lived in union with Christ; she
practised and felt the Real Presence; she understood that
Christianity is a Divine Service transfigured by a Divine Friendship. In
Victoria Park there was a shady alley where she was in the habit of
walking, because Some One walked beside her! In Clifton, where
she lived for a time, she had a tiny upper room in which she felt that
she was never alone! That was her childhood's religion, which she
never needed to change. She found it to be utterly independent of
time and place, form and ceremony. In the glare of public life, in the
storm of persecution, in the hour of temptation and danger, she had
always a cathedral into which she could retire that she might find
peace. She was spiritually akin with the Hebrew mystics who lived in
the secret place of the Most High, who had at all times a pavilion
from the strife of tongues. In her Neuchâtel prison she wrote some
simple words which sent a thrill through the heart of Christian
Europe:

Best Beloved of my soul,

I am here alone with Thee;
And my prison is a heaven,
Since Thou sharest it with me.

CHAPTER II
A GIRL EVANGELIST
When the heart is warm and full the lips become eloquent. Jesus
expects each of His followers to testify for Him. His redeemed ones
should need little persuasion to plead His cause. Every genuine
conversion creates a new advocate for His side. Dumbness is one of
the signs of unreality in religion. The sin of silence received due
castigation, in public and in private, from the tongues of fire which
the Spirit gave to William and Catherine Booth. Their children
therefore learned that it is every Christian's calling to speak in
season and out of season for Christ, to press His claims upon the
willing and the unwilling alike. Katie, it appears, began among her
little companions in the Victoria Park. Her old nurse still remembers
how she would gather little groups about her and tell them of the
Saviour's love. When she was in her twelfth year, she lived for some
time with a family in Clifton, along with whom she attended the
Church of England. One Sunday evening the Vicar, who had noticed
her earnest gaze fixed on his face, sent for her that he might have a
little talk with her. He asked her what she liked best in the Bible, and
she answered "The Atonement." He was so struck by her intelligence
that he offered her a children's class, which soon grew large. Week
by week she talked to the little ones of sin and the Saviour. Letting
story-books go, she went for their conversion. Having to return
home on her twelfth birthday—the last day on which she could travel
with a half-ticket—she told her mother of her great longing to
continue her work among children. Her mother readily consented,
and soon there was a weekly gathering of young folk in a downstairs
room of the Gore Road house. After a while Katie had the assistance
of her sister Emma, who was her junior by little more than a year.
Tears were shed, confessions made, and lives changed in that room.
And there two of the most brilliant evangelists of our time first
learned to deal with souls. They were in every way kindred spirits.
Long afterwards one finds Emma writing to Catherine: "We will
always be 'special sisters.' We were Ma's two first girls, and were
brought up side by side—and side by side we will labour and love till
we stand with our children in her presence again before the
Throne!"
Katie was thirteen when she first spoke in public. No one asked
her to do it; she yielded to an irresistible inward impulse. Her eldest
brother was conducting an open-air meeting opposite a low public-
house at the corner of Cat and Mutton Bridge in Hackney. Katie was
beside him, and whispered, "I will say a few words." Her brother
was delighted, and she delivered her message with a directness and
fluency which compelled attention and proved her a born speaker.
Not very long after, she spoke in the hearing of the General, who
wrote to his wife, "I don't know whether I told you how pleased I
was with dear Katie speaking in the streets on Sunday morning. It
was very nice and effective. Bless her!" "From this time," says Mr.
Booth in a document of great importance, "she continued
occasionally to speak in public meetings, but it was not until she was
between fourteen and fifteen, when she was with me in Ryde, Isle of
Wight, that I fully realised and settled the question. During that time
my eldest son joined us for a few days, and, with another friend or
two, held open-air meetings; on one of these occasions Catherine
accompanied them, and her brother induced her to say a few words,
which it appears fell with extraordinary power upon the listening
crowd of men and others, such as usually comprise the visitors at
these places. On their return my son described to me the effects of
her address, but, not being fully emancipated from my old ideas of
propriety, I remonstrated and urged such objections as I presume
any other mother, consecrated but not fully enlightened, might have
urged against her being thrust into such a public position at such an
early age. My son, gazing at me with great solemnity and
tenderness, said, 'Mamma, dear, you will have to settle this question
with God, for she is as surely called and inspired by Him for this
particular work as yourself.' These words were God's message to my
soul, and helped me to pull myself up as to the ground of my
objection. I retired to my room, and, after pouring out my heart to
God, settled the question that henceforth I would raise no barrier
between any of my children and the carrying out of His will
concerning them, trying to rejoice that they, not less than myself,
should be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name."
From that time Catherine's path was clearly marked out. While
she continued her education, which included a special liking for
French, she gradually undertook more and more public work. Her
father's delight in her ripening powers found frequent utterance, and
her companionship with him during the next six years of work is one
of the most beautiful things in the literature of evangelism.
"William," said Mrs. Booth about this time, "writes that he is utterly
amazed at Katie; he had no idea that she could speak as she does.
He says that she is a born leader, and will if she keeps right see
thousands saved.... Praise His name that she can stand in my stead,
and bear His name to perishing souls." After holding meetings in
different parts of London, from Stratford and Poplar to
Hammersmith, Catherine began, just before she was seventeen, to
conduct evangelistic campaigns in many of the other great cities of
England, sometimes lasting three weeks or a month. The largest
building in the town densely crowded Sunday after Sunday, and
frequently on week nights as well; hundreds of people to speak to
about their souls' salvation every week; correspondence and travel;
ceaseless labour and responsibility—these things absorbed all her
energies of body and mind. She was but a frail girl, and suffered for
a time from a curvature of spine, which compelled her to lie on her
back in great weakness and pain. If she yet overcame, it is evident
that she was "marvellously helped."
In 1876 Katie was one of the speakers at the annual Conference
in the People's Hall, Whitechapel. As she appeared on the platform,
she was described by her lifelong friend, R. C. Morgan of The
Christian, as "a fragile, ladylike girl of seventeen, half woman, half
child, a characteristic product of the Christian Mission, whose words
fell like summer rain upon the upturned faces of the crowd." This
was the Conference at which the epoch-making measure was
adopted of appointing women evangelists to the sole charge of
stations. Miss Booth was reserved "for general evangelistic tours."
It is interesting to glance through the numbers of the old
Christian Mission Magazine and light upon brief reports of
Catherine's work. From Hammersmith (1875): "Miss Kate Booth [age
16] spent a Sabbath with us, preaching twice with great acceptance.
A large audience was deeply impressed, and some, we trust, were
truly converted to God." From Poplar: "Mr. Bramwell and Miss C.
Booth were with us. On the Sunday and Monday evening the hall
was crowded, and some thirty souls at the two services sought
salvation.... On Easter Sunday one sister's face was cut with a stone,
and heavy stones fell upon some on many occasions of late; but we
endure as seeing Him who is invisible." From Portsmouth: "Miss
Booth, assisted by W. Bramwell Booth, commenced a series of
special services, which God owned and blessed to the salvation of
many precious souls. In the morning Miss Booth preached, and all
felt it good to be there. Then a love-feast was conducted by W. B.
Booth in the afternoon.... In the evening Miss Booth preached in the
music-hall to upwards of three thousand people. The Spirit applied
the Word with power, and seventeen broke away from the ranks of
sin and enlisted under the banner of Jesus Christ." Again from
Portsmouth, some months later: "We had a visit from Miss Booth
with her brother Mr. Bramwell, and again the dear Lord blessed their
labours in this town. Each service was fraught with Divine power;
many trembled under the Word, and anxious ones came forward
seeking forgiveness of sins, until the penitent-rail and vestry were
filled with those who, in bitterness of soul, sought pardon and peace
through Jesus."
From Limehouse (1876): "We had dear Miss Booth and her
brother, and a blessed day. In the evening she preached with
wonderful power, and ten or twelve came out for God. May they be
kept faithful!" From Portsmouth: "Miss Booth's visit was made of the
Lord a great blessing to us all. Very few who listened to her in the
morning will forget how she pleaded with us to present our bodies a
living sacrifice. Oh, may God bless her and make her a mighty
blessing, for Christ's sake." From Whitechapel (1877): "An earnest
appeal was made at one of our Sunday evening services by Miss
Booth, from 'Run, speak to that young man.' Although in very
delicate health, the Lord blessedly assisted her. The word was with
power, and eleven souls decided for Jesus, among whom was the
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