James Bennie McLardy Catterall

This may be a long shot, but does anyone have copies of four leaflets of JB@s ministry -
• Divine Formation: Booklet; 29pp.
• The Power and Efficacy of the Ministry of Christ: Booklet; 16pp.
• "Lord, Teach us to pray": Booklet; 30pp.
• Serving God: Booklet; 29pp.

I would be very glad to have them - having had my attention drawn to the Memorials, and a very good article at the beginning of it on the Lord's Supper

Theophilus - that's very interesting; and leaves questions about the articles in Mutual Comfort and Words of Truth labelled JBC - pl get in touch at burr.andrewlinda@btinternet.com

I am very grateful to those who have helped me nearly complete a collection of Mr Catterall's published works - I am missing just one that is his: a booklet entitled, 'The Faithfulness of the Love of Christ'. It is listed at the back of 'Meditations' as a leaflet costing 1/2d. I will shortly be able to put 34 (or perhaps 35!) articles together in a book.
As to confusion with J B Crosland, I think they are distinguished in old magazines as 'J B C-d' and 'J B C-l' until Catterall died in July 1927. After this, there are a few articles clearly identified as Catterall, but where 'J B C' only is used, I think it will be Crossland.

Here is a biographical note -
James Bennie McLardy Catterall was born on 24 February 1879 in Glasgow. His parents, Andrew and Isabella, met at that time among the brethren in Glasgow. James became a bricklayer and later a draughtsman. On 30 August 1899, he married Annie Leishman McMillan, a ‘corn winder’ (winding yarn). While they lived in Glasgow, they had eight children, of whom their son, Andrew, died aged 7 in a tragic incident on the railway line—he and another boy were killed trying to save Andrew’s younger brother from a passing train.
About 1920, James and Annie moved to Deptford, in South London, and the meeting in Bermondsey, where he had work as an engineer in a brass foundry. They later moved again to Tulse Hill, also in South London—possibly attending the meeting then in Brixton, before Annie (suffering from TB) died in Goring-by-Sea in Sussex in June 1925. In April 1927, James re-married Lizzie Alice Walker, but after a mere three months, he died from a stroke on 24 July 1927 on a visit to Glasgow—he had been ill for a year and was retired from work. This gives force to his remark—
There never was a soul, in view of the work of God, that you could speak of as being taken home before its time. Had the work in your soul and mine been done ten years ago, we should have been ten years at home by this time; because the Lord's work was finished.
James speaks of his early life, including this interesting tale—
My earliest impression of Christ was when I was less than two years old … I was taken to a Sunday school picnic on the banks of the Clyde. I was sat down on a log of a tree and we sang a hymn:
Down in the valley with my Saviour I would go,
Where the flowers are blooming and the sweet
waters flow.
I looked at the Clyde and thought they were singing about that, but presently I got the impression it was Christ they were singing about; I got an impression of Christ that day that never left me. Twenty years after I heard that hymn sung in the streets of Glasgow, and it all came back to me.
He may over-state how very young he was at the picnic, and his later recollection suggests that the true effect was much later—
... having been where the truth has been granted by God since I knew human life, there were many things clear to my mind that I thought I had got, and had laboured to learn, but my heart had not gone after Christ in them.

I have now published the enlarged Memorials of Ministry by James B Catterall at www.lulu.com - with grateful thanks to several users of this website