Efl RN EST LI V E£ UC-NRLF III III nil B M DDb M3M THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BOOK OF EARNEST LIVES BT W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS AiOhor of ''Celebrated Women Travellers," "Battle Stories from English and European History," •• Girlhood of Remarkable Women," ttc LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., Lim. PATERNOSTER SQUARE First Edition, May, 1884 ; Sfxond Edition, September, 1887; Third Edition, May, 1889; Fourth Edition, June, 1890 ; Fifth Edition, November, 1891 ; Sixth Edition, May, 1893 ; Seventh Edition, July, 1894 ; Eighth Edition, October, 1902. TTTT PREFACE THE stern critic from his Rhadamanthine chair has of late been pleased to fulminate against what he stigmatizes as "compilations;" yet I put forward the present volume as avowedly a " compilation " only, — I hope as one which will have some interest and attraction for the general reader. The number of persons who will have the leisure and means to refer to original sources, or, referring to them, will have the tact and skill to use them properly, must always be limited, and if "compila- tions " are to be prohibited, a very large class of readers will be deprived of all facilities for acquiring knowledge on a vast variety of subjects. The work of the compiler, if humble, is by no means easy ; he must be able to analyse and compare, and to place the facts he collects in a lucid order and agreeable form. In truth, he does not so much compile as conaense^ and in a single volume is often called upon to present the. results obtained from the patient study of half a hundred. However this may be, I am ready to acknowledge that in the following pages I have been indebted to a considerable number of authorities, from whom I have endeavoured to glean what would best serve my object^ and enable me to place before the reader some striking illustrations of Christian chivalry, of heroic effort and enterprise in the fields of religious progress and the charities of civilization. I have brought together a goodly 154 PREFACE. company of educational reformers, of Christian mission- aries, of philanthropists, of Good Samaritans ; men and women who have dedicated their lives to the great work of making their fellow-creatures better, purer, happier. These are examples which we all may imitate in our different spheres. Studying their noble careers, we may learn to appreciate aright the law of human kindness, and to understand how, if it were universally acted upon, the vast sum of human misery would gradually be reduced ; and this will lead us to do, each in his own little circle, what it may be in our power to do, for the ignorant and the afflicted, the strangers who fall among thieves and lie^ by the wayside, bleeding from their many wounds. O reader, do not pass them by! Do not be deaf to the voice of pain and sorrow ! " Shrink from no offices of love, even though they should be painful and perilous," always doing unto others as thou wouldst that others should do unto thee, and, unostentatiously but earnestly, following in the steps of the Good Samaritan. W. H. D. A. CONTENTS. BOOK I. VAGI WORK AND WORKERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL FIELD , .II Theories of Education — Importance of Religious Element in Education — Dean Colet — Roger Ascham — Progress of Education in England — Female Education in the 1 8th Century — Lady Mary Montagu — Dean Swift — Sunday Schools — Robert Raikes — The Monitorial System — Dr. Bell — Joseph Lancaster — National Edu- cation — Lord Brougham— Elementary Education Act, 1870 — Public School Education — Dr. Arnold — Infant Schools — ^John Frederick Oberlin — Industrial Schools — Mary Carpenter. BOOK XL WORK ON BEHALF OF THE SLAVE 1 47 Abolition of the Slave Trade — William Wilberforce — Emancipation of the Slave — Sir Thomas Fowell I Buxton. BOOK IIL WORK AND WORKERS IN THE MISSION FIELD • • . I91 John Eliot: A Missionary and Leader of Men — David Brainerd — Henry Martyn : Type of the Modem Missionary — ^John Williams, The " Martyr of Erro- manga." ntf COJ\/T£MS, BOOK IV. »AGB PRISON REFORM . • . . , •• • .273 Condition of our Prisons in the i8th Century— John Howard — Mrs. Ehzabeth Fry BOOK V. THE POOR ARE ALWAYS WITH US ** . » , » • 339 Vincent de Paul: his Labours on behalf of the Poor-- English Sisters of Mercy: Miss Sieveking, Mrs. Mompesson — An English Gentleman among the Poor : Edward Denison — Among the Sick : Sister Dora. BOOK I. IVOPK AND WORKERS IN THE EDUCATIONAZ. FIELD THEORIES OF EDUCATION. IMPORTANCE OF THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. DEAN COLET. ROGER ASCHAM. PROGRESS OF EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE 18IH CENTURY: — LADY MARY MONTAGU; DEAN SWIFT. SUNDAY SCHOOLS : — ROBERT RAIKES. THE MONITORIAL SYSTEM : — DR. BELL ; JOSEPH LANCASTER. NATIONAL EDUCATION : — LORD BROUGHAM. ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT : — 1870. PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION : — DR. ARNOLD. INFANT SCHOOLS : — JOHN FREDERICK OBERLIN. INT)USTRIAL SCHOOLS : — MARY CARPENTER. WORK AND WORKERS IN THE EDUCATIONAL FIELD. IT is recorded to have been the opinion of Socrates that the duty of man is to learn how to do good and avoid evil, om TOL €v fxeydpoKTt KaKovr^ ayaOovre rirvKrau In a similar spirit, Dr. Johnson remarks, in his ** Life of Milton," that the great aim and end of education is to enable us to live as true men ; that is, to live purely, truthfully, and manfully, with our feet in the straight path and our eyes towards the light We fear, however, that in a very large number of our English schools this ■end and aim is not kept very constantly in view. Indeed, the common notion of education seems to be realized by the pro- vision of a certain amount of instruction, more or less elementary, in certain branches of knowledge — not including, however, that self-knowledge which the old Greek sage thought of so much im- portance ; and if in our high-class " academies " a separation be made between the " classical " and " commercial " divisions, and young gentlemen are specially prepared for the Civil Service and other examinations ; or if in our schools for the poor a master can show that 80 or 90 per cent, of his pupils have passed suc- cessfully in " Standard III.," it is assumed that education is really flourishing amongst us, and that we have really got hold of the great secret for making the next generation wiser and bette than the present. I think it probable, however, that the compilers of our Church Catechism were nearer the truth when they pro- posed to teach the young " their duty towards God, and their duty towards their neighbour." The Church bids us learn " to hurt nobody by word or deed, to be true and just in all our dealings, to have neither malice nor hatred in our hearts, to keep our body in temperance, soberness, and chastity ; " but the Legislature steps in with the injunction that none of these thmgs shall be taught, and substitutes the latest edition of the Revised Code. GOOD SAMARITANS, To • those who adopt Dr. Arnold's view of education, and hold that it applies equallv- %6. mihd, and heart, and soul, — that some- thing more. is; necessary, than the mere discipline of the intellect to "prepare the y6un'g:studGi'4t.fo'r playing a noble part in the battle of life, the general tone of public discussion on this subject can- not but be mortifying. The public, and the men who write for the public, seem incapable of rising above the commonplaces of Utilitarianism, and argue as if an acquaintance with reading and writing, and Latin and mathematics, were all that it is necessary for the young mind to gain. In this sense a ** good education " means nothing more than just enough learning to pass a competitive examination, or to fit a youth for entering one of the great pro- fessions, or, in the humbler walks of life, for a stool in a mer- chant's counting-house, or a post behind a tradesman's counter. And hence we find the "principals" of our high-class establishments boasting, not that they have educated their pupils in the honour of the Queen and the love of God ; not that they have made them good citizens and good Christians ; not that they have taught them to love all that is true and just, generous and hospitable, and to despise the false, the mean, and the selfish; but that so many have "passed" at this or that examination, have distinguished themselves at Woolwich or Sandhurst. We do not say that such success is not very desirable and creditable, but that it is by no means a proof or a consummation of a " good education." And, in like manner, we feel that whatever may be said in favour of the Government educational secret of "payment by results," it cannot be pretended that one of these results is to train up a generation of men and women to believe in the Christian faith and to live the Christian life. We hold that in our higher schools as in our lower, the education given is too pretentious, and, there- fore, too superficial ; that it aims at too much, and therefore, accomplishes too little ; that it is worldly in tone and worldly in object ; that it dwells too largely upon words, and too little upon things ; that it is addressed too exclusively to the intellect, at the expense of the affections and the imagination ; and, above all, that it is wholly and completely a failure, when and so far as it is not based upon religion, or inspired with a religious spirit. The reader will not be displeased, perhaps, if I pause to examine very briefly Milton's loftier and more generous idea of MILTON'S PLAN OF EDUCATION, 13 education as it is developed in his celebrated *' Letter to Mr. Hartlib," and to see whether the great Puritan poet and thinker can help us to any useful general principles. He describes it as a ** voluntary idea of a better education, in extent and comprehen- sion far more large, and yet of time far shorter, and of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice." Such an idea is surely worth considering at a time when education, so called, b more expensive than ever it was, and yet, by common consent, is also more inefficient ; when our scholarship is daily growing more imperfect, and a system of " cramming " is rapidly taking the place of careful intellectual and moral training; when all that comes of greater educational facilities and revised codes is an increase of materialistic belief, a constant disregard of the rules and canons of political economy, and a lamentable indifference to Christian doctrine ; when all that comes, among the higher classes, of a vast machinery of collegiate institutions, academies, special classes, courses of lectures, and the like, is a superficial acquaintance with many studies and a competent knowledge of none ; musicians who cannot play, and artists who cannot draw ; linguists who are ignorant of their own language, and can read and write no other ; a taste for the meretricious in art, the chimerical in science, and the sensational in literature ; a constant yearning after luxury and pleasure, and a cowardly shrinking from self-denial and pain ; in short, an abandonment of the old paths trodden by the feet of the great and good, for new ways that lead only into cloudland and confusion. This, of course, is speaking generally ; but that the indictment is, on the whole, a true one, must be admitted by all who consider the present pursuits of our young patricians, or the condition of the modern stage, or the popularity of an unwhole- some and unclean literature, or the amusements of fashionable society, or, in fact, any of the straws on the surface, which show the direction of the great currents of thought and feeling among us. The principle which formed the corner-stone of Milton's educa- tional system was thoroughness. He was no advocate of the art of beating out a thin leaf of gold to cover with deceptive tissue the greatest possible amount of insincerity and unreality. And, therefore, in teaching languages, he would have the teacher go at once to the best books in those languages, and use them as his 14 GOOD SAMARITANS. manuals, instead of wasting years upon Delectuses and Graduses and Thesauruses. He strongly protests against the ambitious folly of " forcing the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work of a head filled, by long reading and observing, with elegant maxims and copious invention." What would Milton have said if he had seen boys of twelve years old required to furnish an analysis of Shakespeare's Macbeth ? Nothing more strongly moves his indignation, nothing does he more severely censure, than the pretentiousness which plunges the young into the study of complex sciences in order that the " curriculum " may look imposing in the "prospectus." "Latin, Greek, French, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Logic " — when we see this goodly enumeration figuring on a sheet of elegantly printed, hot-pressed " post," we cannot but commiserate the unfortunate tyro who has been crammed to the throat with so indigestible a mixture, and with the poet we wonder, " How one small head could carry all he knew ! " In a strain of lofty eloquence Milton compassionates the novices who having but newly left the "grammatic flals and shallows," where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words "with lamentable construction," are suddenly transported under another climate, "to be tossed and turmoiled with their un- ballasted wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy." The result is, that they for the most part grow into hatred and contempt of learning, until they are called upon to choose their future career. Then, some by the influence of friends, take to "an ambitious and mercenarv, or ignorantly zealous, divinity." Some are allured to the trade of law, "grounding " their purposes not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of "litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees." Others betake themselves to State affairs; while others, "knowing no better," abandon themselves to "the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in inglorious idleness." What Milton insists upon is, that things should be taught, EVILS OF CLASS TEACHING. 15 rather than words ; that a sound foundation should be laid before any attempt is made to rear the superstructure, and that both teacher and taught should address themselves to their task in a spirit of conscientious earnestness. He aims at education rather than instruction ; and we may infer the scope of his plan from the fact that he purposes to allow about twenty tutors to one hundred and thirty scholars. Though our readers may feel that such a proportion is impracticable in our modern schools, they cannot but own that the class-system so popular now-a-days is fatal to effective and thorough culture. It may be worked successfully by an Arnold, by men with a keen insight into the human heart, and a quick appreciation of differences of character; but in ordinary hands it must always be a failure. To allot thirty or forty pupils to a single teacher is to ensure the application to all of a method of teaching which will be adapted only to two or three. Hence, as a consequence, the two or three will push ahead, carry off prizes, figure at examinations, and maintain " the reputation of the school," while the great majority linger in the rear, hopeless or indifferent, the despair of their teachers, and a burden to themselves. It may be granted that the class-system is useful to a certain extent, and that it enables a given amount of information to be imparted to the maximum of number in the minimum of time ; but it effectually prevents the schoolmaster from acquiring a knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of his pupils — from making himself familiar with, and adapting his method to, their individual peculiarities. All are placed on the same Procrustean bed, which is too short for some, and for many too long. The teacher works in a permanent groove — after a pre- scribed pattern ; and the influence of such teaching is injurious not only to the pupil, but to the teacher himself, who gradually loses his early enthusiasm and earnestness, and finds his labour growing daily more irksome as it grows more mechanical. If it be enough that a boy, on leaving school, shall be able to read and write, to express himself in tolerable English, and to have some knowledge, grammatical rather than critical, of Homer and Virgil, with a smattering of French and a vague idea of geography and history, the class-system may be considered successful ; but it will never, can never give the education dreamed of by Bacon, Milton, or Arnold ; the education that combines full and accurate 1 6 GOOD SAMARITANS. information with careful mental and moral discipline; the edu- cation that if it do not make every man a scholar, will, at all events, direct him towards a just and lofty ideal of life. How high a standard Milton had conceived we learn from his noble counsel to the teacher to use "all books, whatsoever they be," which may serve to stir up his pupils " with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages." How seldom, nowadays, we have language like to this ! Masters there are, no doubt, whose hearts respond to its elevated meaning; who act upon it and by it and in its spirit; but will any one pretend that the leading principle in English education is to make " brave " — that is, true and Christian — "men and patriots"? Who will assert that even the majority of English parents regard the bringing up of their children from this high point of view ? The best proof of the low tone of our educational system is to be found in the low tone of our social, and we cannot raise the latter until we have raised the former. Contrary to the opinion of the educational philosophers of the present day, who have discovered a panacea for all human ills in what they euphemistically term " secular education," who appear to believe that when every child in Great Britain is taught to read and write and " cipher," a millennium will break upon a happy and favoured nation, Milton anxiously provides that his scholars shall be instructed in religion. The entire scope of their teaching must be religious; their duty towards God and towards their neighbour must be kept always before their eyes ; their teacher must make a constant effort to fill their minds with high and holy thoughts, and to put before them the examples of men who have lived high and holy lives. We cannot doubt but that Milton himself, in his brief experience as a schoolmaster, never began his daily task without prayer to that " Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and who sends out His Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of His altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases." Puritan as Milton was, he would have shrunk from that strange modern Puritanism, which, in its professed dread of denominational schools, would eliminate the religious element from our national education, and make it a breach of the law to begin, with the hallowing influences of prayer and praise, the daily task of instructing the youthful mind, or to THE ''LIBERAL" EDUCATION. 17 supplement the lessons of history by the precepts and monitions ■of the Bible. He would have protested against the new ideal of a liberal education, which banishes the Gospel of the Cross into the background, and subordinates " Faith, Hope, and Charity," the Apostolic triad, to the great commercial triad of £^ s, d. In truth, we can judge of the importance which Milton attached to the religious element in education from the provision he makes in his ideal system, that " after evening repast, till bed-time, the thoughts of the scholar " shall be devoted to '* the easy grounds of religion, and the story of Scripture." But then Milton's object was one which apparently does not commend itself to the majority ■of teachers nowadays. He was not so solicitous about instruc- tion as he was about discipline ; he looked to culture rather than to information. Instead of aiming at a reputation for " passing " candidates in examinations, he laboured that the young might learn " to despise and scorn all their childish and ill-taught qualities, and to delight in manly and liberal exercises ; " he ■desired to infuse " into their young breasts an ingenious and tnoble ardour." And we are persuaded that if we adopted Milton's .principles ; if we held it to be the aim and purpose of all true education to strengthen and purify the soul as well as to improve the mind, — to foster a love of truth and justice, — to inculcate the duty of living a Christian life, — to set before young eyes the ex- ample of the heroic dead, and to encourage them in imitating it, — then, " these ways would try all their peculiar gifts of nature, and if there were any secret excellence among them, would fetch it out, and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, which could not but mightily redound to the good of this nation, and bring into fashion again those old admired virtues and excellences, with far more advantage now in this purity of Christian knowledge." No doubt, an education set in this high key is given in some of our public and in not a few of our private schools ; but that it is exceptional will be admitted by all who have had their attention closely directed to the subject. And the reason why it should be so is not far to seek. A complete education means a religious education ; and a religious ■education is the bugbear of the modern philosophical school. But a religious education means something more than the present •class-reading of a portion of the Bible every day — a mode of 1 8 GOOD SAMARITANS. teaching which, as often practised, is positively harmful, tending to place the Bible in the category of ordinary school-books, and depreciating it to their level in the pupil's estimation ; something more than an occasional lesson in the catechism, or the dull stereotyped repetition of hymns and collects ; it means that every branch of knowledge shall be taken up and pursued in a religious spirit ; that all the appliances of intellectual cultivation shall b wielded with a determination to make them useful, also, for the purposes of moral discipline. We do not want our schoolmasters to teach theology. But they can teach the lessons suggested by the life of Christ ; they can teach the lessons written in legible characters on the page of history ; they can teach the truths that are embodied in the career of every good and great man ; they can teach the wisdom that is manifest in the flowers of earth and; the stars of heaven. This teaching involves the use of the Bible, but does not meddle with dogmatic theology. It is, however, in. the broadest sense, a religious education, designed to operate upon, the moral nature, and to supply a constant motive and stimulus- to holy living. And the teacher who approaches his solemn task in a right spirit will soon discover that every department of study supplies material for building up the superstructure of such an. education. Do not the annals of great nations furnish abundant opportunities for illustrating and enforcing the providential govern- ment of the universe? Does not geography, with its laws of climatic zones and the distribution of animal and vegetable life, — or geology, with its marvellous records of the past, its testimony of the rocks, and its " medals of creation," bring into light the wisdom and power, no less than the benevolence, of the Supreme- God ? And was not the poet right when he exclaimed — " An undevout astronomer is mad " ? For, from astronomy, cannot the teacher deduce the existence and attributes of Him in Whom we live and move and have our being ? We admit that it is not the province or the duty of the school- master to teach theology. That is, sectarian theology, —the dif- ferences of construction and interpretation which have rent, and still rend, the Church of Christ. But, on the other hand, there is a theology which every wise-minded teacher will lose no opportunity INFLUENCE OF RELIGION. 1.9. of impressing upon the minds and hearts of his pupils. The- creation of Man in the likeness of his Heavenly Father; the supernatural gift of His spiritual presence in our souls ; the loss of" that precious gift through pride and self-consciousness and disobedience j the wonderful scheme of love ^nd mercy which, wrought out our redemption ; the assumption by God the Son of the '* vesture of the flesh"; the glorious sinless Life which in its exquisite beauty has extorted the admiration even of^ His enemies; the sacrifice of the cross; the mystery of the atonement ; Christ's personal intercession for the sinner ; the tender watchfulness of the Holy Ghost over the Church ; the promise of the salvation and restoration of fallen humanity ; the- light which is thus thrown on the future of man, and the assistance which is thus given to each of us in working for the welfare of our race ; the certainty of a future judgment, and of an eternity in. which the counsels of the Almighty will be revealed and fulfilled ; these are the leading points of a theology accepted more or less fully by all Christian believers, and of a theology that should^ underlie every educational system. Only in the radiance of such a theology can the " dark places " of history and the " oppositions of science " and the apparent mysteries of life be made clear. Only by means of such a> theology can we hope to make the young mind understand all that is grand and beautiful in the government of the world and^ the phenomena of nature. The dervish, in the fanciful Eastern tale, on rubbing his eyes- with a precious ointment, given to him by the genii, sees shining diamonds and glowing rubies, emeralds, topazes, and carcanets,.. where, before, he had seen nothing but bare rock and sterile earth. He treads no longer on unfruitful soil, but a pavement set with precious stones. In like manner the religious element in educa- \ tion transforms for us into beauty that which before seemed ^ commonplace, and into lucidity that which before was obscure ». It is an expansive, and, at the same time, an elevating force. In the hands and heart of an able, conscientious teacher, it invests everything with a new importance, a fresh interest ; it clothes alL life, all history, all nature in a pure and healthy atmosphere, just as the sun by its rising beams converts a sombre landscape into< a scene of freshness and of luminous splendour, steeping hill and -ao GOOD SAMAi^ITANii. valley and plain in golden light. The starting-point of the teacher 'in every class, and in every school, and whoever may be his pupils, should be that one pregnant saying of our Lord's : " Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it," — the word of God as set forth by prophets, evangelists, and apostles ; as illustrated by the changes of human history and the aspects of human life ; as glorified by the works of human genius in art and • science and literature. It is in this way that religion constitutes the axis or pivot on which every well-balanced educational system •naturally revolves. The education of a nation is unquestionably a subject to which the attention of its rulers and statesmen should be directed. Prior to the Reformation, it was left in England almost entirely to the 'Church, and every large monastery had its schools which provided some kind of instruction for the children of the poorer classes. After the Reformation, it was taken up by the Government, and in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth a considerable number •of Grammar Schools were established and endowed, in which was taught a curriculum as comprehensive as the wants of the time required. They derived their origin from the impulse given by Dean Colet, the first, and not the least able, of the educational reformers of England, who, in 15 lo, expended his private estate in the foundation of St. Paul's Grammar School. Colet's ideal of •education was a religious education, and over the master's chair in his new school he caused to be set up an image of the Child Jesus, with the words " Hear ye Him " inscribed beneath it He superseded the old and effete methods of instruction by fresh grammars specially composed by Erasmus and other scholars; and at its head placed William Lilly, an Oxford student, who had studied Greek in the east. The scholastic logic which had so long cramped and confined the wits of men found no favour in the eyes of the reformer, who aimed at combining rational ■religion with sound learning. His example was happily followed by many imitators, and a system of middle-class education was organised, which, by the end of the i6th century, "had changed ^the very face of England." A letter addressed to Thomas Cromwell, afterwards Earl of Essex, by his son's tutor, furnishes an interesting account of the •course of education adopted by the more liberal and enlightened DEAN CO LETS LETTER. 31* teachers: — "After that it pleased your mastership," he says, "to. give me in charge, not only to give diligent attendance upon Master Gregory, but also to instruct him with good letters, honest, manners, pastyme of instruments, and such other qualities as- should be for him meet and convenient, pleaseth it you to under- stand that for the accomplishment thereof I have endeavoured myself by all ways possible to excogitate how I might most profit him. In which behalf, through his diligence, the success is such, as I trust shall be to your good contentation and pleasure, and^ to his no small profit. But for cause the summer was spent in- the service of the wild gods (/>., the sylvan gods, or gods of the field and wood and river), and it is so much to be regarded after what fashion youth is brought up, in which time that that is- learned for the most part will not be wholly forgotten in the older years, I think it my duty to ascertain your mastership how he: spendeth his time. And first, after he hath heard mass, he taketh a lecture of a dialogue of Erasmus' colloquies, called Pietas Puerilis^, wherein is described a very picture of one that should be virtuously brought up ; and for cause it is so necessary for him, I do not- only cause him to read it over, but also to practise the precepts of the same. After this he exerciseth his hand in writing one or two hours, and readeth upon Fabyan's Chrotiicle as long. The residue of the day he doth spend upon the lute and virginals. When he rideth, as he doth very oft, I tell him by the way some history of the Romans or the Greeks, which I cause him to rehearse again in a tale. For his recreation he useth to hawk and hunt, and shoot in his long bow, which frameth and succeedeth so well with him that he seemeth to be thereunto given by nature." In a subsequent letter the tutor speaks of his pupil as learning French, eytmology, casting of accounts, playing at weapons, and' other similar exercises. John Colet was the eldest son of Sir Henry Colet, twice Lord' Mayor of London, and was born in 1466. After completing his- education at Magdalen College, Oxford, he travelled in France- and Italy, forming the acquaintance of Erasmus, Budaeus, and other illustrious scholars, gaining a knowledge of the Greek lan- guage and literature, and feeling the full influence of the revival' of learning. But the strength and sobriety of his mind prevented him from being tainted by the Platonic mysticism or neo-paganism. GOOD SAMARITANS. 'q{ which the group of scholars round Lorenzo di Medici made profession. Their literary enthusiasm was equally unable to dis- turb his rehgious convictions. He studied Greek, not because it ♦was the language of Homer and Thucydides, but because it was the key to the oracles of God as revealed in the New Testament. The mission which he had undertaken was speedily made clear when, in 1498, he took up his residence at Oxford and began to lecture upon St. Paul's Epistles. In these bold and luminous dis- courses, marked by a breadth of view which gave its tone to Angli- can theology, he set aside the trivialities of scholasticism, and brought his hearers face to face with the Apostle's " living mind." To a priest who sought from him some direction in his studies, he said : "Open your book, and we will see how many and what golden truths we can gather from the first chapter only of the Epistle to the Romans." It has been well said that it was more after the manner of the 19th than the i6th century that he loved to indicate the personal features in St. Paul's writings : his " vehemence of •speaking," which left him no time to perfect his sentences ; the skill and prudence with which he adapted his words to the neces- sities of the different classes he addressed ; his '^ modesty," "toleration," self-denial, and courtesy; and the force and direct- mess with which many of his sayings applied to the circumstances of the times. Colet was prompt to recognise the principle of " accommodation " in Scripture, as in the Mosaic narrative of the -creation and the Pauline theory of marriage. In his doctrinal conclusions he shook himself free from Augustinianism ; and while dwelling strongly on the necessity of Divine grace, avoided the extreme tenet of the bondage of the will. The simple facts of the Apostles' Creed became to him the summa ChristiancR theologicB. To the young theological students who came to him in despair, tempted to abandon theological study altogether, because it involved so many vexed questions, and afraid lest they should be pronounced unorthodox, he was wont to say : — " Keep firmly to the Bible and the Apostles' Creed, and let divines, if they like, dispute about the rest." His faith, as Mr. Green remarks, " stood simply on a vivid realization of the person of Christ." And in the importance which was thus given to the moral life, in his free criticism of the elder Scriptures, in his evident partiality for simple .and intellia;ible formularies, Colet ** struck the kev-note of a mode CO LET AT A BECKETS TOMB. •of religious thought as strongly in contrast with that of the later Reformation as with that of Catholicism itself." Of the spirit in which he regarded the coarser aspects ol the Roman religion his behaviour at a later time before St. Thomas k Becket's great Canterbury shrine enables us to judge. It was the Puritanic spirit, stern and uncompromising. Its glow of precious stones, its exquisitely wrought sculptures, its elaborate metal work, drew from Colet the bitter sarcasm that a saint so lavish to the poor in his lifetime would assuredly wish them to possess the wealth accumulated round him since his death.* In like manner he refused to kiss the saint's shoe, angrily ex- claiming: "What, do these idiots want us to kiss the shoes of every good man?" And some rags, which were preserved as relics, he touched with the tips of his fingers in great disgust, and contemptuously put them down, " making, at the same time, a sort of whistle." Austere was the new teacher's life, frugal his table, simple his attire. His character was distinguished by its integrity, his con- versation by its vivacity, his manners by a frank cordiality which more than made amends for the quickness of his temper. His friends and pupils loved while they reverenced him. As for his lectures at Oxford, they drew multitudes of eager listeners. He had not taken any degree in theology; yet was there no doctor of the law or divinity, no abbot or dignitary, who did not hasten to hear him. For the first time his auditors found themselves taught to see in the Gospels a living record of the teaching of their adorable Redeemer. He told them with courageous plainness, that he had not discovered in Scripture a number of absurd propositions to which he could yield his * Erasmus, who accompanied Colet on. his visit to Canterbury (see his Peregrinatio rdigionis ergo), represents him as saying to the attendant priest : " When the saint was so liberal to the poor while he was poor himself, and had need of money for the supply of his bodily wants, can you suppose that he would be displeased now, when he is rich and has need of nothing, if a poor widow who has starving children at home, or daughters whose virtue is in danger from the want of a dowry, or a husband lying on the bed of sickness and destitute of the means of support, having first asked his permission, should take a mere trifle from this vast wealth . . . either as a free gift, or a loan to be repaid ? " . . He added : — "I am sure that the saint would be glad if, now that he is dead, he relieved by his wealth the wants of the poor." 24 GOOD SAMARITANS. assent only under compulsion ; but a Person whom he could take as " his leader on the heavenly road," whom he could love with a love far stronger than that given to the best beloved of human, beings, and to whom he could devote himself in mind, body,, and spirit. That religious and intellectual revival which we call the reformation, Colet, as Dean of St. Paul's, indirectly but largely assisted, though he did not openly separate from the Church of Rome. In 15 12, he was appointed by Archbishop Warham to preach to the Convocation of the Clergy, and his sermon was remarkable for its outspokenness. " Would that for once," cried the vehement preacher, "you would remember your name and profession, and take thought for the (reformation) of the Church ! Never was it more necessary, and never did the state of the Church call for more vigorous effort. . . . We are troubled with heretics ; but their heresy is far less fatal to us and to the people at large, than the vicious and depraved lives of the clergy. That is the worst heresy of all ! " First of all was needed, he said, a reform of the bishops ; then must come that of the clergy, leading to a revival of religion among the people generally. The accumulation of benefices must be abandoned j the priesthood must cast off its worldliness and luxury ; its low standard of morality must be raised; only worthy persons ordained and premoted. Such teaching as this exposed Colet to a charge of heresy ; but Warham protected him, and King Henry encouraged him to go on. "Let every man have his own doctor," said Henry, after a long interview with him ; " but this man is the doctor for me ! " He appointed him as chaplain and preacher-in-ordinary, and continued his favour to him until his death, in 15 19, in the fifty-third year of his age. Colet was the author of " Rudimenta Grammaticus," " Epistola ad Erasmuson," and of a collection of Devotional Pieces, written for the use of St. Paul's School. The last named included the " Institutes of a Christian Man ; " which Erasmus pleased himself by turning into Latin verse, as a proof of his regard for " a man, than whom, in my opinion," says the Dutch scholar, " the realm of England has not another more pious, or who more truly knows Christ." Great was the grief of Erasmus at the death ot his friend. " O true theologian ! " he writes ; *' O wonderful RULES FOR ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL. 2; preacher of evangelical doctrine ! with what earnest zeal did he drink in the philosophy of Christ ! How eagerly did he imbibe the spirit and feelings of St. Paul ! How did the purity of his whole life correspond to his heavenly doctrine ! " And to Bishop Fisher he writes : " I know it is all right with him who, escaped from this evil and wretched world, is in present enjoyment of that Christ whom he so loved when alive. I cannot help mourning ir the public name the loss of so rare an example of Christian piety. so remarkable a preacher of the Christian truth." Of the evening of this good man's Ufe, Mr. Seebohm has collected some interesting particulars. In 15 18, England suffered terribly from the ravages of the sweating sickness, which struck down its victims with terrible rapidity. It was usually fatal on the first day. " If the patient survived twenty-four hours he was looked upon as out of danger. But it was liable to recur, and sometimes attacked the same person four times in succession. This was the case with Cardinal Wolsey : whilst several of the royal retinue were attacked and carried off at once, VVolsey's strong constitution carried him through four successive attacks." Colet was three times its victim ; he survived, but the injury to his constitution was so great that he began to prepare for his approach- ing end. Part of his work was to revise and complete the rules and statutes for the government of his school of St. Paul's ; in this he showed his devotion and purity of motive. He made no effort to impress his own particular views on its constitution,, though, as its founder, he was free to do so ; but anxiously left, it open for adaptation in future generations, to the changing, necessities of the time. He entrusted its charge, we may remark,, '*to the most honest and faithful fellowship of the Mercers of London ; " not of a bishop, or chapter, or ecclesiastical dignitarie^, but of " married citizens of estabUshed reputation." In defining; the duties and salaries of the masters, he provided expressly thati they too might be married men : but they were to hold their office " in no room of continuance and perpetuity, but upon their duty in the school." .He wisely gave power to the Mercers to amend and alter the statutes as from time to time might prove expedient, knowing that finality cannot be predicated of any human institution. The statutes of his school completed, he introduced certain 26 GOOD SAMARITANS. reforms into St. Paul's Church, and made ready a simple tomb for the reception of his remains at the side of the great cathedral choir, inscribing upon it no other legend than the words, "Johannes Coletus." Next among our educational reformers we may name Roger Ascham, the author of " The Schoolmaster," the first treatise on education written in the English language. Roger Ascham was born about 15 15, at Kirkby Wiske, near Northallerton, in Yorkshire. He was the third son of John Ascham, house steward in the family of Lord Scrope, by his wife Margaret, who came of an ancient stock. It is recorded of his parents that, after a happy married Ufe of forty-seven years, they died on the same day, and nearly at the same hour. Young Roger was early taken into the family of Sir Anthony Wingfield, and educated together with his sons. "This worshipful man," said Ascham afterwards, "hath ever loved and used to love many ■children brought up in learning in his house, amongst whom I myself was one, for whom at these times he would bring down from London both bow and shafts. And when they should play he would go with them himself into the field, see them shoot, and he that shot fairest should have the best bow and shafts, and he that shot ill-favouredly should be mocked of his fellows till he shot better. Would to God all England had used or would use to lay the foundation of youth after the example of this worshipful man in bringing up children in the Book and the bow ; by which two things the whole commonwealth, both in peace and war, is chiefly valid and defended withal." Sir Anthony taught them archery in obedience to the law, which then required all boys between seven and seventeen to be equipped with a long bow and two arrows. In 1530, still at Sir Anthony's expense, Ascham was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, and placed in charge of Mr. Hugh Fitzherbert In February 1534 he took his degree of B.A., and in March was elected a Fellow; in 1537, he became a college lecturer in Greek. The new learning and the new religion were at this time working their way into Cambridge, as they had done a quarter of a century before into Oxford, and to both Roger Ascham proclaimed his adhesion. As a writer of Latin and a teacher of Greek, he quickly obtained distinction ; and on the A SC HAM'S '' TOXOPHILUSr 27 resignation of Sir John Cheke, who was appointed tutor to Prince Edward,* Ascham was made Public Orator of the University. In this capacity he wrote his letters of compliment and formal communications. These were not less admired for their pen- manship than their elegance of composition; and he acquired so much renown as a caligraphist that he was appointed writing- master, as we should say, to Prmce Edward, the Princess Eliza- beth, and the two sons of the courtly and chivalrous Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Eventually, on the death of Grindal, he was promoted to take charge of the Princess Elizabeth's education. In 1544 Ascham produced his "Toxophilus the School- master, or Partitions of Shooting," in two books ; dedicating it to Henry VIII., who was then on the point of invading France He was allowed, in the following year, to present it to the king, who rewarded him with a pension of ten pounds per annum. It is the work of a man, not only thoroughly conversant with his subject, but an enthusiast about it; and is well worthy of the palmy times of England's national weapon. Philologus and Toxophilus, the dramatis personce, converse through two books on the advantages and pleasures ot archery, and on the art of shooting with the long-bow, an art in which Ascham would have men to excel, because in peace it triumphs over effeminate and ignoble recreations, and in war mcreases largely a nation's strength. The book is valuable and interesting as a monument of our early English literature. It is written in English, says its author, because he desired to see it in the hands of the gentlemen and yeomen of England ; and he proceeds to put forward a plea for the use of EngHsh by English writers. " He that will write well in any tongue," he says, " must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do ; and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him. Many English writers have not done so, but using strange words, as Latin, French, and Italian, do make all things dark and hard. Once I communed with a man which reasoned the English tongue to be enriched and increased * This is Milton's ''Sir John Cheke" (Sonnet XL), who taught ** Cam- bridge, and King Edward, Greek." 28 GOOD SAMARITANS, thereby, saying : * Who will not praise that feast where a man shall drink at a dinner both wine, ale, and beer ? ' ' Truly,' quoth I, 'they be all good, everyone taken by himself alone; but if you put malmsey and sack, red wine and white, ale and beer, and all in one pot, you shall make a drink neither easy to be known, nor yet wholesome for the body.'" " Toxophilus " is written with an evident love and mastery of the subject: its drier details are relieved by philosophical digressions, one of which, dealing wath the value of recreation and its place in the educational system, is very interesting. In 1548 Ascham was appointed tutor to the Princess Elizabeth at Cheston; but, quarrelling with her steward, he gave up the post, and returned to his college home. In 1550, through the intervention of Sir John Cheke, he accompanied Sir Richard Morissine, or Morison, ambassador at the Court of Charles V.^ as secretary. He spent some time at Augsburg, using his faculties of observation and insight to good effect, — the result being, in 1553, the publication of a ''Report and Discourse of the Affairs and State of Germany and the Emperor Charles his Court, during certain years while Roger Ascham was there." During his absence in Germany, Ascham's friends procured his appointment as Latin Secretary to Edward VI. On the death of the young king, fearing for the loss of his pension as well as his office, he at once returned to England ; but, though his attach- ment to the reformed religion was known, he secured the favour and esteem of Queen Mary's advisers, retained his pension, and was employed to write official letters and despatches. His influ- ence seems to have been considerable, and to have been exercised in defence of the interests of learning and religion ; for it was said by his .contemporaries that he hindered those who dined on the Church from supping on the Universities. On the occasion of Mary's unfortunate marriage to Philip of Spain, he wrote within three days as many as forty-seven letters to foreign princes, of \\ hom the lowest in rank was a Cardinal. In 1554 Ascham married Mistress Margaret Hour, a lady who brought him some fortune, came of a good family, and appears to have possessed some intellectual gifts. On the accession of Elizabeth he was made Latin Secretary, and also reader in the 1 earned languages, — a post which brought him much about the ORIGIN OF THE ''SCHOOLMASTER:' 29 Queen's person. He was liberally rewarded for his services ; and, in 1559, received the prebend of Westwang, in the cathedral of York. The Archbishop had previously conferred it on a nominee of his own ; so that Ascham did not get the revenue without the vexation of a lawsuit. The book to which he chiefly owes his reputation, "The Schoolmaster," was written in 1563, — the year of the plague, when Elizabeth had taken refuge at Windsor. At his apartments in the castle, Sir William Cecil had invited a number of " ingenious men " to dine with him, and among them was Roger Ascham. Cecil communicated to his guests the news of the morning, that several Eton lads had run away on account of their master's severity; which the great minister condemned as a grievous error in the education of youth. Sir William Petre, a man of harsh temper, advocated the contrary view, and was all in favour of the rod and the "whipping-block." Dr. Walter agreed with the minister, and Sir John Mason jested at both. Mr. Haddon supported Petre, and asserted that the then best schoolmaster in England was the hardest flogger. Ascham, intervening, warmly protested that if such a schoolmaster turned out an able scholar, the credit was due not to his birch, but to the boy's genius. When Ascham was retiring after dinner to read to the Queen one of the orations of Demosthenes, Sir Richard Sackville * took him aside, and told him that though he had been silent during the discussion, yet would he on no account have missed it ; that he knew only too well the truth of what Ascham had maintained ; for it was the perpetual flogging of a tyrannical pedagogue which had given him an unconquerable aversion to study. As he was anxious to prevent this defect in his own grandchildren, he besought Ascham to " put in some order of writing the chief points of their talk, concerning the right order of teaching and honesty of living, for the good bringing up of children and of young men." Ascham represents him as saying : " Seeing it is but in vain to lament things past, and also wisdom to look to things to come, surely, God willing, if God lend me life, I will make this, my mishap, some occasion of good hap to little * Father of Thomas Sackville, one of the authors of "Gorboduc" (1561), onr first Enf^lish tragedy. JO GOOD SAMARITANS. Robert Sackville, my son's son. For whose bringing up, I would gladly, if it so please you, use specially your good advice. I hear say you have a son much of his age ; we will deal thus together. Point you out a schoolmaster who by your order shall teach my son and yours, and for all the rest I will provide you, though they then do cost me a couple of hundred pounds by year, and besides you shall find me as fast a friend to you and yours as perchance any you have." " Which promise," adds Ascham, "the worthy gentleman surely kept with me until his dying day." The "Schoolmaster" was not published, however, until after its author's death. Always afflicted with delicate health, Ascham suffered much during the last years of his life from the scholar's disease — dyspepsia. Between dinner and bedtime he was unable to pursue his studies ; the curse of sleeplessness fell upon him ; and, prematurely worn out, he died on the 30th of December, 1568, at the comparatively early age of fifty-three. It is said that his closing years were also obscured by poverty, and slanderers have ascribed the poverty to his love of gaming and cock-fighting. As regards the former, the calumny is wholly without foundation ; and with respect to the latter we must remember that, in Eliza- beth's time, it was a popular sport. Fuller quaintly sums up the scholar's character in the following terse phrases : " He was an honest man and a good shooter. Archery was his pastime in youth, which, in his old age, he exchanged for cock-fighting. His 'Toxo- philus' is a good book {01 young va^n^ his 'Schoolmaster' for old, his ' Epistles ' for all men." "The Schoolmaster" was published by Ascham 's widow, in 1 570, with a dedication to Sir William Cecil, in which she solicits him to undertake its defence, **to avaunce the good that may come of it by your allowance and furtherance to publike use and benefite, and to accept the thank efell recognition of me and my poor children, trustyng of the continuance of your good memorie of Master Ascham and his, and dayly commendyng the prosperous estate of you and yours to God, whom you serve, and whose you are, I rest to trouble you." • In Dr. Johnson's opinion, the method of instruction elaborated in this treatise is perhaps the best ever laid down for the study of languages. Certain it is that Ascham's general principles, as enunciated in the first book, are sound and sagacious, and should INTERVIEW WITH LADY JANE GRE } be carefully considered by every person engaged in educational work. He particularises certain qualities, or, as he calls them, ** plain notes/' which will indicate '* a good wit in a child for learn- ing," — borrowing them from Socrates, i, Euphues; 2, good memory ; 3, attachment to learning ; 4, readiness to undergo pains and labour; 5, willingness to learn of another; 6, freedom in questioning ; and 7, delight in well-earned applause. As the first of these qualities may not be readily understood by every reader, we transcribe Ascham's description, with the remark that the character embodying it obviously suggested John Lyly's cele- brated "Euphues." According to Ascham : — " Euphues (Ev<^u^s) is he that is apt by goodness of wit, and appliable by readiness of will, to learning, having all other qualities of the mind and parts of the body that must another day serve learning, not troubled, mangled, and halved, but sound, whole, full, and able to do their office : as a tongue not stammering, or over hardly drawing forth words, but plain and ready to deliver the meaning of the mind ; a voice not soft, weak, piping, womanish, but audible, strong, and manlike ; a countenance not wirish and crabbed, but fair and comely ; a personage not wretched and deformed, but tall and goodly : for surely a comely countenance, with a goodly stature, giveth credit to learning and authority to the person ; otherwise, commonly, either open contempt or privy disfavour doth hurt or hinder both person and learning. And even as a fair stone requireth to be set in the finest gold, with the best workmanship, or else it loseth much of the grace and price, even so excellency in learning, and namely divinity, joined with a comely personage, is a mar- vellous jewel in the world. And how can a comely body be better employed than to serve the greatest exercise of God's greatest gift? — and that is learning. But commonly the fairest bodies are bestowed on the foulest purposes." As a specimen of Ascham's style we extract from "The School- master" his well-known description of his interview with Lady Jane Grey, prior to his German mission : — " Before I went into Germany," he says, " I came to Broad gate, in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceedingly much beholden. Her parents, the duke and the duchess " [of Northumberland], " with all the 32 GOOD SAMARITANS, household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I found her in her chamber reading Phcedon Platonis in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccace. After salutation and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her why she would lose such pastime in the park. Smiling, she answered me : * I wis, all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas ! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant.' "'And how came you, madam,' quoth I, *to this deep know- ledge of pleasure? And what did chiefly allure you into it, seeing not many women, but very few men, have attained thereunto ? ' * I will tell you,' quoth she, ' and tell you a truth which, perchance, ye will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is, that He sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways, which I will not name for the honour I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer (John Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London) ; who teach eth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing, whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, whatever I do else, but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole mis- liking unto me. x\nd thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me.'" Ascham's comments on the advisability of consulting the natural bias and tendencies of a youth in selecting for him his life's vocation are eminently judicious : — "This perverse judgment of fathers, as concerning the fitness and unfitness of their children, causeth the commonwealth [to] PROGRESS OF LDUCAllON. 33 have many unfit ministers : and seeing that ministers be, as a man would say, instruments wherewith the commonweahh doth work all her matters withal, I marvel how it chanceth that a poor shoemaker hath so much wit, that he will prepare no in- strument for his science, neither knife nor awl, nor nothing else, which is not very fit for him. The commonwealth can be content to take at a fond father's hand the riffraff of the world, to make I hose instruments of wherewithal she should work the highest matters under heaven. And surely an awl of lead is not so unprofitable in a shoemaker's shop, as an unfit minister made of gross metal is unseemly in the commonwealth. Fathers in old time, among the noble Persians, might not do with their children as they thought good, but as the judgment of the commonwealth always thought best. This fault of fathers bringeth many a blot with it, to the great deformity of the commonwealth : and here, surely, I can praise gentlewomen, which have always at hand their glasses to see if anything be amiss, and so will amend it ; yet the commonwealth, having the glass of knowledge in every man's hand, doth see such uncomeliness in it, and yet winketh at it. This fault, and many such like, might be soon wiped away, if fathers would bestow their children always on that thmg where- unto nature hath ordained them most apt and fit. For if youth be grafted straight and not awry, the whole commonwealth will flourish thereafter. When this is done, then must every man begin to be more ready to amend himself than to check another, measuring their matters with that wise proverb of Apollo, Know thyself: that is to say, learn to know what thou art able, fit, and apt unto, and follow that" We have alluded to the numerous grammar schools which were founded in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth. These, and their successors, were no part of a scheme of national education, such as the farseeing policy of John Knox initiated in Scotland, but were simply designed to furnish a selected few, who were unable to bear the cost, with gratuitous instruction of the highest order. Up to the time of the Revolu tion, however, they represented the only educational system which England possessed. The growth of the commercial classes then led to its expansion ; and free- schools were established, in which the education given was adapted 34 GOOD SAMARITAN:^. to their needs. Mr. Knight remarks that during the progress ol' education in recent years, reformers have spoken somewhat con- temptuously of these schools and of the instruction they afforded, but the censure seems undeserved. With a comparatively small population, they were, so it seems to us, praiseworthy pioneers of a national system. While the grammar schools developed the sons of the professional classes and the more opulent tradesmen into lawyers, divines, or physicians, the free schools took up the sons of the mechanics and the labourers, and made them clever handicrafts ai en and prosperous burgesses. A good work was- also done by the parochial charity schools, which found an active supporter in Queen Anne. Mainly through the efforts of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, about 2,000 of these schools spread over Great Britain and Ireland, between 1698 and 1741. At the beginning of the i8th century, however, we take it that the educational standard in England was infinitely lower than in the reign of Elizabeth or the earlier Stuarts. The upper classes were essentially ignorant, and to a large extent were proud of their ignorance. Their principal pabulum was provided by the weekly news-writer. It is clear from the tone of the essayists, the Tatler^ the Spectator^ the Guardian, that the number of those who read was very limited, and that it was necessary to cater for them very carefully, dealing with every question in the lightest and most familiar manner. Writing in 17 13, Addison laments that " there should be no knowledge in a family. For my own part," he adds, " I am concerned when I go into a great house where perhaps there is not a single person that can spell, unless it be by chance the builer or one of the footmen. What a figure is the young heir likely to make, who is a dunce both by father's and mother's side ! " The ignorance of the women was worse even than that of their brothers and husbands. Most of them, according to the Tatler, spent their hours in an indolent state of body and mind, without either recreations or reflections. '* I think," says Steele, " most of the misfortunes in families arise from the trifling way the women have in spending their time, and gratifying only their eyes and ears instead of their reason and understanding." Swift wrote a remarkable paper on the ** Educa- tion of Ladies," which is not without value even for our own day. EDUCATION OF GIRLS, 35 ** There is a subject of controversy," he says, " which I have fre- quently met with in mixed and select companies of both sexes^ and sometimes only of men — whether it be prudent to choose a wife who has good natural sense, some taste of wit and humour,, able to read and relish history, books of travels, moral or enter- taining discourses, and be a tolerable judge of the beauties in poetry ? This question is generally determined in the negative by women themselves, but almost universally by we men." Of course, a higher ideal of education was formed by many intelligent women, and the views held, for example, by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu would almost satisfy the warmest advo- cate of female culture in our own day. '* Every woman," she writes, " endeavours to breed her daughter a fine lady, qualifying her for a station in which she will never appear, and at the same time incapacitating her for that retirement to which she is destined. Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will not only make her contented, but happy in it. No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasures so lasting. She will not want new fashions, nor regret the loss of expensive diversions, or variety of company, if she can be amused with an author in her closet. To render this amusement complete, she should be permitted to learn the languages. . . There are two cautions to be given on this subject: first, not to think herself learned when she can read Latin, or even Greek. Languages are more properly to be called vehicles of learning than learning itself, as may be observed in many schoolmasters, who, though perhaps critics in grammar, are the most ignorant fellows upon earth. True knowledge con- sists in knowing things, not words. I would no further wish her a linguist than to enable her to read books in their originals, that are often corrupted, and are always injured by translations. Two hours' application every morning will bring this about much sooner than you can imagine, and she will have leisure enough besides to run over the English poetry, which is a more important part of a woman's education than it is generally supposed. . . . ** You should encourage your daughter to talk over with you what she reads ; and as you are very capable of distinguishing, take care she does not mistake pert folly for wit and humour, or rhyme for poetry, which are the common errors of young people, and leave a train of ill consequences. The second caution 36 GOOD SAMARl'IANS. to be given her, — and which is most absolutely necessary, — is to conceal whatever learning she attains, with as much solicitude as she would hide crookedness or lameness : the parade of it can only serve to draw on her the envy, and consequently the most inveterate hatred, of all he and she fools, which will certainly be 5t least three parts in four of her acquaintance. The use of knowledge in our sex, beside the amusement of solitude, is to mode- rate the passions, and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life ; and it may be preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to them- selves, and will not suffer us to share. At the same time I recom- mend books, I neither exclude work nor drawing." This was not altogether an unsatisfactory sketch for the studies of a young girl, but to most of Lady Mary's contemporaries it would have seemed the dream of a visionary or the folly of an enthusiast. I have referred to Dean Swift's essay on the " Education of Ladies." He has also a paper on *' Modern Education," which treats of that of gentlemen, and he shows, with characteristic force, that in his own time it was sadly neglected. " The very maxims set up to direct modern education are enough," he says, *' to destroy all the seeds of knowledge, honour, wisdom, and virtue among us. The current opinion prevails that the study of Greek and Latin is loss of time ; that public schools, by mingling the sons of noblemen with those of the vulgar, engage the former in bad company ; that whipping breaks the spirits of lads well-born ; that universities make young men pedants ; that to dance, fence, speak French, and know how to behave yourself among great persons of both sexes, comprehends the whole duty of a gentleman." A similar opinion is still held, we fear, by many. " There is one circumstance," continues Swift, '* in a learned education which ought to bear much weight, even with those who have no learning at all. The books read at school and college are full of incitements to virtue and discouragements from vice, drawn from the wisest reasons, the strongest motives, and the most influencing examples. Thus young minds are filled early vith an inclination to good, and an abhorrence of evil, both which .ncrease in them according to the advances they make in Htera- ture ; and although they may be, and too often are, drawn, by the ROBERT RAIKES— SUNDAY bCIWOLS, 37 temptations of youth, and the opportunities of a large fortune, into some irregularities, when they come forward into the great world, yet it is ever with reluctance and compunction of mind, because their bias to virtue still continues. They may stray sometimes, out of infirmity or compliance ; but they will soon return to the right road, and keep it always in view." It may be doubted whether this is, indeed, the special merit of a " learned education." The classics have their uses ; but we should hardly be disposed to regard them as incentives to the practice of the higher virtues, and are inclined to think that the study of Christ's Gospel will have an infinitely greater influence for good on the minds and hearts of the young. The first outlines of a national system of education were laid down by Robert Raikes in 1780, when he started Sunday schools. That they supplied a want is proved by the rapidity with which they spread. In less than forty years England possessed 5,000 of these schools, attended by 452,000 children. In 1833 the number of Sunday school children had increased to a million and a half, and it must now be nearer three millions; though these schools have lost something of their popularity, and their place is to some extent being supplied by improved agencies. The sum of good which they have accomplished cannot well be over-estimated. Many a mind has owed to them its first conceptions of knowledge \ many a soul has first been awakened by them to a sense of the love and wisdom of Jesus Christ. They have guided the feet of thousands and tens of thousands into the paths of peace and righteousness ; they have saved thou- sands and tens of thousands from succumbing to the evil influences of the world. Society has been perceptibly purified and elevated by them ; they have confirmed and extended, — have supplemented, and in some cases been an eftective substitute for, the work of the preacher and the teacher. The establishment of Sunday schools seems to me one of the noblest efforts of a wise philanthropy ; and among the world's Good Samaritans, Robert Raikes, their founder, must ever hold a foremost place. Robert Raikes, the son of "Raikes the printer," long well known as the proprietor and conductor of the Gloucester Journal, was born in a house in Palace Yard, Gloucester on the 14th of 38 GOOD SAMARITANS, September, 1735. He was fortunate in both his parents; for while his father was a man of enlightened mind and generous character, his mother was a woman of exemplary piety and many acquirements. He received a liberal and yet a practical educa- tion, with the view of fitting him for a journalistic career ; and through the death of his father in 1757, found himself, at the age of twenty-two, plunged into it, as well as into the management of an extensive printing and publishing establishment. His ability, diligence, and firmness fully maintained and consolidated the large business he had inherited, and he soon took up a leading position among the influential men of his native city. His first essay as a philanthropist was made in connection with the city prisons ; for in the work of prison reform he preceded John Howard. The condition of the prisoner, whether he was a felon or only an unfortunate debtor, was a disgrace to the boasted humanity of England. He was half starved, ill-clad, harshly treated; his cell was loatlisome and pestiferous ; and nothing was done to provide him with useful employment. At Gloucester Castle from forty to sixty prisoners were received every week ; yet for this large number only one court was available. The day-room for men and women felons measured twelve feet by eleven. The unhappy wretches imprisoned for debt were huddled together in a den fourteen feet by eleven ; it had no windows, and light and air struggled in through a hole broken in the plaster wall. In the upper part of the building was a close dark room, called " the main," the floor of which was in such a ruined state that it could not be washed ; this was the sleeping apartment of the mile felons, and directly opposite the stairs which led to it a large dun^^hill gave forth its reeking odours. The whole place was steeped in inlection, and ten to twelve victims were slaughtered by it monthly. As for the debtors, that any ot them returned to the outer world alive was matter of surprise ; for they received no allowance either of food or money, nor was any opportunity furnished ihem of earning the smallest pittance. If una -le to pay for beds, they lay at night on litters of straw ; for cloth mg as for food they were thrown upon their own means or on the charity of the benevolent, and hence it followed that the most honest and deserving — those who had given up all their property to their creditors — were the most wretched. Even the felons were better ROBERT RArKES AND THE PRISONS. 39 treated, for they received beds and clothing, and every two days a sixpenny loaf. It is needless to say that the indiscriminate association of felons and debtors, the criminal and the unfortunate, men and women, the hardened offenders and the involuntary or repentant trespassers, was productive of the greatest evil, and that few left such a cloaca without being hopelessly degraded and polluted. Every new inmate on his entrance was forced to pay a sum of money, called " garnish," which was immediateiy spent in beer, supplied by the gaoler, whose chief emoluments were derived from this contraband traffic. In a word, the pictures drawn by Fielding in his " Jonathan Wild " and Smollett in his ^' Peregrine Pickle," by Dickens in his " Pickwick Papers," and Besant and Rice in their " Chaplain of the Fleet," do not in any wise exaggerate the awful condition of the English prisons at the time that Raikes began his labour of reform in Gloucester. His earliest efforts were necessarily tentative, and were limited to providing the imprisoned debtors with the necessiries of Hfe ; and for this purpose he made personal application to his friends and addressed the public through the medium of his newspaper. As early as 1768, paragraphs like the following appeared in the Gloucester Journal : — " The prisoners confined in the Castle, without allowance and without the means of subsistence by labour, most humbly entreat some little assistance from those who can pity their wretchedness. The favours they have heretofore received will ever be remembered with gratitude." " ThQ unhappy wretches who are confined in our county gaol for small crimes which are not deemed felonies (for felons have an allowance of bread), are in so deplorable a state that several of them would have perished with hunger but for the humanity of the felons, who have divided with them their little pittance. A person who looked into the prison on Saturday morning was assured that several had not tasted food for two or three days before. Were a county Bridewell established they might then work for their subsistence. The boilings of pots or the sweepings of pantries would be well bestowed on these poor wretches. Benefactions for their use will be received by the printer of this journal." The exertions of Raikes were not contined to the reli«f of the 40 GOOD SAMARITANS. physical distresses of the prisoners ; this Good Samaritan was not less solicitous about their moral and spiritual condition. He supplied them with wholesome reading, and strove to find for them some kind of occupation, knowing the therapeutic value ot honest industry. Dr. Glam tells us that if among the prisoners he found one able to read, he gladly made use of him to instruct his companions, encouraging him to be diligent and faithful in the work by pecuniary rewards. And frequently he had the pleasure ot hearing them thank God that, through their imprisonment, they had had opportunities afforded them of learning that good which otherwise they would probably have never known in their whole lives. The selection of books being carefully made, and religious instruction being blended with secular, the teacher himself was often taught by his teaching others, and the very nature of his employment exercised a salutary influence on his mode of living. But Mr. Raikes did not restrict himself merely to the business of literary improvement; it was part of his object to inspire these men with sentiments of good-will and mutual kindness, to subdue in them that savageness of disposition and behaviour which added to the hardships of their situation. And observing, says Dr. Glam, that idleness was the parent of much mischief among them, " and that they quarrelled with one another because they had nothing else to do, he endeavoured to procure employment for such as were willing, or were permitted, to work." In due time the task of prison reform was undertaken by Howard, who ever found in Raikes a vigorous and appreciative supporter. In 1784, Gloucester Castle and its site were ceded by the Crown to the county of Gloucester, and shortly afterwards,, thanks to the energy of Howard and Sir George Paul, and the cordial co-operation of Raikes, the old county prison was swept away, and a new and commodious one, clean and well-ventilated,, erected in its place. We now come to the work with which Raikes's name is indis- solubly connected. It is true that he was not the " founder of Sunday-schools," if we Hmit the word " founder " to the person who first conceived the idea of imparting instruction to the young on the Lord's Day ; but it was he by whose untiring energy the system was spread over the length and breadth of the EARLY ORIGINATORS OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 41 country. It was he who converted a local practice into a national one. It was he who, finding the institution in existence in a few small towns and villages, recognized its merits, its potency for good, and by his strenuous advocacy of it, secured its adoption throughout the kingdom, by Nonconformists as well as by the Church of England. In the same sense in which we speak of James Watt as the inventor of the steam-engine, or of William Wilberforce as the emancipator of the slaves, we may justly speak of Raikes as the founder of Sunday-schools. As early as the six- teenth century, the sainted Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, established Sunday schools in various parts of his diocese. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, the Rev. Joseph Alleine, of Taunton, a well-known Nonconformist divine, and author of the " Alarm to the Unconverted," introduced the plan into his own congregation. The monument to the memory of Mrs. Catherine Bovey, in Flaxley Church, Gloucestershire, records the fact of her " clothing and feeding her indigent neighbours and teaching their children, some of whom every Sunday by turns she entertained at her house and condescended to examine them her- self. . . . Six of the poor children by turns dined at her residence on Sundays, and were afterwards heard say the Catechism." A Sunday-school was established at Cuttinits, in Yorkshire, in 1764; and another, on an humbler scale, at Little Levor, near Bolton, by a poor man named James Hey, or, as he was popularly called, " Old Jemmy o' th' Hey." " Old Jemmy " spent his week days in winding bobbins for weavers, and his Sundays in teaching the boys and girls of the neighbourhood to read. His scholars, assembled twice each Sunday in a neighbour's cottage ; the hour- of assembling being made known not by a bell, but by an old brass pestle and mortar. Sympathizing with his object, Mr.. Adam Compton, a paper manufacturer, began to supply him with books ; others sent him subscriptions in money ; and he was thus enabled to form three branches, the teachers of which were paid one shilling each per Sunday for their services. Thus, it is evident that Mr. Raikes was not the inventor of Sunday-schools, though he may well claim the honour of having developed the system. It seems certain that, so far as he was concerned, the work came upon him as a necessary sequence of his philanthropic labours in the Gloucester gaols. Painful experience must have taught him 3 42 GOOD SAMARITANS, in what an arduous Sisyphus-like toil he was engaged, while endeavouring to subdue the natures of wretches long inured to fierce and savage habits. Painful experience must have impressed upon him the sluggishness and dulness of scholars unaccustomed to any honest or useful exercise of the mind, and the lack of receptivity on the part even of those who were willing to learn. He must often have reflected on the unwisdom and improvidence of society in allowing the young to grow up in an atmosphere of evil, and have been startled by the ignorance of their most obvious duties displayed by the lower classes. And every Sunday he must have observed with regret that multitudes of the rising generation of the poor were growing up in the same atmosphere, victims of an equal ignorance. " The streets," says his biographer, " were full of noise and disturbance every Sunday, the churches were totally unfrequented by the poorer sort of children, and very ill-attended by their parents : they were nowhere to be seen employed as they ought to be. Had they been disposed to learn or attend to anything that was good, their parents were neither willing nor able to teach 'Or to direct them ; they were therefore a perpetual nuisance to the sober part of the community. They were riotous, impudent, and -regardless of all authority whatsoever in their mode of behaviour, disrespectful in the extreme, and frequently detected in such petty offences as plainly indicated that they were on the high road to perdition, unless something could be done to rescue them. It occurred to him, and to a worthy clergyman (Mr. Stock), to whom he complained of the dissolute state of these poor children, that infinite would be the benefit, to the community as well as to them- selves, if any method could be contrived of laying them under some proper restraint and instilling some good principles into their minds. " The foundation, they well knew, must be laid in the fear and love of God, in a reverence for the duties of religion, and for all things relating to the Divine honour and service. Mr. Raikes soon began to make known his intentions to the parents, and without much difficulty obtained their consent that their children should meet him at the early service performed in the Cathedral on a Sunday morning. The numbers at first were small, but their increase was rapid. The gentleness of his behaviour towards RAIKES' LOVE FOR CHILDREN, 43 them ; the allowance they found him disposed to make for their former misbehaviour, which was merely from a want of a better information ; the amiable picture which he drew for them when he represented kindness and benevolence to each other as the source of real happiness, and wickedness, malice, hatred, and ill-will as the cause of all the misery in the world ; the interest which they soon discovered him to have in their welfare, which appeared in his minute inquiries into their conduct, their attainments, their situ- ation, and every particular of their lives : all these circumstances soon induced them to fly with eagerness to receive the commands and be edified by the instruction of their best friend." The first Sunday-school in Gloucester seems to have been established in St. Catherine's parish by Raikes in the month of July, 1780; and almost at the same time one was opened in St. John's parish by his zealous coadjutor, the Rev. Thomas Stock, M.A., then head-master of the Cathedral Grammar School. **The beginning of the scheme," according to Raikes himself, was owing to accident. Some business leading him one morning into the suburbs of the city, where the lowest of the people, who were principally employed in the pin manufactory, chiefly resided, he was greatly moved by the sight of a group of wretchedly ragged children at play in the streets. He inquired whether the children belonged to that part of the town, and lamented their misery and idleness. "Ah, sir!" replied the woman whom he had been addressing, ** if you could take a view of this part of the town on a Sunday, you would be shocked indeed ; for then the street is filled with multitudes of these wretches, who, released that day from employment, spend their time in noise and riot, playing at • chuck,' and cursing and swearing in a manner so horrid as to convey to any serious mind an idea of hell rather than any other place. We have a worthy clergyman," she con- tinued, " the curate of our parish, who has put some of them to school, but upon the Sabbath day they are all given up to please their own inclinations without restraint, as their parents, totally abandoned themselves, have no idea of instilling into the minds of their children principles to which they themselves are entire strangers." On this hint Raikes acted. The conversation suggested to him the probable advantages of some " little plan " devised to 44 GOOD SAMARITANS. check this deplorable Sabbath desecration. He inquired, there- fore, if there were any decent, well-disposed women in the neigh- bourhood who kept schools for teaching to read. He was told of four ; and with these he made an agreement that they should receive on Sundays as many children as he should send, and instruct them in reading and the Church Catechism. Their remuneration was fixed at one shilling for the day's work. Mr. Raikes afterwards waited on the clergyman (the Rev. Mr. Stock) to whom the old woman had referred, and explained his plan. He was so much pleased with it that he undertook to visit the schools every Sunday afternoon to examine into the progress made, and enforce decorum and order. Out of this arrangement grew what we may designate the Sunday-school proper, established, as we have said, in St. Catherine Street, in July 1780. The second was started by Mr. Stock, in the parish of St. Mary the Crypt ; the third, in St. John the Baptist's ; the fourth, in St. Aldate's ; and several others rapidly sprang up all over the city. In November 1783, the good work which had been so quietly organised was brought to the notice of the public in Mr. Raikes's newspaper. And thence- forward, for several years, he gave it vigorous and efficient journal- istic support. Before the close of 1784, he had stimulated the estabUshment of eleven prosperous Sunday Schools in different parts of Gloucestershire. The beneficial effects were speedily dis- cernible, and called forth a spontaneous tribute of approval from the Gloucestershire magistrates at the Easter Quarter Sessions of 1786. Earl Ducie was soon induced to become their warm and generous patron, under circumstances which Mr. Raikes described in his journal : — " A nobleman," he says, " to whom a title and large estate in this county lately descended, was present at the parish church near his seat a few Sundays ago, where he saw the aisles filled with a great number of the poorest children in the parish. He observed silence and good order prevail among them, and that, at the close of the service, instead of running promiscuously and hastily out of church, they took their ranks and walked in order two and two like a disciplined body, to the number of more than a hundred. Inquiring into this singular regulation, he learnt that with the view to keep the children out of mischief— to which the Sunday was formerly entirely devoted — SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT. 45 the minister of the parish assembled them in Httle seminaries, where the day was spent in the improvement of their mmds, in learning the catechism, and in attending public worship. His lordship inquired how far their general behaviour was affected oy ,this institution, and expressed great pleasure in hearing that a remarkable alteration in their conversation and manners had been the result ; nor were the children alone benefited, for the parents were observed to be less vile and profligate since atten- tion had been paid to the improvement of the children. With this information his lordship appeared sensibly affected, and immediately determined to give the measure all possible coun- tenance and encouragement" By degrees the movement spread beyond the borders of Gloucestershire. Raikes made it known in the Gentleman's Magazine^ also in the European Magazine ; and it so commended itself to good men and women as a simple and effective remedy for a great evil, that it everywhere met with a God-speed. Adam Smith said of it : " No plan has promised to effect a change of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the Apostles." Cowper averred that he knew no nobler means of accomplishing the reformation of the lower classes. John Wesley exclaimed : " I verily think these schools are one of the noblest specimens of charity which have been set on foot in England since the time of William the Conqueror." Bishop Porteous (in 1786) devoted to it an episcopal charge, and vowed that experience had but confirmed the favourable opinion he was originally inclined to entertain of them. " The next generation," he said to his clergy, " if not the present, will probably, in con- sequence of these benevolent exertions of yours, perceive an astonishing change in the manners of the common people. And they who live to see so desirable a reformation will not, I trust, forget (most assuredly your Heavenly Father will not forget) to whose kindness and to whose labours they stand indebted for such substantial benefits." A few years later it was estimated that in the Sunday schools throughout the kingdom were no fewer than 300,000 scholars. The " grain of mustard seed " had extended its branches every- where, and these branches were sound and vigorous. They showed no sign of decay ; it was cl«^ar that they possessed an 46 GOOD SAMARITANS. abundant vitality. Royalty itself took the new movement under its patronage. At Christmas, 1787, Queen Charlotte sent for Mr. Raikes, and desired him to give her an account of its position and of the good it had already effected. The Sunday- schools at Brentford were visited by George III. Literature, as represented by Mrs. Trimmer and Hannah More — two names of far greater influence in their own day than in ours — was highly favourable to it. In 1785 a new impetus was given by the organization, through the exertions of William Fox, Jonas Hanway, Henry Thornton, Samuel Hoare, and other philan thropists, of the " Society for the Establishment and Support of Sunday-schools throughout the Kingdom of Great Britain ; " and the extent of the work done by it may be inferred from the fact that in the first year of its existence it founded five schools in London, and in ten years had distributed 91,915 spelling- books, 24,232 Testaments, and 5,360 Bibles. At first the Sunday school teachers were paid from i^. to 2s, each per Sunday for their services. In many localities the want of funds for this purpose hindered the growth of the schools, and led to the introduction of gratuitous teaching, which may be regarded as having insured the permanent success of the system. A further reform, however, has yet to be effected before it can accomplish all the good that lies within its power, and become as mighty and beneficial a factor in the education of the people as it ought to be, — the teachers must be trained. In 1803 was formed the Sunday School Union; an association still in healthy life, prosperous, and largely helpful in the great work of religious education. It may interest the reader to glance for a moment at the method adopted by Mr. Raikes in the schools under his immediate super- vision. We find it explained in letters addressed to various correspondents. Thus he writes to Colonel Towerley : — " It is now about three years since we began, and I could wish you were here to make enquiry into the effect. A woman who lives in a lane where I had fixed a school told me some time ago that the place was quite a heaven upon Sundays, compared to what it used to be. The numbers who have learnt to read and say their catechism are so great that I am astonished at it Upon the Sunday afternoons the mistresses take their scholars HUMAN BOTANY. 47 to church — a place into which neither they nor their ancestors «?ad ever before entered with a view to the glory of God. But what is yet more extraordinary, within this month these little ragamuffins have in great numbers taken it into their heads to frequent the early morning prayers which are held every morning;,- at the Cathedral at seven o'clock. I believe there were nearly > fifty this morning. They assemble at the house of one of the mistresses, and walk before her to church, two and two, in as much order as a company of soldiers. I am generally at church, and after service they all come round me to make their bow, and, if any animosities have arisen, to make their complaints. The great principle I inculcate is, to be kind and good-natured to each other ; not to provoke one another ; to be dutiful to their parents ; not to offend God by cursing and swearing ; and such little plain precepts as all may comprehend. . . . " The number of children at present thus engaged on the Sabbath is between two and three hundred, and they are increas ing every week, as the benefit is universally seen. I have endeavoured to engage the clergy of my acquaintance that reside in their parishes. One has entered into the scheme with great fervour. . . . " I cannot express to you the pleasure I often receive in dis- covering genius and innate good dispositions among this little multitude. It is botanizing in human nature. I have often, too, the satisfaction of receiving thanks from parents for the reforma- tion they perceive in their children. . . . "With regard to the rules adopted, I only require that they may come to the school on Sunday as clean as possible. Many were at first deterred because they wanted decent clothing, but I could not undertake to supply this defect ; I argue, therefore, * If you can loiter about without shoes and in a ragged coat, you may as well come to school and learn what may tend to your good in that garb. I reject none on that footing. All that I require are clean hands, clean face, and your hair combed. I you have no clean shirt, come in that you have on.' The want of decent apparel at first kept great numbers at a distance ; but they now begin to grow wiser, and all press in to learn. I have the good luck to procure places for some that were deserving, which has been of great use. You will understand that these 48 GOOD SAMARITANS. children are from six years old to twelve or fourteen. Boys and girls above this age, who have been totally undisciplined, are generally too refractory for this government." To a Mrs. Harris he writes : — " In answer to your queries, I shall, as concisely as possible, state — that I endeavour to assemble the children as early as is consistent with their perfect cleanliness — an indispensable rule ; the hour prescribed in our rules is eight o'clock, but it is usually half-after eight before our flock is collected. Twenty is the number allotted to each teacher ; the sexes kept separate. The twenty are divided into four classes. " The children who show any superiority in their attainments are placed as leaders of the several classes, and are employed in teaching the others their letters, or in hearing them read in a low whisper, which may be done without interrupting the master oi mistress in their business, and will keep the attention of the children engaged, that they do not play or make a noise. Their attending the service of the church once a day has, to me, seemed sufficient ; for their time may be spent more profitably, perhap*?. in receiving instruction than in being present at a long discourse, which their minds are not yet able to comprehend ; but people may think diff'erently on this point. . . . " To those children who distinguish themselves as examples of diligence, quietness of behaviour, observance of order, kindness to their companions, etc., etc., I give some little tokens of my regard, as a pair of shoes if they are barefooted, and some who are very bare of apparel I clothe. Besides, I frequently go round to their habitations, to inquire into their behaviour at home, and into the conduct of the parents, to whom I give some little hints now and then, as well as to the children." Many interesting anecdotes, bearing on the relations which existed between Mr. Raikes and his scholars, have been pre- served ; we can spare room for only one or two. The following was related by Raikes himself. One day, as he was churchward bound, he overtook a soldier, as he was about to enter the church door, and remarked that it gave him much pleasure to see him attending a place of worship. " Ah, sir," was the reply, " I may thank you for that." " Me ? " said Mr. Raikes, "why, I don't know that I ever saw vou before." SOME RESULTS OF TFIE GOOD WORK, 49 ^'- Sir," answered the soldier, " when I was a little boy, I was indebted to you for my first instruction in my duty. I used to meet you at the morning service in this Cathedral, and was one of your Sunday scholars. My father, when he left this city, took me into Berkshire, and put me apprentice to a shoemaker. I used often to think of you. At length I went to London, and was there drawn to serve as a militiaman in the Westminster militia. I came to Gloucester last night with a deserter, and took I he opportunity of coming this morning to visit the old spot, and in hope of once more seeing you." He then told Mr. Raikes his name, and reminded him of a curious circumstance which had occurred while he was at school. His father was a journey- man currier, and a vicious and profligate character. After the boy had been for some time at school, he went to Mr. Raikes one day, to tell him that his father was wonderfully changed, and that he had left off going to the alehouse on a Sunday. It happened soon afterwards that Mr. Raikes met the man in the street, and said to him : " My friend, it gives me great pleasure CO hear that you have left off going to the alehouse on the 5unday ; your son tells me that you now stay at home, and never get tipsy." He immediately replied that the change had been wrought by Mr. Raikes : not, indeed, that Mr. Raikes had ever spoken to him before, but that the good instruction afforded to his son at the Sunday-school the boy had carefully repeated to him ; and that in this way he had been so convinced of the error of his former mode of life as to have determined on a refor- mation. A striking story of one of Raikes's scholars, published originally in a pamphlet entitled "The Sea Boy's Grave," is repeated by Mr. Gregory. The writer states that he once sailed home from the West Indies in a ship, which included among her crew a notoriously wicked sailor, and a cabin boy who had been trained in one of Raikes's Gloucester schools. The boy's name was Pelham, but he was known among the crew, perhaps from his frequent refer- ences to his philanthropic patron, as "Jack Raikes." In the course of the voyage the sailor was smitten with fever, and as he grew rapidly worse it was apprehended that he would die in his impenitence. Jack Raikes, however, obtained leave to nurse 50 GOOD SAMARITANS. him. He watched over him with assiduous care, told him of the Saviour of whom he had learned at school, and prayed with him strenuously and earnestly for salvation in the Saviour's name. After awhile the hard heart yielded, and the sins of a misspent life were lamented with sincere contrition ; the poor creature learned the sweet consciousness of his Master's loving forgiveness, and rested in the hope of eternal happiness with the Father. A few days afterwards the ship was overtaken by a violent storm, which cast her on a rock off the northern coast of Scotland, and shattered her into a hopeless wreck. As a last chance, the sailors took to the boats ; but the one on board of which Jack Raikes found a place was capsized by the breakers, and next morning his body was thrown up on the neighbouring shore. The writer of the narrative, who got safely to land with a spar to which he had lashed himself, describes with touching simplicity the appearance of poor Jack as he saw him lying, with the other victims of the wreck, on the floor of the alehouse : — " His countenance wore a sweet and heavenly expression, and^ stooping down, I robbed his bare head of a little lock of auburn hair that lay upon his temple. His effects — alas ! how poor, and yet how rich — were spread upon the table in the room, and con- sisted of a little leather purse in which were a well-kept half-crown and a solitary sixpence. His Bible, which he had ever counted his chief riches, and from which he had derived treasures of wisdom, was placed by his side. I took it up, and observed engraved on its clasps of brass these words : * The gift of Robert Raikes to J. R. Pelham.' ' Oh, Raikes,' thought I, * this is one gem of purest light indeed ; still, it is but one of the many thousand gems which shall encircle thy radiant head in that day when the Lord of Hosts shall make up His jewels.' " One last illustration of Raikes's work shall be a set of rules- which he printed in 1784, for use in the Stroud Sunday-schools. They will have an interest for Sunday-school managers and teachers in comparison with the rules and regulations now in vogue. I. The master (or dame) appointed by the subscribers shall attend (at his or her own house) every Sunday morning during the summer from 8 till 10.30, and every Sunday evening during RULES FOR THE STROUD SCHOOLS. 51 the summer (except the second in every month) from 5.30 till 8 o'clock, to teach reading, the Church Catechism, and some short prayers from a little collection by Dr. Stonehouse ; and also to read (or have read by some of those who attend, if any can do it sufficiently) three or four chapters of the Bible in succession, that people may have connected ideas of the history and consistency of the Scriptures. II. The persons to be taught are chiefly the young, who are past the usual age of admission to the weekly schools, and by being obliged to labour for their maintenance, cannot find time to attend them. But grown persons that cannot read, who are desirous of hearing God's Word, and wish to learn that excellent short account of the faith and practice of a Christian, the Church Catechism, are desired to attend, and endeavour to learn, by hearing the younger taught and instructed. III. Some of the subscribers will in turn visit these schools to see that their design is duly pursued, and give some little reward to the first, second, and third most deserving in each school IV. The subscribers will keep a blank book, in which shall be entered the names of all those parents, and other persons, who having need of these helps, neglect to send their children, or to attend ; and of those who behave improperly when they attend ; with intent that they may be excluded from the alms and other charitable assistance of the benevolent. Those who will take no care of their own souls, deserve not that others should take care of their bodies. V. All that attend these schools shall, as much as may be, attend the public worship both morning and afternoon on Sunday ; and shall assemble at church on the second evening of every month at six o'clock, to be examined, and to hear a plain exposi- tion of the Catechism, which the minister will endeavour to give them. In explanation of these rules we have an account of the way in which they were worked at Stroud : — * As an early habit of reverencing and rightly using the Sabbath must be laid in the rising generation, as one of the foundation * Quoted by Mr. Gregory, pp. 137, 138. Our sketch is mainly founded or Mr. Gregory's interesting narrative (edit. 1880). 52 GOOD SAMARITANS. stones of that reformation devoutly wished for by all serious persons, the attendance on public worship is particularly insisted on. To promote which some of the rewards to be given are the most necessary articles of apparel ; and through the failure of the clothing manufacture in this county, these are wanting to many who do, and to more that would, attend these schools. Some of the children who are brought up to other communions are en- joined to attend their respective places of worship constantly and devoutly, and required to give an account of the preacher's text. The other rewards are Bibles of different sizes, New Testaments, Dr. Stonehouse's " Prayers for Private Persons and Families " (see Rule I.) ; " Admonitions against Swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and Drunkenness " ; Catechisms, and papers of Hymns. The time before Divine service in the morning is employed in learning to spell and read. The reading in the evening is performed by those who can read fluently, as it is intended for the edification of all. The rules are read every Sunday evening as soon as the children are assembled. After reading three, four, or five chapters of the Bible (more or less, as the connection of the passage may require), the prayers are repeated. The youngest are taught, first. Dr. Watts's Short Prayers, pages 42 and 43 of the above-mentioned collection ; when they are perfect in these, they learn the additions to them ; and persons of more advanced age learn the longer prayers of Bishop Wilson and Bishop Gibson. While one is speaking aloud the prayer, or answer of the Catechism, all the rest are required to repeat the same in a whisper; by which inattention and trifling are in a great measure prevented, and a rapid progress is made in fixing what is to be learned in the memory. The minister and some of the subscribers attend one of these schools every Sunday evening, and make such familiar observations on the Scripture and catechism as they think adapted to such young minds. The most deficient scholars attend one or two other evenings in the week, for about two hours, at the house of the master or dame. The teachers are sober, serious persons, whose conscientious assiduity may be depended on, and whose indigent circumstances make the moderate pay of one shilling per Sunday an acceptable recompense. But we must pass on to the close of Mr. Raikes's useful and benevolent career. His closing: years were crowned with many THE MONITORIAL OR '^ LANCASTRIAN* iiY^STJim, 53 blessings : home happiness, a competency, and the respect and esteem of all good men. No person of mark visited Gloucester without paying a visit to the " Founder of Sunday-schools," and as he possessed a liberal and generous temper, he delighted in dispensing his hospitality. Miss Burney, who accompanied the King and Queen on their pilgrimage to Gloucester, in July 1788, speaks of him as "witty, benevolent, good-natured, and good- hearted ; " and these admirable qualities may surely be accepted as more than a sufficient counterbalance for the volubility and egotism of which she accuses him. That he was not without grave faults may very well be believed ; that he was not endowed with any special intellectual gifts is certain ; but it is no less certain that he spent his life in doing good ; so he may well be quoted as an example of what may be accomplished by a man of ordinary parts,, if he be diligent, enthusiastic, and in earnest. At the age of sixty-seven, Raikes retired from business, but he lived for about nine years to enjoy a well-earned leisure surrounded by his family and friends. For some time before his decease, his. health declined rapidly, and he lost his wonted strength and elasticity ; but his end was wholly unexpected when it came upon him suddenly, on the evening of April 5th, 181 1. He was then in the seventy-sixth year of his age. A great advance was made towards a scheme of national education, some ten or twelve years after the foundation of Sunday schools, by the introduction of what is variously known as the Madras, the Monitorial, or the Lancastrian System. A national policy of education must be founded on the two great principles of efficiency and economy, and these principles imply the existence of a large body of trained teachers, whose services shall be available at a very moderate rate of remuneration. If the labours of a master be limited to a few pupils, they will necessarily be expensive ; if they be divided among a very large number, they will necessarily be ineffective. To meet this patent difficulty, which greatly impeded the progress of parochial and other cheap schools, it occurred to Dr. Bell, when superintendent of the Orphan Hospital at Madras, in 1793, to employ the elder and more advanced pupils in the school to instruct the younger. These youthful teachers were called monitors. In England a 54 GOOD SAMARITANS. similar method was adopted by Joseph Lancaster, a young Quaker, who threw himself into educational reform with equal vigour and ability. It soon sprang into popularity, its advantages were so obvious. A single adult superintendent could undertake the direction of 300 or 400 pupils, when assisted by the older and cleverer boys; while at the same time these boys were being subjected to a very useful training, both intellectually and morally. Not that the monitors could " teach," in the higher and better sense of the word, but they could assist in the organization and government of the school, they could instruct in elementary sub- jects, and they could supervise the work of the junior classes under the master's direction. In this way boys naturally gifted for the scholastic profession receive the necessary discipline, and paid monitors and pupil teachers now form a regular and recognised part of the organization of our public schools. Joseph Lancaster was a native of London, and born in 1778. He is generally spoken of as springing from a Quaker stock ; but some authorities contend that his father was at one time in the Household Guards. When about nineteen years old, he began to take a lively interest in the education of the masses, and anxious to do what he could in his own small sphere, he rented a room from his father in the Borough Road, Southwark, fitted it up for the purposes of a school, and gradually collecting about 90 or 100 children, addressed himself to the task of teaching them. Whether he derived any hints from a pamphlet published by Dr. Bell, in 1797, or whether the necessity of his position evolved the idea, does not seem decided, and is of trivial importance. At all events, he applied the monitorial system, and by its aid was enabled to deal with constantly increasing numbers of pupils. The success of his plan soon drew the attention of the friends of education, and among others of the Duke of Bedford, through whose influence Lancaster was admitted to the presence of George III., in 1805. The King listened with interest to his exposition, and uttered the celebrated wish " that every poor child in his dominions might be able to read the Bible," a wish which at this day seems within measurable distance of fulfilment. The British and Foreign School Society, established about this time, adopted the Lancastrian system ; in the Church, or " National " schools, Dr. Bell's, which differed in some of its details, was gene- DEATH OF LANCASTER. 55 rally used. But the progress of popular education was retarded by many obstacles, and more particularly by the jealous igno- rance of the higher orders ; so that, in 1818, in spite of Lancaster's efforts, and the exertions of societies and private individuals, not more than 175,000 scholars were receiving gratuitous or partly gratuitous instruction. But, as Henry Brougham said, "the schoolmaster was abroad;" and an impetus had been communicated to the great cause of National Education which it never afterwards lost. As for Lancaster, like too many other reformers, he fell upon evil days. His zeal for the public weal devoured his private interests ; and after several years of energetic educational work, which exhausted his pecuniary resources, he became insolvent in 1812. Six years later, he removed to the United States, and in 1829 crossed into Canada, always toiling unselfishly in the sacred cause to which he had devoted the energies of a life. His method was everywhere adopted, — but he himself was forgotten, and he died at New York in great poverty in 1838. If too much importance were at first attached to the Lancastrian plan of mutual education, its influence was unquestionably favourable to the foundation of schools by societies and indivi- duals; and in conjunction with the Sunday-school system, it helped to fix the attention of statesmen on the necessity of educat- ing the masses. In 1807 Mr. Whitbread reminded the House of Commons that the education of the people is the best security of a popular government. What a desperate weapon, he exclaimed, was ignorance in the hand of craft ! But how important did craft become before an instructed and enlightened people ! " In the adoption of a national system of education," he said, " I foresee an enlightened peasantry, frugal, industrious, sober, orderly, and contented; because they are acquainted with the true value of frugality, sobriety, industry, and order. Crimes diminishing, because the enlightened understanding abhors crime. The practice of Christianity prevailing, because the mass of your popu- lation can read, comprehend, and feel its divine origin, and the beauties of the doctrines which it inculcates. Your kingdom safe from the insults of the enemy, because every man knows the worth of that which he is called upon to defend." Nothing was done, however, in the direction indicated by these GOOD SAMARITANS, eloquent and sagacious utterances until, in 1816, Mr. Brougham,, whose services in the cause of national education may well induce us to forget or forgive his political eccentricities, procured from the House of Commons the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the educational condition of the poorer classes in London, Westminster, and Southwark. The inquiries of this committee disclosed the startling fact that a hundred and twenty thousand children in the metropolis were without the means of education. In 1818, the committee was re-appointed with power to extend its investigations over a wider area. But its labours met with the most uncompromising opposition ; and Mr. Brougham and his colleagues, because they sought to raise the poor out of the slough of ignorance and vice into which the neglect of the rich had allowed them to fall, were accused of undermining the foundations of social order. Referring to this controversy, in 1835, when men's thoughts and feelings had undergone a salutary change, Brougham rejoiced very naturally in the great progress that had been made. " That bitter controversy," he said, " is at an end — the heats which it kindled are extinguished — the matter that engendered those heats finds equal acceptance with all parties. . . . Those who once held that the Education Committee was puUing down the Church by pulling down the universities and the great schools — that my only design could be to raise some strange edifice of power upon the ruins of all our institutions, ecclesiastical and civil — have long ceased to utter even a whisper against whatever was then accomplished, and have become my active coadjutors ever since. Nay, the very history of that fierce contention is forgotten. There are i^^ now aware of a controversy having ever existed which, a few years back, agitated all men all over the country ; and the measures I then propounded among revilings and execrations, have long since become the law of the land. I doubt whether, at this moment, there are above some half-dozen of your lordships who recollect anything about a war- fare which for months raged with unabated fury — which seemed to absorb all men's attention, and to make one class apprehend the utter destruction of our political system, while it filled others with alarm lest a stop should be put to the advancement of the human mind. That all those violent animosities should have passed away, and that all those alarms be now sunk in oblivion, aff^ords a BROUGHAM'S SCHEME OF EDUCATION. 57 memorable instance of the strange aberrations — I will not say of public opinion, but — of party feeling, in which the history of con- troversy so largely abounds." For twenty years, however, the cause of national education made but small progress in the legislature. The reports of the Education Committee show that a large proportion of the children of the country were being allowed to grow up in igno- rance. In 18,500 schools, 644,000 children were supposed to put in an attendance: of this number 166,000 were educated at endowed schools, and 478,000 at unendowed schools, on the week days. There were 452,000 children at 5,000 Sunday- schools ; but we must not forget that a considerable proportion of these children were included in the returns of the secular schools. The first practical scheme of national education was brought before Parliament and the people by Henry Brougham, on the 29th of June, 1820. In introducing it, he stated that the children requiring means of education were about one-tenth of the whole population in England, whereas the facilities provided were sufficient for only one-sixteenth ; while if the number were, deducted of those who received merely a decent training in regard to habits, such as the dame-schools and other inferior- schools afforded, the amount of effectual teaching would be- deplorably reduced. Large districts were destitute of all means of instruction whatever; in others, the sole reliance was the- Sunday-schools of the Nonconformists. In the plan which he submitted, Brougham provided that all schoolmasters should be- members of the Established Church ; that they should be elected, on the recommendation of clergymen, together with that o£ resident householders ; and that they should qualify for office bp taking the sacrament within a month of their appointment. These.- restrictions were immediately fatal to the measure, which was vehemently opposed by Nonconformists on the ground that it placed' the education of the poor entirely in the hands of the Church of England. A similar difficulty overthrew every scheme of national education proposed during succeeding years ; the members of the Established Church insisting upon direct religious instruction, and the Dissenters refusing either to place the reli- gious instruction of their children in the hands of the Church, 4 58 GOOD SAMARITANS. or to pay for a system from which their children were necessarily excluded. Brougham's measure was dropped, after the first read- ing of the Bill ; but it accomplished a good work by awakening the mind of the nation to a subject of the highest importance, and it should always be respectfully remembered as the first express move in the direction of national education on a uniform system. In 1823 was founded the London Mechanics' Institute, the parent of a large and flourishing progeny which have done much for the enlightenment of artisans and operatives, and the middle classes generally. It is obvious that the members of these in- stitutions, which are now to be found in every town and suburban village, must be taught to appreciate to some extent the value ol intellectual culture, and thus be led to desire the advantages ol education for their children. When originally established, they were designed simply to supply facilities for obtaining knowledge to working-men, but they achieved, indirectly, an even more important object by elevating the idea of education in the mind of the people. They taught the masses to feel that knowledge -was a thing to be loved and desired. They inculcated a sense of the value of refinement, and did much to exalt the popular standard of social morality. In their different districts they con- stituted so many centres, whence radiated a wave of intellectual life. To Dr. Birkbeck belongs the honour of having originated these institutions. He had been preparing the way by bringing to- gether classes and audiences of working-men for instruction by lectures, direct tuition, and mutual communication. His leading motive, and that of his coadjutors, was, to rouse the people to educate themselves, and not to depend upon the patronage of the wealthy or the assistance of the State. The response was immediate and enthusiastic, for his plan came just in time to meet an urgent need. Leaders were found in men of influence, character, and ability; mechanics, operatives, tradesmen, pre- sented themselves as followers. In a short time, many large towns, such as Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool, opened Mechanics' Institutes, and gradually they spread into the central settlements of the rural districts, everywhere awakening a new spirit, and clearing the ground for the future establishment of a comprehensive national system of education. THE ''SIXPENNY SCIENCES:' 59 Mr. Constable, the Edinburgh publisher, meditated, in 1826, "nothing less than a total revolution in the art and traffic of Dookselling." He proposed to issue *'a three shilling or half- crown volume every month, which must and should sell, not by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands — ay, by millions." But the sale of his "Miscellany," a very superior collection, was numbered only by hundreds, and the enterprising publisher was ruined by his speculation. In 1827, the "Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,"* founded by the energy of Brougham, Tooke, Charles Knight, and others, began the publication of their sixpenny treatises, ridiculed by the wits of the day as the " Sixpenny Sciences," — a series of really excellent manuals, but still far from realizing the wants of the masses in the combination of cheapness and goodness. In 1828 was opened the " London University," though it did not succeed in obtaining a charter of incorporation until 1835. It differed from the old universities in not requiring a residential qualification from its members, and in excluding religious subjects from its curriculum. In truth, it is simply a great examining corporation, which grants its degrees and honours to all students who pass its examinations under the prescribed conditions. As such, its in- fluence has been immense, and it has forced the older universities * "The institution of this society was an important feature of its times, and •one of the honours belonging to the reign of George IV. It did not succeed in all its professed objects ; it did not give to the operative classes of Great Britain a library of the elements of all sciences ; it omitted some of the most important of the sciences, and with regard to some others presented anything rather than the elements. It did not fully penetrate the masses that most needed aid. But it established the principle and precedent of cheap publi- cation — cheapness including goodness — stimulated the demand for sound infor- mation, and the power and inclination to supply that demand, and marked a great era in the history of popular enlightenment. Bodies of men are never so wise and so good as their aggregate of individual wisdom and goodness pledges them to be ; and this society disappointed the expectations of the public and of their own friends, in many ways ; but this was because the con- ception and its earliest aspirations were so noble as they were ; and it is with the conception and original aspiration, that, in reviewing the spirit of the period, we have to do. Any work suggested is sure to find doers, — one set, if not another ; it is the suggestion that is all-important in the history of the time." — Harriet Martineau, History of the Peace, iii., 347, 348. 6o GOOD SAMARITANS. into the adoption of a more liberal and comprehensive policy, while it has promoted the adoption of the principle of com- petitive examinations in all our educational institutions. In 1832, the issue of the Penny Magazine and of Chambers's Journal inaugurated — to use an objectionable yet convenient word— that movement of cheap literature which, in our own time, has attained such extensive proportions. The Penny Magazine rose at once to a circulation of nearly 200,000 copies per week, and drove out of the field the vulgar and immoral trash which had previously degraded the mind of the people. The first parHamentary grant in aid of education was voted in 1834. It was only for ^20,000; but it was a beginning, and through subsequent years the same amount was contributed until, in 1839,. it was raised to ;^3o,ooo. The grant was distributed in different proportions through the National School Association, which was in strict connection with the Church of England ; and the British and Foreign School Society, which admitted children of all denominations, but imposed upon them no sectarian instruction. The principle adopted — an erroneous one, because it gave aid where aid was least needed — was, to assist applicants in propor- tion to the sums those applicants themselves could raise for the building of school-houses. Experience proving the futility of this method of procedure, the Educational Committee of the Privy Council resolved that it should not be insisted upon, if applications for help came from very poor and populous districts, where no adequate amount of subscriptions was forthcoming. But still no thought was given to the desolate districts which lay in the two-fold gloom of utter poverty and ignorance. A beneficent work, accompHshed at this time, was the establish- ment and organization of a Normal School, from which might descend "long generations of schools" for the training of teachers. Parliament, in 1835, voted a special sum of ;^'" 10,000 for this object. In 1839, by an Order in Council, the management of the educa- tion fund was vested in a Committee of the Privy Council. Thus unpretentiously was established the Education Department of the Government, which now administers the control and supervision of the national system of education. To what an extent its work gradually increased we may judge from the rapid growth of the ENLARGEMENT OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 6i funds voted by Parliament; in 1852, the annual grant was ^150,000; in 1856-7, it had risen to ^451,213; in 1864, to ;^705,404. In 1872, the grant for education, science, and art was ;£i, 55 1,560. For some years the clergy, with exceptions, refused to allow their schools to participate in these annual benefactions ; and a long quarrel was maintained between the Church and the State in regard to the principles on which they were distributed. One good result of a controversy, unfortunate in itself, was the strong and successful effort made by the clergy to extend and improve the National Schools, which thenceforth played an important part in the education of the poor. The larger measure of attention which this great subject, a subject immediately affecting the most vital interests of the nation, was every day receiving, was shown by the introduction, in 1843, of 2. ministerial scheme. As explained by Sir James Graham, it proposed that factory children between the ages of eight and thirteen should not work for more than six hours and a half daily ; that they should be compelled to attend schools provided for the purpose ; the children of Churchmen, Catholics, and Dissenters being committed, for certain prescribed hours in every week, to the charge of their respective pastors, to be instructed according to the religious belief of their neighbours. The scheme was enlarged so as to include all pauper children in the towns, and all other children whose parents consented to their entering the schools. In this way the larger proportion of children then uneducated would have been provided for; while the Government held out a distinct promise of an early extension of the system, with the view of including the neglected part of the agricultural population. But a feature of the Government measure was the appointment of seven trustees to each school : four of whom were to be elective, but the other three were required to be the clergyman of the district and two church- wardens. As it was apprehended that this would yield a majority of Church trustees over Dissenters, the Nonconforming bodies initiated a strenuous resistance to the measure, and event- ually succeeded in forcing the Government to withdraw it. The nation, through this inopportune display of bigotry, was com pelled to wait seven-and-twenty years for a liberal system 01 national education. 62 GOOD SAMARITANS. Writing in 1846, Miss Harriet Martineau, a dispassionate and intelligent observer, presents us with her view of the educational " situation " at that date. " We have witnessed," she remarks, "the rise and progress of Mechanics' Institutes. We have seen a small beginning made of a State education of children. A very small beginning it was — the whole sum of parliamentary grants not yet reaching half a million. There has been a great amount of virtuous voluntary effort among Churchmen, Dissenters, employers of labour, and a multitude who were ready to aid; but there are bounds to the ability of individuals ; and it cannot, in the nature of things, go on expanding in proportion to that ever-growing need. Again, the quality of the education given by private efforts is a very uncertain matter. It can rarely be so good as that which is planned from the united wisdom of a people, and it is apt to be of a very low order. The sectarian spirit which is the curse of English Society has therefore con- demned the children of the nation to a defective education, or to total ignorance. While in no department of benevolent action has there been more energy and good-will than in extending education, in none are we more behind the needs of the time. We shall not be safe, morally, politically, or economically, till we join in agreeing that, as each Church cannot have its own way, nor any one, even though it be the EstabUshed Church, we must avert the evil of ignorance in the largest class of the people, by throwing open to all means, of sound moral and intellectual edu- cation, leaving the religious instruction and training to the pastors or guardians of the people." We quote these words for two reasons : first, in order that the reader may see what cause there is for thankfulness in the vast educational progress that 'has taken place since they were written ; and, second, because our national system is based upon the too narrow principle enunciated in the last sentence. All that the State professes to do is to encourage the moral and intellec- tual culture of its children ; their religious training it puts aside as a matter for private effort. It makes no attempt to bring them up as Episcopalians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Catholics, but as honest and efficient members of the commonwealth, capable of contributing by their exertions to the national wealth, and of securing their own livelihoods. Farther than this the THE ''REVISED CODE." 6% .State does not go ; though perhaps it might go farther without offence to the law of rehgious liberty. A movement on the part of the State which has exercised a far-reaching influence took place in 1 861-2, when, acting upon the report of an educational commission, appointed in 1858, the Committee of the Privy Council on Education issued a *' Revised Code " of regulations, providing, in all schools assisted by Government grants, for regular examinations of the pupils, pay- ment by results, evening schools for adults, and other technical improvements. In the following year another step was made; a " conscience clause " being added to the Code, which allowed for the admission of children of Dissenters into the aid-supported schools, by exempting them from religious teaching and attend- ance at public worship. In 1867, Earl Russell introduced into the House of Lords a resolution which asserted the plain truth that every child has a right to education, and recommended the appointment of a Minister of Education, with a seat in the Cabinet. The resolution was withdrawn ; but the discussion which it excited was satis- factory, from the testimony it bore to the advanced views on the subject that were rapidly finding acceptance. It began to be felt that the time had come when the State must act with energy and courage ; that the safety, prosperity, and honour of England de- manded the establishment of a national system of education. This fact was so apparent that in March 1868 the Dake of Marlborough brought before the House of Lords a Public Ele- mentary Education Bill ; but it was framed on too narrow a scale to win for it any general support, and its sponsor hastened to with- draw it. The movement received an additional impetus from the formation, in October 1869, of the National Education League, with the view of advocating compulsory secular education by the State. At length, in 1870, the problem was ripe for solution, and Mr. Gladstone's government undertook to solve it. Their *' Elemen- tary Education Bill " was introduced into the House of Common on the 17th of February. It provoked — as any Bill on such a subject was sure to do — a considerable amount of vehement oppo- sition ; the Church party not unnaturally objecting to a measure which contained no distinct provision for religious instruction, and the Nonconformists contending that it dealt too favourably 64 GOOD SAMARITANS, with the Church schools. Moderate men, however, on both sides, acknowledged that it was a fair, a judicious, and an en- lightened attempt to settle, upon broad and intelligible principles, a difficult subject. It passed through both Houses by large majorities, and received the royal assent on the 9th of August. It underwent some amendments in the direction of greater libe- rality of spirit, in the session of 1872, and has since been left, un- challenged, to do its great and good work. Briefly speaking, it provides for the formation of rate supported schools in every district where sufficient school accommodation is not furnished by voluntary effort, and places their management in the hands of a School Board, whose members are triennially elected by the rate- payers. These schools share in the annual State grants according to the proficiency of their pupils and the general excellence of their organization. The Boards are armed with powers to compel the attendance at school of any child whose parents or guardians fail to supply him with due educational facilities. Thus, a really national education is at length being supplied, and in another gene- ration an absolutely ignorant man or woman will hardly exist upon English ground. The instruction given is sound and broad : is re- gulated in accordance with the Revised Code (which is constantly undergoing amendment) of the Education Committee of the Privy Council ; it affords the industrious pupil abundant means of equip- ping himself with the weapons which in the battle of life ensure success. The State has now only to draw up and set in motion a scheme of Secondary Education, and in another quarter of a century the power and capacities of the nation will almost be doubled by the skilled labour of its trained and educated children. Mean- while, what is also wanted is the infusion of a religious spirit into our educational methods. At present, they are adapted, no doubt, to communicate a considerable amount of exact information to inquiring minds ; but they do not aim at producing Christian men, who will live pure and manly lives, and resolutely endeavour to accomplish their proper work in the economy of life. For the high object of all rightly-conceived education will be, to fit us for the performance of our duty, with all those faculties of intellect, soul, and body which we have received from the Creator. "Duty ! " Ay ; that, as George Wilson says, is " the biggest word in the world ; " and should be uppermost in all our serious CONDITION OF ENDOWED SCHOOLS. 65 doings. Education is successful or unsuccessful just in propor- tion as it trains us to feel and appreciate the responsibilities of our manhood, and to apply ourselves to discharging them nobly. " A sacred burden is the life ye bear ; Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly ; Stand up and walk beneath it stedfastly." We turn now to another branch of our subject. " Those," says Dean Stanley, " who look back upon the state of English education in the year 1827, must remember how the feeling of dissatisfaction with existing institutions which had begun in many quarters to display itself, had already directed considerable attention to the condition of public schools," — that is, the great endowed schools and grammar schools which we owe to the liberal wisdom of our ancestors. " The range of classical learning, in itself confined, and with no admixture of other information, had been subject to vehement attacks from the liberal party generally, on the ground of its alleged narrow- ness and inutility. And the more undoubted evil of the absence of systematic attempts to give a more directly Christian character to what constituted the education of the sons of the whole English aristocracy, was becoming more and more a scandal in the eyes of religious men, who at the close of the last century and the beginning of this — Wiiberforce, for example, and Bowdler — had lifted up their voices against it. A complete reformation, or a complete destruction of the whole system, seemed to many persons sooner or later to be inevitable. The iifficulty, however, of making the first step, where the alleged objection to alteration was its impracticability, was not to be easily surmounted. The mere resistance to change which clings to old institutions, was in itself a considerable obstacle, and in the case of some of the public schools, from the nature of their constitution, in the first instance almost insuperable ; and whether amongst those who were engaged in the existing system, or those who were most vehemently opposed to it, for opposite but obvious reasons, it must have been extremely difficult to find a man who would attempt, or if he attempted carry through, any extensive improvement." That man, however, eventually made his appearance in the 66 GOOD SAMARITANS. person of Dr. Thomas Arnold, head master of Rugby; a man who stands foremost among the educational reformers of England, who has stamped the impress of his genius on the higher educa- tion of the age, and by his teaching and example raised up a succession of philosophical educationists, — a man who possessed all the most distinctive qualifications of statesmanship, and used them for the benefit of the boys of a public school. By not a few the apparent incongruity of a man fit to be a statesman being employed in teaching schoolboys was felt and denounced ; but no such incongruity was felt by Arnold himself. He took a high and serious view of the responsibilities of tuition, and held the opinion that no intellectual gifts could be too fine or too abundant for the adequate fulfilment of the work of the school- master, which, in his eyes, was almost too great a burden for humanity to bear. For that work, as Arnold understood it, included the development and elevation of the character, the discipline of the heart, the purification of the soul, as well as the cultivation of the mind. We cannot do better than leave him , to describe in his own simple but forcible words the qualifications which he deemed essential to the due discharge of a master's solemn task : *' They may," he says, ** in brief be expressed as the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman, — that a man should enter upon his business not ef -n-apepyov, but as a substantive and most important duty ; that he should devote himself to it as the especial branch of the ministerial calling which he has chosen to follow — that belonging to a great public institution, and standing in a public and conspicuous situation, he should study ' things lovely and of good report ; ' that is, that he should be pub- lic-spirited, Hberal, and entering heartily into the interest, honour, and general respectability and distinction of the society which he has joined ; and that he should have sufificient vigour of mind and thirst for knowledge, to persist in adding to his own stores without neglecting the full improvement of those whom he is teaching." A brief sketch of the life of this great educational reformer cannot fail, I think, to be of interest to the reader, whom it may lead on to the study of Dr. Arnold's vioble biography. Thomas Arnold was born at Slatwoods, near East Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, on the 13th of June, 1795, ^"^ named after DR, THOMAS ARNOLD. 67 Thomas, Lord Bolton, then governor of the island. His father, who came of an old Suffolk family, was collector of customs for the port of Cowes. Afier being educated at Warminster and Winchester, he entered the University of Oxford in 181 1. At the degree examination in 1S14 he took a first-class ; and in the following year was elected Fellow of Oriel College. Here he mixed on intimate terms of friendship and sympathy with m.any men who, in after years, exercised a large and permanent influence upon English thought, — with the late Sir John Coleridge, Keble, Whately, Hawkins, Hampden, and Copleston. These friends speak of him as distinguished by the frankness and simplicity of his manners ; the vigour and activity of his mind ; the zeal with which he accumulated knowledge, and his delight in dialectics, philosophy, and history. He is described as having been vehement and almost presumptuously bold in argument ; as of a quick temper, easily roused to indignation, yet more easily appeased, and absolutely without bitterness ; as angered rather by what he deemed unjust or ungenerous to others, than by any sense of personal wrong ; as showing somewhat too little deference to authority, yet, without any real inconsistency, an ardent admirer of what was good and great in antiquity, partly because it was ancient ; as in heart devout and pure, generous, sincere, affectionate, and faithful. Altogether a noble and lovable character, though not without its superficial flaws. In 1819 Arnold settled at Laleham, near Staines, in Middlesex; took unto himself a wife, Mary, daughter of the Rev. John Pen- rose, a Nottinghamshire rector, and began to receive pupils to prepare for the Universities. Prior to his marriage he was admitted into the diaconate of the Church of England ; but, owing to the conscientious scruples he entertained in reference to some portions of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Athanasian Creed, he delayed taking priest's orders until 1828. He remained at Laleham for nine years, and six of his children were born there. They were years of great domestic happiness and of assiduous study. He loved his work, and he threw himself into it with all the energies of his nature. " I enjoyed," he afterwards wrote, "and do enjoy, the society of youths of seventeen or eighteen, for they are all alive in limbs and spirits, at least, if not in mind \ while in older persons the body and spirits often become lazy and 68 lOOD SAMARITANS. languid, without the mind gaining any vigour to compensate for it." One of his pupils, who in later life served under him at Rugby, has sketched with graphic reality Arnold's mode of dealing with his pupils, and we find in it the secret of his educational system. He remarks that on joining the Laleham circle he was struck at once by its wonderful healthiness of tone and feeling; a healthiness too often absent from our great schools, and even from those smaller educational establishments where the influence of the master can more easily make itself felt. Everything about the new-comer he found to be most real ; it was obviously a place where a great and earnest work was going forward. Now, this is exactly what, in too many schools, the pupils do not seem to feel ; apparently they regard their work as a sham, as something to be trifled and played with, and got rid of as lightly and quickly as possible. They throw into it no earnestness, no eflbrt ; take no serious view of it, or of its relation to their future life. But it was the special excellence of Arnold as a master that he raised the moral standard of his pupils ; he taught them (in the words of Mr. Thomas Hughes) " that life is a whole, made up of actions and thoughts and longings, great and small, noble and ignoble;" that therefore our only true wisdom is " to bring the whole Hfe into obedience to Him whose world we live in, and who has purchased us with His blood." After all, it is not what the master teaches from books, but what he teaches by his daily living, that really influences for good or ill the young minds around him. " We listened," says Hughes, " as all boys in their better moods will listen (ay, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart, and soul, and strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world." They did not, could not, fully understand him ; could not fully appreciate that generous heart and noble nature ; but they knew he was loftier and purer than themselves, and by this consciousness they gained greatly. Just as the babe can feel, and enjoy, and be the better for the sunshine in which it stretches out its little Hmbs, and towards which it reaches forth its little hands, without having any knowledge of the constituent elements of the great orb and its photosphere whence it flows. Dr. Arnold's great power as a private tutor rested in this, that ARNOLD'S POWERFUL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD. 69 he gave such an intense earnestness to life, whereas most young men are inclined to take life so lightly ! " Every pupil was made to feel that there was a work for him to do — that his happiness as well as his duty lay in doing that work well. Hence, an indescribable zest was communicated to a young man's feeling about life ; a strange joy came over him on discovering that he had the means of being useful, and thus of being happy ; and a deep respect and ardent attachment sprang up towards him who had taught him thus to value life and his own self, and his work and mission in the world. All this was founded on the breadth and comprehensivenes of Arnold's character, as well as its striking truth and reality ; on the unfeigned regard he had for work of all kinds, and the sense he had of its value both for the complex aggregate of society and the growth and perfection of the individual. Thus, pupils of the most different natures were keenly stimulated ; none felt that he was left out, or that, bocause he was not endowed with large powers of mind, there was no sphere open to him in the honourable pursuit of usefulness. This wonderful power of making all his pupils respect themselves,, and of awakening in them a consciousness of the duties that God had assigned to them personally, and of the consequent reward each should have of his labours, was one of Arnold's most characteristic features as a trainer of youth." There was some- thing astonishing in his hold over all his pupils. Yet the "hold," the influence, was due to something in the man, not in the teacher. It was not so much their admiration of his genius, his learning, or his eloquence, ; it was a " sympathetic thrill," caught from a spirit that was earnestly at work in the world ; whose work was healthy, sustained, and done in the fear of God ; a work founded on a deep sense of its duty and its value, — caught from a spirit that was always reverent, and humble, and sincere, so that others could not help being invigorated by it, and catching from it a glow of deep, and true, and lasting emotion. Arnold's leisure at Laleham was devoted to his favourite studies of philology and history, and he employed himself on an edition of Thucydides, and on articles upon Roman history, written for the Encydopcedia MetropoUtana, which prepared him for that elaborate "History of Rome," the work of maturer years, on which his literary reputation is chiefly based. 70 GOOD SAMARITANS. By degrees it had become known to the public that in the shades of Laleham lived a man with a special capacity for teaching and a wonderful power of controlling and training the young ; a man who had new and lofty views on the work of tuition and the teacher's duties and responsibilities ; a man who carried the method and spirit of a Christian philosopher into his system of , education: and so it came to pass that when, in August 1827, \ the head-mastership of Rugby became vacant, he was unanimously elected to it. In June 1828 he received priest's orders from Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London ; in April and November of the same year took his degree of B.D. and D.D. ; and in August entered on his new office, in which he was destined to " change the face of education all through the public schools of England." I think we may take it for granted that before his time the initial axiom in school management was, that boys were the natural enemies of their masters, and, therefore, to be watched, cowed, and tyrannised over. Now, it was Arnold's distinguishing merit that he made it the basis of all successful tuition that boys were to be treated as rational beings, in whom confidence begat confidence, and who could most easily be controlled by a formal appeal to their honour. But he went further; he incroduced "a religious principle " into education ; he made it part of his duty to discipline the moral and spiritual nature as well as the intel- lectual powers. In the public schools, under the regime of the old race of schoolmasters, the ''flogging-block" was constantly to the front ; it was the alpha and omega of the old system of education. At Jlugby, under Dr. Arnold, it was kept in the background. Arnold ruled by attracting, influencing, and cherishing the better feelings and aspirations of those with whom he had to deal. Flogging he retained as a dernier ressorf, but only for moral offences, such as lying and drinking ; while his aversion to inflicting it rendered it still less frequent in practice than it would have been if he had acted strictly on his own rules. His constant aim was to make the school govern itself by elevating its public opinion. He strove to make his pupils recognise the littleness and meanness of those irregularities of conduct which boys too often regard as signs of courage and resolution. He encouraged, he exhorted ihem to be brave in well-doing, to fear God and love the truth, ARNQLD AT RUGBY. 71 and to look upon this present life as a preparation and a rehearsal, so to speak, for the life hereafter. But to raise their morale was not his only, though it was his chief object : he strove to raise also the general standard of knowledge and application. Prizes and scholarships, therefore, were founded as incentives to study, and examinations instituted that a pupil's acquirements might be regularly tested. He believed, as I think most persons who have had any lengthened experience of boys will and must believe, in the union, as a general rule, of moral and intellectual excellence. It is an absurd mistake to suppose that the stupid boys are necessarily the virtuous ones. Of course, a boy may be clever and bad; and then his cleverness will be injuriously affected by his badness, — ^just as a strong plant may grow in an unhealthy atmosphere, but, if it do, will assuredly deteriorate in leaf and blossom. Once, when preaching at Rugby, Arnold said : — " I have now had some years' experience. I have known but too many of those who in their utter folly have said in their heart, There was no God j but the sad sight — for assuredly none can be more sad — of a powerful, an earnest, and an inquiring mind seeking truth, yet not finding it — the horrible sight of good deliberately rejected and evil deliberately chosen — the grievous wreck of earthly wis- dom united with spiritual folly, — I believe that it has been, that it is, that it may be. Scripture speaks of it, the experience of others has witnessed it ; but I thank God, that in my own experience I have never witnessed it yet. I have still found that folly and thoughtlessness have gone to evil ; that thought and manliness have been united with faith and goodness." And as his knowledge of the young increased, he was led to put increased faith in this combination. Various reasons may be adduced in support of it. As, for instance, that ability brings a boy into sympathy with his teachers in the nature of his work, and in their delight in the works of great minds; whereas a dull boy sympathises with the uneducated, and with those to whom animal enjoyments are the summum borrnm, sumina felicitas. It was characteristic of Arnold that he believed in diligence, in the power and success of steady application. He was not, like •some masters, always on the watch for "smartness," — impatient with the "slow and sure," — contemptuous of the plodder, however GOOD SAMARITANS, earnest he may be in his efforts. I think that in the race between the hare and the tortoise, his heart and hopes went with the latter. He was wont to relate how, on one occasion, before he went to Rugby, he had fretted somewhat over the slowness of a pupil of this kind, and reprimanded him sharply ; and how the boy had looked up in his face, and pleaded — " Why do you speak angrily, sir ? Indeed I am doing the best I can." " I never felt so much ashamed in my life," he said ; " that look and that speech I have never forgotten." He learned, in the course of his long experi- ence, that the superficial cleverness in which unwise masters so much delight bears little fruit. " If there be one thing on earth," he would insist, ** which is truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when they have been honestly, truly, and zealously cultivated." In the classical languages and literature he p'aced the founda- tion of his intellectual teaching. He affirmed that the study of language seemed to him to have been given for the very purpose of forming the human mind in youth ; and he regarded the Greek and Latin tongues as in themselves so perfect, and at the same time so free from the inseparable difficulty attending any attempt to teach boys through the medium of their own spoken language, as to be the very instruments for effecting such a work. In my humble opinion Arnold set too high a value on the study of Greek and Latin ; yet their essential importance in any well-considered scheme of mental culture I am prepared to admit. It is to be remembered, moreover, that it was Arnold who first made the study of modern history, modern languages, and mathematics, a regular part of the curriculum of English schools. In this respect, as in so many other respects, his example has brought about a precious and much-needed reform. Much of Arnold's success was, of course, a personal success ; a success due to the influence of his life and character. And in this he presents a remarkable contrast to Keate of Eton and Busby of Westminster, who were never the guides and friends of their pupils, never moulded their minds or formed their habits, or left upon them any distinct impression of themselves. "With very little boys," says Dean Stanley, " his manner partook of that playful kindness and tenderness which always marked his inter- course with children. ... In those above this early age, and yet A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER. 73 below the rank in the school which brought them into closer con- tact with him, the sternness of his character was the first thing that impressed them. . . . This was mingled with an involuntary and, perhaps, an unconscious respect, inspired by the sense of the manliness and straightforwardness of his dealings, and still more by the sense of the general force of his moral character." The elder boys cherished for him, we are told, a deep admiration, partaking largely of the nature of awe ; and this softened into a kind of loyalty, which remained even in the closer and more affectionate sympathy of later years. When they left Rugby, they felt that they had been living in a sphere of action purer than that of the world about them; a better thought than ordinary often reminded them how he first led to it ; and in reading the Scrip- tures, or other works, they constantly traced back a Une of reflec- tion that came originally from him as fi om a great parent-mind. Here is an extract from one of his letters to Sir J. T. Coleridge, which the reader will peruse with interest, — it is so characteristic of Arnold as the head-master of Rugby : — "We are going on comfortably, and, I trust, thrivingly, with the school. We are above 200, and still looking upwards ; but I neither expect, and much less desire, any great addition to our numbers. The school cannot, I think, regularly expect mou than 200 or 250 ; it may ascend higher with a strong flood, but there will be surely a corresponding ebb after it. You mav' imagine that I ponder over, often enough, the various discussions that I have had with you about education, and verse-making, and reading the poets. I find the natural leaning of a schoolmast.rr is so much to your view of the question, that my reason is more than ever led to think my own notions strongly required in the present state of classical education, if it were only on the principle of the bent stick. There is something so beautiful in good Latin verses, and in hearing fine poetry well construed, and something so attractive altogether in good scholarship, that I do not wonder at masters directing an undue portion of their attention to a crop so brilliant. I feel it growing in myself daily ; and, if I feel it, with prejudices all on the other side, I do not wonder at its being felt generally. But my deliberate conviction is stronger, and stronger, that all this system is wholly wrong for the greater number of boys. Those who have talents and natural taste and fondnesb 5 GOOD SAMARITANS. for poetry, find the poetry lessons very useful ; the mass do nol feel one tittle about the matter, and, I speak advisedly, do not, in my belief, benefit from them one grain. I am not sure that other things would answer better, though I have very little doubt of it ; but, at any rate, the present plan is so entire a failure, that nothing can be risked by changing it. . . . " For your comfort, I think I am succeeding in making them write veiy fair Latin prose, and to observe and understand some of the differences between the Latin and English idioms. On the other hand, what our boys want in one way they get in another ; from the very circumstance of their being the sons of quieter parents, they have far less vp^ts and more evrjOcLa than the boyj» of any other school I ever knew. Thus, to say the least, they have less of a most odious and unchristian quality, and are thus more open to instruction, and have less repugnance to be good, because their master wishes them to be so." In 1 84 1, Dr. Arnold was appointed by Lord Melbourne to the professorship of Modern History at Oxford. He delivered an inaugural course of lectures in the following year, which attracted a large and enthusiastic audience of students. His contributions to historical literature were of a solid and important character. They include a valuable edition of Thucydides; and a " History of Rome, to the End of the Second Punic War," which has been deservedly approved for close reasoning, sagacious observations on men and events, and judi- cious and always dispassionate criticism. Among his miscellaneous works may be mentioned his " Sermons," which exhibit some of the highest qualities of the Christian preacher; his "Commentary on the New Testament " (unfinished), and the inaugural " Lectures on Modern History," the sobriety and moderation of which cannot fail to impress the reader. But it was as a man rather than as a writer that Dr. Arnold was great ; posterity will know him, not so much as the historian of Rome as the reformer of the public school education of England. It seems to us to have been his distinctive merit that he realized that lofty ideal of education which Milton set forth in his characteristically dignified and noble language: — '*The end of learning," says Milton, "is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love ACCESSORIES f ERSUS ESSENTIALS. 75 Him and to imitate Him, to be like Him, as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue, which, being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body found itself but on sensible things, we arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as, by orderly covering over the visible and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching." Here the purpose and object of education, as Arnold understood it, are plainly set forth. It is not to teach reading or writing, or anything else, except as a means to an end ; not to teach even the higher, the more abstruse branches of know- ledge ; but to inspire the young mind with an admiration of the beautiful, and the young heart with a deep love of whatsoever is pure and holy. Dr. Arnold taught that the motive of all wise culture must be, that a man may learn to walk humbly before his God and uprightly among his fellows ; that he may sow the seed of a good example wherever he plants his feet ; that he may subdue his rebellious passions, discipHne his wild desires, think high thoughts, and glow with noble sympathies. The error we so frequently commit is in discussing the accessories as if they were the essentials. Children are not sent to school that they may be encouraged to possess their "souls of true virtue," but that theymay acquire so much of linguistic and scientific learning as will assist them in "getting on in the world." How far they will be helped to prepare themselves for that other world which lies beyond the narrow limits of human speculation is, to few of us, a matter of lively concern. " The inquiry of truth," says Bacon, "which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it ; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it — is the sovereign good of human nature." It was this "sovereign good " which Arnold taught his pupils to pursue. Unfortunately it meets with scant recognition in our primary and secondary schools ; in i^^^ of even our larger and more pretentious academic mstitutions. In these the "sovereign good" is to gain the highest number of marks in a competitive examination ; or to leap, jump, and run almost as well as a professional athlete. The inquiry, the knowledge, and the belief of truth, for instance, are hardly permitted by those " public athletic games," in which, for the prize of an electro plated cud or vase of vulgar design, our 76 GOOD SAMARITANS. "young gentlemen" assume the attire of the acrobats of the circus, and in the presence of applauding but surely unthinking " friends/' compete in the "high jump" or "hundred yards' race." To guide our children, as Arnold guided them, into the right path of a noble and virtuous education, is the great national enterprise which still, in spite of all that has been accomplished, awaits consummation ; an enterprise infinitely worthier of a statesman's energies than the puny political objects on which they are too often wasted. " Man," says Bishop Berkeley, in his " Siris," " is formidable, both from his passions and his reason ; his passions often urging him to great evils, and his reason furnishing the means to achieve them." To train this creature of passion and reason ; to make him amenable to Christian law; to accustom him to a sense of justice and virtue ; to dissuade him from the pursuit of evil, and to encourage him in the pursuit of good \ to impress upon him that this life is but the cradle and nursery of faculties which will be fully developed hereafter in proportion to their measure of cultivation, here, — the aptest method of attaining such ends as these, was Arnold's conception of a " liberal education." But what kind of contribution towards it is made by that section of educational reformers who seek to exclude from our schools that religious element which Arnold valued so highly ? And why ? Because the instruction given is, they say, "sectarian." Such an objection comes strangely enough from men who, in their own religious professions, are sectarian or denominational; who belong, that is, to one particular religious body, recognizing its form of government, and adopting its formularies. But let that pass. Supposing that the religious teaching in the Board Schools is, like the religious teaching in church or chapel, " sectarian,'' is it not better than none at all ? The writer strongly doubts, how- ever, whether children can ever be made to accept and retain the shibboleths of the sects. How much of the theological portion of any catechism sinks into the mind of a child ? Is not the hard, cold, and abstruse doctrinal matter instinctively rejected, while only its lessons of moral duty are taken up and absorbed? Are such lessons worthless ? Is not their impression carried far on into later life? And is it nothing that boy or girl learns the wickedness of falsehood, the terrible consequences of sin ? Alas ! ARNOLD' S LAST LESSONS. 77 the cardinal defect of our educational system is that it is not religious enough. Yet, from the vivid pages of history, what lessons might not a judicious teacher draw in illustration of the workings of God's providence? How would a survey of the physical aspects of earth assist him in demonstrating the Divine wisdom, and, yet more, the Divine love! And how, in every branch of study, in every stage of intellectual progress, might not the pupil be brought to reverence the beauty of holiness, and to receive into his soul the sacred lights of honour, and truthfulness, and love ! To do true and lofty deeds, to live the life of a true and noble spirit, — this is the great lesson which the teacher shculd inculcate hour by hour, and day by day. But how is it to be taught if we draw a broad line of demarcation in our every-day teaching between the " religious " and the " secular " ? But we have digressed from our subject. On the 5th of June, at the end of the summer half-year, and before the final dispersion of the boys for the holidays, Dr. Arnold preached in Rugby Chapel what proved to be his farewell sermon. In the preceding fortnight he had suffered from a feverish attack, but he appeared to have recovered his usual health, and also his usual spirits and energy, and was eagerly looking forward to his accustomed holiday at Fox How, his pretty rural residence "among the lakes." On Saturday, the nth, after examining some of his pupils in Ranke's " History of the Popes," he was engaged in finishing the business of the school, distributing the prizes, and taking leave of boys whose school course was closed. By his own form, or class, it was afterwards remembered, with pathetic interest, that the last subject he had set them for an exercise was '' Domus Ultima " : the last translation for Latin verses was from Spenser's lines on the death of Sir Philip Sydney, in his *' Ruins of Time " ; and the last words with which he closed his last lecture on the New Testament were uttered in comment on the passage of St. John : " It doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." " So, too," he said, "in the Corin- thians — 'For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ! ' Yes," he added, with fervour, " the mere contemplation of Christ shall transform us into His Hkeness." At nme o'clock he gave a supper, according to custom, to the 78 GOOD SAMARHANS. Sixth Form boys of his own house. They were impressed by the vivacity and cheerfulness of his manner, as he spoke of the end of the half-year, and of the pleasure with which he looked forward to his visit to Fox How. Before retiring to rest he made an entry in his diary, which, read by the light of what afterwards occurred, carries with it a solemn significance: — " Saturday evening, June nth. — The day after to-morrow is my birthday, if I am permitted to live to see it — my forty-seventh birthday since my birth. How large a portion of my life on earth is already passed ! And then — what is to follow this life ? How visibly my outward work seems contracting and softening away into the gentler employments of old age. In one sense, how nearly can I say, ' Vixi ! ' And I thank God that, as far as ambition is concerned, it is, I trust, fully mortified. I have no desire other than to step back from my present place in the world, and not to rise to a higher. Still there are works which, with God's permission, I would do before the night cometh ; especially that great work, if I might be permitted to take part in it. But, above all, let me mind my own personal work, to keep myself pure and zea lous and believing, labouring to do God's will, yet not anxious that it should be done by me rather than by others if God disapproves of my doing it." Between five and six o'clock on Sunday morning he awoke with a sharp pain across his chest, which he mentioned to his wife, on her asking him how he felt, adding that he had expe- rienced it slightly on the preceding day, both before and after bathing. " He then again composed himself to sleep ; but her watchful care, always anxious, even to nervousness, at the least indication of illness, was at once awakened, and on finding from him that the pain increased, and that it seemed to pass from his chest to his left arm, her alarm was so much roused, from a remembrance of having heard of this in connection with angina pectoris and its fatal consequences, that, in spite of his remon- strances, she rose and called up an old servant, whom they usually consulted in cases of illness. Reassured by her con- fidence that there was no ground for fear, but still anxious, Mrs. Arnold returned to his room. She observed him, as she CHEERFULNESS AND PA TIENCE IN SUFFERING, 79 WdS dressing herself, lying still but with his hands clasped, his lips moving, and his eyes raised upwards as if engaged in prayer, when all at once he repeated firmly and earnestly, ' And Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen thou hast believed \ blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed ; ' and soon afterwards, with a solemnity of manner and depth of utterance which spoke more than the words themselves, ' But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons.' " But as the symptoms did not pass away, Mrs. Arnold at length despatched messengers for medical assistance. At a quarter to seven it arrived. To the physician's inquiries the sick man replied calmly and clearly, though evidently suffering very seriously. In the absence of Mrs. Arnold, who had gone to call up her son, he asked what his illness was ; the physician answered, disease of the heart. In his peculiar manner of recognition he exclaimed, " Ha ! " and then on being asked if he had ever in his life fainted, " No, never." " Had he ever had difficulty of breathing?" "No, never." "If he had ever had sharp pain in the chest ? " " No, never." " If any of his family had ever had disease of the chest?" "Yes, my father had — he died of it." "What age was he?" "Fifty-three." "Was it suddenly fatal ? " " Yes, suddenly fatal." He then asked, " If disease of the heart was a common disease ? " " Not very common." "Where do we find it most?" "In large towns, I think." "Why?" Two or three causes were mentioned. "Is it generally fatal ? " " Yes, I am afraid it is." The physician quitted the house for medicines, leaving Mrs. Arnold, who by this time was fully aware of her husband's danger. Her son now entered the room, but without any serious appre- hension. On his coming up to the bed, his father, with his usual gladness of expression towards him, asked, " How is your deaf- ness, my boy ? " (he had been suffering from it the night before), and then, in playful allusion to an old jest against him, " You must not stay here — you know you do not like a sick room." Presently his father said to him, in a low voice, " My son, thank God for me," and as his son did not at once catch his meaning, he went on saying, " Thank God, Tom, for giving me this pain : I have suffered so little pain in my life that I feel it is very good 8o GOOD SAMARITANS. for me, now God has given it to me, and I do so thank Him for it." And again, after a pause, " How thankful I am that my head is untouched." His wife, turning to the Prayer-Book, began to read the exhortation in " the Visitation of the Sick," he listening with deep attention, and at the end of many of the sentences emphatically saying, "Yes." " There should be no greater comfort to Christian persons than 'o be made like unto Christ." "1^5." " By suffering patiently troubles, adversities, and sickness." •' Yesr " He entered not into His glory before He was crucified." " Yes.'' At the words " everlasting life " she stopped, and his son said, " I wish, dear papa, we had you at Fox How." Dr. Arnold did not answer, but the last conscious look which remained fixed in his wife's memory was the look of intense love and tenderness with which he smiled upon them both at that moment. The physician returned with the usual remedies, which he proceeded to apply. The spasms recurred slightly ; and Arnold remarked, " If the pain is again as severe as it was before you came, I do not know how I can bear it." He then, with his eyes fixed upon the physician, who rather felt than saw them upon him, so as to make it impossible not to answer the exact truth, repeated one or two of his former questions about the cause of the disease, and ended with asking '' Is it Hkeiy to return ? " and on being told that it was, *' Is it generally suddenly fatal ? " *' Generally." On being asked whether he had any pain, he replied that he had none but from the mustard plaster on his chest, with a remark on the severity of the spasms in comparison with this outward pain ; and then a few moments afterwards inquired what medicine was to be given, and on being told, answered, "Ah, very well." The physician, who was dropping the laudanum into a glass, turned round and saw him looking quite calm, but with his eyes shut. In another minute he heard a rattle in the throat and a convulsive struggle, flew to the bed, caught his head upon his shoulder, and called to one of the servants to fetch Mrs. Arnold. She had but just left the room before his last conversation with the physician, in order to i-cquaint her son with his father's danger, of which he was still unconscious, when she heard herself called from above. She HIS LABOURS THE BEST MEMORIAL. 8i Tushed upstairS; told her son to bring the rest of the children, and with her own hands applied the remedies that were brought •in the hope of reviving animation, though herself feeling, from the moment that she saw him, that he had already passed away. He was indeed no longer conscious. The sobs and cries of the children, as they entered and saw their father's state, made no impression upon him ; the eyes were fixed, the coun- tenance was unmoved, there was a heaving of the chest, deep -gasps escaped at prolonged intervals, and just as the usual medical attendant arrived, and as the old school-house servant, in an agony of grief, rushed with the others into the room, in the hope 'Of seeing his master once more, he breathed his last. I cannot dwell here upon the painful impression produced by the sudden death of the great schoolmaster. He was buried on the following Friday in Rugby Chapel, where a memorial has since been erected to him; but the most fitting and enduring -memorial is that new spirit in public-school education which he was the first to inspire and foster. In his stanzas entitled " Rugby Chapel," his poet-son, Mr. Matthew Arnold, has poured out a tribute of affectionate praise, which has become part and parcel of 'Our literature. He says : — ** But thou wouldst not alone Be saved, my father ! alone Conquer and come to thy goal, Leaving the rest in the wild. We M'ere weary, and we Fearful, and we, in our march, Fain to drop down and to die. Still thou turnedst, and still Beckonedst the trembler, and still Gavest the weary thy hand ! If, in the paths of the world, Stones might have wounded thy fee% Toil or dejection have tried Thy spirit, of that we saw Nothing ! to us thou wert still Cheerful, and helpful, and firm. Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of thy day, O faithful shepherd ! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand,' 82 GOOD SAMARITANS. As a pendant to the foregoing sketches of English educational^ reformers, we shall furnish a brief memoir of John Frederic Oberlin, who has some claim to be regarded as the inventor or creator of industrial schools. Oberlin was born at Strasburg, on the 31st of August, 1740.. He was one of nine children, whom his father, a man of respect able character and considerable attainments, though not in affluent circumstances, educated with great care. Some interesting anec- dotes are told of the child's early years, which seem to confirm the old adage that "the boy makes the man." The elder Oberlin,. limited as were his means, was accustomed to give each of his. children a couple of pfenninge (rather less than \d. English) as- weekly pocket-money. When the tailor's or shoemaker's bill was brought home on a Saturday night, Frederic, who knew his- father's anxiety always to discharge a claim immediately, would watch his countenance, and if he judged from its downcast ex- pression that he was in want of money, would haste to his savings' box, and return in triumph to empty into his parent's hands his- little treasure of accumulated pfenninge. It is also related that, one day, when he was crossing the- market-place, he saw some rough boys knock off a basket ot eggs from the head of a countrywoman. Frederic, observing, the woman's distress, rebuked the boys sharply, ran home, and fetching his store, presented her with the whole of it. On* another occasion, he was passing by the stall of a vendor of old clothes. A poor and infirm woman was endeavouring, but without success, to cheapen some article she was specially desirous- of purchasing. To complete the sum demanded she wanted two sous ; and she was on the point of leaving the stall, sorely disap- pointed, when Frederic slipped the two sous into the dealer's hands, whispered to him to complete the sale, and then ran away before the woman could pour her thanks into his ear. Oberlin, like most men who have become known for their greatness or their goodness, owed a great deal to his mother's practice and precept. She was sincerely desirous of bringing up her children in the " nurture and admonition of the Lord " ; and for this purpose assembled them every evening to read, and pray, and sing hymns. By way of relaxation, their father, every Thurs- day evening in the summer months, would accompany them to OB ERLIN— CHRISTIAN WARFARE, 83 his old family estate at Schiltigheim. On arriving there, he would fasten an old drum to his waist, draw up his seven bloom- ing boys in military array, and make them face to right and left, and go through other military evolutions, to the noisy music of his drum. It has been suggested that the zest with which Frederic joined in this exercise may have begotten his early par- tiality for the military profession. While quite a lad, he would mingle with the soldiers, and march by their side : and, having attracted the attention of the officers by his knowledge of sieges and battles, he obtained permission to join in their exercises. It was under a peaceful banner, however, that he was destined to enlist, and in an army which owns as its captain the Lord Jesus Christ. Frederic's father required him to give up this fancy "soldiering," and devote himself to serious study. Heat once obeyed, and set to work with such diligence and good-will that he sf>on regained the time he had lost. What impelled him to take orders, however, is not known ; it was, perhaps, with no very decided convictions that he became a student in the theological class at the University; but he was confirmed in his resolution, and encouraged to take up the cross of Christ, by the preaching of a Dr. Lorentz. He was ordained in 1760. Seven years passed, however, before he obtained a pastoral charge, and from 1760 to 1767 he acted as private tutor in the family of an eminent surgeon, Ziegenhagen, in that capacity acquiring a knowledge of medicine which, in after life, proved of singular usefulness. In 1767 he accepted the chaplaincy to a French regiment, and in the same year was offered the curacy of the Ban de la Roche, a valley of the Vosges in the province of Alsace. It was not an attractive sphere of pastoral labour, for the emoluments were scanty, while the inhabi- tants were unpolished ; but it seemed a field where much good work might be done, and with a blithe heart he entered upon it He arrived at Waldbach, the principal village in the district, on the 30th of March, 1767, being then in his twenty-seventh year. Of the flock over whom he was set as guide, teacher, and spiritual father, we have the following description : — They were wholly destitute of the means of mental and social intercourse. They spoke a rude patois, resembling the Lorraine dialectj which was almost unintelligible to their neighbours. ^4 GOOD SAMARITANS. From the surrounding districts they were shut off by the want of roads, which, owing to the ravages of war, and the decrease of population, had so completely disappeared, that the sole mode of communication between the larger part of the parish and the neighbouring towns was by stepping-stones across the river Bruche. The husbandmen lacked the most necessary agricultural . implements, and had no means of procuring them. The produce f of the soil was inadequate to the support of even a scanty popu- lation. And finally, the restraints of feudalism, more fatal than the sterile land and ungenial climate, threw the most serious obstacles in the way of successful industry. Few less inviting fields of labour, from a worldly point of view, could easily be found. Oberlin, however, placing his hope and trust in God, determined to attempt its cultivation. The most salutary reform cannot be effected without exciting antagonism, — an antagonism generally the more violent as the reform is the more obviously needful ; and reformers even in the Bans de la Roche of the world must count upon meeting with enemies and persecutors. The laudatores teiiiporis acti, the ad- herents of the " old ways," determined at the outset to resist their pastor's benevolent innovations, and concocted a plan for way- laying him and beating him into a proper spirit of conservatism. It happened, however, that the plot became known to Oberlin, who took a characteristic way of frustrating the designs of its authors. On the Sunday, the day they had chosen for carrying them out, he preached a discourse upon the beauty of Christian patience and the forgiving spirit, taking as his trxt those words of our Saviour, so loving in themselves, but so hard to under- stand, — " But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil, but whoso- ever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." After service he proceeded alone to the house where the conspirators had assembled, and entering stood in their midst : " Here am I, my friends," he said, as they gazed upon him with astonishment, " I am acquainted with your intention. You have wished to chastise me, because you consider me culpable. If I have violated the rules of conduct which I have enjoined upon yourselves, punish me for it. It is better that I should deliver myself into your hands, than that you should be guilty of the meanness of lying in ambush." These simple words, and this HIS GREAT INFLUENCE- ROAD-MAKJNG. 85 unswerving courage, moved the peasants to shame and contrition,, and they implored their pastor's forgiveness, which, we need hardly say, was granted immediately. Oberlin's sagacious eye perceived at the outset the necessity of repairing and restoring the roads, so as to bring the peasants oi the Ban de la Roche into contact with the civilization of the neighbouring districts. The most important height was that which led, or ought to lead, to Strasburg ; and, assembling his people, he proposed that they should blast the rocks, and with the shattered masses construct a wall to support a road, about a mile and a half in length, along the banks of the river Bruche, and a bridge across the river near Rothau. His project was at once pronounced impracticable. Oberlin continued : — *' The produce of your fields will then find a ready market, and instead of being shut up in your villages nine months out of twelve, you. will be enabled to keep up an intercourse all the year round with the inhabitants of the neighbouring districts. You will have the- opportunity of procuring a number of articles of which you have long stood in need, without the possibility of obtaining them ; and your happiness will be increased by the additional means thus- afforded of providing comforts for your children and yourselves." And meeting with no response, he exclaimed : — " Let all who understand the importance of my proposition come and work with me." With a pickaxe on his shoulder he sallied forth. The peasants, who had been inexorable to argument, yielded immediately to- example, and hastily procuring their tools, they followed their pastor. To each individual he assigned a suitable position, reserving for himself and a faithful friend the most difficult and dangerous places ; then, with great enthusiasm, all set lustily tO' work, and the air resounded with the din of hammer and pickaxe. The enthusiasm spread. Recruits poured in from every village, rendering necessary an increased number of implements. He procured them from Strasburg, and when his funds were ex- hausted applied to his friends. Walls were raised to support the earth at all points where landslips seemed probable ; the torrents^ were diverted into more convenient courses, or retained within embankments ; arches were thrown over ravines, and the whole- work was pressed forward with such perseverance and skill that^ S6 GOOD SAMARITANS. in 1770, Strasburg was reached, and a neat wooden bridge, still known as the " Pont de Charity," thrown across the river. The benefits of this remarkable achievement were felt at once, and, as a consequence, Oberlin's influence over his parishioners was so confirmed and established that thenceforth he secured the ready adoption of his successive plans. Highways were soon con- structed between the various villages of the "Stony Valley," which had hitherto been practically isolated. The energy of the workers surmounted every obstacle ; and it was a pleasant and suggestive sight to see, every Monday morning, some two hundred stalwart men starting forth, with the earnest pastor at their head who, the day before, had been revealing to them the " oracles of God." When their agricultural tools and implements broke or stood in need of repair, considerable delay and loss were caused by the necessity of sending them to Strasburg. To remedy this serious •evil, the indefatigable Oberlin established a large depot in Wald- bach, where purchasers could easily supply themselves, credit being given under suitable conditions. He also founded a loan society for the assistance of the deserving poor, insisting, however, •on the utmost punctuality of repayment. Discovering that there were neither masons nor blacksmiths nor cartwrights in the •district, which was greatly inconvenienced by the want of these necessary trades, he selected some of the cleverest and steadiest of the elder boys, and sent them to Strasburg to be instructed in them. This plan provided a supply of good workmen, who, on their return, plied their various avocations with industry and success; and thus the money which had previously gone to Strasburg was circulated in the district, to the rapid increase of its prosperity. Money had previously been so scarce that the gift of a single sou would overwhelm a poor woman with gratitude, because it enabled her to purchase some salt to eat with her potatoes. And finally, he directed his efforts to improve the house-accommodation of his people. Their dwellings were miser- able cabins, like those of the commoner peasants, — hewn out of the rocks, or sunk into the sides of the mountains ; but under his energetic direction decent cottages arose, with a deep and ample ■cellar to each, where their potatoes, their staple article of food, <:ould be preserved trom the winter frost. In truth, Oberlin was EXAMPLE BETTER THAN PRECEPT. 87 not so much the priest and religious guide of a parish as the founder and patriarch of a community. Solicitous to increase the resources of the district, as the best means of raising it out of its pauperism, he resolved on the intro- duction of orchard-planting. But knowing that an agricultural population would listen with suspicion, and, perhaps, contempt, ^ to any teaching of his on a subject which they would regard as peculiarly their own, he proceeded with much ingenuity to influence them by example. The parsonage-grounds were crossed by public footpaths, and therefore lay open to constant inspection. With the aid of his servant, he trenched them carefully, and planted, four or five feet deep, such fruit-trees — apples, pears, plums, cherries, and walnuts — as he thought best fitted to the soil and climate. In due time these grew and flourished, and with their crops of mature fruit presented a striking contrast to the nakedness around. The peasants at once applied to him for advice and assistance ; young plants were readily furnished, lessons in the art of grafting found eager listeners ; and before long almost every cottage was sur- rounded by its smiling garden-ground, and the district, previously so bare and desolate, assumed an aspect of fertility and plenty. The indigenous plants of the Ban de la Roche were not neg- lected, and Oberlin, who was a good botanist, took much trouble to make his people acquainted with their excellent properties. Here is a list of the most useful : — Brassica oleracea . Stellaria media Cerastium aquaticum Chenopodium bonus-IIsnricus Leontodon autumnale Epilobium montanu*Ti , Ranunculus ficaria . , Galeobdolon luteum , Lamium album . , Humulus lupulus . • Anagallis arvensis . « Plantago major , , Ranunculus acris . • Polygonum bistorts . Rumex acetosa . , Valeriana locusta . • Cucubalus behen . • Sisymbrium nasturtium . Agrostemma githago Stripe-flowered cabbage. Common chickweed. Water mouse-ear chickweed. Common goose-foot. Common dandelion. Mountain willow-herb. Buttercup. Yellow dead-nettle. White dead-nettle. Common hop. Red pimpernel. Great plantain. Upright crowfoot. Twisted snake-weed. Common sorrel. Lamb's lettuce. Bladder campion. Watercress. Corn cockle. 88 GOOD SAMARITANS. The usefulness of some of these is not well understood even in rural England. Oberlin taught his pupils to mix the corn-cockle seeds with corn in making their black bread; to obtain bread from beech-nuts; and — a more doubtful good — to distil a kind of wine, called piquette, from the wild berry, the dog-rose, or the juniper. He also introduced the cultivation of flax and Dutch clover. In 1778 he made a further step in advance by establishing an Agricultural Association, composed of the more intelligent farmers and the better-informed inhabitants. The pastors of the adjacent towns and some of his friends became members ; and he then connected it with that of Strasburg, in order to secure the com- munication of periodical works, and assistance in the distribution of prizes. The Strasburg Society, with the view of encouraging its interesting auxiliary, placed at its disposal a sum of two hundred francs, to be divided among such peasants as should most distinguish themselves in the planting of nursery grounds and the grafting of fruit-trees. While thus vigorously endeavouring to improve the material condition of his people, Oberlin did not neglect their spiritual ; and the earnestness and zeal which he threw into the discharge of his pastoral duties may be seen from the following New Year's address to his parishioners, issued in 1779 • — " Through the grace of God we have entered upon a New Year. Oh that it may be new with respect to our sins, our sufferings, and the temptations with which we may have to combat ! " As to sins, may their number diminish daily, and may we be more constantly animated and governed by the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. As to sufferings and tribulations, may they produce the effect which God designs in sending them, namely, that of detaching our affections from this transitory world, and of render- ing us attentive to His Will and Word. May they quicken us to prayer ; and induce us to strive more earnestly to enter in at * the strait gate,' and to ' press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling.' And as to the temptations which may be placed in our way, may we live entirely to Jesus Christ, and maintain constant communion with Him, in order that we may receive, from time to time, fresh supplies of grace and strength to resist them, and be enabled to bring forth fruits of righteousness, to the OB ER LIN'S FASrORAL ADDRESS. \.^ glory of God and to the honour of His holy gospel. O Lord, bf Thou pleased, with the renewal of the year, to renew our strength \ O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou hast said, * I make all things new ' — O make our faith new also ! " May this year be marked by a more lively, more deep, and more serious repentance ; by greater fervour in supplicating the influences of God's Holy Spirit ; by renewed earnestness in devot- ing ourselves to Him and to His service. May we look to Him, and employ all our mental and bodily powers, our time, and our property, to His glory, and to the purpose for which Jesus quitted His throne, namely, the conversion and happiness of mankind. O may we, this year, apply ourselves, with renewed faithfulness, to obey all His commandments and all His precepts. " May this year be distinguished by an increase of the number of the children of God, and of the followers of Jesus Christ ; by the weakening of the kingdom of Satan within us, and by the coming of the kingdom of God. " May we, not only during the present, but, also, during each succeeding year which God shall grant us in this probationarj world, become more and more prepared for a blessed eternity, abound more in prayers of intercession and supplication, shed more tears of penitence, contrition, love, and pity, and perform} more good works, in order that we may reap an abundant harvest on that day when God, through Jesus Christ, shall ' make alii things new.' " Into no branch of his work did Oberlin throw himself withi greater fervour than into the educational. The instruction of the young occupied his thoughts from the moment that he began his. beneficial career in the Ban de la Roche. At that time the only- regular school-house in the five villages which composed his; charge was a hut belonging to his predecessor, which having been constructed of unseasoned wood, was in a ruinous and wretched condition. We are told, however, that his parishioners received very unfavourably his proposition to build a more com- modious one. The better education of their children was as nothing compared with the increased expense which they found he intended to bring upon them. And he did not succeed in overcoming their opposition until he entered into a formal engage- ment with the overseers of the Commune, that neither the expense 6 90 GOOD SAMARITANS. of building nor the cost of repairing the projected school-house should ever become chargeable on the parish funds. To defray the unavoidable expenditure, he sought assistance from some friends in Strasburg. His applications were not un- successful, but their donations were inadequate to the object he had in view. Yet, placing his trust in God, he began his philan- thropic enterprise, and as the work went on, additional help was forthcoming ; his faith found an abundant reward ; the school- house was finished; and, as good work has a habit of multiplying itself, in the course of a few years a school-house was erected in each of the other five villages. Such was the influence of a noble example, that the inhabitants voluntarily came forward and took upon themselves the labour and cost of their erection. Meantime, Oberlin assiduously trained a number of teachers for ^hese schools ; and observing with anxiety the neglect from which the younger children suffered while their elder brothers ;and sisters were carefully looked after, he conceived the idea of 'establishing infant schools — of which he was thus the creator and founder. Observation and experience had taught him that, even from rthe very cradle, children can be accustomed to distinguish between right and wrong, and inured to habits of industry and obedience : ■and in conjunction with his wife, he engaged and trained con- ductrices for each commune, hired larger rooms for them, and salaried them at his own expense. The useful and the agreeable went hand in hand in the curriculum adopted ; recreation alternated with instruction ; and whilst sufficient discipline was insisted upon to preserve order and teach the habit of obedience, a considerable degree of freedom was allowed, and the infant's mind and body were both allowed room for expansion. During school hours the children were collected on forms in large rings or circles. Two women were employed, the one to direct the work, the other to teach and amuse the workers. While the children of two or three years of age were made at intervals to sit quietly by, those of five or six were tauglit to knit, spin, and sew ; as soon as they showed signs of weariness, their governess placed before them scriptural pictures, coloured, or natural history subjects, making them repeat after her the explanations she gave. A similar plan was adopted with geographical maps of France, HIS SCHOOLS AND INFANT SCHOOLS, ^^ Europe, and the Ban de la Roche. They were also taught to sing moral songs and hymns. As soon as they were old enough, the children thus carefully trained were removed to the public schools, in which were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, the elements of agriculture, astronomy, and sacred and profane history ; the religious instruc- tion Oberlin, notwithstanding his many labours, reserved to him- self. Every Sunday the village children assembled at the church, to sing the hymns they had learned, to recite the religious lessons they had committed to memory during the week, and to listen tc their pastor's exhortations. As a specimen of those hymns, the following may be interesting. It is distinguished by its simplicity \ — **Je ne saurois de I'annee Sans toi commencer le cours, Auteur de ma destinee ! Sage Arbitre de mes jours ! Entre tes mains je remets Ma personne et mes projets : Je t' adore et ja te prie De renouveller ma vie. ** Guide-moi par ta lumiere, Soutiens-moi par ton amour Dans la nouvelle carriere. Que je commence en ce jour } Affranchis-moi de I'erreur ; Excite et porte mon coeur A ne vouloir, a ne faire Que le bien, qui pent te plairc* "J'ai des ma plus tendre infance Souvent transgresse ta loi ; II est temps que je commence A me rapprocher de toi : Pour assurer mon bonheur Fais qu'une sainte frayeur Me porte a la penitence Pour disarmer ta vengeance. **Daigne augmenter cette annee En moi tes graces, Seigneur 1 Que mon ame illuminee Se devoue a ton honneur; Et qu'un fidele Chretien, M'attachant toujours au bien, g* GOOD SAMARITANS. Et fuyant I'hypocrisie, Je te consacre ma vie. ** Dieu tout-bon ! fais que je passe Cette annee heureusement ; Jesus ! fais luire ta face Sur moi favorablement : Rends-moi ferme dans la foi, Pour vivre et mourir en toi, Et pour avoir en partage De tes elus I'heritage." Once a week Oberlin gathered all the scholars in the village schools at Waldbach, and compared the progress they^ made under their different instructors, rewarding the diligent, and by a kindly word of counsel shaming the laggard. His efforts, so sagaciously conceived, and so energetically carried out, met with such success that his Strasburg friends were induced to increase their subscriptions ; and Oberlin was thus enabled to establish a public library, to print several school books for the use of his district ; to make a collection of indigenous plants, and to procure a number of philosophical and mathe- matical instruments. Prizes were likewise awarded to both masters and scholars ; and various works upon natural history and other branches of science, some of which he printed at his own expense, were put in circulation on the plan of a little book- society, being retained for three months at a time, first at one village and then at another, passing successively from house to house, in order that the younger members of the family might be supplied with a continual fund of useful and agreeable infor- mation. The thoroughly practical character of Oberlin's mind, and his abundant " common sense " — no other phrase is so true or ex- pressive — is strikingly illustrated in the plain and forcible remarks he appended to a little Almanack which he annually drew up for the use of his parishioners. Oberlin was an enthusiast and a reformer ; and it is a kind of traditional belief that enthusiasts and reformers are very imaginative and visionary persons. Such a belief can hardly be maintained in the face of the calm reason dbleness of the following : — BERLIN'S ALMANACK. 93 ^^ Advice to my Cowitrymen of the Ban de la Roche ^ upon this Almanack y " I. The people of Germany have private almanacks, divided, by means of ruled lines, into numerous partitions. In each partition the names of the different individuals of the family are written, with a little blank space below them, in order that some notice may there be made of the manner in which the day has been passed, or any necessary memoranda inserted. I have now prepared a similar alma- nack for your use. " II. The Strasburg children are accustomed to find their baptismal names in their almanack, and to celebrate the days on which they are recorded. You may also do the same with yours. They will all be found in this almanack. "III. The parents of large and numerous families are often puzzled to find pretty baptismal names to distinguish their children from those who bear the same family name. Henceforth, if they only consult this new almanack, they will quickly be able to decide. " IV. In your common almanacks you find and pay for a number of incomprehensible things, and for others which are absolutely useless ; for others contrary to the commands of God, such as prognostics of the weather, nativities, predictions from the planets according to birth- days, lucky and unlucky days, or good and bad omens. This new almanack is divested of such nonsense. " V. The changes of the moon, eclipses, and even some information respecting the courses of the planets ; the names and figures of the twelve signs of the Zodiac ; the time of the sun's rising and setting ; and even the number of the months, and that of the weeks, are, nevertheless, inserted here. " VI. I have frequently been asked the signification of names of a strange origin. By means of this almanack, I am enabled to give a reply to all my parishioners, for it contains the meaning of every name which can be obtained with certainty. " VII. What a pity, perhaps you will say, that it has come so late. I say the same. It ought to have been completed before the end of December. But what good do you possess, the acquisition of which has not been retarded by various delays and obstacles ? For my own pare, I am so accustomed to expect this, in everything I do for you, that I am heartily glad it is accomplished, even at this late period. "VIII. What does it cost.? you will inquire. Dear friends, this Almanack is the fruit of my long-cherished desires to promote your good. Accept it as such. If it prove of any real benefit to you, or afford you a moment's gratification, look up to your Heavenly Father, 94 GOOD SAMARITANS. and say : * Thy goodness, O Lord, has crowned me with blessings. Permit me to thank Thee for them ; and do Thou strengthen, by whatever means it may please Thee to employ, the feeble faith of Thy too feeble child.''' In 1782, with the view of deepening and strengthening the spiritual life among his people, he established an association called " The Christian Society," which, in some respects, seems to have resembled the Church " Guilds " founded, in recent years, amongst English Churchmen. The following is a summary of the Rules, translated from the original in his own handwriting : — I. Regeneration. II. Sanctification. III. " We are all one in Jesus.*' IV. "Abide in me." V. " Christ is all, and in all." VI. " Bring forth much fruit." VII. ** Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." VIII. Nourish the inner man, by (i) The word of God. (2) Continual prayer. (3) The frequent use of the Holy Sacraments. IX. The Superintendents are the overseers, whom the members choose from among themselves. X. Not only the Superintendents, but also all the members, ought to watch over each other for good ; to exhort and to warn each other. XI. With sweetness, charity, humility, and patience. XII. As to the incorrigible, — follow the example of Jesus Christ, Matthew xviii. 15, 16. XIII. Meet for prayer on this subject. XIV. Be submissive to your superiors. All the members are fellow- workers with their pastor. XV. Good management. XVI. Good education. XVII. " Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.** XVIII. " Search the Scriptures " diligently. XIX. Diligence. Diligence, with application and energy — that is to say, industry. THE " CHRIS7IAN SOCIETY:' 95 XX. " Be careful for nothing." XXL Lose no time. XXII. Allow of no idleness, or negligence on the part of those confided to your care. XXI I I. Honest and exact payment j no artfulness or cunningj^ See Romans xii. 17. XXIV. " Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love." XXV. Endeavour to promote the happiness of all. XXVI. *' Provoke unto love and to good works." XXVII. Appropriate part of your earnings, at stated intervals, to the public good. This, however, was the only one of Oberlin's schemes that did not prove successful, — perhaps because the constitution of the Society tended to establish a kind of inquisition among its members, rendering each a spy and overseer over the others, and thus breeding a good deal of spiritual pride and Pharisaic intoler- ance. No doubt the value of Christian fellowship cannot be too highly estimated, but it is better that that fellowship should depend upon the golden maxim, " Love one another," than upon any code of arbitrary regulations. After a year and a half'.-* existence Oberlin dissolved it. In addressing his parishioners on the subject, he gave as his reasons for doing so, first, that he had, in a great measure, obtained the end he had in view j second, that names and external forms are not essential, but are subject to vicissitude ; and third, that, in the event of his death or removal, this external form would have been liable to change ; and the members, overtaken by surprise, would have resembled, in some degree, sheep without a shepherd, and would not have known what to do. It was better that this should happen during his lifetime. And he argued that he had, in a great measure, attained his end : first, with respect to those who had been willing to become members ; because they had had the opportunity of declaring themselves on the side of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of acknowledging Him in the spirit of that passage (Matt. X. 32), "Whosoever, therefore, shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven." They had learned to know more of their spiritual wants, and how necessary it was for them to be found in Christ Jesus, " without 96 GOOD SAMARITANS. spot and blameless," " rooted and built up in Him, and established m the faith." They had felt, more than ever, the duty and necessity of prayer ; whereas many, previous to the formation of the Society, had not even an idea of that continual prayer of the heart which our Lord recommends to His disciples. They had been led to feel that many souls were anxious for their salvation ; and had learned to be " kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath for- given them." Again, with respect to those who had not been members, a number of souls had been roused from their lethargy, and though they had been unable to resolve to declare themselves members, they had been induced to pay more serious and prayerful attention to their spiritual necessities. *' Wherefore," he exclaimed in conclusion, " I cannot suffi- ciently thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the good that He has, through this agency, been pleased to effect in my dear parish ; and for the evident blessing that has rested upon it. May He watch over it, and grant that the good fruits brought forth may be perfected and rendered permanent. May the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ be promoted and extended by any other means that He may see meet to appoint. May He sustain His Church according to His promise, Matthew xvi. 1 8, so that * the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' May He who said to His disciples, ' He that receiveth you, receiveth Me,' register all its members in His Book of Life. May He abundantly shed His Holy Spirit upon them, and ' grave them upon the palms of His hands,' so that no one may be able to draw them away, or turn them from Him. May He protect them, sanctify them, purify them, and prepare them for their heavenly inheritance." On the 1 8th of January, 1784, Oberlin sustained an affliction which shook him to the very deeps of his being, in the death of his beloved wife, who had been the indefatigable partner of all his evangelistic and philanthropic labours. He bore it without a murmur, as became a Christian, seeking consolation and strength in prayer ; but thenceforward his interest in life was perceptibly weakened, and he would often breathe a yearning wish that the world in which God would re-unite him to his OBERLIN SEBS THE FRUITS OF HIS LABOURS. 97 beloved wife — that other half of his soul ; to use the tender Latin expression, dimidium animcd viecd — would soon admit him across its threshold. Years passed away, years of patience and Christian labour, and a subdued peace and religious calm prevailed in the household of the pastor of the Ban de la Roche. From the letter of a French clergyman who visited Waldbach in March 1793, we obtain a delightful glimpse of domestic happiness, so delightful that we do not think the reader will object to the length of our quotation. " During the thirty years in which M. Oberlin has been pastor of this canton, he has completely changed the face of it. From an unintelligible patois the language has been reformed into pure French ; the manners of the people have been civilized without any injury to their morals ; and ignorance has been banished without injuring the simplicity of their character. Many of the women belonging to his parishes, having been trained for the purpose under his paternal care and instruction, assist him in his occupations. They teach reading, writing, and the elements of geography in the different villages in which they reside; and through their agency the children are instructed in many neces- sary things, but, above all, have the seeds of religion and morality been sown in their hearts. So well known and so highly appre- ciated are these schools, that girls of the middle class are sent to them from distant parts, and the title of ' a scholar of Pastor Oberlin ' is accepted as an indisputable testimonial of piety, talent, and gentle manners. " As for the pastor himself, he has an open and affectionate countenance, strongly impressed with benevolence. His con- versation is easy, flowing, and full of vivacity, yet always adapted to the calibre of those to whom he is speaking. In the evening his visitor accompanied him a league on his way back to Wald- bach. They ascended a beautifully-wooded hill, which the sunset invested with a wonderful radiance. Moved by the tranquil loveliness of the scene, and feeling that he had a congenial listener, Oberlin related the simple story of his industrious and useful life, speaking in the most touching language of his views and ideas, and the fear and love of God. Sometimes he and his friend paused to admire the heautie^ of 9^ GOOD SAMARITANS, nature ; at others the impressiveness of his discourse induced his hearer to linger. One moment was particularly affecting, when, stopping about half-way up the hill, he said in the softest tones, * Ja, ich bin gliicklich ' (Yes, I am happy). "The moon rose in unclouded majesty, and night drew on with all her retinue of stars, suggesting to Oberlin the thought that if five years are necessary to bring a ray of light from Sirius to this world, though it travels at the rate of twelve millions of miles in a minute, how much swifter must the communication of spirits be ! What is so swift as thought ? And he then proceeded to describe the felicity with which, as he apprehended, we should approach one another in a future state. " On the following morning the visitor paid him a second visit. The worthy pastor, in a plain, clean morning gown, was just on the point of concluding a lecture ; his pupils wore on their faces an expression of contentment and gentleness just like their master's. " The house was pleasantly situated, and from the garden side enjoyed quite a romantic view ; in every part of it prevailed that kind of elegance, or rather refinement, which results from a com- bination of order, taste, and cleanliness. The furniture was simple, yet it suggested to the visitor that he was in the residence of no ordinary man ; the walls were covered with maps, drawings, and vignettes ; texts of Scripture were affixed above every door. As thus, above the dining-room door : ' Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.* The texts above the other doors enjoined love to God and our neighbour. " When the visitors first entered, each as a welcome received a printed text, * Abide in me, and I in you ; ' ' Seek those things which are above,' etc. His study, a peculiar room, contained a well-chosen rather than a numerous selection of books in French and German, chiefly for youth. The walls were covered with engravings, portraits of eminent characters, plates of insects and animals, and coloured drawings of minerals and precious stones ; in a word, it was literally papered with useful pictures relative to natural history and other interesting subjects. " The dinner began with a blessing. The pastor's children, tv;o maids, and a girl who received her instruction there, were seated DESCRIPTION OF HIS HOME AND ITS INMATES. 99 at the table ; in all their countenances was the same remarkable expression of amiability. " Oberlin had a singularly happy method of improving* occur- rences, and, under the form of similes, drawing a moral from every incident. There was no mysticism about him or his teaching. * The Gospel,' said he, * is my standard — I should be afraid to trust myself alone without it.' He related to his guests many of the difficulties he had to encounter, and the sacrifices he had to make, when he began his career in the Ban de la Roche. ' But now,' continued he, checking himself, * let me observe, it is as great a fault to talk of our own virtues as of the faults of others.' " The narrative continues : — " It is surprising to witness the sound sense, refinement, and superiority of mind evinced by these simple peasants. The very servants are well educated, and they are clothed with that child- like spirit which is one of the truest tests of real religion. One of them, a widow, made many excellent remarks to us on the duties of married life. ' In order to introduce and preserve domestic peace,' said she, * let us turn to Him who is peace.' " I am writing this at his table, while he is busy preparing leather gloves for his peasant children. His family are around him, engaged in their different avocations ; his eldest son, Frederick, is giving a lesson to some of the little ones, in which amusement and instruction are judiciously blended ; and the cher papa^ without desisting from his employment, frequently puts in a word. He took me this morning into his workshop, where he has a turner's lathe, a press, a complete set of carpenter's tools ; also a printing-press, and one for book-binding. I assisted him in colouring a quire of paper, which is intended for covers of school-books. He gives scarcely anything to his people but what has been, in some measure, prepared by his own or his children's hands. " He will never quit this place. A more lucrative living was once offered him : ' No,' said he, * I have been ten years learning every person in my parish, and obtaining an inventory of their moral, intellectual, and domestic wants ; I have laid my plan. I must have ten years to carry it into execution, and the ten following to correct their faults and vices.' " PnQtor Oberlin is too modest and generous not to bear ioo GOOD SAMARITANS. testimony to the worth of his predecessors who had begun to clear this wilderness, and to raise the superstructure which he has so beautifully completed. ** Yesterday I found him encircled by four or five families who had been burnt out of their houses. He was dividing amongst them articles of clothing, meat, assignats, books, knives, thimbles, and coloured pictures for the children, whom he placed in a row according to their ages, and then left them to take what they preferred. Absolute equality reigns in his house ; children, servants, boarders — all are treated alike; their places at table change, that each in turn may sit next to him, with the exception of Louisa, his housekeeper, who of course presides, and his two maids, who sit at the bottom of the table. As it is his custom to salute every member of his family, night and morning, these two little maids come very respectfully curtseying to him, and he always gives them his hand, and inquires after their health, or wishes them good night. All are happy, and appear to owe much of their happiness to him. They seem to be ready to sacrifice their lives to save his. The following reply was made by one of his servants, on his inquiring the cause of her downcast looks during some slight indisposition : ' I fear, dear papa, there will be no servants in heaven, and that I shall lose the happiness of waiting upon you.' " Oberlin appears to be looking forward to his Eternal Home with holy confidence and joyful hope." Late in the year 1793 Oberlin experienced his second domestic affliction ; the loss of his eldest and well-beloved son, Frederick, who had entered the army as a volunteer, and was killed in battle, being then in his twenty-fourth year. The idyllic life of Christian tranquillity which the good pastor had nurtured in the Ban de la Roche was undisturbed by the French Revolution. The storm which raged in every other part of France passed over the Happy Valley without leaving behind it a rifled blossom or a broken bough. Though the rulers of the town had interdicted Christian worship, Oberlin ministered to his people every Sunday according to wont, and none molested him. It was as if the Angel of God watched at the portals of the valley, and permitted no connd o^" di<;'^nH to break in upon its peace. JJjS FAME SPREADS OVER EUROPE. lOJ He was dtprived, however, of the income allowed by the State. His people made an effort to supply its place by voluntary con- tributions, and in 1789 raised a sum of; r,i.33 francs; but ,in the three succeeding years it sunk to 400 fra'l^c.s, V/wjng t-o'fee general poverty of the district. Upon this sm.all .annual stipend^ with such additions as he could derive fromthrt Jab'^iir^ b^tuiti'iiij,' Oberlin contrived to maintain his household and exercise his usual charities. The tithes of all he possessed his devoted generosity yearly allotted to the service of God and the poor. Continuing that work of organisation for which he had a special genius, OberUn founded a Ladies' Bible Society, through the medium of which a large number of copies of the New Testament were circulated in France. The cause of Foreign Missions also found in him an active helper. For the material benefit of his flock, which from eighty or a hundred families had increased to five or six hundred, he intro- duced cotton-spinning, and fostered it by offering prizes to the best spinners. He knew that agriculture could support but a limited number, and was continually devising new resources for the benefit of his augmenting population, such as straw-plaiting, knitting, and the silk-manufactory. The good achieved by his extraordinary efforts was recognised in 18 18 by the presentation of a gold medal from the Royal Agricultural Society of Paris; and all over Europe his name was mentioned with well-deserved expressions of admiration. On a small scale, and in a confined area, he had displayed all the qualities of a great statesman and a leader of men ; and he had been more successful, perhaps,, than any statesman could ever be, because he was the priest as well as the teacher of his people, and laboured for their spiritual as eagerly as for their national welfare. From Louis XVIIL he received the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and it is certain that it was never worn on a breast more nobly animated by the highest and purest motives. No thought of self ever crossed the mind of Oberlin. He lived for others ; for others he gave up all his powers and opportunities and capabilities ; the general happi- ness was his first and latest care. And his career carries with it a valuable lesson, in showing, as it does most strikingly, how great an influence for good may be exercised by each one of us in his own sphere, if he will but take up the work in an unselfish spirit. 102 GOOD SAMARITANS. It needs no extraordinary, no exceptional intellectual powers ; it does not even demand the possession of extensive means ; the desideratum is simply an earnest and intelligent mind, and a heart that*,' filled with'the'loVe of God, necessarily bleeds and glows with the love of man. . '. Tiie 'reader -will "probabty desire to obtain some idea of Oberlin as' the priest 'oT *his flock. Well, of the pure simplicity and naturalness of his teaching, the following translation of a sermon preached in November, 1819, may be given as an illustration. He took for his text Luke xx. 34-36 : " The children of this world marry and are given in marriage : but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage ; neither can they die any more : for they are equal unto the angels ; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." " Our Lord here presents us with a delightful prospect, an ex- tremely enchanting future for all who have no greater, no more pressing anxiety than to become true disciples of Jesus Christ, true members of His body. " To understand fully this fine passage, I must explain some of its terms : " I. What does our Lord mean by ' this world ' and ' the world to come ' ? " By * this world ' our Lord means the present condition of the 'human race, since it has fallen from its originally glorious state. "And by the 'world to come' He means the marvellously glorious •condition of those in whom God shall perfectly restore His image, ^nd the original glorious state for which we were created, " II. What does our Lord mean by ' the resurrection of the dead ' ? Not the general awakening of the dead at the Last Day, when all human creatures will be summoned to appear before the tribunal of the Supreme Judge, but the perfect deliverance ol the soul from all the ills which sin has brought upon us, and the re-establishment of the primitive glory. This it is which our Lord calls the resurrection of the dead. " III. Who are they who will be esteemed worthy of this glorious resurrection and of their perfect re-establishment in the image ot God? EXTRACTS FROM QBE RUN'S SERMONS. 103 "Those who give themselves up in heart, and soul, and mind to our Lord Jesus Christ, and strive to enter in by the narrow gate, and for this purpose carefully study and observe all our Lord's commandments to His disciples ; who by continual prayer from the depths of their heart, and by frequent attendance at the Holy Table, endeavour to be more and more closely united to their Saviour j who aspire to love God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength, and all their thoughts, and to love their neighbours as themselves, and to be the faithful servants and labourers of God in His vineyard. " Those who travail to obtain those graces, not only for them- selves, but also for all their families, and their friends and ac- quaintances, so far as they can reach them by their prayers. " When such servants of God as these, by their faithfulness, humility, ardour, and charity, shall have arrived at the perfect holiness and perfection of the saints, and shall be received into the class and rank of the inhabitants of the Mount of Zion or Heavenly Kingdom, then shall they receive the glorified body or resurrec- tion of which our Lord speaks. " IV. Then shall they no more die ; as our Lord expresses it in Rev. xxi. 4, — ' There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away.' *' You know, my dear friends, that all terrestrial nature is a re- presentation of the spiritual. The caterpillars, and indeed all insects, pass through different stages which have no resemblance to one another. At first, on emerging from the ^g%^ they are but tiny grubs, which from time to time strip off their outer integument and issue forth as in a new attire. " But at length they receive a completely novel form, that of the chrysalis. This is quite a new animal, so to speak, differing from the first in figure and in its properties or powers. *' This, however, is not all. Under the form of this chrysalis, it prepares to become yet another animal, perfect in itself, and yet. wholly distinct from what it was in its two former stages ; this is the butterfly, adorned with beautiful colours, and endowed with aew tastes and qualities. " It now disdains the coarser nutriment of its first stage, and 104 GOOD SAMARITANS. feeds on one purer and more perfect, that is, on the honeyed juices of the flowers. " And so far as its motions are concerned, it has no longer any need of its feet to transport itself from one place to another ; by means of its wings it rises lightly, and soars rapidly above walls and rivers and mountains. ** In like manner those who are in Jesus Christ, passing, in proportion as they advance in humility, charity, and saintliness, through the different changes of their inner selves, spiritual, visible to the angels, but concealed from us under the earthly body. "And these changes proceed from brightness to brightness, from splendour to splendour, until their bodies have become conformed and like unto the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. " Ah, my dear friends, what an enchanting prospect, what a delightful and amazing hope ! " O let us always love to pursue in Jesus Christ our sanctifica- tion, and to knit closer our connexion with Ilim. "It is through Him, our dear Lord, and it is only through Him, that we can attain to this consummation. For it is. He whom God hath given us that we may find in Him wisdom, and justice, and sanctification, and glorious redemption, and deliverance." One other specimen, from a sermon preached on the Day of Pentecost, 1822. Text, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you, with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (Matt. iii. 1 1). " Beloved friends ! In Holy Baptism we have been received children of God, according to the original destination of the human race. " But does not a child who disobeys his father lose his right of childhood ? And have you accomplished the orders of God ? His orders, not only those of the New Testament, but also of the Old, the Lord of which assures us that He will not allow us to transgress a single iota? Have you fulfilled them all, and ful- filled them perfectly? Have you loved God with all your heart and all your soul ? and your neighbour, — do you love him, and: THE SECOND BAPTISM. 105 have you always lo\e.d him, as yourself? Have you, in conse- quence of this twofold love, constantly executed the will of God, freely and fully in all things ? Have you made every possible effort to enter through the strait gate ? " Alas, alas ! will every rational man reply to me, * Oh, if the Lord willed to enter into judgment with us, who could stand against Him ? " " And now, what is the object, the aim, of the Pentecost ? It is to warn us that the first Baptism does not suffice; that we must, by dint of instant prayer, lay hold on the second Baptism, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire — that force and mar- vellous virtue which vivifies in us the Word of God, which makes it throw its roots into our heart, and bear fruit. " Tell me, beloved friends ! when you sow your seeds, by what marvellous and magical secret do you prevent these germs, so delicate and tender, from rotting in the earth, so that instead of multiplying, they may reward your pains with liberal largess ? " Certainly no human power can work that miracle. No, it is God, that tender and compassionate Father of all His beloved creatures, through His goodness and His love for His children — for it is like Him that He loves everything which He has created — our beloved Heavenly Father, I say, communicates to the germs of vegetation as it were a kind of baptism of fire and of life ; who not only protects them from corruption, but endows them with a marvellous virtue, almost creative and divine, the virtue of producing others of the same species, and of multiplying, them. " And oh, friends ! it is this same divine and marvellous virtue,, which, through our ardent and persistent but secret vows and sighs, we should seek to obtain for the seed of the Word of God, when we listen to it for our own good, or when we communicate it to our children and household, either in the morning, or at different times in the day, according to circumstances. " And then He who multiplies the seeds which you entrust to the earth will baptize you also with fire and the Holy Ghost, and in you, and in your beloved ones, will bless the seeds ot His Holy Word. And it will come to pass that you, and your families, in spite of all the corruption of your hearts, and the seductive examples of those who inhabit the earth, and in spite 7 io6 GOOD SAMARITANS. of the temptations and assaults of the hosts of Satan, will become the sacred plants of the Church, capable of being transferred into the paradise of God, without fear or risk of- ever being cast down from your ineffable felicity." In these brief discourses theve is no special eloquence, it is true ; no originality, no signs of rare intellectual power : but we recognise a force and a sincerity which doubtless appealed to the hearts of his simple-minded hearers. He spoke in faith, and in faith they listened, and the sympathy between the teacher and the taught ripened into precious fruit. A Bourdaloue or a Massillon would have done infinitely less good in the Ban de la Roche, with all his splendid gifts, than the unassuming Oberlin : so true it is that God's instruments are always adapted to God's work, and so true is it also that for the work which He sets us to do we shall always be provided with the power to do it, if we apply ourselves with earnestness and in hope. Men -often shrink from the duty incumbent upon them in a timid apprehension that it is beyond their strength : let them attack it at once, and they will find themselves rising spontaneously, as it were, to the required height. We cannot fail to grow to fthe standard which God ordains for us. Yet another side of Oberlin's character is shown in the practical ^catechism which he addressed to his people in writing, requiring •a straightforward reply to each query. The relations between pastor and congregation were of course absolutely exceptional, which enabled the former to institute, and the latter to welcome, so minute and curious an investigation, or, as in England it would assuredly be called, inquisition. 1. Do you and your family regularly attend places of religious instruction ? 2. Do you never pass a Sunday without employing yourself in some charitable work ? 3. Do neither you nor your wife nor children ever wander in the woods on a Sunday, in search of wild raspberries, strawberries, whortle-berries, mulberries, or hazel nuts, instead of going to church ? And if you have erred in this manner, will you solemnly promise to do so no more ? OBERLIN'S ''CATECHlSMr 107 4. Are you careful to provide yourself with clean and suitable clothes to wear when you go to Church on the Sunday ? 5. Do those who are provided with the necessary clothes em- ploy a regular part of their income in procuring such for their destitute neighbours, or in the relief of their other necessities ? 6. Have your civil and ecclesiastical overseers reason to be satisfied with your conduct, and with that of the other members of your family ? 7. Do you so love and reverence our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, as to feel united in the bonds of Christian fellowship with that flock of which He is the Pastor ? 8. Do the animals which belong to you cause no injury or inconvenience to others ? — [Guard against this, for it would be as fire in tow, and a source of mutual vexation.] 9. Do you give your creditors reason to be satisfied with your honesty and punctuality? Or can they say of you that you are more desirous of purchasing superfluous clothes than of dis- charging your debts ? 10. Have you paid all that is due this quarter to the church- warden, schoolmaster, and shepherd? 11. Do you punctually contribute your share towards the main- tenance of the roads ? * 12. Have you, in order to contribute to the general good, planted upon the common at least twice as many trees as there are heads in your family ? 13. Have you planted them properly, or only as idle and igno- rant people would do, to save themselves trouble ? 14. Do you, when the manager wishes to assemble the com- munity, render him all the assistance that lies in your power? and, if it be impossible for you to attend yourself, are you careful to inform him of your absence, and to assign a proper reason for it ? 15. Do you send your children regularly to school? 16. Do you watch over them as God requires you should do? And is your wife's and your own conduct towards them such a? will ensure their afl"ection, respect, and obedience." 1 7. Are you frugal in the use of wood ? And do you contrive to make your fires in as economical a manner as possible ? A very important matter, as we have seen, in the Ban de la Roche. io8 GOOD SAMARITANS. i8. Do you keep a dog unless there be absolute necessity? 19. Have you proper drains to carry off the refuse water in your yard ? [Observe : with Oberlin cleanliness was next to god- liness. He anticipated Kingsley in combining the sanitary reformer * with the priest.] 20. Are you and your sons acquainted with some little handi- craft work to employ your leisure moments, instead of wastmg them in idleness ? Our sketch of Oberlin's career must draw to a close. Have we not said enough to enable the reader to realize to himself this extraordinary man, who, in a secluded corner of Europe, carried out into principle not a few of the social and moral theories that brighten the pages of Plato's " Republic " and Moore's " Utopia " ? this man who was at once philanthropist, pastor, statesman, legislator, and educational reformer, — whose organizing capacity created everything, from a highway to an infants' school? Well, let us take a final look at the worker and his works as they appeared to a lady who visited them in 1820 : — " I wish," she writes, "I had power to convey to you an idea of our present interesting and serious situation. In the first place, I must introduce you to the room I am sitting in. It is perfectly unique — I should think the floor had never been really cleaned. It is filled with old boxes, and bottles, and pictures, and medi- cines, and books, but everything is in its place. Two little beds are stuck up in each corner, and there are a few old chairs. The * He was also a sumptuary reformer. On one occasion he addressed to the mothers in his parish an animated remonstrance on the fashion they had adopted of putting cambric or muslin frills to their children's shirts. " Do not do so, dear friends. Unpick them, cut them off, and seek not to increase your children's vanity, which is already too great by nature. Cut off all the finery that does not correspond with your station in life, and employ yourselves in clothing the poor families of this extensive parish, many of whom are in an exceedingly miserable condition. Love your neighbours as yourselves. Re- nounce every superfluity, that you may be the better able to procure necessaries for those who are in want. Be their care-takers — their fathers and mothers — inasmuch as it is for this purpose that God has blessed you with more temporal wealth than He has given to them. Be merciful. The time may come when you yourselves will stand in need of the Divine mercy." Can the reader imagine many English clergymen addressing their flocks in this outspokea manner ': THE HOUSEKEEPER ''LOUISA." 109 window looks upon the tops of the mountains, near which we are, —separated from the world." . . After describing their journey to Waldbach, she continues : — " We set off for Mr. Oberlin's, a mile and a half farther, — z. romantic walk through the valley. On the way we met this most venerable and striking man — the perfect picture of what an old man and minister should be. He received us cordially, and we soon felt quite at ease with him. We all proceeded together to- wards his house, which stands on the top of a hill, surrounded by trees and cottages. Owing to the fatigue of our journey, I felt quite overdone on our first arrival. I could see nothing like a mistress in the house ; but an old woman, called Louisa, dressed in a long woollen jacket and black cotton cap, came to welcome us, and we afterwards found that she is an important person at the Ban de la Roche : she is mistress, housekeeper, intimate friend, maid-of-all-work, schoolmistress, entertainer of guests, and, I should think, assistant minister, though we have not yet heard her in this capacity. Besides Louisa, the son-in-law and daughter and their six children live here, two young girls, protegees^ and two more maids out of the parish. Mr. Graff, the son-in-law, is a minister, and a very excellent man. There is much religion and simplicity both in him and his wife ; but the latter is so devoted to the children that we seldom see her. We were ushered into the salle-a-manger^ where stood the table, spread for supper ; a great bowl of pottage, with a pewter plate and spoon for everybody : — the luxuries of a common English cottage not being known in the Ban de la Roche. . . " Tuesday. — We have become better acquainted with this ex- traordinary people, who are as interesting as they are uncommon. I much regret that I cannot speak the language more fluently ; yet I get on as well as I can; I have had a good deal of pleasing communication with them. " I never knew so well what the grace of courtesy was till I saw this remarkable man. He treats the poorest people, and even the children, with an affectionate respect. For instance, his courtesy, kindness, and hospitahty to our postilion were quite amusing. He pulled off his hat when he met him, took him by the hand, and treated him with really tender consideration. He is, I think, more than eighty — one of the handsomest old men I [lO GOOD SAMARITANS. ever remember to have seen — still vigorous in mind and spirit, delighting in his parish, full of fervent charity. . . . The meals are really amusing : — we all sit down to the same table, maids and all, one great dish of pottage or boiled spinach, and a quantity of salad and potatoes, upon which they chiefly live, being placed in the middle. He shakes hands with all the little children as he passes them in the street, speaking particularly to each of them. The effect which such treatment has had in polishing these people, uncivilized and uncultivated as they formerly were, is quite wonderful They have been taught a variety of things which have enlarged and refined their minds, besides religion — music, geography, drawing, and botany. My sketching has been quite a source of amusement in the parish. . . . ** If you go into a parish cottage they quite expect you will eat and drink with them ; a clean cloth is laid upon a table, washed almost as white as milk, and the new milk and the wine \kirschen wassery distilled from the fruit of the wild cherry], and the great loaf of bread, are brought out ; yet they are in reality exceedingly poor. Their beds also look so clean and good that they would astonish our poor people. In some respects I think they are decidedly cleaner than our own peasantry. Their dress is simple to the greatest degree. The women and girls all dress alike, even down to the very little children. They wear caps of dark cotton, with black ribbon, and the hair bound closely under. Everybody —maids, children, poor and rich, call Mr. Oberlin their ' cher papa,' and never was there a more complete father of a large family. We breakfast at seven ; the family upon potatoes boiled with milk and water — a little coffee is provided for us. We dine at twelve, and sup at half-past seven. Everything is in the most primitive style. I never met with such a disinterested people. It is almost impossible to pay them for any service they do for you. In our visits to the poor we have been afraid of offering them money; but we feel anxious to throw in some assistance towards the many important objects which Mr. Oberlin is carrying on amongst them. It is almost past belief what he has done, and with very limited means. Three poor dear women are noted for their benevolence : one especially, who is a widow herself with several children, has undertaken to support and bring up three orphan children ; and she has lately taken another, from no other •* THE SPIRIT OF GOOD-FELLOWSHIP AND KINDNESS:' in principle than abounding Christian charity. One seldom meets with such shining characters. Mr. Oberlin said the other day that he did not know how to pay Louisa, for nothing hurt her so much as offering her money. No one could be more devoted to his service, and that in the most disinterested manner. Her cha racter has impressed me very much. We had a delightful walk to a church about two miles distant, on Sunday mornings the numbers of poor, flocking from the distant villages, dressed in their simple and neat costume, formed a striking object in the scene. It happened to be the Sunday Mr. Oberlin goes to the next parish, where his son requires his assistance in giving prizes to the schoolchildren. "Wednesday evening. — The poor charm me. I never met with any like them ; so much spirituality, humility, and cultiva- tion of mind, with manners that would do honour to a court; yet the homeliness and the simplicity of the peasant are not lost. The state of the schools, the children, and the poor in general, is quite extraordinary, and as much exceeds our parish as ours does the most neglected. " We have spent our time in the following manner: since Sunday the mornings have been very wet ; we have therefore been chiefly shut up in our own room, reading, writing, and drawing ; the eldest of the Graffs (Marie), a sweet girl, is a good deal with me, to read and to talk to me. The children and young people in the house are becoming fond of me; our being here is quite a ga'ety and an amusement to them. About three o'clock Mr. Legrand comes for us, to take us different excursions, etc. He seems to us one of the kindest persons we ever met with, full oi conversation ; nothing can exceed the torrent of words they all have. The old gentleman delights in talking to F , and tells him everything about himself, his family, his parishes. Our room joins his library, and all the family are free to enter whenever they like. The whole system is most amusing, interesting, and useful. It is a capital example, and instructive for the minister of a parish. There is a spirit of good fellowship and kindness amongst all the people that is quite delightful. The longer we have been here, the more we have been struck with the un- common degree of virtue which exists among them. On Monday evening, after sketching Legrand's house, we were taken to the 113 GOOD SAMARITANS, cottage of Sophia Bernard, where we found the table spread in the most complete manner for our tea — a luxury we had not enjoyed since we left England. Here we passed some time, eating, talking, and reading the Bible ; and it ended with prayer, by Sophia Bernard, in a sweet and feeling manner. We then had a charming walk through the valley home. Tuesday, in the afternoon, we ascended towards the very top of the mountains, to another of his villages, where we again found some delightful women, and a capital school. " Colmar, Friday evening. — Our scene is again quite changed, we are returned to the common world; and I now find myself by a comfortable fire at a good hotel, which is quite a luxury after the primitive fare of the Ban de la Roche, where we found but little indulgence for the body, though we were treated with genuine hospitality. They live sadly in the clouds. The sun does not appear very often to shine upon them. I never was so struck with the difference of climate as I was to-day, in coming down into the plains. It poured with rain for the last day or two ; and all yesterday, in the mountains, everything was soaked with wet; but on entering the plains the dust began to fly. Delightful and uncommon as is this retreat, I must acknowledge we have rather enjoyed the comforts of the town and the conveniences of this place. It would be a trial to me to live surrounded and buried by mountains. I could not help rather feeling for Marie Graff, who is sensible of her privations. How- ever, they are happy and contented, and highly blessed, and it is a great privilege to have passed this time with them ; an event which must always be valuable through life. We parted from the excellent old man with many kisses, in the full spirit of Christian love." Old age, though it did not weaken Oberlin's Christian enthusiasm, broke down his physical strength ; and he was at last compelled to delegate the charge of his flock to his son-in-law, Mr. Graff. He continued, however, instant in prayer on their behalf, and devoted all his thoughts to the advancement of their spiritual and material welfare. His last illness came upon him suddenly. On Sunday, the 28th of May, 1826, he was seized with shiverings and fainting fits, which prevailed until a late hour of the night. During the next two days he was alternately conscious and OBERLIN'S ILLNESS AND DEATH. 113 insensible ; exclaiming frequently, as his strength permitted., " Lord Jesus, take me speedily ! Nevertheless, Thy will be done ! " He was much cheered and consoled, on Tuesday even- ing, by a visit from his friend Legrand, embracing him warmly, and saying, in a distinct voice, "The Lord bless you, and al who are dear to you ! May He be with you day and night ! " The day following, his weakness had so increased that he was unable to speak, and had recourse to signs to express his feelings. During the night between Wednesday and Thursday, the ist of June, he uttered incessantly plaintive moans, as though in pain, though probably they were the almost unconscious effects of physical debility ; but at times he would seize the hand of either of his children who happened to be nearest to him, and press it to his heart. When Legrand visited him at six in the morning, his arms and legs had become lifeless and cold ; but he gathered up strength enough to take off his cap, join his palms, and lift his eyes towards heaven, with a light on his countenance which told of inward peace in the assurance of eternal life through a risen Saviour. Then his eyes closed, to be opened no more in this world ; though it was a quarter past eleven before his spirit passed away, and the death bell, pealing slowly and sadly through the valley, announced to his sorrowing people that their pastor, teacher, philanthropist, and friend was no more. His funeral took place on the 5th of June. Never before had such a sense of mourning been seen in the Ban de la Roche. The procession was nearly two miles long, and included the mayors, elders, and magistrates, all the people, young and old, with the most aged inhabitant leading the way, and bearing aloft a simple wooden cross to be planted on the grave of " Papa Oberlin." At the close of the ceremony an address was deUvered by the Vice-President of the Consistory of Ban, from which, as an appropriate peroration to our biographical sketch, we translate the following passages : — " My Christian brothers," he said, " we have just sustained a great and sensible loss ; our good father Oberlin has quitted us ; he has terminated in peace his earthly career. Around his grave I see the faithful of the two parishes of the Ban de la Roche, the faithful of Waldbach and Rothau, uniting their grief and their I ears with those of the children and the many friends of the 114 GOOD SAMARITANS. venerable deceased. If, moved with sentiments of love and admiration for the venerable pastor of Waldbach, I speak on this day of sorrow, I know well, my brethren, that it is impossible for me to describe to you worthily the lofty virtues and the fine qualities of the good and great man for whom we are now mourning. " Our Consistorial Church loses in him one of her most zealous pastors, a man distinguished by his talents and his virtues; the parishes of Waldbach and the Ban de la Roche in general, a benefactor, a father, of the utmost tenderness of heart ; his family and friends, their model, and the source of their happiness; humanity, one of its finest ornaments. What a pure and elevated soul — what simplicity — what affability — what gentle tolerance — what unswerving rectitude — what candour, have we not admired in that thrice-happy old man 1 More than an octogenarian, the venerable Oberlin made use of his failing energies for the glory of God, and with his latest sigh implored the Divine mercy upon that beloved parish in which he had centred all his affections. " How tender the care he lavished on the cherished flock which was confided to his charge ! A worthy servant of his Divine Master, a zealous successor of the Apostles, he devoted himself wholly to the welfare of his fellows. For nine-and-fifty years he gave up all his energies, physical and intellectual, all the hours of his laborious life, to the civilizing of this interesting country; and with the noblest disinterestedness, with unshaken firmness, with inexpugnable zeal, he voluntarily sacrificed all his fortune in order that security, and ease, and prosperity might inhabit your humble dweUings. . . It is Oberlin who trained your teachers; it is he who covered your dry and naked rocks with fertile soil ; it is he who transformed all these hamlets into flourishing villages ; it is he who, working by your side, succeeded in restoring and enlarging your roads ; it is he who showed a noble compassion for your poor, and nourished them in seasons of scarcity ; it is he who succoured the widow and the orphan, and protected the deserted ; it is he — ^but let us pause ; your grateful hearts can finish for themselves this feeble outline of what he accomplished for your welfare. Oberlin did not allow his humanity to be limited by any narrow views ; he made no distinction of creed ; he was persuaded that intolerance dishonours charity. ... THE GENERAL MOURNING— FUNERAL EULOGIUM. 115 *• Oberlin rekindled the torch of the faith, and illustrated religion in these districts. More urgently even than your well- being in this world did he strive for the salvation of your immortal souls. The glory of all his efforts, the prize of all his anxieties, .was your spiritual welfare, O ye faithful of the parish of Waldbach t " With what fire and force, what simplicity and perseverance, he preached to you the gospel of the Christ, that precious gift of heaven, those truths of religion engraved upon his heart ! He taught you to discover in the Holy Bible, in the precepts of Jesus Christ, the remedy for all your ills, the resource for all your miseries, the true fountain of the purest pleasures, of the happiness of this life and the life to come. It was he who, Gospel in hand, purified, enlightened, consoled, sanctified you. Was it not he who, by his speech and practice, fostered in your hearts the love of God and man ? Was it not he who led you to the feet of that Redeemer who has suffered for you ? — to that Christian virtue, that fervent faith which makes the happiness of the Christian ; who presented to you our adorable Saviour in the heavenly abodes where He awaits you, whither He went to prepare a place for you ? Was it not he who so frequently exhorted you to labour for the meat which endureth unto everlasting life? * " It is to your worthy patriarch that you owe this word of grace ; it is he who distributed among you the manna which sustains your souls ; it was he who carried the Gospel into your houses and into the cottages of so many of the poor outside the borders of his parish. Oh, my brothers, draw ye upon that treasure which never diminishes, which enriches you in proportion as ye draw upon it ! Bless the name of Oberlin, bless the memory of that just man who might say in truth with St. Paul, the great apostle : t * Ye know . . . after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations . . . and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, . . . repen- tance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . None of those things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the * John vi. 27. f Acts xx. 18-33. ci6 GOOD SAMARITANS. ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God ... I take you to record, that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God ... I have coveted no man's silver, or gold, or apparel.' " Do you not retrace in these details the image of your vene- rable pastor Oberlin ? " And, my brothers, what did he accomplish for the propaga tion of the holy religion of Jesus Christ, for the propagation of the sacred writings? Speak, Biblical Societies of Strasburg, of Paris, of London ! Speak, Missionary Institutions of Basel and Paris ! What moneys he contrived to collect, what donations and gifts, for these pious Societies, in order that the Bible might be diffused everywhere, that the teaching of Christ might pene- trate even into the most savage climes, among the most bar- barous nations, that God and the Saviour might be adored by all the inhabitants of the earth. What a joy for him, when perusing the reports of the Bible and Missionary Societies, to see the blessing of God bestowed upon his work ! "His career, full of trials, privations, and dangers, his pro- longed sufferings, revealed his soul in all its purity, and the subUme virtues of which it was the seat. A patience which nothing could overthrow, an eminently Christian resignation, rendered him always superior to all misfortunes. He confronted death with a steadfast eye, with the calmness and serenity of the just. In taking leave of earth he commended his soul to God, he prayed for his family, for his friends, for his parish ; and in the midst of benedictions, his soul soared up to the heavens. Oberlin has left us ; his death was the recompense of a life crowded with good works, with just and generous actions. "What a concourse at his funeral, what lamentations, what '.ears ! Two parishes, eight communes, that crowd of friends, ■)f strangers, all say with one voice, it is to a good man we pay he last sad homage ; it is Oberlin, our father, our benefactor, whom we weep ; it is friendship, reverence, gratitude, which has led us to this grave ! . . . His ashes will repose in your midst, ye good people of the Ban de la Roche ; and that grave which enshrines his mortal remains will be for all of us a sacred spot. We shall show it to our children and say to them, * Here lies *' FAREWELL, NOBLE FRIEND! FAREWELL I" 117 Oberlin our father.' He rendered us happy ; his image is en- graved in our hearts ; love is stronger than death ; Waldbach will be a permanent monument of his glory ; the names of Oberlin and Waldbach will be for ever united in the memory t>f ' men. " Let us adore the ways of Providence, my brothers ! In the stead of the venerable father, the Lord has given you the worthy husband of Oberlin's daughter, the friend of his heart, and one who walks in God's ways. It was the good father himself who made the choice, and this choice is a new sign of heaven's pro- tection vouchsafed to this flock. It is with perfect confidence that Oberlin has passed on to the hands of his successor the sacred deposit of which the Divine Master had given him charge. " Yes, Christians, let us adore that Providence which unites and parts us, afflicts and consoles us ; let us enter into its views, let us accomplish its designs upon us. Let us be united by the bonds of that charity which is the most perfect of all the virtues {les Mens) ; let us love one another in this mortal life, that we may love one another in the world beyond. Let us love one another in God, in whose bosom we shall one day find ourselves to be united for ever, if here below we serve Him with fidelity. Let us vow to this God of all goodness an absolute resignation,, an unshaken faith. May the Father of all Mercy be the consoler and supporter of the afflicted family and friends of the departed saint, of this parish now filled with mourning ! " Farewell, venerable Oberlin ! in the heavenly region thou gatherest what thou hast sown, thy works follow thee. Delivered from all trials and sorrows, thy Lord shall say to thee : ' I know thy works, thy charity, thy faith, thy patience' (Rev. ii. 19). Farewell, noble friend I Farewell, venerated father I Never shall thy image vanish from our soul ; always thou shalt be the object of our reverence : thy memory, the memory of the just, shall remain for ever as a benediction." * * This sermon, in the original French, is given in the Appendix to. "Memoirs of John Frederic Oberlin " (published in 1831), a little volume to which ^t. have been much indebted. It contains information not accessible elsewhere. The principal authority for the good pastor's life is, however, the •'Notice sur Jean Frederic Oberlin," by M. Lutteroth. See also the Rev. J» Conder's article in the Eclectic Review for October 1827. Ii8 GOOD SAMARITANS, We shall conclude this chapter with the life of a woman, who, in her sphere, did work as noble as any done by Oberlin in his Alsatian valley, labouring among a population not less ignorant and infinitely more vicious. Mary Carpenter was born at Exeter on April 3rd, 1807. She was the daughter of Dr. Lant Carpenter, a Nonconformist divine, who came of an old Nonconformist stock. At an early age she ^ showed herself keenly alive to the religious influences that sur- rounded her, and would turn from playing with her dolls to plunge into the metaphysical maze of necessity and freewill. Her father removed to Bristol in 18 17, and before long Mary Car- penter was allowed to take charge of a class in the Sunday-school. Meanwhile, her education was of a very thorough and compre- hensive character, including the study of Latin and Greek, of Mathematics, with some of the elements of Physical Science and Natural History. Wide as was the field over which her active intellect ranged, the knowledge she acquired was exact and pro- found. Her father discouraged superficial work ; all she did she was required to do conscientiously, to plumb the bottom, not to skim the surface. A schoolfellow bears witness to the fulness of her acquirements : — " The Latin reading/' says this authority, ** which I seem to associate most with the * Agricola ' of Tacitus, was marked by the same conscientious care which she evinced in everything, securing accuracy but not escaping stiffness, unless, at the appeal of some prophetic passage which softened more than the outer voice, it assumed for the moment a higher charac- ter, and admitted a gleam of poetic light. . . . Every Monday morning we had a Greek Testament reading with Dr. Carpenter, intended not less as a religious lesson than as an exercise in the language and criticism of Scripture. . . . While translating her verses with precision, and prepared with answers to questions of history and analogy, she unconsciously betrayed, by voice, by eye, by the very mode of holding her book, that she treated the text as sacred, and in following its story felt a touch from which a divine virtue went out" In 1827 she accepted the charge of some young girls in the Isle of Wight, where the love of natural scenery and her sympathy with the beautiful found ample food. Thence she went to MARY CARFENTER—HER PATIENCE. 119 Odsey, near Royston, vigilantly keeping up her own mental culture, and losing no opportunity of adding to her stores of knowledge. In 1829, she returned to Bristol, and, in conjunc- tion with Anna, opened a school for girls. Happy pupils who had Mary Carpenter for teacher ! Her vivid fancy played upon the dry bones of facts, and made them live. She infused a new, fresh interest into every study by comparing it and correlating it with other studies. Her heart was in her work ; she did not take it up as a dreary task that had to be accomplished and endured, but as a real and genuine pleasure which could not be too fully enjoyed. One of her pupils wrote : — " Miss Carpenter is quite delightful; she understands Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and every other language for anything I know to the contrary, for I only know of these, hearing her teach them. She is fond of poetry, geology, and conchology, which two latter she seems to understand very well. In short, she seems to be universal. She possesses the quality of great kindness, as do all the family." But as yet she had not discovered the mission which God had sent her into the world to discharge, the great end for which her powers had been given and matured. It was not until 183 1, when she became Superintendent of the Sunday-school, that her attention was directed to the wretched condition of the poor and ignorant in our large English towns. There, wealth and poverty seem almost to touch each other, and yet between them yawns a gulf not less wide than that between Lazarus and Dives in the parable. One half the world knows not how the other half suffers, because, unfortunately, it does not care to know. The Bristol riots, which fill so dark a chapter in the history of the time, shocked her into a conviction that beneath the surface of social life stormy currents raged uncontrolled, and she formed within her mind a deep resolve to save as many as possible of the waifs and strays which they tossed helplessly to and fro, to devote her life and her gifts to the cause of God's poor. She did not at first find the way, and she had the wisdom to wait until Heaven should make it clear to her. So much well-meant effort is lost by unwise haste ! Some persons seem in a hurry to anticipate the counsels of God Himself! In 1833 the Rajah Raumshem Raj visited Bristol, and so did Dr. Joseph Tuckerman, of Boston, U.S. ; and 120 GOOD SAMARITANS, the first touched the springs of Mary Carpenter's sympathies by his visions of a regenerated India, the second aroused her to the sad lot of destitute children. These two influences determined and shaped out her career. The impression made upon her mind by the Brahman Theist we have in some verses which she wrote on hearing of his death : — ** Thy nation sat in darkness, for the night Of pagan gloom was o'er it. Thou wast bom 'Midst Superstition's ignorance forlorn, Yet in thy breast there glowed a heavenly light Of purest truth and love, and to thy sight Appeared the day-star of approaching Morn. What ardent zeal did then thy life adorn, From deep degrading guilt to lead aright Thy fallen people ! to direct their view To that blessed Son of Righteousness, whence beams Guidance to all that seek it — faithful, true ; To call them to the Saviour's living streams. The cities of the East have heard thy voice, * Nations, behold your God ! Rejoice, rejoice ! '" Mary Carpenter was one day accompanying Dr. Tuckerman in his exploration of the poorer quarter of Bristol, when a ragged boy, rushing out of a dark entry, dashed recklessly across their path. " That child," remarked Dr. Tuckerman, *' should be followed to his home and seen afte^." These few words were as seed that falls on a fertile soil. They sank deep into Mary Car- penter's mind, with a painful feeling that a duty was being neglected. They opened to her the " way " — they pointed out lue •' work " for which she had so long been waiting. With the co-operation of her sister she began to lay her plans for future action ; and at length, in 1835, they developed into the "Working und Visiting Society " for visiting the homes of the poor of the congregation, and of the Sunday-school. Mary Carpenter became Its secretary, and took charge of the worst and poorest of the districts over which the Society extended its range of operations. The admirably thoughtful and prudent spirit in which she entered on her task shows itself plainly in the entry in her journal, dated Thursday, May 21st, 1835. "In the year 1832," she writes " on occasion of the public fast, and also of the public thanks- .;iving, I made a solemn determination to devote myself in any THE MINISTRY TO THE POOR. 121 way that lay in my power to the good of my fellow-creatures. A means appears to be now open to me to do this more efficiently than heretofore, and I feel much gratitude to my Father for it. I pray to Him to enable me to discharge these happy duties to His glory ; never to allow them to interfere with my other duties, but only with my hours of relaxation ; and to remember that, though I give my goods to feed the poor and have not charity towards all men, I am nothing." She was under no delusion as to the character of the work she had undertaken. She contemplated none of that fancy charity so easily practised by young ladies, who, in trim attire, go from cottage to cottage in a quiet village, without risk, without labour, and flatter themselves that, while simply passing away an idle hour, they are realizing the highest dreams of benevolence. From the serene domesticities of a happy household, and the refined pleasures of self-culture, she was prepared to penetrate into the reeking courts and squalid alleys of a great commercial and sea- faring town, and to experience the repulsion of the coarsest aspects fof a foul and degraded life. Poverty in a woodbine-trellised cottage, reading its Bible, and supported by the alms of the " great houses," is not without a certain attractiveness ; but how different is the poverty which struggles for a crust of bread in the byways of London or Bristol, Liverpool or Birmingham, and in filthy tenements crouches side by side with vice ! Mary Carpenter, hoA^ever, had chosen her work deliberately, and executed it patiently. Hers was no fugitive emotion of sham philanthropy, but a real deep love for her fellow-creatures, flowing from, and sustained by, her love for their Saviour. She soon discovered that many of her fellow-workers were not animated by so lofty a courage or so tenacious a purpose as herself ; that they shrank from con- tact with the very lowest of the poor, and desired to base their charitable eff'orts on a principle of selection. To meet the diffi- culty she organised a new band of labourers, under the title of a Ministry to the Poor ; and pressed forward on her path more resolutely than ever. Yet not without much mental conflict, over which she triumphed only through the severest self-discipline Weariness and dejection, a sense of personal unworthiness, a ten- dency to morbid analysis of every thought and feeling, constitu- lional irritability, against which she strove continually, — these were 8 122 GOOD SAMARITANS. trials which she was compelled to bear alone, until she found rest and peace in her acceptance of the promises of God. The death of her father, who was drowned on his way from Leghorn to Mar- seilles, in 1840, was a shock beneath which her whole nature reeled. She summoned up all her energy and all her fortitude to bear it, and gradually recovered something of her brighter and happier self; but it was long before the shadow it had cast upon her life entirely disappeared. The reader must not suppose that Mary Carpenter, amidst all the stress of her philanthropic work, neglected the multiform interests of daily life. She frequently indulged herself in the practice of poetical composition ; her scientific studies were prose- cuted with ardour ; and her reading was large and various. She plunged into German literature with much zest, reading Schiller, Wieland, and Herder, and pouring forth her love, as any true German student must do, on the incomparable Jean Paul. Among the later English poets Wordsworth commanded her warmest sympathies ; but in Tennyson's " Idylls " she learned to take a true delight. Her literary criticism, as I think is the case with most women, was qualified by her moral instincts ; and she was apt to judge a work of art by its meaning and motive rather than by its purely technical merits. It was natural that a mind like hers would turn to history with peculiar pleasure ; and we find her studying D'Aubigne's " History of the Reformation " Dr. Arnold's "Rome," and Lord Mahon's " Essai sur le Grand Cond^," and similar works. Her love of art found abundant food in the galleries and studios of London, on the occasions of her metropolitan visits ; and her skilful pencil was called into frequent requisition. Of this side of her character the reader will find an interesting illustration in the following letter, which she addressed to a friend in February 1845. It will show that the highest and holiest duties abroad are by no means incompatible with that other high and holy duty, the duty of self-culture. " Have you read," she writes, " ' The Vestiges of Creation ' ? When it first came out people were very enthusiastic about it, and the first review mamma saw made her buy the book, which we thought a wonderful step on her part. But one soon began to teel that the author was very superficial, and every one found par- MISS CARPEA'TER'S CRITICISMS. 123 ticular fault with the branch of science with which he or she was most acquainted. Altogether, it is an interesting booli as the production of a mind aspiring after the grand, beautiful, and universal, but not sufficiently acquainted with the height and depth of nature to subject all her kingdoms to one great law. 1 have not much satisfaction in reading the book, not being able to repose with security on the accuracy of his facts. For instance, an important theory much depends for support on the fact that Mr. Crosse's creatures, which made a sensation at the British Association in 1836, appear in an infusion containing 'gelatinous silex,' which this author supposes to be silex transformed into gelatine, and thus exhibiting a transition from the mineral to the animal kingdom. Now Mr. Crosse, whom I had the great plea- sure of meeting the other day at Mr. Estlin's, told me that this was a complete error, as gelatinous silex was a perfect mineral, deriving its name not from its nature but from its appearance. This was certainly a most careless assumption, which ought not to have been made on so important a question. " I quite agree with you in feeling that The Chimes gives one a heartache, and do not v\'onder that you feel it often very painful to witness the mass of evil in the metropolis which you can do nothing to alleviate. 1 do not possess >our gaiety of heart to help to remove the painfulness of the feeling ; and I believe it was intended that we should suffer sympathetic pain, to stimulate us to make efforts for our fellow-creatures ; but I feel the most supporting view to take to be a firm conviction of the parental character of the Deity, and of His infinite wisdom, love, and power. He would not permit all these evils but for His own benevolent purposes. . . . " Last Saturday fortnight Anna and I breakfasted with Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, a most fascinating woman, full of genius and sentiment and religious feeling, and a keen sense of the ludicrous. She asked me about Dannecker's * Christ,' and of the effect pro- duced on us by it, and what Mrs. Jameson had said of Dannecker ; and then she was quite satisfied because she had heard a corre- sponding account from Mrs. , a missionary's wife. When she saw this statue in a gallery, she remained for some time quite transfixed with absorbing feeling, looking at ic ; at last she perceived a gentleman attentively observing her ; and struck with her admi- 124 GOOD SAMARITANS. radon, he said, 'That statue converted to Christianity the artist w.io sculptured it — and I am he ! ' He Lold her that he had a strong desire to have something that should immortalise him, and after in vain attempting to satisfy himself, travelled in Italy, but none of the splendid works of art he saw there seemed to reach his ideal. Then he devoted himself to the study of the Gospels, but at first he could see nothing but beautiful and sublime dis- jointed fragments, until one text seemed a key-note to him, ' God manifested in the flesh.' He became a devout Christian, but the subject he had proposed to himself seemed too great for him : after a time, however, he reflected that as others could preach and write on Christianity, which he could not, he should do something, and consequently determined to make the statue. " Mrs. Schimmelpenninck allowed me to come to her house and draw quietly (from her copy of David Roberts's ' Views in Egypt and Palestme ') during the Easter week ; and seldom have I enjoyed any view more than the view of Jerusalem from the road to Bethany over the Mount of OUves, where I could better imagine our Saviour walking than in almost any sketch I have ever seen. I made a tolerable copy in colours of that, and of the Desert of the Temptation, with the Dead Sea in the distance ; but how oiten did I long for the privilege which I had at your house, of having Mr. Roberts's own touches on my drawing ! " The " Ministry to the Poor," or " Domestic Mission," which she had established, continued, meanwhile, to prosecute its unpretend- ing but useful labours. Even this, however, failed to hit the mark at which Miss Carpenter aimed : it did not reach that latest stratum of the social mass which it was most important of all to penetrate. Another agency was wanted, to brmg within its scope the boys and girls who filled the streets and roamed about the quays. She found that agency in the " Ragged School " system which John Pounds originated in Portsmouth. It had afterwards, on a larger scale, been adopted at London and Aberdeen, Dundee and Edmbui-gh and Glasgow ; and eventually the Ragged School Union was formed. Miss Carpenter resolved on working it in Bristol, and, with a few friends to assist her, hired a room, engaged a master, and opened a "Ragged School" at Lewin's Mead, on the ist of August, 1846. There were seven pupils at first ; and on the following Tuesday nearly twenty assembled. Beginning RAGGED SCHOOLS AND NIGHT SCHOOLS. 125 to be tired in the afternoon, one of them said, "Now let us fight,'" and irx an instant they were all fighting. Peace, however, was quickly restored ; and each week brought increased numbers and improved order. It was literally a Ragged School : none of the boys had shoes or stockings ; some had no shirt and no home, sleeping in casks on the quay, or on steps, and living, possibly, by petty depredations ; but all better fed, apparently, than the children of the decent poor. The experiment proved so successful that a larger room was soon required ; and one was accordingly secured in St. James's Back, to which the school was transferred early in December. It was the first of a series of Institutions which owed their origin to the zeal and far-sighted charity of Mary Jane Carpenter. Fixed in one of the lowest and most populous quarters of Bristol, it speedily taxed all the energies of its managers^ and the opening of a Night School in connection with it brought in a swarm of young men and women, whose habits and character tested even the courage of the founder. Early in 1847, the attendance, one Sunday evening, rose to 200 ; the attempt to close the school with prayer was frustrated by disorder and shouts of mockery, and the court beneath resounded with yells and blows. The neighbours not unnaturally complained of the dis- turbance, and it became necessary to obtain aid from the police. Gradually, however, the master obtained a control which rendered official vigilance unnecessary ; and the policeman who came to protect remained for another purpose, — he was one day reported to the magistrates by an unsympathetic inspector for " having been two hours in the Ragged School, setting copies to the boys." The secret of the success which crowned this institution must be sought in the enthusiasm of the teachers, — an enthusiasm which they caught from Miss Carpenter. " Week by week," we are told, " and month by month, she was ever at hand to lighten the burden, not only by ready counsel and sympathy, but by taking a large share in the toil. The morning and evening of Sunday were consecrated to her Scripture-class in St. James's Back, — the afternoon being already pledged to the Sunday-school ; two nights every week were regularly given, at no matter what social sacrifice, to the evening school ; and day after day found her in the same haunt, ready to take a class, to preside over the mid day distribution of the soup to the most needy, or even bear tb 126 GOOD SAMARITANS. sole charge of management if sickness kept the master away. By this constancy she soon acquired a complete familiarity with the ways of the scholars, and also with the habits of the neighbour- hood. Strong in the power of a sacred purpose, she was perfectly devoid of fear, and would traverse alone and at night courts into which policemen only went by twos. The street quarrel was hushed at her approach, as a guilty lad slunk away to avoid her look of sorrowful reproof; and her approving word, with the gift of a flower, a picture, or a Testament, often made sad homes cheerful and renewed the courage of the wavering." Her mode of teaching will best be understood from the follow- ing entries in her journal : — " I showed them the orrery, which greatly delighted them, and they seemed quite to understand it, and to enter into the idea of the inclination of the earth's axis producing a change of seasons. . . " This class had never seen a map, and had the greatest diffi- culty in realizing it. T was delighted to see Bristol, Keynsham^ and Bath. I always begin with the * known,' carrying them on afterwards to the * unknown.' . . . " I had taken to my class in the preceding week some speci- mens of ferns neatly gummed on white paper ; they were much struck with their beauty, but none knew what they were, though W thought he had seen them growing ; one thought they were palm-trees. They seemed interested in the account of then fructification I gave them. This time I took a piece of coal-shale, with impressions of ferns, to show them. I explained that this had once been in a liquid state, telling them that some things could be proved to be certain, while others were doubtful ; that time did not permit me to explain the proofs to them, nor would they understand them if I did : but that I was careful to tell them nothing as certain which could not be fully proved. I then told each to examine the specimen and tell me what he thought it was. W gave so bright a smile that I saw he knew ; none of the others could tell ; he said they were ferns like those I showed them last week, but he thought they were chiselled on the stone. Their surprise and pleasure were great when I explained the matter to them. . . " The history of Joseph : They all found a difficulty in realizing hER EFFECTIVE PLAN OF TEACHING. ii'i that this had actually occurred. One asked if Egypt existed now, and if people lived in it. When I told them that buildings now stood which had been erected about the time of Joseph, one said that it was impossible, as they must have fallen down ere this. I showed them the form of a pyramid, and they were satisfied. One asked if all books were true. . . . " The story of Macbeth impressed them much. They knew the name of Shakespeare, having seen his head over a public-house." While Miss Carpenter anxiously strove to minister to the mental improvement of her ragged scholars, she was even more soHcitous for the development of their religious faculties. To teach them the great truths of Christ's religion, to accustom them to self- control and self-sacrifice, to nurture in them a love of purity and truth, — these were her great, her dominant aims. She knew that by an absolutely secular education she could not make them useful or trustworthy members of society ; that only by inspiring them with the love and fear of God could she bring them to respect and observe our social laws. Every Sunday morning and evening, and often on the week nights besides, she drew around her a Bible-class, and told them that old, old story — which is ever new — of the sacrifice of Calvary. Her religious teaching was wonderfully effective, because it was so earnest. Speaking from her heart, she went straight to the hearts of her listeners. And, indeed, 1 think the wonderful narrative of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ will never fail in its influ- ence so long as it is told by one who believes in it. Only when it drops from the frigid lips of men who have never realized it in their own natures does it cease to fertilise and brighten and bless. In 1849 she published an interesting little volume entitled " Ragged Schools, their Principles and Modes of Operation By a Worker," which may be accepted as the standard text-book or manual on the subject It contains a vigorous and well-reasoned argument for Government aid, and some valuable particulars of the condition of the destitute children whom she sought to be- friend. It is written by a worker who feels the value and respon- sibility of her work, is not ignorant of its anxieties, but loves it profoundly — loves it because she believes in it and in the good it does, and the warmth of human affection which it stimulates. *' How I prize the love I receive in the school ! " SxxC exclaims 128 GOOD SAMARITANS, in one of her letters ; " I must confess that it is not so attractive to me from a mere sense of duty, for 1 might find duties elsewhere ; but it is so delightful to me to gain so much love as I feel I have from these young beings, and to help to kindle their souls by mine." Thus it is that the work of the Good Samaritan is twice- blessed ; blessing the worker, and those for whom he works. It was not the nature of Mary Carpenter, however, to rest content with a certain measure of accomplishment; from the stage of one success she was always ready to mount up to another, — always, however, with a clear perception of what she wanted and how it might best be attained, — showing neither undue haste nor unwise hesitancy — ohne hast, ohne rast. Her experience ot Ragged Schools convinced her that something additional, some- thing complementary, was wanted, by which the juvenile offender might be separated from deteriorating influences and trained up in a wholesome atmosphere. She saw that to thrust him into prison, where he was exposed to the society of veteran criminals, was to seal and consummate his ruin, and effectually prevent him from retracing his misguided steps. We should not place a person, showing symptoms of illness, in a plague-smitten hospital, if we desired his recovery ! Such being her convictions, she published, in 1 85 1, a book entitled "Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders." In this she indicated three kinds of schools as necessary for the different grades of destitution, vagrancy, and criminality ;— good B'ree Day Schools ; Feeding Industrial Schools, aided by the rates, at which attendance should be compulsory; and, thirdly. Reforma- tory Schools,* in lieu of the existing prison system. She brought together a great number of facts to illustrate the total failure of the gaols to reform juvenile criminals, and she put before the I public four general propositions : — First, That, as a general rule, all children, however apparently vicious and degraded, are capable of being made useful members of society, and beings acting on a religious principle, if placed under right influences and subjected to judicious control and training. Second, That the existing system adopted towards offending children renders them almost certainly members for life of the * These were originally tried at Mettrai. FORMATION OF REtOKMATOKV SCHOOLS. 129 •criminal class, for it neither deters nor reforms them ; while, by vchecking the development of their powers and branding them with ignominy, it prevents them from gaining an honest livelihood. Third, That good Penal Reformatory Schools, conducted on Christian principles, with a wise union of kindness and restraint, have been successful in converting the most corrupt and degraded into useful members of society ; but that to secure their perma- nency and efficiency it was essential they should be under the authority and supported by the State. And fourth, That the parents being in reality the guilty parties, •rather than the children, inasmuch as parental neglect is usually the source of juvenile delinquency, every parent should be charge- ,able for the maintenance of a child thrown by crime on the care of the State, as much as if the child were under his own roof; and -should be held responsible for the maintenance of his child in a Reformatory School, or in some other way made to suffer for the .non-discharge of his duty. Miss Carpenter went on to say that if these four propositions were accepted — as, indeed, they had been, by a Committee of the iLords in 1847, ^^^d ^ Committee of the Commons in 1850 — legis- lative enactments would be needed to carry them out. A sufficient ^number of Reformatory Schools, under Government inspection .and supported by Government aid, must be established ; and magistrates and judges empowered to send all convicted children *to such schools, instead of committing them to prison. The next step, while these propositions were slowly sinking into fthe public mind, always slow to receive any idea which conflicts with old traditions and prejudices, was to bring together a con- ference of workers, so that some means might be adopted of carrying them into action. The arrangements were laboriously completed in the course of 1851 ; and on the 9th of December the Conference held its first meeting, under the presidency of Lord Lyttelton. Mr. M. D. Hill took a foremost part in its organ- isation, and delivered a very important and solid address. A Committee was appointed to "agitate" in the cause, and a memorial submitted to the Government. But Governments are in no hurry to move in new paths ; and Mary Carpenter determined to show the practicability of her scheme, in the meantime, by establishing ..a Reformatory School at Bristol. There is nothing the English- [JO GOOD SAMARITANS. man so quickly understands as a fact ; there is nothing from which he so instinctively shrinks as a theory. Premises at Kingswood formerly occupied as a Wesleyan School, and containing accom- modation for upwards of a hundred children, were purchased by a Mr. Russell Scott. Liberal contributions flowed in from generous friends, and the Kingswood Reformatory School was opened on the nth of September. Following up the good work, Miss Carpenter published in 1853 her "Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment," which supplied an interesting apergu of the treatment of juvenile delin- quents in France, Wurtemberg, Prussia, Bavaria, Belgium, and Switzerland. The moral of the book, which was also the burden of her teaching, she stated thus : — " The child must be placed where he will be gradually restored to the true position of childhood. He must be brought to a sense of dependence by reawakening in him new and healthy desires^ which he cannot himself gratify, and by finding that there is a power far greater than his own to which he is indebted for the gratification of these desires. He must perceive, by manifestations which he cannot mistake, that this power, while controlhng him, is guided by wisdom and love ; he must have his affections called forth by the obvious personal interest felt in his own individual well-being by those around him ; he must, in short, be placed in a family. Faith in those around him being once thoroughly established, he will soon yield his own will in ready submission to- those who are working for his good j it will thus be gradually subdued and trained, and he will work with them in effecting his reformation, trusting, where he cannot perceive the reason of the measures they adopt to correct or eradicate the evil in him. This, it is apprehended, is the fundamental principle of all true refor- matory action with the young ; and in every case where striking success has followed such efforts, it will be traceable to the greater development of this principle, to a more true and powerful action on the soul of the child by those who have assumed towards it the holy duties of a parent." A second Conference on the subject of reformatory schools was- held at Birmingham in December 1853; and public opinion now pronounced itself so decidedly in favour of the movement that^ in the following session, the Government introduced and carried* THE ''RED LODGE'' REF0RMA20RY. 13* through Parliament what was known as the "Youthful Offenders' Act." It authorised the establishment of Reformatory Schools by- voluntary managers, and placed them under the control of the Home Secretary. Experience had proved to Miss Carpenter the undesirability of including, as at Kingswood, boys and girls under the same roof ; and she now sought very anxiously for some means of separating the girls, so that her supervision over them might become more direct. Assisted by Lady Byron and other friends, she succeeded in purchasing a fine old Elizabethan building in Park Row, Bristol, known as the Red Lodge, which was opened as a Re- formatory School for girls on the loth of October, 1854. It was entirely under her own control, and she threw herself into its management with all the energy of her ardent nature, until over- wrought nature gave way beneath the strain, and in the following spring she was prostrated by a severe attack of rheumatic fever. On her recovery, which for some time was doubtful, she was sent by her physicians to the south coast of Devon, and in the mild air of Torquay she gradually recruited her physical powers. Then she resumed the threads of her many philanthropic labours, and entered once more upon that life of practical enthusiasm which was fraught with so many blessings for her fellow-creatures. For it is not only in the work, but in the example of such a woman that there lies a perpetual benediction for humanity. In the opening pages of this chapter we have insisted on the absolute necessity of making religion the basis of all education ; we have argued that the religious spirit ought to permeate and inspire our educational systems, and that the proper discipline of the soul is at least as essential as the adequate culture of the intellect. At the Red Lodge this fact was fully recognised by Miss Carpenter. She did not conceive it possible that the work of reformation could be accomplished without any appeal to those higher aspirations and purer feelings which lie dormant in our nature, until the springs are opened by the divining rod of God's holy word. The following extracts from her journal show how assiduously she sought to foster among the inmates of the Red Lodge a deep and genuine love of religious feeling: — "February, 1856. I have continued to give my lessons as usual, and have increasing satisfaction in them, perceiving that 432 GOOD SAMARITANS. they really take root in the girls, who show great capability of intellectual culture. The Scripture lessons especially give me most pleasure. At the interval of a week they can answer ac- curately every fact of the previous lesson, with evident under- standing and recollection of my explanations. The blank looks of the new girls fully prove to me how much work has been already done in preparing the soil to receive the good seed. My regular lesson times are these : — " Sunday afternoon from 2.30 to 4, generally longer. Review of hymns, with remarks, which have been learnt during the week. Gospel of Luke, with explanations and comments, after examina- tion on the last Sunday's lesson. If there is time, I permit each girl who can read to choose a text for herself, which much pleases them, and fixes the attention on particular passages. When there is time, I show them Scripture pictures. " Monday evenings from 6 o'clock to bedtime, when I visit them when in bed, which gives an opportunity for private communi- cation with individuals. Hitherto I have read a story to the younger ones while the older ones were writing, and then heard the older ones read. I mean to vary this. Afterwards I read the old Testament to them, being now engaged on the history of Abraham, which rises in grand antique beauty before me every time I realize it to present to these children. Indeed, the study uf these ancient records gives me something of the same feeling that seeing the disinterred Assyrian remains would do. When the girls are in bed I visit each, and find an interchange of affec- tion and occasional private word very useful in strengthening the bond which I wish to exist between my children and me." Into this happy and useful life a great sorrow came in the summer of 1856, — as great sorrows will come into the lives of all of us, — the death of a beloved mother, who had shared her thoughts and hopes and cares with broad and helpful sympathies. It was some time before her mind recovered its elasticity, but the healing influences of work gradually had their way, and in the following year she was once more immersed in the activities of a sagacious and comprehensive benevolence. The institution at the Red Lodge was expanded through the liberality of Lady Byron, and a home fitted up for eight or nine girls, under a INTEREST SHOWN IN ADuLT OFFENDERS. 133, matron, who were there traiaed for domestic service. The ex- periment was entirely successful. It was natural enough that from Reformatory Schools for the benefit of juvenile delinquents she should be led on to the con- sideration of agencies for the benefit of adult offenders. A visit to Dublin, in 1861, to attend the annual congress of the Social Science Association, introduced to her notice the admirable- system of prison management devised and carried out by Sir Walter Crofton ; and she convinced herself that a very large per- centage of criminals could, by a system of reformatory training, adopted towards the close of their terms of imprisonment, be^ restored to society as industrious and useful members. With characteristic energy she took up this new subject, side by side,, as it were, with her favourite topics of Reformatories and Ragged and Industrial Schools. The results of incessant inquiry and investigation were brought together in a book which she published in 1864, under the title of "Our Convicts." It was a forcible, and exhaustive indictment of the English convict system.* * Of the general character of its contents we shall quote the following de- scription : — '• Borrowing from the records of prison officials, and the police narratives of the daily papers, the author first described the actual moral condition of the convict class, and then proceeded to inquire what were the influences which>. produced the fearful moral degradation thus revealed, special stress being laid upon the facilities afforded by imprisonment for corruption and training in- crime. The third chapter was devoted to an exposition of the principles of convict treatment, the chief of which was stated to be the necessity that' the will of the individual should be brought into such a condition as to wish to- reform, and lo exert itself to that end, in co-operation with the persons who. are set over him.' This, it was urged, can never be done by mere force, or by any mechanical appliance. But that reformation, even of the most hardened- offenders, was possible, was proved by the remarkable results attained by Colonel Montesinos of Valencia, by Herr von Obermaier at Munich, and by Captain Maconochie in Norfolk Island. How far, then, did the English convict system fulfil the conditions of true reformatory discipline ? The answer was given in an elaborate inquiry, occupying the rest of the first volume, into- the arrangements of various prisons, the disposal of criminals, tickets-of-leave, and, finally, transportation. *' From the English convict system the reader was carried to Ireland, where- the treatment of prisoners was founded on the same Acts, but had been carried out to very different results. Intermediate establishments ■were in- stituted between the prisons and the world. The freedom of agency of tfcfo «34 GOOD SAMARITANS, True charity is many-sided; it does not confine itself to one branch of Christian work, but readily responds to every demand made upon it by suffering or sorrowing or sinning humanity. We have seen that Mary Carpenter's large heart could find room for the amelioration of the condition of the poor, the reformation of juvenile offenders, the discipline and training of adult criminals. She sympathized keenly with missionary effort abroad, and every movement against slavery commanded her hearty assistance. And it is to be noted that, enthusiast as she was, she was no visionary theorist, no fanatic stricken with blind reverence for impossible ideals ; her mind was eminently practical, and she undertook nothing which could not be defended by sober and rational arguments. Hence it is that her name is so happily associated with achievement, instead, as has been the case with ■many would-be reformers, with intention only. At various times inmates was gradually enlarged as they showed themselves deserving of trust, and strict supervision was exercised over those who went out on licence. The details of this method were exhibited with convincing wealth of illustration. The history of the system was set forth ; and to the evidence of personal observation, and the witness of official reports, there was added the testimony of other critics from England, from the Continent, and from Canada, in its support. Was the Irish system applicable to women as well as to men? The question was discussed in a chapter on Female Convicts, and after a contrast between the prison experiences on both sides of the Channel, it was unhesi- tatingly answered in the affirmative. In conclusion, various suggestions for improvement were laid down, including strict registration of criminals, greater -certainty and uniformity of judicial sentences, cumulative sentences, and changes in the county gaols in the direction of the principles of the Irish system, such as were already being carried out at Winchester and Wakefield. The next chapter, headed Prevention, afforded opportunity for a survey of the principal agencies available for the diminution of the causes of crime ; such as temperance, the diffusion of pure literature, the improvements of the dwellings of the labouring classes. The most important, however, was education ; which j gave occasion for a review of the progress of Reformatory and Industrial J Schools since the Conference of 1851, a plea for the separation of pauper children from workhouse management, and a renewed appeal on behalf of Ragged Schools. Finally, in brief but earnest words, the co-operation of society was invoked, and different channels for voluntary effort were marked out. * Thus may all labour together, government and people, for the regene- I ation of the misguided and neglected in our country, and for the restoration to society of ** Our Convicts."'" — The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter, by S. EsTLiN Carpenter, M.A., pp. 304-306. Upon this very valuable and interesting book of Mr. Carpenter's our sketch is founded. MISS CARPENTER GOES TO INDIA. 135 in her life the vast field of philanthropic effort afforded by British India had arrested her imagination ; but, true to her principle of doing the work which lay nearest at hand, she did not allow herself to be involved in radiant dreams of which she could not then anticipate the realization. But as the years passed by, and her various undertakings grew in consolidation and security, she allowed herself to consider the subject more seriously, and in 1864 her interest in it was re-kindled by conversations which she had with a couple of native Hindu gentlemen. Into what channel should she direct her energies ? At first she thought of receiving Indian ladies into her house; but further inquiry and reflection convinced her that the work to be done must be done in India. So, on the 12th of January, she registered a solemn resolution : — " I here record," she writes, " my solemn resolve that hence- forth I devote my heart and soul and strength to the elevation of the women of India. In doing this I shall not suddenly abandon my work here, which has long and deep claims on me, nor will I give it up until I have put it, so far as in me lies, on a firm and settled basis. I believe that it is come to a point at which this can be done. But I shall obey the remarkable call which has been given me so unexpectedly, which is in accordance with former days' feelings and resolves. Without any present and apparent change of plan, I shall watch openings, devote myself to perfecting my present work, and bearing my testimony in my proposed book, gain information, and prepare in every way for my great object — going to India to promote the Christian work for the women." On the 14th of February she wrote : — *' A month has passed since I made the foregoing entry. I have closely questioned myself, — suspected myself of enthusiasm, of weariness of work, etc., etc. ; but nothing has changed, but only confirmed, my strong and settled conviction that a new field is now about to open to me, one in which I shall seem especially to be working with my beloved Father, and in which the gifts which He gave me of mental culture will be especially useful ; one m which my natural powers will have free scope. * Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold.' Now that my poor little forsaken ones are cared for here. I may go to the ' others ' and 136 GOOD SAMARITANS. help them . . . Should I never return, heaven will be as near to me trom that region as from here."* It was not until 1866, however, that she could carry out her resolve. Her friends had at first embarrassed her with warnings and discouragements, but with her usual calm persistency she set them aside, and as soon as she saw the way clear before her she went. She felt it to be her duty ; and though in her sixtieth year, — with her constitution strained by severe illnesses, — never dreamed of shrinking froui it. To have neglected such an open- ing for good would have been to have sinned against her con- science and inner liglu. Her last work in England was to plan the establishment of a Girls' Industrial School ; and then, com- mending herself to God, she set out for India on the ist of September. Six wetks later she was at Ahmedabad, and studying its different Government institutions, prisons, hospitals, lunatic asylums, schojls, normal training institutions, and embracing every opportunity of becoming closely acquainted with the native character and wants. From the varieties of Oriental life, her imagination, with its keen sense of the picturesque, derived inexhaustible delight ; but she allowed nothing to displace the one thought, the one idea, which had possession of her mind. The lamentable condition of the Hindu women, — fettered by the restrictions of a narrow creed, cabined and confined by traditional prejudices, — was always before her ; and she studied deeply and anxiously the best method of attacking a problem which was complicated by both social and religious customs. Her convic- tion was, that it could be solved only through the development of female education; and the first step in this direction she perceived to be the introduction of trained female teachers into the girls' schools. Her views, as soon as she had distinctly formulated them, she laid before the Indian Government. A * Miss Carpenter refers to the touching story of the Elizabethan navigator, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, when his little pioneer was almost overwhelmed by the storm-tossed waters of the Arctic Sea, called out to his men, " Courage, jny lads, we are as near to heaven by sea as by land" — ** He sat upon the deck. The Book was in his hand : * Do not fear : heaven is as near, He said, ' by water as by land.' " HER RECEPTION IN INDIA. 137 Calcutta she was welcomed by Keshub Chunder Sen, the well- known leader of the Brahmo Soma], or new Hindu Theistic school, and from him and the native gentlemen associated with him she obtained a hearty and sympathetic support. The then Viceroy, Sir John (afterwards Lord) Lawrence, was well disposed to afford her every facility in maturing and carrying out her plans. Writing from Government House, on the 23rd of December, she says : — " Here I have been located for a fortnight. The Governor- General most kindly sent and appointed an interview with m^ immediately after his return from Simla, and after introducing me to Lady Lawrence, she wrote and invited me to take up my abode here while in Calcutta. . . . " I have beautiful large rooms here in one wing of the palace, all to myself, where I am perfectly independent, and may receive what visitors I please. At first I felt very like a state prisoner, but soon got to understand the ways of things. A red-liveried man keeps guard in the passage before my door, or rather spends his days in calm repose, lying on the matting, unless I send him on an errand, which I think very good for his health. He cannot, or will not, speak a word of English, except * Tea,' which he gets for me whenever I wish. The household is beautifully ordered^ and the servants most attentive. You would be rather frightened at first to meet to many red-liveried soldiers and servants wherever you go, but I get used to it and do not mind it. I have hadi numerous visitors, and often have been in a constant state ofc: levee when in the house. I have been getting such an insight: into native homes and ways of thinking, as few people have., an opportunity of doing. The very bigoted ones keep out of/ my way. I have no sympathy with them, for it is not from any/ religious prejudice, but from the selfish wish to keep their wivesi perfectly in thraldom, that they object to education for them/. But there are many good enlightened men who deserve ever}' sympathy. , . . " The ladies I visit all receive me with the greatest enthusiasm. They think it so wonderful that I should have taken such a journey on their account. One greeted me with : ' I am very glad you spent your own money to come and see us,' — of course in Bengalee. The husband of another said that he could hardly make his wife realize that I had come from such a distance to see . 9 r 138 GOOD SAMARITANS, them, and when he did make her understand, she said that * I ought to be adored.' The effect of my coming is far greater than I ever anticipated, and I feel inexpressibly thankful to have had such a reward. " You will perceive from the accompanying newspaper extracts that I have had some valuable opportunities of stating principles, and I am glad, in this case, of the disagreeable habit they have of putting everything into the newspapers. I had another opportunity on Friday, at Judge Phear's. He kindly invited me to dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Tagore and Mr. Ghose, and afterwards about a dozen or more of first-rate grand legal Hindus assembled. In the drawing-room, Mr. Phear asked me to say something to them, and I addressed them on the duty of society to criminals, and particularly juveniles. I am glad to find that I can quite trust myself to develop any subject logically and clearly with only a few minutes' thought. To-morrow evening I have promised to join native Christians at tea at Bhavasierpore, and then give an address on Female Education to Hindus in general." Under her auspices a free school for " the lowest of the low "' ■?s'as started at Calcutta. She originated the Bengal Social Science Association, on the plan of the English Society. She prepared for the Viceroy a statement on the condition of female education in the Metropolitan district. The organisation of a female normal training school sprang from her active brain. And after six weeks of incessant labour at Calcutta, the indefatigable worker proceeded to Madras on a similar mission of philanthropy. Thence she went on to Bombay, everywhere making the mark of her well- directed energy and singular tenacity of purpose. She returned to England in April 1867, believing that she had sown much good seed in a favourable soil, which, under the blessing of Heaven, would one day ripen into an ample harvest. " India is a great country," said Lord Dufferin, ''and the history of a great country deals only with important events ; but I am certain that when the history of that country is being written during the present century, the visit of Miss Carpenter to the shores of India will not remain unrecorded." The progress which female education has made of recent years in India is unquestionably due to the impulse communicated by the wise and vigorous philanthropy of Miss Carpenter. JPKOGRESS OF FEMALE EDUCATION IN INDIA. 139 In \868 she returned to India, to superintend the progress of the work she had so happily begun. She took with her several, lady assistants, besides such books, pictures, and apparatus as might be of use for general purposes of culture, as well as the specific needs of school education ; and on her arrival was grati- fied to find that the Government, in order to promote the esta- blishment of Female Normal Schools, had granted ;^i,2oo per annum, for five years, to each of the three presidency towns, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Arriving at Bombay in November, she at once undertook the organisation of a Normal School in that city, and prospered greatly ; while giving her support and advice to every other institution that aimed at promoting the education of the Hindu women. The direct instruction of native teachers in their own schools was begun. Scholarships were offered by the Countess of Mayo, the Rani of Jumkhundi, and other native ladies and gentlemen. A class of married ladies was formed for studying English; and requests for trained teachers came flowing in from various parts of the Presidency. A dangerous illness, however, abruptly snapped the thread of her work, and compelled her return to England. There she recruited her strength, and conferred with her friends, and ex- amined into the progress of the many institutions which owed their existence to her combined zeal and prudence. When her health was re-established, she made a third journey to India, and was rewarded for all her toils and pains by finding that the good cause was steadily making its way. So that when she left Bombay, in the early spring of 1870, she was able to write : — " I know and feel that while the worldly may scoff and disbelieve, there are many spirits here which have felt its power and rejoiced in it; and I beHeve that they will kindle others. The work will go on. In faith and hope I can say, ' India, Farewell.' " Having resumed her customary avocations at Bristol, Miss Carpenter undertook the formation of a National Indian Associa- tion with the following objects: " She wished," says her biographer, " to enable native visitors to England to study its institutions, and «nter into its society, to the best advantage. She sought to extend a knowledge of India and its special social wants, the educa- tion of the masses of the people, the education of women, the improvement of prison discipline, and the establishment of I40 GOOD SAMARITANS. juvenile reformatories. And she desired to find some common ground whereon the scattered endeavours put forth in India itself should be brought into friendly relation, and gather strength by feeling sympathy and support around them instead of isolation or hostility." The association was '' inaugurated " at Bristol in Sep- tember 1870. In telling the story of Mary Carpenter's life we have no refer- ence to make to those sweet episodes of love and marriage and motherhood which fill so conspicuous a place in the lives of most women. And this, not because she was wanting in the capacity of deep and trusting affection, for upon her parents and her brothers and her sisters she lavished a wonderful wealth of tenderness, but because she voluntarily and consciously devoted herself, her means, and her opportunities, her talents and her time, to the welfare of humanity. She lived not for herself, but others. At the age of sixty-five we find her, with all the vigour of youth and wisdom of age, promoting the establishment of Day Industrial Schools for the benefit of a class of children to whom access to the Board Schools was virtually denied. The Inter- national Prison Congress engaged her attention in July. Later in the year she visited Germany. In 1873 she accomplished a visit to the United States, where she addressed many large and influential assemblies on the subjects dearest to her heart. She passed on into Canada, to receive a hearty welcome from her old friend. Lord Dufi'erin, then Governor-General of Canada. In 1874 Miss Carpenter lent her powerful help to the move- ment in favour of the Higher Education of Women ; of which, indeed, she was herself an example and a type. " The systematic study of language, of Hterature, of science, of philosophy, had given her a variety of culture which had proved of the utmost value to her in unexpected ways ; and every effort to supply a lofiier guidance to capacities which had too long remained un- developed, seemed to put in a positive claim upon her aid. Rarely could she be induced to speak on any subject in which she was not an active worker. But on this topic she possessed a large store of observation and experience; and these were always at the service of the leaders who were striving to carry out on a larger scale principles of education with which she had be'^n familiar since her earliest years." The temperance cause- '' IN DUE TIME YE SHALL REAP' ETU 141 and the movement for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act also enlisted her sympathies. The " nihil humani alienum " prin- ciple was the guiding motive and purpose of her nobly useful life. In September 1875 she paid another and a final visit to India, partly to further the work of female education, and partly to fetch two children of a Hindu family, whose parents had consented that they should share her lonely home and enjoy the advantage of her loving care. She saw much to encourage her at Bombay, at Madras, and at Calcutta ; the bread which she had cast upon the waters had come home again, and in fewer days than she could have hoped or anticipated. " In due time ye shall reap, if ye faint not." To Mary Carpenter the promise was abundantly ful- filled. Writing to the Marquis of Salisbury, on her return home, she said: *'The general impression I have formed from my present visit to India on the subject of female education is a hopeful one. The idea of education seems increasingly to permeate the masses from high to low. Native chiefs are thinking of the education of their ladies, and a single instance in which they carry this into effect is more valuable than any mere professions of interest. Native gentlemen of position are in many cases anxious to obtain for their ladies instruction from English ladies. The class of women requiring to obtain a maintenance, find that they can do so better by being educated. I have formed a much higher idea than before of the capabilities of native ladies, both in acquiring knowledge and in becoming teachers. There is not the great dread of female education which formerly existed, and altogether the way appears open to rapid progress, if only the conditions necessary to this are provided. These conditions are, in the first place, a good teaching power, with suitable premises and appli- ances. These cannot be supplied by the natives, and without these the schools for girls will continue as they have done, without any sensible improvement." In the spring of 1876 this noble woman once more took up hei abode in Bristol. Her solitary home, no longer solitary, wa? cheered by the presence of her Hindu boys and of an adopted daughter ; and though she was close upon threescore years and ten, her affections had not diminished in their strength, nor was there any apparent diminution of her natural energy. She still continued to give her best thoughts to the engrossing occupations 142 GOOD SAMARITAI^S. of her useful life, and had the felicity of seeing her Day-Feeding Industrial Schools recognized by the legislature and incorporated into the educational system of the country. From the first she had steadfastly held the sound opinion that there were three classes to be dealt with : a class of habitual young criminals, who could be treated only in reformatory schools ; a class ot lesser criminals and vagrants, for whom certified industrial schools were required ; and beneath these, and swelling their ranks by a constant influx, a third class of truant and neglected children, haunting the streets of every considerable town, and living in an atmosphere of juvenile crime and vagrancy. For these she recommended a separate class of schools, more of an educational 4:han of a penal character. We have seen that Reformatory Schools were established ; Certified Industrial Schools followed ; and, lastly, in 1876, a Parliamentary enactment was obtained for the provision of Day-Feeding Industrial Schools. Thus her whole programme was carried out after years of patient and enlightened labour, — marked by a singular tenacity of purpose and an unusual breadth of view, — and she could say, " Opus consummatum est" We get an idea of her indomitable energy from the group of institutions which she originated at Bristol, and over which she maintained to the last an active supervision. We have, first, the Boys' Reformatory School at Kingswood; second, the Girls Reformatory in the Red Lodge ; third, the Certified Industrial School for Boys in Park Row ; fourth, the Girls' Certified Indus- trial School in the Fort ; fifth, the Day-Feeding Industrial School in St. James's Back, which was also the centre of the Children's Agency ; and, sixth, the Boys' Home. These various lines of work she followed up with undiminished interest ; so that, as Miss Nightingale said, one forgot her age in the eternal freshness of her youthful activity. It is worth recording that in the spring of 1877 she delivered a course of six lectures at the Philosophical Institution, speaking fluently on each occasion for an hour and a quarter. The 3rd of April, 1877, witnessed the completion of her seven- tieth year. To a member of her family she wrote on this interest- ing occasion with pathetic simplicity: — ** This day seems to mark a distinct era in my life, when the great battles are over, and I have only to carry on the work RETROSPECTION OF A NOBLE LIFE. 143 to its completion, always, however, watching and working quietly to amend and perfect where required. " I do not look back with sorrow on the past. There have been many painful woundings, and sad bereavements, and great struggles, and dark perplexities, but they have all blended to- gether to make a calm whole of the past, very wonderfully calm when I think of parts alone. As you say, there has been one deep moving spirit running through all. I used often to desire to have " * A soul by force of sorrows high Uplifted to the purest sky Of undisturbed humanity.' Now, 1 do not seek that, or anything, but thankfully take what- ever is given. ' She hath done what she could,' I can truly say of myself, whatever errors I have fallen into ; so I look very serenely back from this boundary, and hopefully to what remains of life, the brightest and best of all, and most full of blessings." A few weeks later she received the distressing intelligence of the death of her youngest brother. Dr. Philip Carpenter, at Mon treal. " This is a great blow to me," she wrote, '* but there is no bitterness ; it comes from the Father's hand." On the 6th of June, she deHvered an address of more than an hour's length, in a chapel at Kingswood, on the " Religious Aspects of India." On the 14th, she wrote to her brother, Dr. W. B. Carpenter, of London, proposing a visit in reference to her Indian work ; and ' on the same day she completed the revision of a volume of poetry, "Spirit Voices." In the evening she met with one of the Parlia- mentary friends who cordially assisted her benevolent efforts, though separated from her by religious and political views. The conversed upon public topics, and she expressed herself with her usual earnestness of feeling and clearness of thought. Retiring to her quiet study, she wrote until a later hour than usual. " The nightly greetings were exchanged with her adopted daughter, anc^ when she was last seen it was with a smile upon her face. She lay down to rest and slept; before the dawn she had passed quietly away." To her memory a monument has been erected in the north transept of Bristol Cathedral- The inscription upon it was written 144 GOOD SAMARITANS. by Dr. Martineau, and we quote it in full as an emphatic summarv of her noble work, and a significant tribute to her noble life : — SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MARY CARPENTER, FOREMOST AMONG THE FOUNDERS OF REFORMATORY AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS IN THIS CITY AND REALM. NEITHER THE CLAIMS OF PRIVATE DUTY NOR THE TASTES OF A CULTURED MIND COULD WITHDRAW HER COMPASSIONATE EYE FROM THE UNCARED-FOR CHILDREN OF THE STREETS. LOVING THEM WHILE YET UNLOVELY, SHE SO FORMED THEM TO THE FAIR AND GOOD AS TO INSPIRE OTHERS WITH HER FAITH AND HOPE, AND THUS LED THE WAY TO A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF MORAL RESCUE AND PREVENTIVE DISCIPLINE. TAKING ALSO TO HEART THE GRIEVOUS LOT OF ORIENTAL WOMEN, IN THE LAST DECADE OF HER LIFE SHE FOUR TIMES WENT TO INDIA, AND AWAKENED AN ACTIVE INTEREST IN THEIR EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOR SERIOUS DUTIES. NO HUMAN ILL ESCAPED HER PITY, OR CAST DOWN HER TRUST i WITH TRUE SELF-SACRIFICE SHE FOLLOWED IN THE TRAIN OF CHRIST, TO SEEK AND TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST, AND BRING IT HOME TO THE FATHER IN HEAVEN. DESIRING TO EXTEND HER WORK OF PIETY AND LOVE, MANY WHO HONOURED HER HAVE INSTITUTED IN HER NAME SOME HOMES FOR THE HOUSELESS YOUNG, AND NOW COMPLETE THEIR TRIBUTE OF AFFECTION BY ERECTING THIS MEMORIAL. BORN AT EXETER, APRIL 3rd, 1807 ; MED AT BRISTOL, JUNE 15th, 187/. BOOK II. WORK ON BEHALF OF THE SLAVE Abolition of the Slave Tradz. William Wilberforce. Emancipation of the Siaye. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton. i WORK ON BEHALF OF THE SLA VE. WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, only son of Robert Wilber- force, the descendant and representative of an old York- shire family, and his wife Elizabeth, was born at Hull, on the 24th of August, 1759. His childhood was not distinguished by any remarkable inci- dents in prophecy or promise of future greatness. His frame was feeble, his stature small, his eyes were weak ; but with these physical defects were united a clear strong intellect, and a sweet temper. At the age of seven he was sent to the Hull Grammar School, then under the charge of Dr. Milner. Here he was remarkable for his elocutionary gifts, so that his master would set him upon a table, and make him read aloud as an example to the other boys. The death of his father in 1768 transferred him to the care of his uncle, with whom he lived at Wimbledon, and in St. James's Place. His education at this time does not seem to have made much progress ; but from his aunt, who was a Metlio- dist, he received strong religious impressions. These were not of a kind to please his mother, who was a moderate (or, as lier son called her, an Archbishop Tillotson) churchwoman. She recalled him to Hull, and surrounded him with the pleasures of fashionable society, which, after awhile, produced their natural effect upon a clever boy, and he plunged into a life of idleness and amusement. His social talents and his musical skill rendered him everywhere a welcome guest ; and there seemed little pros- pect or promise of his entering upon any work of notable useful- ness. But he cultivated a taste for literature, and graced his leisure with reading and original composition. It was observed, too, that he evinced a deep detestation of the slave trade, of the enormities of which, it is probable, he would hear many stories in a seaport like Hull ; and he addressed, when not more thaii 148 GOOD SAMARITANS, fourteen, a letter to a York newspaper, in sharp condemnation of the hateful traffic in human flesh. Endowed with very considerable abilities, of which he had made but little use, and with a great charm of manner, springing from his geniality of disposition, he entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in October 1778. At the age of seventeen, master of an independent fortune, he was necessarily exposed to grave temptation, and at first fell among " as licentious a set of men as can well be conceived." But he was too sound at heart to be drawn into profligate excess ; fond as he was of amusement, he shook off" these dangerous companions, and became the centre of a cultivated and agreeable circle. " There was no one at all like him," writes a friend, " for powers of entertainment. Always fond of repartee and discussion, he seemed entirely free from conceit and vanity." He lived much at this time amongst the Fellows of the College. ** But those with whom I was intimate," he says, " did not act towards me the part of Christians, or even of honest men. Their object seemed to be, to make and keep me idle. If ever I appeared studious, they would say to me, * Why in the world should a man of your fortune trouble himself with fagging.' I was a good classic, and acquitted myself well in the college examinations ; but mathematics, which my mind greatly needed, I almost entirely neglected, and was told that I was too clever to require them. Whilst my companions were reading hard and attending lectures, card-parties and idle amusements consumed my time. The tutors would often say within my hearing, that * they were mere saps, but that I did all by talent' This was poison to a mind constituted like mine." His biographers remark that it was surely by God's especial goodness that in such a course he was preserved from profligate excess. For though he would say in after life, that upon the habits thus formed by evil influence and unbounded licence " he could not look back with- out unfeigned remorse," yet he had rather to deplore neglected opportunities of moral and intellectual profit, than vicious practice or abandoned principles. Still, such a life was no fitting prepara- tion for a great or useful career; and it will be interesting to observe how Wilberforce gradually rose to a higher moral stand- ard, and to a loftier sense of the duties and responsibilities which his social advantages imposed upon him. THE EARLY YEARS OF WILBERFORCE. 149 Probably it was his election as Member of Parliament for Hull, in 1780, which rescued him from the life of a fashionable idler and " ornament of society." Not that it immediately broke the spell of bad habits with which his self-indulgence or levity had enthralled him. On his first entering into the London world he ran no small risk of degenerating into a confirmed gamester. He was weaned from the Faro-table in a characteristic manner. One night he *' kept the bank," and rose the winner of jQdoo. Most of this was lost by young men who were only heirs to future fortunes, and who could not meet such a call without incon- venience. The pain he felt at their annoyance cured him of his dangerous taste. He had already made the acquaintance of William Pitt, the great son of a great father, and, while preserving his political independence, became his friend and general supporter. They spent much of their time together; and Pitt was a constant visitor at Wilberforce's Wimbledon residence. The political integrity of the austere young statesman probably exercised a strengthening and elevating influence on Wilberforce's character; and he took each year a deeper and more intelligent interest m public affairs. In the House of Commons he spoke frequently and always with effect. This, in the opinion of his filial biographers, was the most critical period of his career. He had entered in his earliest manhood upon the dissipated scenes of fashionable life, with a large fortune and most acceptable manners. His ready wit, his conversation continually sparkling with polished raillery and courteous repartee, his chastened liveliness, his generous and kindly feelings, — all secured him that hazardous applause with which society rewards its ornaments and victims. His rare accomplishment in singing tended to increase his danger. " Wilberforce, we must have you again, — the Prince says he will come at any time to hear you sing," was the flattery which he received after his first meeting with the Prince of Wales, in 1782, at the luxurious soirees of Devonshire House. On the i8th of December, 1783, Pitt, then only twenty-four years of age, became Prime Minister, on the fall of the Coalition cabinet of Fox and Lord North. He entered office with a great majority against him in the House of Commons, but strong in the confidence of the King, and believing that he could secure the [50 GOOD SAMARITANS. support of the country. For several weeks he bravely maintained in Parliament an unequal struggle, warmly assisted by the counsels and eloquence of Wilberforce. Gradually the majority declined, and at length, in March 1784, Pitt seized an opportune moment to appeal to the country. Few general elections have called forth angrier feelings : and none, if we except that which occurred in 1880, have had a more decisive result. The Opposition was beaten all along the line. Horace Walpole, writing on the nth of April, remarks that the scene had wofully changed for the Whig party, though not half the new Parliament was then chosen. " Though they still," he says, " contest a very few counties and some boroughs, they own themselves totally defeated. They reckoned themselves sure of two hundred and forty members ; they pro- bably will not have one hundred and fifty. In short, between the industry of the Court and the India Company, and that momentary frenzy that sometimes seizes a whole nation, as if it were a vast animal, such aversion to the Coalition, and such a detestation of Mr. Fox, have seized the country, that, even when omnipotent gold retains its influence, the elected pass through an ordeal of the most violent abuse." Mr. Wilberforce, in spite of the vast influence of the Whig aristocracy, was returned for Yorkshire. This was the turning- point of his career. It placed him in a position of exceptional power and responsibility, as the chosen representative of the middle classes ; and he rose to his position, as a man of strong mind and sound principles will always do. But something more was needed to fit him for the discharge of the great " mission " which Provi- dence devolved upon him, — the deepening and strengthening of that spiritual life which in the world of fashion had almost faded into nothingness. While travelling on the Continent with his friend, Isaac Milner, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, his attention was often turned upon religious topics, and by slow degrees he was led to feel that the life he was leading, however blameless it might appear in the eyes of society, was unworthy of a being endowed with an immortal soul. His feelings did not immediately afi'ect his conduct, but they were at work beneath the light and gay ■exterior. His conscience spoke to him, and would not be denied. " I laughed," he writes, " I sang, I was apparently gay and hnppy, but the thought would %\.t.d\. across me, 'What madness is WILBERFORCE'S SPIRITUAL STRLGULES AND CONQUEST. 151 all this ! to continue easy in a state in which a sudden call out ol the world would consign me to everlasting misery, and that when eternal happiness is within my grasp ! ' For I had received into my understanding the great truths of the Gospel, and believed that its offers were free and universal ; and that God had promised to give His Holy Spirit to them that asked for it. At length such thoughts as these completely occupied my mind, and / began to pray earnestly." The victory was won. With a new purpose in his life, and a new spirit animating his conduct, he returned to England in November, resolute to persevere in paths of truth and righteousness. We have said the victory was won ; but prayer and meditation were needed to confirm it. Many of us climb the Hill of Diffi- culty, but take no heed to make good our footing on the summit ; then we slip and stumble and are hurried headlong down the treacherous descent -, and of such the last stage is worse than the first. In what manner and at what cost Wilberforce secured his faith and hope in Christ and Christ's religion may be seen in the following extracts from his private journal : — '* November 24th. — Heard the Bible read two hours, Pascal an hour and a quarter, meditation one hour and a quarter, business the same. If ever I take myself from the immediate consideration of serious things, I entirely lose sight of them ; this must be a lesson to me to keep them constantly in view. Pitt called, and commended Butler's ' Analogy ' — resolved to write to him, and discover to him what I am occupied about : this will save me much embarrassment, and I hope give me more command both of my time and conduct." " Sunday, 27th- — Up at six, devotions half-an-hour, Pasca) three-quarters, Butler three-quarters, church, read the Bible, too ramblingly, for an hour; heard Butler, but not attentively, two hours ; meditated twenty minutes ; hope I was more attentive at church than usual, but serious thoughts vanished the moment I went out of it, and very insensible and cold in the evening ser- vice ; some very strong feelings when I went to bed ; God turn them to account, and in any way bring me to Himself! I have been thinking I have been doing well by living alone and reading generally on religious subjects ; I must awake to my dangerous state, and never be at rest till I have made my peace with God. 152 GOOD SAMARITANS. My heart is so hard, my bHndness so great, that I cannot get a due hatred of sin, though I see I am all corrupt and blinded to the perception of spiritual things." *' November 28th. — I hope as long as I live to be the better for the meditation of this evening ; it was on the sinfulness of my own heart, and its blindness and weakness. True, Lord, I am wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. What infinite love that Christ should die to save such a sinner, and how neces- sary is it He should save us altogether, that we may appear before God with nothing of our own ! God grant I may not deceive myself in thinking I feel the beginnings of Gospel comfort. Began this night constant family prayer, and resolved to have it every morning and evening, and to read a chapter when time." " November 30th. — Was very fervent in prayer this morning, and thought these warm impressions would never go off. Yet in vain endeavoured in the evening to rouse myself. God grant it may not all prove vain ; oh, if it does, how will my punishment be deservedly increased ! The only way I find of moving myself, is by thinking of my great transgressions, weakness, blindness ; and of God's having promised to supply these defects. But though I firmly believe them, yet I read of future judgment, and think of God's wrath against sinners, with no great emotions. What can so strongly show the stony heart ? O God, give me a heart of flesh ! Nothing so convinces me of the dreadful state of my own mind as the possibility, which, if I did not know it Irom experience, I should believe impossible, of my being ashamed of Christ. Ashamed of the Creator of all things One who has received infinite pardon and mercy ashamed of the Dispenser of it, and that in a country where His name is professed ! Oh, what should I have done in persecuting times ? " Though all of us must be the better for occasional intervals of self-communion and meditation, we should not care to recommend the habit of introspection and anxious mental inquiry revealed in the preceding passages. It seems to us that, at all events to many minds, it would prove dangerous by encouraging morbid ideas of dissatisfaction and despondency. Wilberforce, however, was of too firm and healthy a nature to linger long in such a condition, and he gradually struggled out of it into a state of tranquil faith and hope. He derived much help from the minis- WILBERFORCE TAKES HIS STAND, 153 trations of Newton and Romaine, both of them leaders of the evangeUcal school ; and the friendly counsels of Mr. Thornton. To his old associates he frankly made known his change of views; withdrew his name from the clubs of which he was a member; sought the friendship of men of earnest religious views ; and spent several hours dally in study of the Scriptures. But he had no intention of withdrawing from his position in public life. He felt that he had sacred duties to fulfil, and that their faithful discharge would be more pleasing in the eyes of Heaven than any ascetic seclusion in selfish solitariness. " If I were to fly/ he wrote, " from the post where Providence has placed me, 1 know not how I could look for the blessing of God upon my retirement: and without this heavenly assistance, either in the world or in solitude, our own endeavours will be equally in- effectual. When I consider the particulars of my duty I blush at the review ; but my shame is not occasioned by my thinking that I am too studiously diligent in the business of life ; on the contrary, I then feel that I am serving God best when from proper motives I am most actively engaged in it." Wilberforce's spiritual discipline and education were now com- plete, and he was fitted to take up the work which God had designed as the special work of his life. Like all work, it purified, strengthened, and ennobled his character. The work which each of us has to do is, in itself and its results, intended to train us to take higher views of our responsibilities and lift us out of self- indulgence and apathy; it benefits the worker no less than those for whom he works. It may be trivial enough in the eyes of the world, and perhaps in our own eyes ; or it may be hke that of Wilberforce, true Samaritan-work — " work of noble note " — work involving the happiness of millions ; but whatever it is, or great or little, if done in a faithful and devout spirit, if done thoroughly and conscientiously, it brings with it a Divine benediction. In the spring of 1786, Wjlberforce, "an altered man," resumed his attendance in the House of Commons, and attempted some practical reforms. In the following year he took part in the debates on Pitt's treaties with France and Portugal, and on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. But at this time his labours outside Parliament were of greater value and importance, for he aimed at a reformation of the nation's morals, and the purification 10 1.54 GOOD SAMARITANS. of the social atmosphere. Beginning with his friends, he sought to inspire them with a resolution to resist the growing vices of the times ; and, extending his operations, he then sought to obtain a Royal Proclamation against vice and immorality, and to form an influential association for carrying it into effect. It may be, and is, true that nations are not made virtuous by royal proclamations or by associations; but yet such agencies are by no means without a salutary influence. It is a positive gain when, in the face ot the nation, an open stand is made on behalf of the right. Through his unceasing efforts the society was estabhshed, with the Duke of Montagu as its first president, and many of the bishops as members ; and during its existence it obtained several very useful Acts of Parliament, and greatly checked the spread of indecent and blasphemous publications. Was this no good? Was not the result worth the effort ? Why, God and His angels rejoice when any one brand is plucked from the burning, one soul saved from pollution and death ; and many brands must have been rescued, many souls delivered, through the charity of Wilberforce and his friends. It was at this time that Wilberforce began to feel his way, as it were, towards what all the world will never cease to regard as his special mission — the abolition of the slave-trade. We have seen that the subject had occupied his thoughts when he was a school- boy. After his religious change, he naturally took it up as one that would be acceptable to the Saviour of mankind ; and there seems no reason to believe that he was in any way guided by the example or counsel of Lady Middleton or the venerable Clarkson, though the friends of each have sought for them the merit of having summoned the appointed champion to the lists. He him- self remarks that as early as the year 1780 he had been strongly interested for the West Indian slaves, and in a letter, asking a faiend who was going to Antigua to collect information for him, he expressed his determination, or at least his hope, that some time or other he should redress the wrongs of those wretched and degraded beings. It was not until the end of 1783 that Mr. Ramsay published a book on the condition of the negroes, which was the first trumpet-note of the coming battle. In 1786 Thomas Clarkson published his pamphlet against the slave-trade, and thenceforward the fight raged strenuously until the victory was won. CONTESTS FOR ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 155 Wilberforce possessed all the qualifications which could grace the champion of such a cause, — glowing and persuasive eloquence, simple and earnest piety, high poHtical influence, enthusiasm, courage, and profound conviction. " God Almighty," he ex- claimed, '* has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave-trade and the reformation of manners." This conviction enabled him to endure discouragements and delays with patience, and to labour on, in calm assurance of eventual success. He began by collecting the fullest possible information respecting the African slave-trade and the condition of the slaves in the West Indies. Then he discussed the all-important theme with William Pitt and George Grenville. Pitt recommended him to undertake the conduct of it in Parliament as one suited to his character and talents. " At length," he writes, '* I well remember, after a conversation in the open air at the root of an old tree at Holwood, just above the steep descent into the vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention to bring the subject forward." At ♦Holwood* this " old tree " is still preserved, and an inscription on a stone beneath it records the association that invests it with an enduring interest. At first everything seemed to promise a speedy success. But great movements, like the tidal waters of a river, have their ebb and flow, and it soon became apparent that the abolition of the slave trade would be carried only in the face of a determined opposition. A long delay was caused by Wilberforce's dangerous illness (1788). Then came the King's first attack of insanity, and the parliamentary contests which the Regency Bill provoked. In 1789 Wilberforce renewed his philanthropic efforts, assisted by Granville Sharp, James Stephen, Thomas Clarkson, and other "good men and true," whose hearts had been touched to the quick by the miseries of the wretched negroes, torn from their homes and families, and handed over to the overseer's brutal lash. His opponents were not less active ; and by meetings and pam- phlets and newspaper articles endeavoured to convince the public that slavery lay at the very root of our colonial prosperity and commercial existence. If Wilberforce and his friends were moved * Holwood is about four miles from Bromley, in Kent 156 GOOD SAMARITANS. in their hearts, the slave-trade advocates were moved in their pockets ; and the reader needs not to be told how powerful a motive to action is the fear of pecuniary loss. On the 12th of May the question came before the House of Commons, and a motion for the abolition of the slave-trade was made by Wilber- force in a speech of great power and eloquence, which lasted three hours and a half. Close and logical reasoning and clear statements of facts were skilfully interwoven with fervent appeals to the feelings ; and we can even yet perceive the graphic force which describes the horrors of the sea-passage : — " So much misery crowded into so little room, where the aggregate of suffer- ing must be multiplied by every individual tale of woe ; " and the impressive character of the peroration, in which, after disproving the alleged comforts of the helpless victims, he summoned death as his last witness, " whose infallible testimony to their unutterable wrongs could neither be purchased nor repelled." The effect of his speech was considerable, and it drew a com- pliment from Mr. Burke, who declared that " the House, the nation, and Europe were under great and serious obligations to the honourable gentleman for having brought forward the subject in a manner the most masterly, impressive, and eloquent. The principles," he said, " were so well laid down, and supported with so much force and order, that it equalled anything he had heard in modern times, and was not perhaps to be surpassed in the remains of Grecian eloquence." Wilberforce's opponents, however, availed themselves of the forms of the House to prevent anything from being done that session. He again renewed the attack, and obtained a special committee to examine witnesses in reference to the whole subject. In 1790 he was re-elected for Yorkshire. Passing over successive phases of the gallant struggle, we come to April 1792, when he moved for a committee of the whole House to consider the African slave-trade, with a view to its immediate abolition. On this occasion he was supported by Pitt in one of his finest speeches. In a very effective passage Pitt compared the early condition of the Britons as slaves exported to the Roman market with that of the African negroes exported to the West Indies : — " Why might not some Roman senator," he said, " reasoning on the principles of some honourable gentleman, and pointing to BILL REJECTED BY THE LORDS. 157 British barbarians, have predicted with equal boldnesS; ' There is a people that will never rise to civilisation ; there is a people destined never to be free ; a people without the understanding necessary for the attainment of useful arts ; depressed by the hand of nature below the level of the human species ; and created to form a supply of slaves for the rest of the world ? ' Might not this have been said, in all respects, as fairly and as truly of Britain herself, at that period of her history, as it can now be said by us of the inhabitants of Africa ? " It was decided that night, by a large majority — 238 to 85 — that the slave-trade should be gradually abolished. "I am congratu- lated on all hands," writes Wilberforce, " yet I cannot but feel hurt and humiliated. We must endeavour to force the gradual Abolitionists in their Bill (for I will never myself bring forward a parliamentary license to rob and murder) to allow as short a time as possible, and under as many limitations." Mr. Dundas brought forward his resolutions for a gradual abolition on the 23rd. "After a hard struggle," writes Wilber- force, " we were last night defeated in our attempt to fix the period of the Abolition for the ist of January, 1795 : the numbers being 161 to 121. But we carried the ist of January, 1796 (Mr. Dundas had proposed 1800), by a majority of 151 against 132. On the whole, this is more than I expected two months ago, and I have much cause for thankfulness. We are to contend about the number of slaves to be imported ; and then for the House oj Lords." The resolutions passed the Commons, but unhappily the Peers rejected them \ and again the battle had to be renewed. And renewed it was, in the following year, but not with the suc- cess that had formerly attended the Abolitionists. By a majority of eight votes the House of Commons refused to endorse its own decision of the preceding year. In 1796 Wilberforce was more fortunate. Then came a long interval of delay and discouragement, marked by the stirring events of the war with Republican France, and the fierce political struggle at home between the Government and its adherents and the advocates of peace under Charles James Fox. Notwithstanding his strong attachment to Pitt, and general confidence in his policy, Wilberforce contemplated the continu- ance of the war with anxiety, and used all his influence with the Prime Minister to incline him towards a pacific setdement. 158 GOOD ^AAIARITAhS. The year 1797 is memorable in VVilberforce's personal history as that of the publication of his *' Practical View of Christianity" ; a plain and earnest exposition of religious duty which was eagerly welcomed by the public. In six months it ran through five editions (7500 copies). It was reprinted immediately in America, and was soon translated into the French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and German languages. To this day it retains something of its original popularity. "Its influence was proportionate to its diffusion. It may be affirmed, beyond all question, that it gave the first general impulse to that warmer and more earnest spring of piety, which amongst all its many evils has happily distinguished the last half-century." From a literary point of view, it is un- doubtedly open to criticism; but as a manual of practical devotion its merits are very considerable, and the evangelical churchman will always find in it a welcome substitute for Thomas k Kempis. On the 30th of May in the same year, Wilberforce was married to Barbara Ann, eldest daughter of Isaac Spooner, Esq., of Elm- den Hall, Warwickshire. The annual efforts made by our heroic Samaritan to induce the House of Commons to put a stop to the iniquities of the slave- trade, bear witness to his perseverance and to the moral apathy of Parliament. Re-elected for Yorkshire in 1802, he seemed to gain fresh energy from this proof of the continued confidence of his countrymen ; and energy almost inexhaustible was needed to maintain the struggle in the face of constant vicissitudes. Thus, in 1804, he carried his Abolition Bill through the Commons by large majorities at each stage ; but it was lost in the Lords. In the following year it was lost in the Commons. Then, in t8o6, under the ministry of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox, a Bill, intro- duced in the Peers to prohibit British subjects from engaging in the slave-trade for supplying foreign settlements or the conquered colonies, was successful. This encouraged Mr. Fox to move a resolution in the Commons, " that this House, conceiving the African slave-trade to be contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy, will, with all practical expedition, proceed to take effectual measures for abolishing the said trade, in such manner, and at such period, as may be deemed advisable;'" and the resolution was carried by 114 against 15. This was ABOLITION BILL TRIUMPHANTLY PASSED. 159 Fox's last effort in the House which had so often been charmed by his eloquence. In the following September he was dead. In 1807, the Abolition Bill was introduced in the House of Lords, and carried through it with triumphant rapidity. On the loth of February it was sent down to the Lower Chamber, which, on the 23rd, decided, by the vast majority of 283 to 16 — so great had been the change in public opinion — to go into committee upon it. Sir Samuel Romilly, then Solicitor-General, broke out into a burst of fervent oratory, contrasting the feelmgs with which Wilber- force would that night lay his head on his pillow, as the preserver of millions of his fellow-creatures, with those of the French Emperor, who had waded to a throne through slaughter and oppression. Surprised from its usual reserve, the House rang with repeated acclamations : and Wilberforce might well feel him- self repaid for the tenacity and patient labour and unwearied effort of twenty years. The debate proceeded, with slight show of opposition, except from one West Indian planter, who gave him an opportunity of replying in a speech distinguished for splendour of eloquence and force of argument; and on the i8th of March the Bill was read a third time by 283 to 16. On the 25th of March it received the royal assent. " To speak," wrote Sir James Mackintosh, "of fame and glory to Mr. Wilberforce, would be to use a language far beneath him ; but he will surely consider the effect of his triumph on the fruit- fulness of his example. Who knows whether the greater part of the benefit that he has conferred on the world, the greatest that any individual has had the means of conferring, may not be the encouraging example that the exertions of virtue may be crowned by such splendid success ? We are apt petulantly to express our wonder that so much exertion should be necessary to suppress such flagrant injustice. The more just reflection will be, hat a short period of the short life of one man is, well and wisely directed, sufficient to remedy the miseries of millions for ages. Benevolence has hitherto been too often disheartened by frequent failures ; hundreds and thousands will be animated by Mr. Wilber- force's example, by his success, and — let me use the word only in the moral sense of preserving his example — by a renown that can only perish with the world, to attack all the forms of corruption i6o GOOD SAMARITANS. and cruelty that scourge mankind. Oh, what twenty years in the life of one man those were which abolished the slave-trade ! How precious is time ! How valuable and dignified is human life, which in general appears so base and miserable ! How noble and sacred is human nature, made capable of achieving such truly great exploits ! " As for Wilberforce himself, all sense of personal triumph was absent from his mind. The cause was too great ; he dared noi measure his individual satisfaction against the thousands of lives which its success had rescued. His heart overflowed with grati- tude : " I have indeed," he wrote, " inexpressible reasons for thankfulness in the glorious result of that struggle which, with s< > many eminent fellow-labourers, I have so long maintained. 1 really cannot account for the fervour which, happily, has taken the place of that fastidious, well-bred lukewarmness which useil to display itself on this subject; except by supposing it to be produced by that Almighty power which can influence at will the judgments and afl'ections of men." Parliament was dissolved shortly after the completion of thi> noble work ; and Wilberforce again became a candidate for the representation of his native county. He was confronted, on thi> occasion, by a formidable opposition in the person of Lord Milton, eldest son of Earl Fitzwilliam, who was prepared to expend a fortune on the contest. His colleague, Mr. Lascelles, son of Lord Harewood, was in a position to be similarly lavish ; but Wilberforce's means, though not inconsiderable, were by no means adequate to such a struggle. His supporters, however, came for- ward immediately with a subscription of ;^ 18,000, and abundant promises of voluntary help ; and the battle began and was fought out with extraordinary enthusiasm. On the first and second days of the polling, his chances seemed desperate ; but on the third, a vast number of freeholders from the North Riding entered York, and polled for their old representative. Another large body, chiefly of the middle class, from Winsley Dale, was met on their road by one of his committee — " For what parties, gentlemen, do you come?" "Wilberforce, to a man," was their leader's reply. " During the early stage of the poll, such parties arrived at York at every given hour of time, both by day and by night, by land and by water; such was the loyalty and independence of this WILBERFORCE IS RE-ELECTED FOR YORK. i6i -class of the Yorkshire freeholders, and such was their determina- tion to support their old and favourite member, who had faithfully- served them and their country during three-and-twenty years." The poll was kept open for fifteen days, with the following •result: — Wilberforce, ii, 806 votes; Lord Milton, 11,177; and Mr. Lascelles, 10,989. The fund subscribed for Wilberforce's expenses reached the large total of ;^64,455, — a striking proof of his popularity; but only ;^28,6oo were expended, while the election cost his two opponents no less than ^200,000. Writing .in his private diary after this signal triumph, the humble-minded Christian philanthropist says : — " Surely it calls for deep humilia- tion, and warm acknowledgment, that God has given me favour with man ; that after guiding me by His providence to that great .cause, He crowned my efforts with success, and obtained for me so much good-will and credit. Alas ! Thou knowest, Lord, all my failings, errors, infirmities, and negligences in relation to this .great cause : but Thou art all goodness and forbearance towards me. If I do not feel grateful to Thee, oh how guilty must I be brought in by my own judgment ! But, O Lord, I have found ■too fatally my own stupidity ; do Thou take charge of me, and tune my heart to sing Thy praises, and make me wholly Thine." His daily life at this time followed a tolerably regular routine. The first hours of the morning, which were all so busy a man •could really call his own, were spent in devotional exercises. ** In 'the calmness of the morning," he was wont to say, " before the mind is heated and wearied by the toil of the day, you have a season of unusual importance for communing with God and with yourself." After this secret intercourse with his Divine Master, he joined his assembled household for morning prayer, which he always conducted himself, and with peculiar interest. Wiih break- fast came his first batch of visitors, not a few of whom were admitted as guests to the breakfast-table ; and his biographers tell us that his great social powers were never seen to more advantage ithan in drawing out and harmonizing all the shades of character and feeling which were here brought suddenly together. Thus while, on one occasion, he was seeking to relax the rigidity of "a starched little fellow," whom he did not wish to disgust, Andrew Fuller was announced ; a man of considerable mental gifts, but bearing about him very plainly the vestigia curis. Not a moment l62 GOOD SAMARITANii, was to be lost, "So before he came in I said to my little friend,. 'You know Andrew Fuller?' 'No, I never heard his name.' ' Oh, then, you must know him ; he is an extraordinary man, whose talents have raised him from a very low situation.' This prepared the way, and Andrew Fuller did no harm, although he walked in looking the very picture of a blacksmith." When he had got rid of his visitors, his correspondence de- ' manded his attention, and this being cleared away, he took such exercise as his scanty leisure enabled him to enjoy. At dinner he again met his family and friends, and when the House was not sitting, the evening was devoted to music, reading, and conversa- tion. Some days were set apart, when in the country, for more- entire devotion to prayer and meditation. His Sundays he invari- ably gave up to religious exercises, wholly putting aside all secular subjects. His children, after meeting him at prayers, accompanied him to church, repeating to him in the carriage hymns or verses, or passages from his favourite Cowper. Then they rambled witb him in the garden, and each had the inestimable pleasure oi^ bringing him a Sunday nosegay, for which they had hoarded the flowers of their own little plots all the week. At an early hour the family dined together, in the midst of cheerful yet suitable talL " 'Better,' " was one of his Sunday commonplaces, " ' better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith ; ' but, my children, how good is God to us ! He gives- us the stalled ox and love too." But with Sunday ended, at least in London, the sweet enjoy- ments of domestic life. "While the House is sitting," he said,. " I become almost a bachelor." The session at an end, and Wilberforce again in his rural seclusion, it became his delight " to live amongst his children ; " to take his meals with them so far as possible ; to carry them out with him on agreeable little excur- sions ; to share in their amusements. Every day, too, he read aloud with them, allotting a certain portion of the afternoon tO' light and entertaining literature, then selecting one of them to- read more serious works to him while he dressed. " Happy was the young performer who was chosen for this office. The early and quiet intercourse which his dressing-room afforded, drew forth all a father's tenderness, whilst the reading was continually changed into the most instructive conversation. read to me HIS HOME LIFE AND DUTIES. 163 Robertson's * America' whilst dressing, and we talked over it." All his efforts were aimed at opening the mind, creating a spirit of inquiry, and strengthening the powers ; while he was jealous of such acquirements as yielded an immediate return, and so afforded opportunities for gratifying vanity. . . . The practical character of his personal piety was of the utmost moment in his treatment of his children. He was always on his guard against forcing the.r religious feelings, and shielded them carefully from the poison of Antinomian teaching. After receiving a very promising account of one amongst his children, he says, " I am afraid of 's making him artificial by telling him it is God's work on the heart. I fear above all his being led to affect more than he really feels. "^ Yet with all this careful watchfulness, tenderness was the distinc- tive feature of his domestic character. Though he never weakly withheld any necessary punishment, he did not attempt to dis- semble the pain which its infliction cost him. " Alas ! " he sa) & at such a time, " grieved me much to-day, discovering the same utter want of self-government or self-denial when disappointed of anything on which he had set his heart, as he had done before. He behaved very ill. I talked with him plainly, and set him a punishment. Poor fellow ! it made my heart heavy all the even ing, and indeed ever since. But I hope he will mend. God will grant much to prayer ; and I humbly trust it is our object to traii> him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The later history of Wilberforce is necessarily less interesting than the earlier, because the special object of his life having been achieved, his efforts, thenceforth, though still animated by a wise and genial spirit of benevolence, were diffused over various channels, and lacked that definiteness and prominency which are given by singleness of aim. His activity in the House of Commons continued without abatement ; and though in strictly political questions his views were sometimes less broad and sympathetic than could be desired, on all moral points his clearness and fineness of judgment were invariably conspicuous. But on reaching middle age he began to feel the onerousness of county representation, and "n desire a seat for some small borough which would not involve hnn in the incessant consideration of local interest. His consciousness of failing memory impelled him to adopt this course. He felt, too that the education of his 464 GOOD SAMARITANS, •children called for more attention than he had been able to give to it, while his delicate health was a reason that could not be overlooked. In October 1812 he carried out his intention, and after twenty-eight years' honourable service retired from the re- presentation of Yorkshire. He was almost immediately after- wards elected for the " close borough " of Braintree, in Essex. On two subjects that now came before Parliament, his opinions ■ were very distinctly expressed and energetically maintained. He spoke and voted in favour of the admission of Roman Catholics to the House of Commons, and with greater fervour and enthu siasm in support of Christian missions in India. When the renewal of the last India Charter took place, he contended strenuously for the insertion in it of clauses for the protection of our missionaries. He rightly felt that our civilization without our Christianity was but a sorry gift, and, indeed, time has shown that if ever the East accept our civilization it will be for the sake of our Christianity. With all his characteristic vigour and per- tinacity he pushed forward his motion ; gradually converted Lord Liverpool's Cabinet to his views, and, on the 22nd of June, 18 13, defeated his opponents by 89 to 36. But the main object and work of his life was not forgotten. He had struck down the slave-trade, but slavery still survived, and in the West Indian colonies assumed some of its most odious forms. To check these evils he proposed that there should be a complete Registration of the slaves. The Bill for this purpose, however, made but slow progress, and was eventually dropped. Other points connected with the welfare of the negro race incessantly occupied his attention, and to the last moment of his public life he eloquently expounded their wrongs and defended their rights, though, as years went on, he entrusted the leader- ship of the campaign to Thomas Fowell Buxton, a man fully worthy of the sacred charge. His influence in the House and with the country was, during all these years, unparalleled on the part of a man who held no high official position, and had displayed no great qualities of statesmanship. It was an influence of which, if pride could have found a place in his gentle nature, he might well have been proud, for it was an influence due to character, to spotless integrity, to high-toneii conscientiousness, and to the closest harmony between SUSTAINS GREAT LOSSES— HIS RESIGNATION THERETO. 165, the practice and profession of religion ; it was an influence due to a life unselfishly devoted to the welfare of humanity. Not only the condition of the negro race and the political questions< of the day received his attention ; but also such subjects as the Bible Society, the building of new churches, the education and more generous treatment of the poor, and the propagation of Christianity by missionary eff"ort. His real position, as Sir James Stephen said, was that of " a minister of public charity, holding his office by popular acclamation." In 1825, his bodily strength being visibly impaired, he with- drew from Parliament, and took up his residence at Highwood Hill, about ten miles to the north of London. There he re- mained, enjoying a tranquil and dignified old age, until 1831, when a heavy pecuniary loss compelled him to give up his establishment. He bore his misfortune with noble resignation. "I am bound," he writes, "to recognise in this dispensation the gracious mitigation of the severity of the stroke. It was not suffered to take place till all my children were educated, and. nearly all of them placed out in one way or another; and by the delay Mrs. Wilberforce and I are supplied with a delightful asylum under the roofs of two of our own children. And what better could we desire ? A kind Providence has enabled me with truth to adopt the declaration of David, that goodness and mercy have followed me all my days. And now, when the cup presented to me has some bitter ingredients, yet surely no draught can be deemed distasteful which comes from such a hand, and contains such grateful infusions as those of social intercourse and the sweet endearments of filial gratitude and affection. What I shall most miss will be my books and my garden, though I own I do feel a little the not being able to ask my friends to take- a dinner or a bed with me, under my own roof. And as even the great Apostle did not think the * having no certain dwelling- place,' associated with his other far greater sufferings, unworthy of mention, so I may feel this also to be some, though I grant: not a great evil, to one who has so many kind friends who will be happy to receive him." Thenceforward he spent his time either with his son Samuel (afterwards Bishop of Winchester), at his pleasant rectory-house in the sunny village of Brightstone Isle of Wight • or with his c66 ' GOOD SAMARITANS. son Robert (Archdeacon of the East Riding) at East Farleigh, near Maidstone. At both places some relics of the venerable philanthropist are still shown — his favourite walk, the hedge he planted. His last appearance in public was at Maidstone, on the 1 2th of April, 1833, when at a large meeting he proposed a petition against slavery. Thus his " ruling passion " — a glo- rious one — prevailed with him in his declining days. And, indeed, the sun was now sinking rapidly beneath the horizon ; the shadows were lengthening fast ; night was at hand with its silence and its solitude, and its promise of a new dawn in a brighter world. He went to Bath on the 17th of May to drink the waters, from which he had often derived much benefit ; but his pain and languor increased, and there was no sign of rallying •energies. On Saturday, the 6th of July, while at dinner, he was taken ill quite suddenly. He was conveyed to bed, and medical UNWEARIED LOVE AND LABOUR— THEIR REWARD. 343 Years afterwards Vincent himself bore witness to their pious living. " The good people of Clichy," he said, " were so obedient to me, that when I recommended them to attend confession on the first Sunday of every month, to ray great joy none were missing. Ah, I used to say to myself, how happy thou art to have such good people ; the Pope is not so happy as I am ! One day the first Cardinal de Retz inquired, * Well, Monsieur, how do you progress ? ' * My lord,' I replied, ' I am more happy than I can say.' ' Why so ? ' * Because I have such good people, and so obedient to everything that I tell them, that I say to myself that neither the Pope, nor you, my lord, are so happy as I.' " At the urgent request of his ecclesiastical superior, Vincent reluctantly left this pleasant sphere of labour, and undertook the duties of chaplain and tutor in the family of the Count de Joigny, a scion of the illustrious house of De Retz. He continued to discharge them for a period of about twelve years, until his pupils had grown up from boyhood into manhood, and under his wise and prudent care had been thoroughly fitted to play their parts on the world's stage with dignity. It is easy to understand, from what we have already seen of his character, with its happy combination of modesty, tenderness, and gentle wisdom, that he would secure the affectionate and trustful regard of all who came under his influence. His, indeed, was one of those natures-^ not, alas ! toa common, — in the sunshine of which others seem spontaneously ta put forth their better qualities. There was about him a singular personal charm and attractiveness, that was felt by men of the highest rank as well as of the lowest, by the cultured not less, than by the ignorant. This charm arose in part from his Christian humility, from his absolute forgetfulness of self; in part, from the- exquisite refinement of manner due to a cultured mind and a sympathetic temper. Not only was he " unwearied " in all the duties of his chaplain cy, and in his work as a tutor, but he watched with tender vigilance over the welfare of the servants of the Count's large household. In sickness he waited upon them, in health he instructed them ; he catechised them, he composed their differences, he gave them opportune and prudent counsel. The little leisure that remained to him after all these labours were accomplished he devoted to the care of the peasants and workmen round about ; and in this 22 344 GOOD SAMARITANS. way he was led to the organization of that special system of religious enlightenment which under the name of *' Missions " has recently been introduced into the English Church. One day he was sent for to attend a poor man living in one of the Count de Joigny's villages ; he was dangerously ill, and according to the custom of the Catholic communion, wished to make his con- fession. His neighbours described him as a man of good character, religious habits, and irreproachable life. Vincent, however, soon discovered that all this fine seeming did but conceal " a heavy load of deadly sin " upon his conscience ; a load which, but for Vincent's knowledge of the human heart, and his power of gaining the full and entire confidence of all who consulted him, he would have carried, unconfessed, and un- repented of, into the Eternal Presence. Vincent was led by this occurrence to meditate on the apathetic condition of the masses, and to devise some means of awakening them to a sense of their religious duty. As a first step in this •direction, he held, on the 25th of January, 1607, a special service :in the parish church of Folleville ; and so great was the effect of .his address, such were the numbers who sought spiritual consola- ^tion and advice, that he was obliged to send to Amiens for .assistance. 1?? the work of preaching, teaching, and catechizing, three priests and himself were busily engaged for several days, and in all the villages round about they reaped an abundant harvest Such was the origin of the evangelizing agency of *' Missions," which has so often been beneficial in infusing new vigour and vitality into the Church. With the exception of four months in 161 7, which he spent in Christian work at Chatillon, Vincent remained an honoured member of the family of De Joigny until the death of the Countess in 1625. By her will this admirable lady devised an annual sum of 16,000 livres for the establishment of a Society of Mission Priests, whose special responsibility should be, the evangelization of the peasantry and general population of rural France. Not long before her decease, she and her husband had obtained from the Archbishop of Paris, brother of the Count, an old disused col- legiate building, called the College des Bons Enfans, which they fitted up as a liome and centre for this Society. The foundation MISSION COLLEGE OF PRIESTS FOUNDED. 345 and endowment were both made over to Vincent de Paul, who was appointed Superior ; and in him was vested the power of choosing and electing every year as many ecclesiastics as the revenues of the foundation would bear. The conditions attached to the deed of endowment were : — That these ecclesiastics should devote them- selves exclusively to the care of the poor in rural districts, and to this end should bind themselves not to preach, nor to administer the Sacrament, in any town where there was a bishop or arch- bishop, or a civil court of justice, except in cases of manifest necessity ; that they should live in common, under the obedience of Jean Vincent de Paul, and after his decease, of their S.^oerior, under the name of the Company or Congregation of Priests of the Mission ; and that they should hold a mission every five > ^a.^ throughout the demesnes of the Count and Countess de Joigny and also afford spiritual assistance to convicts. Along with the post of Superior of the Mission College, Vincmt held that of spiritual director to the Convent of the Visitation, which had recently been estabUshed by Madame de Chautal at Paris, and also that of Chaplain-General of convicts and galley-slaves. In the last-named capacity he visited Marseilles, in order to inspect the galleys and inquire into the condition of the wretches confined on board of them ; it was probably much worse than that of the inmates of the very worst prisons in Europe, and this, too, at a time when prison administration was but another word for cruei oppression. " Pitiable beyond words," we are told, " was the state of things which he found there. Reckless misery, blank despaix, and blasphemy combined, seemed to make of the Bagne a hell upon earth." Moved with feelings of the deepest compassion for these unhappy creatures, Vincent addressed all his energies to the task of ameliorating their condition. Hitherto, the sole though of those entrusted with the administration of the criminal law had been punishment ; of the reformation of the criminal no idea had crossed their minds. So long as he underwent the chastisement ordained for his offence they were satisfied : that he could be restored to society as a penitent and a useful member, they had never regarded as possible or within their purview. It is the glory of Vincent de Paul that he anticipated the prison reformers of the next century. He endeavoured to revive in the heart of the criminal a consciousness of right and wrong, while he secured 346 GOOD SAMARITANS. their confidence by his evident compassion for their sufferings and his patient hearing of their complaints. Patience and Sympathy ! Ah, these are the golden keys that unlock the most obdurate bosom ! It was not that Vincent de Paul was a man of genius, — though, unquestionably, he was largely endowed with the faculty of organisation,— but he possessed those two grand sweet virtues, which are as powerful as genius, and without which genius loses its command of the hearts and minds of men. An extraordinary illustration of this patience and sympathy, approaching even to the sublime, is recorded by the good man's biographer. I know not whether we can accept it as authentic, though the Abbe Maynard seems to entertain no doubt. Among the inmates of the galleys at Marseilles was a young man, stricken almost to death by the agonizing reflection that his wife and children were utterly destitute, and by his consciousness that he was innocent of the crime with which he was charged. Vincent de Paul was satisfied of his innocence, and prevailed upon the officer of the gang to set him free, offering himself as a substitute. That his inquiries into the state of the galleys might be the fuller and the more independent, he had concealed from everybody his real name and position ; so that none knew who it was that rose to such a height of self-sacrifice. For several weeks, it is said, Vincent worked in chains with the rest of the gang, until the Count de Joigny, surprised at his long silence, made inquiries which led to his discovery and release. During this period of voluntary humiliation he contracted, we are told, a disease which, for many years of his life, proved a terrible torture ; and his ankles bore to the day of his death the marks of the pressure of his self- imposed chains. Returning from Marseilles, after his release, Vincent de Paul passed through the town of Ma9on on his way to Paris. He had no sooner entered it than he was surrounded by a crowd of clamo- rous beggars, who, at that time, held the town practically at their disposal, and levied blackmail upon the orderly portion of the population. They were so numerous and so audacious that the authorities feared to repress their outrages, lest they should break out into open rebellion, and involve the town in anarchy. Vincent de Paul, as we have hinted, was one of those rare men who possess the gift of organization . "»rc of th"»*-» at who>f^ I^Duch POWERS OF ORGANISATION— THE BEGGARS. 347 disorder magically melts into order, and at whose voice the most mutinous are brought back under the influence of law. Though he was but a passing traveller, he could not see such a state of things without an immediate effort to remedy it. First securing the support of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, be proceeded to collect the most reputable inhabitants of the town and to form them into an association, pledged to restore order. A list was then made out of all the beggars ; their circumstances were investigated, and they were divided into two classes — the professional mendicants, who lived by ruffianism, and the suffering poor, whom their necessities constrained to ask for alms. For the latter, assistance was provided suitable to their different needs ; to the former a regular distribution was made, contingent on their observance of various simple rules; such as that they should present themselves every Sundafy at one particular church, and that they absolutely refrained from public or private begging. The arrangement of all the details of his plan occupied Vincent for three weeks, and then he went on his way, followed by the grateful praises of the inhabitants of Magon. Happy would it be if for every Augean stable in the world such a Hercules could be found as Vincent de Paul ! Resigning the place which he had happily held for so many years in the Count de Joigny's family, Vincent took up his residence as Principal in the College des Bons Enfans. At thisj time he was about forty-nine years of age, and he is described as a man of average stature, well-knit, with a large head, and rather bald. His forehead was high, broad, and commanding; his eye keen ; his demeanour grave, but gentle. By constant self discipline he had so conquered a natural austerity of manner, and so acquired an attractive grace and mildness, that it was scarce possible, men said, to find any who could make religion more comely in the eyes of the world, or more easily gain souls to Christ. He was not a man of great intellectual force, of an original and creative mind ; but he was capable of conceiving lofty ideas, and possessed the faculty of developing them into Action. He was slow in deliberation and cautious in judgment ; never committed himself to an enterprise every detail of which lad not been carefully considered ; nor offered a* opinion on 2 34« GOOD SAMARITANS, subject until he had examined it from every point of view. Like Marlborough, he never lost his serenity; his resources were always and entirely at his command j and his patience was as inexhaust- ible as his energy. He was a man of few words ; speech to him was silvern, and silence golden; but when he spoke it was always with firmness, distinctness, and a natural eloquence. Innovations in religion, and, in fact, changes of all kinds, he strongly disliked; and unconsciously he acted on the principle of the old Latin saying, " Quieta non movere." If I were to adopt the plan of writers who compile books upon Representative Men, and label each with a particular virtue or mental qualification, I should put Vincent de Paul before the reader as a type of Charity. This was the dominant inspiration of his life, his guiding motive, the principle underlying all his thoughts and actions. The majority of men undoubtedly con- sider themselves charitable, and, perhaps, in a limited way, are really so; that is, they will fling a penny to a beggar, or contribute some small sum to a ** deserving case." Bat Vincent de Paul's charity reached a far higher standard, expanded in a much broader development. To the poor, the distressed, the feeble, he gave himself. His conception of Charity is embodied in the following passage from an address he delivered to the members of his Community : " Let us love God, my brethren," he said, " but let it be at the cost of the labour of our arms and of the sweat of our brow ; for very often these frequent acts of the love of God, of delighting in Him and longing for Him, and other such affections of a fervent heart, though in themselves very good and desirable, are nevertheless to be regarded with suspicion when they do not lead us to the practice of an active love. ' Herein,' our Lord says, * is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit' It is to this we must look: there are many who, having attained to a composed and well-regulated exterior, and to an inner man filled with great thoughts of God, rest there, but when it comes to deeds, or there is occasion for them lo act, they stop short. They pride themselves upon their warm feelings ; they content themselves with the sweetness of their communion with God in prayer ; they can speak of these things with the tongues of angels ; but if there be occasion to work foi God, to suffer, to mortify themselves, to instruct the poor, to VINCENT DR PAWS WORLD-WIDE CHARITY. 349 seek the lost sheep, to dispense with some comfort, to welcome sickness or any other misfortune, alas ! they are no longer there, their courage fails them. No, no, let us not deceive ourselves : all our work consists in doing (latum opus nostrtmt in operatione cons is tit).'" But Vincent de Paul's charity went still further. He carried it into his judgment of man's character and motives. He put the best construction upon all that was said and done. His philan- thropy was so fervent, so real, that he desired to render to every one the duties and services of charity. And this, because he constantly bore in mind the fact that men are all children of the same Father, and saw Him in them, whosoever and whatso- ever they might be. King or noble, bishop or priest, merchant or artisan, Dives or Lazarus, — in each he saw the image ol our Lord ; and, therefore, each had a claim upon his honour, his love, and his duty. On the growth of his association of Mission Priests, on the increase of their members and the extension of their sphere of labour, it is unnecessary for me to dwell. Enthusiasm, in a good cause, when sustained and guided by what one may call the practical faculty, almost invariably does something more than " deserve *' success ; it accomplishes the results it desires, and even grander results than its most sanguine visions had antici- pated. The old College des Bons Enfans soon proved inadequate to the accommodation of Vincent's little army of Christian workers ; and in 1632 he transferred them to the large disused conventual buildings which had at one time served as the lazar or leper house of Paris. From this date to 1660, the last year of the founder's earthly career, no fewer than seven hundred ^ "missions" were held by priests from S. Lazarus alone, while branches of the Society were established in as many as six-and- twenty of the French dioceses. The next important work undertaken and carried out by Vincent was the establishment of a system for the better training and preparation of candidates for holy orders ; the necessity for such a system having been impressed upon him by his own observations of clerical apathy and negligence. " He used to sai- that as a conquering general, if he would keep possession of the 350 GOOD SAMARITANS. towns which he has taken, must leave strong garrisons behind him ; so, after Satan had been driven from his strongholds, it was very necessary for faithful soldiers of Christ to occupy the ground : and that, unless good and earnest priests could be provided to care for and help on the souls which had been won for God, it was almost certain that they would fall back again, and their last state be worse than the first ; and yet he was well aware, from his own acquaintance with the clergy in country places throughout the length and breadth of the land, as well as from the complaints which reached him from all sides, how few such were to be found." With Vincent de Paul, to recognise an evil was to devise a remedy for it. He perceived clearly that he could not depend upon the existing generation of clergy, who had grown accustomed to the old groove, and were wedded to the ancient traditions ; his work must be prospective ; he must seize upon the young men then coming forward as candidates for the ministry, and endeavour to breathe into them a loftier spirit, to animate them with a higher sense of the sacredness and solemnity of their duties. His plan was, to require that all who desired to receive holy orders should be carefully instructed in the necessary studies should make a spiritual retreat for some days before ordination, and go through a course of moral theology. It was taken up at once by the Bishop of Beauvais and the Archbishop of Paris; and as it extended, Vincent established Retreats for Ordinants at S. Lazarus, receiving five times a year, for a period of eleven days, as many as from seventy to ninety men, who were enter- tained as welcome guests, and lodged and boarded free of expense. The happy influence exe.Msed by these "Retreats" Vincent acknowledged with a grateful heart ; but he had a keen perception of the weakness of human nature, and apprehending that the good impressions and resolutions acquired and made in the calm retirement of S. Lazarus might only too readiir glide away in rude contact with the world, he sought for some means of sus- taining and confirming them until they assumed a character of permanency. After much reflection, he instituted for this purpose a weekly conference ; and every Tuesday the young priests assem- bled at S. I>azarus to discuss the nature of their solemn duties, and the graces necessary for a faithful discharge of them. Out FIRST INSTITUTION OF ''SISTERS OF CHARnV. 3;,. of these gatherings grew a confraternity or guild, the members ot which were bound to assist one another under certain fixed con- ditions ; thus, they visited those who were sick, and in case of the death of any one of their number, the survivors followed him to the grave. They were required to rise at a certain hour, to spend at least half-an-hour a day in silent prayer, and daily to 'ead, kneeling and bare-headed, a chapter of the New Testament We now arrive at the third, and perhaps the greatest, of Vincent de Paul's philanthropic achievements, the one in right of which he finds a place among our " Good Samaritans " — the institution of " Sisters Of Charity." His first movement in this direction was made as early as 161 7, during his brief residence at Chatillon. Deeply moved by the mass of poverty and indigence around him, and struck by the want of all order and definite effort in the attempts to relieve it, he collected a body of workers, whom he called a " Confraternity of Charity," for the purpose of providing the sick poor, at their own houses, with proper care and nursing. Any devout women, married or unmarried, were ad- mitted into this Confraternity, who, for the love of God and His poor, were willing to enter upon the work, and to pledge them- selves to a regular and systematic discharge of it. By degrees, these charitable Sisterhoods spread over all the land, as they almost invariably sprang up in places where Vincent and his lazarists had held a Mission; a proof of the eminently /r^r/Zr^/ character of Vincent's religious teaching ; of the manner in which he insisted that Faith should confirm itself by Works. Their ^ supervision, therefore, assumed the proportions of an onerous charge, and Vincent, who had already too many burdens to sus- tain, looked around him for some capable assistant to whom he could entrust it. At last he found the helper he needed in a Madame Louise Legras, an affluent widow, who desired to dedi- cate herself wholly to God's service. "From her youth," says her English biographer, "she had been of a serious and philosophic turn of mind : so much so, that her father gave her a classical education, as the only one worthy of her gravity and intellect. But her soul soared beyond the things human learning professes to teach : she longed to enter a religious order ; and she would have done so, but that her health proved 352 XJUOD SAMARITANS, too delicate for the austerities of the cloistCi Even in the world she led a life of retirement, charity, and self-deiiial ; and from the first years of her marriage she belonged to the poor and to the sick of her parish. She visited them in their illnesses, gave them medi- cines and relief, attended on them, made their beds, consoled or exhorted the sorrow-stricken or the dying, and shrank from no task, not even from the laying out of the dead. In the fervour of her zeal, Madame Legras wished, in placing herself under the spiritual guidance of Vincent, to take a vow of devoting herself henceforth to the poor ; but, with his cautious dislike of anything resembling precipitation, he forbade her to do so for four years - during which he put her zeal and charity to repeated trials." The Romish clergy are not generally credited with any special scrupulousness in their efforts to make converts or gain adherents ; out nothing is more remarkable about Vincent de Paul than his absolute straightforwardness, and his anxiety at all times that none should join him who had not measured the full extent of the responsibilities they undertook. It was owing to this wise honesty that few, if any, of his helpers, when once they had put their hand to the plough, drew it back again ; that few, if any, fell out of the ranks, disgusted with or overborne by the hardness of the service. Not until he had thoroughly tested the constancy of purpose of Madanie Legras did he offer her the supervision of his Confraternities of Charity. She accepted it gladly, and in an earnest spirit; and thenceforth, every summer, she visited the different villages where they were established, examining into their progress, and mstructing and encouraging their members. At first they had been limited to the rural districts ; but in a country where no Poor Law existed, no government or national organization for dealing with pauperism, the need for them was quite as urgent in the towns, and especially in the capital itself. Several Parisian ladies, therefore, obtained Vincent's permission to form them- selves into an association under the same rules and regulations as those which governed his Sisterhoods. But it was soon found, as evidently Vincent had anticipated, that full reliance could not be placed upon ladies of rank and position ; in some cases their husbands objected to the work they had undertaken; in others the ladies themselves grew weary of its monotony ot unpleasant- ness. Then they began to devolve their duties upon their SPREAD OF THE GOOD WORK OVER THE WORLD. 353 servants, who did not always attend very strictly to the orders they had received, or, at all events, failed to show — as that class of individuals so very generally fail to show — the love, the sympathy, and the tenderness more eagerly coveted by the poor, and more keenly appreciated by them, than any material relief. To meet this difficulty Vincent looked around him for pious women who would give up their whole lives to the care of the sick; who would accept it as an honourable vocation and a service unto God : women whom no social ties would distract in the performance of their duties, and in whose intelligence and fidelity a reasonable confidence might always be placed. It was in 1635 that his search first proved successful; and he had then the good fortune to meet three or four " Sceurs de la Charite," under the general superintendence of Madame Legras. He required of them that they should undergo a careful training in nursing the sick, in preparing and administering medicines, and other useful and necessary details ; and, further, he accus- tomed them to habits of obedience and devotion. The work grew rapidly, because it met a "felt want," and met it in a practical and reasonable manner. The seed sown by Vincent ripened into a noble harvest which has spread over many lands. His ** Sisters of Charity " were the direct ancestresses of our Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of the Poor, District Visitors, and the like. Madame Legras was the first of a long line of noble women, of whom, in our own day, we have seen such bright and beautiful examples as Miss Aikenhead, Sister Dora, and Florence Nightingale. To women,^such women as felt no vocation for a married life, but were nevertheless disinclined to immure them- selves in the unprofitable life of the cloister, — women with a capacity for usefulness and a talent for administration, if they could but find appropriate fields for their exercise, — this new organization proved scarcely less beneficial than to the rich and poor for whose benefit it was called into existence. This is the advantage of all good and noble work : it entails a benediction upon the workers as well as upon those for whom they work. In the following century, as I have elsewhere written, no fewer than four-and-thirty establishments of Sisters of Charity existed in Paris alone ; and they were also to be found in Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands, in America, and even in India. 354 GOOD SAMARITANS. Neither Vincent nor Madame Legras had at the outset any con- ception of the grandeur of the enterprise they had, with so rare a sagacity and so chivalrous a benevolence, initiated. And, in truth, no reformer can ever see the full extent of his reform, or estimate aright its abundant possibilities. Could Columbus, when he revealed the Western World to the eager eyes of Europe, have anticipated, even in his wildest dreams, the vast issues of his ■discovery ? In every " work of noble note " the increase comes from God. As for Vincent de Paul, he did what all of us ought to do — the task that lay close at hand to be done, without thought of the future ; and he did it admirably, with rare prudence and good sense, and a careful adaptation of the means to the end. He did not attempt too much, nor did he ask too much . f the agents he employed. Gradually he enlarged his design and •extended his sphere of action, until almost every branch of philanthropic effort fell within the range of his Sisterhoods ; but nothing was done hastily, nor without mature consideration. The regulations which he laid down for the observance of the Sisterhoods bore the stamp of his practical turn of mind. The Sisters were subjected to a probation, a preliminary trial, of five years ; after which they took the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty ; but they took them for one year only, so that if they repented of the weight of the burden, they might be at liberty to get rid of it. Nor could they renew them without the per- mission of the Superior, who took every opportunity of reminding them of the nobleness of the vocation to which these vows were the solemn and sacred introduction. "A Sister of Charity," he would say, " has need of a higher degree of virtue than the members of the austerest religious order. There is no order of religious women which has so many and such arduous duties to perform ; inasmuch as the Sisters of Charity must in them selves discharge almost all the offices of other Orders. In the first place, they must labour after their owi? perfection, with as much earnestness as the Carmelites ; next, they nurse the sick like the nurses of the Hotel Dieu and other hospital sisters ; and lastly, they undertake the education of young girls, like the Ursulines. . . . They must remember," he would add, '*that although they are not nuns, that condition not being suitable for the works of their vocation, for that very reason, because RULES FOR THE SISTERHOODS. 355 they are more exposed than those who are cloistered and shut out from the world, they require a loftier and severer virtue. Their monasteries are the homes of the sick ; their cells are hired rooms; their cloisters, the streets of the city or the wards of I the hospital ; instead of a barred gate to protect them, they have the fear of God ; and for a veil, holy modesty. Hence, they must in all places endeavour to behave with at least as much reserve, self-control, and edification, as regular nuns use in their convents ; and to obtain of God this grace, they must labour ta acquire all the virtues commended to them by their rules, and particularly a deep humility, a perfect obedience, and a great detachment or separation from their fellow-creatures. And, specially, they must exercise any possible precaution to preserve perfect purity of body and soul." To some ears a ring of Romanism will be perceptible in this advice, but, nevertheless, it is, on the whole, very broad and generous and wise. Vincent continued, in the instructions which he addressed to the Sisters : — "Lest the spiritual offices they render should interfere with the bodily services they are bound to give, — a thing which might easily happen, if by too long staying with one patient they allowed others to suffer through neglecting to give them their food or medicine at the proper hour, they must be very careful in the management of their time, and the arrangement of their work^ according to the number and needs of their patients, great or small. And since in the evening their duties are not generally so urgent as in the morning, they may choose that time for the instruction and exhortation of their patients, particularly when administering to them their medicines. *' In their attendance upon the sick they must make God their sole thought and object, and thus they will become indifferent alike to the praises they may receive or the hard words that may he dealt out to them, except that they will turn both to good account, inwardly rejecting the former, and humbUng themselves in the knowledge of their own nothingness ; and welcoming the latter, in honour of the reviHngs of the Son of God upon the Cross by those very men who had received of Him so many favours and graces. " No gift, however small, must they accept from the poor whom 356 GOOD SAMARITANS. they assist. They must beware of thinking that the poor are in any way obliged to them for the services they render ; seeing that in very truth, it is they themselves who are indebted to the poor. For through that small charity which they bestow not of their substance, but only of a little care, they make to themselves friends, who shall one day have a right to receive them into everlasting habitations. And even in this life they receive, through the poor on whom they wait, greater honour and truer satisfaction than they could have dared to hope for in the world : of this they must be careful to make no improper use, but rather to abase themselves in the consciousness of their own unworthiness. " They will remember that they are called Sisters of Charity, — that is, sisters whose profession it is to love God and their neigh- bour; and that, therefore, besides the sovereign and supreme love they must have for God, they ought to excel in the love of their neighbours, and especially of their companions. Accord- ingly, they will avoid all coolness and dislike towards any, and, at the same time, all special friendships and attachments to some above others ; since these two vicious extremes are sources of division, both in communities and among private persons, if they dwell upon and entertain them. And should it happen that they have quarrelled among themselves, they must ask pardon of one another, at the very latest before they retire to rest "Moreover, they will bear in mind that they are called * ser- vants of the poor,* which, in the eyes of the world, is one of the lowest conditions, to the end that they may always have a low opinion of themselves, and reject immediately the least thought of vain-glory which might arise in their minds, if they hear any good said of their works, remembering that it is to God that all the glory is due, because He alone is the author of them. " They will be very faithful and exact in following their Rule, and all the laudable customs which have hitherto been observed in their mode of life, particularly those which concern the perfect- ing of their own happiness. " But not the less must they remember that, whenever necessity or obedience requires it, they must always prefer the service of the poor to their devotional practices, inasmuch as, in so doing, they are leaving God for God." Vincent was too wisely liberal to enforce upon the Sisters a SELF-SACRIFICE AND DISREGARD OF DANGER. 357 rule as rigid as that which prevails in the cloister. The obliga- tions imposed upon them were of a different order : namely, to rise all the year round at four in the morning ; to pray twice a day ; to live with extreme frugality ; to drink no wine, except in illness ; to minister to the sick even in the loathsomest diseases ; to watch throughout the night by the bed of the dying ; to live shut up within the dull walls of an hospital \ to breathe air heavy with infection ; to endure with calmness, and even to welcome with rejoicing, fatigue and danger, sickness and death. It will be seen that the Sisters took upon themselves a burden of no light weight, but it was one which God gave them strength to bear, and in the bearing of it there was joy and blessing and honour. To Vincent de Paul the heroism which was thus quietly mani- fested was a constant source of wonder and loving admiration, though it was he himself who had called it into being. His feelings are best described in his own words, which he addressed to the Mission Priests in 1658. At the request of the French queen, Anne of Austria, he had sent four Sisters to attend upon the wounded soldiers at Calais, and two of them had succumbed to fatigue : — "I recommend to your prayers," he said, "the Sisters of Charity whom we sent to Calais to assist the wounded. Four went, and two — the strongest — have sunk beneath the burden. Imagine what four poor girls can do for five or six hundred sick and wounded soldiers ! Is it not affecting? Do you not consider it an action of great merit before God, that women should, with so much courage and resolution, go amongst soldiers to relieve them in their need ; that they should voluntarily subject themselves to so much fatigue, and even to disease and death, for the sake of those who braved the perils of war for the good of the State ? We see how these women were filled with zeal for the glory of God and the succour of their fellow-creatures ! The queen has honoured us by writing and asking for more Sisters to be sent to Calais, and four leave to-day for that purpose. One of them, about fifty years of age, came to me last Friday at the Hotel Dieu, where I was then staying. She said that, having learned that two of her Sisters had died at Calais, she came to offer herself to go in their place, if 1 would allow it. 'Sister,' I replied, *I will think about it.' See, my brethren, the courage of these women, thus to come forward like victims, glad and willing to render up their lives for 358 GOOD SAMARITANS, the love of Jesus Christ and the good of their neighbour. Is not this admirable? In truth, I know not what to say, except that they will judge us on the great day of the Lord. Yea, they will be our judges, unless we are as ready as they to expose our lives for the love of God." From the beginning of 1649 the infirmities of old age began to press heavily upon our indefatigable philanthropist, whose charity was so broad and so true because it was a charity inspired by a profoundly religious feeling. He was no longer able to move about on foot or on horseback, but was compelled to use a little carriage. He grieved deeply at being constrained to yield himself this indulgence, but a still greater grief was his inability to kneel. No failure of energy, however, no abatement of zeal, could be detected in his discharge of the multifarious works of mercy, charity, and religion that devolved upon him. Never was there greater need of his spirit of enthusiastic benevolence and his power of organization ; for the war had desolated the provinces of Champagne and Picardy ; and the Mission priests, under his direction, were severely taxed in their heroic endeavours to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless and bury the dead. For more than three years this colossal work fell almost entirely upon Vincent and his disciples. And when it was happily ended, for this apostle of Christian charity yet remained another loving and charitable task. In 1653 a wealthy Parisian citizen consulted him on the best means of employing a large sum of money which he desired to devote to God's service. It was to be placed entirely at Vincent's disposal : the sole condition being that the donor's name was never to be revealed. The trust was one he could not refuse; and after meditation and prayer, he proposed to expend it in founding a Hospital or Almshouse for aged and necessitous artisans. The donor approved of the sug- gestion ; and accordingly Vincent purchased and fitted up suitable premises for the accommodation of twenty men and as many women, under the title of the Hospital of the Name of Jesus. His weakness continued to increase as year after year was added to his record. Before his end came he experienced the hard trial of losing three of his dearest friends — a M. Porlail, who had been his life-long helper, his secretary, and assistant-superior ; a certain Abbe de Chandenier, whose Christian fellowship he had THE MESSENGER OF DEATH IN SLEEP. 359 held as a very precious thing; and Madame Legras, his right hand in carrying out the organisation of the sisterhoods of charity. With eighty-four winters on his head, the venerable Superior might well long to follow his beloved friends to their rest, and he was often heard to sigh, — " For how many years, O Lord, have I abused Thy grace ! Alas ! I live too long, since there is no amendment in my life, and my sins are multiplied according to the long procession of my years." And again, on hearing of the departure of any of his mission-priests, he would say : — " Thou leavest me^ O God, and callest to Thyself Thy servants. I am one of those tares that spoil the good grain Thou gatherest, and here am I still, uselessly cumbering the ground. Well, well, my God, Thy will be done, not mine." However long deferred, the summons of death must come at last About noon, on the 25th of September, 1660, the aged Father fell suddenly into a deep sleep. For some time he had suffered attacks of drowsiness ; but this one was so profound and calm that, on his awaking, an attendant remarked upon it. " Ay," said Vincent, "it is the brother who has come beforehand,, while we are waiting for the sister."^ On the day following,. Sunday, after hearing mass in the chapel, and communicating, as. was his custom, he was seized with a stupor and lethargy, from, which it was impossible to rouse him, except for brief intervals. The physician acknowledged that no remedies could further avail, and advised that the last rites of the Church should be adminis- tered. Vincent revived sufficiently, however, to utter a few words- of benediction on the members of the congregation, absent as well as present. In the evening, the last Sacrament was administered*. His feebleness was so great that it was thought safer not to undress; him, and he spent the night in his chair, in sweet and tranquii communion with his heavenly Father. Of the various ejaculations; repeated to him, the one which seemed to please him most was; the " Deus adjutorium meum intende ; " and whenever he hei A it he would respond, " Domine ad adjuvandum me festina." A Retreat was at this time being held in the Home, and the priest • We are reminded of the poet Shelley's lines : — ** How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep I * 23 (JOOD SAMARITANS. who conducted it obtained permission to take leave of the aged saint, for whom he had always cherished a deep affection. He asked his blessing oh all the associates of the weekly Conferences, and his intercession to obtain them grace ; so that the fire of holy zeal which his words and example had kindled and kept alive might not be quenched after his departure. Vincent answered, "Qui ccepit opus bonum, ipse perficiet." These were his last words, and they explained the motive of his life — an absolute forgetfulness of self, and an entire devotion to the glory of his Divine Master. A few minutes later, at half-past four o'clock on the morning of Monday the 27th of September, 1660, he passed away, bequeath- ing to posterity that most precious of all legacies, a glorious example. It was the distinctive merit of Vincent de Paul, whose life we have thus briefly sketched, to open up to women a new and adequate vocation, one particularly adapted to their special gifts, one in which all their graces of character could fitly be utilised. Many lives, which might otherwise have been wasted, have thus /been made profitable to themselves and to others. The womanly "virtues — meekness, obedience, purity, tenderness, patience — are just those which are most necessary to the successful accomplish- iment of the work of charity ; and women succeed so much more ifuUy than men in labours among the sick and distressed, because they are so much more sympathetic. Even their physical quali- fications are an advantage — the light tread, the delicate touch, the soft voice. Again, they have a wonderful power of endurance, and night after night they will watch by the bedside of the invalid, always on the alert, always attentive, always patient and gentle ; when men would have succumbed to fatigue, and in their weari- ness grown irritable or negligent. It was a happy day for the poor and suffering when a new sphere of duty was revealed to women as the active agents of organised charity. Commenting upon the career and character of Amelia Sieveking, her biographer justly remarks that, though all women cannot be, aor is it necessary that they should be, exactly what she was, yet can they strive to imitate her in her truthfulness, her faithful per- MISS SIEV EKING AT HAMBURG. 361 formance of duty, her conscientiousness and self-control, the earnest- nes3 which she carried into the smallest matters, the diligence with which she followed every good work, her severity towards herself, hei mildness and discretion towards others. She was possessed with the spirit of Vincent de Paul ; her life, like his, was a grand illustration of compassionate and ministering love, of the highest and purest charity ; and in the Protestant Church she sought to found such an association of women, devoted to benevolent work, as he had founded in the Roman. In the history of female effort and endeavour we know of no more stirring chapter than that which records her long labours in the Cholera Hospital of Ham- burg. It was in October 1831 that the plague of Asiatic cholera swooped down, in fearful severity, upon the city of Hamburg. Unterrified by its ghastly concomitants, she immediately tendered her services to the hospital authorities. They were accepted, and for eight weeks she waited upon the sufferers with indefatigable vigilance, soothing them in their agonies, and receiving their dying injunctions and wishes. The entire superintendence of the men's wards, as well as of the female ward, and the general supervision of the attendants, were placed in her hands. We may gather some idea of the onerous nature of her daily duties from a letter she wrote to her mother : — " In the morning," she says, " I have to see that, before the physician's visit, all the wards are cleaned, the beds made, and that everything is in proper order. Three times a day — morning, afternoon, and evening — I visit the sick-beds in company with the physician, the surgeon, and the apothecary, when Dr. Siemssen gives to each the directions belonging to our respective depart- ments. In the women's ward, of course, I have to pay particular attention to all the medical orders, as I am responsible there for their exact fulfilment. In the men's wards my special duty is only to observe what diet is prescribed, according to which I draw up the daily bill of fare for the housekeeper. Not unfrequently, too, J have to read the necessary notice of his admission to the re- latives of the sick man, as the patients are often brought in un- known to their family. The linen of the wards is also under my charge. At present I also occasionally take part, when I see any need for it, in the actual nursing of the men ; but if the number of our patients should greatly increase, I should be obliged to do 362 GOOD SAMARITANS. less of this even in the women's ward, as the general superin- tendence would be of more importance, and would give me full occupation ; but it would then be of great use to me that I have thus acquired experience in the treatment of patients." Only those who know something of hospital life, and something 1 00 of the terrible character of choleraic disease, can fully appre- ciate the courage, resolution, and truly heroic patience displayed in the performance of such delicate and difficult duties. What was very striking in Miss Sieveking's character was her thorough simpli- city of mind, her entire unconsciousness that she was doing a good and a great work. It seemed to her the work she was called upon to do, and as a matter of ordinary duty she did it, and did it with all her powers. " On the whole," she writes, '* I am certainly at present called to the work of Martha rather than Mary ; but this is quite right. It is enough if the Lord will but employ me in His service; the mode I leave entirely to Him. If I could but perform the labours of Martha with the quiet mind of Mary ! but I am far from attaining this at present. Now and then, too, I find an opportunity for practising something of Mary's work, when it is suitable, which certainly happens very rarely. I read aloud portions of some religious book to my nurses and patients, and in the convalescents' wards I have been requested by some to pro- cure them something to read. I gave them various little selections of prayers, and sent to the Christian Circulating Library for some other works of a more entertaining character. The following day I was greatly pleased at being voluntarily asked by some of the readers for a Bible, that they might look out the text referred to, and I immediately procured two for them." The following extract illustrates her surprising energy and vij^our : — *' I continue very well in health, and it is really remark- able what a degree of physical strength is given me from above. Thus, last night, when a sick woman was brought in who re- quired close attendance, I did not get to bed until four o'clock in the morning ; at half-past six I had to rise again, and at seven my coffee was brought, but at eleven I had never yet found a moment in which I could drink it ; and with the exception of the time when I was writing out the list of diets, half-an-hour at dinner, half-an-hour in the afternoon, when I had a cup of tea in my own room, and half-an-hour in the evening, when I read aloud FOUNDATION OF ENGLISH SISTERS OF MERCY. 363 from a devotional work in my own ward, I have never sat down ten minutes together in the whole day; and yet I feel no trace of fatigue. And my dear mother must not imagine this to be the result only of excitement ; my mind is perfectly quiet and com- posed ; indeed, I feel better when there is a great deal to do ; an inactive life in an hospital would be indeed something terrible." In later years she spoke with much frankness of her motives and experiences during this episode of her career : — " While in the hospital," she said, " I received many letters telling me of the judgment pronounced by various people on my conduct, and though a few praised me, for the most part I was blamed. I was particularly sensitive to blame in this case, for though I certainly did seek the glory of God in the first place, yet I cannot deny that sometimes the thought had glided into my mind that people would admire my self-sacrifice. Instead of that, it was, * She wants to do something remarkable ; she wants to set up for a martyr,' and all this was very good for me. But if I was humbled by the answer of men, I was but confirmed in my resolve to per- severe until I had overcome all hindrances and fairly solved the problem before me. I was called an enthusiast, but it was by prayer that I conquered, and never have I regretted the step I then took. From that time, too, I determined never in future to stand in dread of the opinions of men, or to allow them to destroy my peace." The great work of Miss Sieveking's life was the foundation of an order of Sisters of Mercy in the Protestant Church. With pain and regret she had observed that the Protestant system offered no such employment for the charitable energies of women as the Roman ; and that they were thus deprived of what for themselves could not be other than a valuable spiritual training, while the poor and destitute were left without the aid and counsel they so sorely needed. She saw that in hundreds of instances unmarried females were debarred from doing the good to which their hearts inclined them, because they had not the assured position and official sanction which a definite organization, under the sanction of the Church, would provide. And it was her con- viction that many a soul, struggling anxiously towards the pure and the true, but let and hindered by external or internal influences, would, in such a vocation, find the strength and 364 GOOD SAMARITANS. support it needed, and be prevented from sliding back into the slough of worldliness. What society required was, in her belief, an organization for the relief of the poor and destitute ; and she held that such an organization could be worked more beneficially and effectively by her own sex than by men. Such, indeed, was the case in the Primitive Church ; in which women of good repute were encouraged to devote themselves to the Church's service, to visit the poor, nurse the sick, and teach the female catechumens. Stolberg says of Vincent de Paul, that he had one noteworthy custom. "This man, who undertook and executed such a colossal mass of work, used to begin very slowly ; slowly laid his foundations, examined long what the will of God might be ; but when once convinced what it was, he went forward with irresistible power, and God granted him results as speedy as they were fruitful." Miss Sieveking was of the same mind as Vincent de Paul. Her scheme of a Protestant Sisterhood she meditated with devout care, pondering every detail, and anticipating every objection ; and in 1832 it took actual form and shape. Started at first by her individual energy, the Association was soon rein- forced by the energy and goodwill of kindred spirits ; so that in one year the number of working members increased from fourteen to twenty-five. The rules of the Sieveking Association were gradually adopted by the numerous guilds and sisterhoods that sprang out of it, and those now operating in connection with the various Protestant Churches must all be traced back to this one original. Without the purest courage, without the loftiest enthusiasm, and that faith and hope which are its main elements, Miss Sieveking could never have accomplished the work she did. The reader, we think, will feel a blush of shame as he reads her simple account of the labours of a single day. " I get up," she writes, "at half-past four, and am busy for the school-children until six. I take my breakfast while I am at work. At six I start for the city, arriving at the Town Hall about a quarter after seven. Here there are generally about twenty or more poor people waiting to speak to me. This lasts till half-past eight, when I go to our own house and look through any notes that have come for me, or prepare something more for my school, and if there is any time left before lessons begin, I take another walk, A BUSY DAY'S WORK 365 either to call on some of the poor people, or go on their errands to the doctor for the poor, and guardians, and the like. At ten o'clock my little ones come to me, and stay until nearly two. At half-past two I go to the Free School, where I give religious instruction till half-past three. The time from half-past three till five is filled up with errands or writing for the Association. At five some of my former scholars assemble, and first I hold a regular Bible lesson with them ; then we drink tea and converse, and towards the end of our time I generally tell them anything likely to interest them in the way of literature or general subjects. At eight o'clock they separate. Meantime the visiting reports from the ladies of the Association have been sent in. These reports, upwards of a hundred in number, have to be looked through, many things to be taken note of, and the visits newly apportioned. This work employs me as long as I can keep awake, but I cannot finish it for bed-time." Such was a day in Miss Sieveking's busy life. But of course it signifies an amount of labour which few persons would be justified in undertaking, because few would have the physical or mental energy requisite to carry it out. Moreover, it leaves no time for self-culture, or private devotion, or kindly intercourse with friends. We may work, however, in Miss Sieveking's spirit without implicitly or servilely adopting her method. Among her later achievements were the building of a model lodging-house, and the establishment of a children's hospital. Both were eminently successful, as were all Miss Sieveking's projects ; partly because they were always so thoroughly matured^ and partly because everything she did was done at the right time. Much good work is ruined by over-haste, and much by inoppor- tuneness. It is useless to sow the seed until the field is ready. Meanwhile her Association prospered largely, and she lived to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary ; when the great idea which had filled her whole soul and animated her whole life, the devotion and consecration of her sex by works of love and living charity^ had ripened into a great fact, into a blessed reality. " Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world," says Emerson, "is the triumph of enthusiasm." But in the present time enthusiasm is greatly sneered at and depreciated. 366 GOOD SAMARITANS. This new departure is a pitiful and discouraging sign. For what is enthusiasm but an earnest devotedness towards some high purpose? — an eager belief in the value of some special object, a constant effort to attain the heights of spiritual and intellectual endeavour ? What is it but an emotion of the heart, a passion of the soul ? What is it but the life and force and power which make men and nations capable of doing great things, or of suffer- ing and waiting ? In the eyes of the Pharisees our Lord was an enthusiast : so was St. Paul in the eyes of Festus. And were not the Christians of the first two centuries enthusiasts, amid the fires and wild beasts of Rome ? Are not all men enthusiasts who, at the risk of their hearts' blood, and in despite of the bitterest suffering, strive to purify, to better the world ? How all such reformers and philanthropists are laughed at by the cynical philo- sophers of these latter days, when a cold and self-satisfied indiffer- ence to all unselfish exertions or generous impulses is represented as the highest phase of a wise man's wisdom ! The old shibboleths of loyalty and truth and patriotism and self-sacrifice, — in a word, every phase and form of enthusiasm, — are derided and dishonoured by the disciples of the new philosophy. Yet let us not shrink back ashamed from the worship of the pure and beautiful. Let us not shut our hearts against those sweet purifying influences which flow from a desire to live a noble and an upright life. Let us not fail to keep before our eyes an Ideal, to which it shall be our constant effort and yearning to attain. Let us never refuse to share in any work which has for its object the elevation of humanity. Where would this world be but for the enthusiasm of its reformers, philanthropists, teachers ? What but enthusiasm has set up the cross of Christ in the islands of the wide southern seas ? What but enthusiasm has consolidated the fabric of our constitutional freedom ? What but enthusiasm has covered our and with schools and raised the common people out of a slough of apathetic ignorance and degradation ? And it is this same enthusiasm, with all its cleansing and ennobling vitality, that each one of us should carry into his daily life, so that it may give breadth and height to our thoughts, an inspiration to our industry, and dignity to our manhood. It must have been enthusiasm, the highest, purest enthusiasm, which strengthened and supported Mompesson during his experi- TRUE HEROISM OF MR, AND MRS. MOMPESSON, 367 ences of the plague at Eyam. Most of us have read of St. Carlo Borromeo's heroic devotion when the pestilence ravaged Milan, how he bent over the beds of the death-stricken, and administered food and medicine and the consolations of religion while breathing the fatal air of infection ; but few, perhaps, have heard of the humble English pastor, who played as noble a part, though on a less conspicuous stage. William Mompesson was Rector of Eyam, a picturesque Derbyshire village, between Chatsworth and Buxton, when the plague last visited England (1665). He had been married only a few years, and by his wife, a beautiful young creature of twenty-seven, had two lovely children, a boy of three and a girl of four years of age. When the terrible pestilence showed itself in the village, he at once sent away his little ones ; but his wife would not leave him, and the two remained to share the dangers and trials of their people. Mompesson was a brave and thoughtful man ; he fully appreciated the peril of the situa- tion, and set to work with calm resolution to confront it. To London he sent for the remedies most in vogue ; and to the Earl of Devonshire at Chatsworth he wrote, to promise that the villagers should not cross the boundaries of their parish, so as to spread the contagion, if he would provide that food, provisions, and other necessaries should, at regular times, be deposited at certain points on the hills around, whence they might fetch them, and leave the proper payment. Further, all letters should be placed on a stone, and duly fumigated, or passed through vinegar, before they were sent into circulation. The Earl readily assented to these propositions, and for seven dreary months Eyam was thus fenced off from the outer world — remote and alone, like some island in the far-off melancholy main. The Eyamites, inspired by their pastor's example, behaved heroically. They submitted without a murmur to this rigid seclusion ; and though among the rocks and dales of that part of Derbyshire escape would have been easy, not one of them, it is believed, made an attempt to pass the prescribed boundary. Mr. Mompesson, as a sanitary precaution, held his services out of doors. The spot which he selected for this purpose is still pointed out. A torrent in the winter dashes down a cleft in the rugged hill-side in the middle of the village ; in the summer its bed is dry. Towards the village the ascent is clothed with sof^ 368 GOOD SAMARITANS, velvety turf, and sprinkled with rowan and hazel and elder, and made musical by the songs of birds. On the other side the slope is steep, and broken with sharp rocks, which here start up into uncouth columns and spires, there form into irregular archways^ hung with ivy and leafy growth. One of these rocks, which was hollow, and could be entered from above like a gallery, served Mr. Mompesson as pulpit and reading-desk, and his congregation seated themselves on the green banks opposite. Twice on Sundays Mr. Mompesson read prayers and preached ; he read prayers also on Wednesdays and Fridays ; and every day, on a hill above the village, he read the funeral service over the victims of the plague, allowing no obstacle or hindrance to interfere with his performance of these sacred and solemn duties. His wonderful faith supported him ; and though, in addition to those services, he paid continual visits to the sick, and nursed and fed them, and prayed with them and cheered them, he preserved his health unshaken. Four-fifths of his parishioners, in spite of all his cares and precautions, were carried to the silent hill-sid'e cemetery, but he still retained his energy and vitality. It was not until his wife was taken that he lost heart. Her illness was very brief; for fatigue and anxiety had so reduced her strength that she could offer no long resistance to the enemy. She was often delirious ; but when she was too much exhausted to endure the exertion of taking cordials, her husband would implore her to try for their children's sake, and she Hfted herself up and made the effort. She bore her agonies with a serene patience, and died calmly, repeating the responses to her husband's prayers with her latest breath. To Mompesson her departure was like the going out of a great light. Left alone amongst the dead and dying, he felt as if his own end were close at hand, and in writing to his patron, Sir George Savile, spoke of himself as his "dying chaplain," and commended to his generosity his " distressed orphans." But he was quite resigned and peaceful. ** I thank God," he wrote, " that I am willing to shake hands in peace with all the world ; and I have comfortable assurances that He will accept me for the sike of His Son ; and I find God more good than ever I imagined, and wish that His goodness were not so much abused and contemned." It was in August that Mrs. Mompesson died. For two months longer the pestilence prevailed, and the bereaved servant of God, HIS LABOURS IN HIS PLAGUE-STRICKEN PARISH. 369 supported by his devout enthusiasm, continued his ministrations among the sick and discharged his pastoral duties towards the living. Gradually the extreme violence of the scourge abated ; the victims grew fewer daily ; and at last there came a day when the hand of the destroyer ceased to smite. After the nth of October there were no fresh cases ; and Mr. Mompesson set to work to burn all woollen stuffs in the place, lest the infection should linger among them. Writing on the 20th of November, he states some particulars of the terrible character of the visitation. " The condition of this place," he says, " hath been so dreadful, that I persuade myself it exceedeth all history and example. I may truly say our town has become a Golgotha, a place of skulls ; and had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom, and like unto Gomorrah. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, my nose never smelt such noisome smells, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Here have been seventy-six families visited within my parish, out of which died 259 persons." Who can doubt but that it was his holy enthusiasm which strengthened and sustained William Mompesson through the full course of his dreadful, arduous labours ? It is a notable fact that their severity did not permanently affect his health ; he lived to a ripe old age, dying, full of years and honours, in 1708. Miss Kavanagh has preserved for us the record of a noble woman, whose labours among the sick and poor were not less worthy than those of our Derbyshire pastor. In or about 1752, Anne Marie Gilbert Auverger was born at Chateau-Giron, a little town of Brittany. Her philanthropic tendencies — if I may use so big a phrase in association with one so simple and unassuming — manifested themselves at an exceptionally early age ; she was only fifteen when her parents, at her urgent request, placed her as boarder with the Sisters of Mercy who ministered to the sick of Vitre. It was understood that she desired to devote her life to this holy work. She remained at Vitrd for a year, patiently availing herself of every opportunity of learning, so to speak, her profession, and accustoming herself to face the most loathsome forms of disease, — and only those accustomed to hospitals know what loathsome forms disease sometimes assumes ! On returning 370 GOOD SAMARITANS. home she petitioned that, as most in accordance with her tastes and her future calling, she might wear plain brown gowns ; and when some persons objected to this simplicity, and to her caps, which were not becoming, they said, for so young a maiden, she answered with a smile, — " I wish to save up all my charms for heaven. The fashions here do not please me ; I hope to be better adorned there than you are now." This speech savours a little, perhaps, of exaggeration ; but there was true wisdom in her reply to a sister who censured her habitual liveliness, and told her " she was very merry for a girl so devout." " Religion,'' said she, ^' is not melancholy ; one cannot but feel happy in the service of so good a master as God." At all events, her service was cheerfully and constantly rendered. After morning prayer, she daily distributed bread and gave out work to a large number of the poor. She spent the afternoon in visiting the sick, disregarding all obstacles of weather or distance ; carrying the sunshine of her presence into the remotest cottages, and into the squalidest stables, where wretched peasants, men, women, and children, less valued than cattle, perished of cold and hunger. In the evening she taught four pauper children. The repute of her good works brought her the means of accom- plishing and extending them. Liberal givers poured their dona- tions freely into her hands ; made her their almoner : they gave the money, she the time, the labour, and the thought. In the years 1769 and 1770 Brittany suffered severely from a treble visitation of scarcity, severity of weather, and contagious disease. The Marquis de Chateau-Giron, a nobleman of wealth and bene- volence, employed this young girl, then only in her seventeenth year, as the steward of his charities : he had heard of her enthu- siasm, her energy, her sympathy with the suffering, and felt well assured that the moneys entrusted to her would be prudently employed. Anne Au verger did not limit her zealous exertions to cases of physical distress. Her compassion for the sinner was even greater than her pity for the sufferer ; and towards the weak and erring of her own sex her charity was boundless. With the courage of a transparently pure soul, to whom all things were pure, she visited them in their abodes, boldly penetrating into the very haunts of vice ; she spoke to them with pathetic candour; and though her ANNE AUVERGER—A SISTER OF CHARITY. yj\ warnings were not always heeded, she was never insulted, — the most abandoned were constrained into silence in her presence. She wisely aimed at prevention as well as cure, and to do away with the temptations of poverty and idleness, hired a house for the reception of friendless young girls, boarding and lodging them, • providing them with employment, and carefully superintending ^ their conduct. One of them, by some clandestine agency, was beguiled into a place of evil repute. As soon as she was apprised of the circumstance, she hastened to the den, boldly entered it, smote its owners with brave pitiless words of reproach, and rescued her protegee^ for whom she immediately procured a situation in the country. When this incident became known, some fastidious natures professed to be horrified, and informed Anne Auverger that the world disapproved of her conduct. "The world! " she exclaimed ; " we must let the world speak : it condemns every- thing which seems to censure its own selfish maxims." In 1 77 1, a contagious fever ravaged Chateau -Giron, and Anne multiplied her noble labours. Day after day she waited upon the sick with her usual fearlessness and zeal. But the effort proved too much for her strength. In her weakened condition the fever seized upon her; she was unable to resist it ; and after an illness of only five days she departed, leaving behind her a memory of singular beauty and brightness, and the name, which at so early an age she had gloriously won, of " The Mother of the Poor." It is now universally admitted tliat the "Open Sesame" by which one may hope to get at the hearts of the poor is sympathy. . A sympathetic word or look is more prized by the distressed and suffering than any alms. It is an acknowledgment of the tie which binds all humanity together. The poor feel no gratitude for the gift that is bestowed by the cold and indifferent hand that tells of a cold and indifferent nature ; they feel no gratitude for that mechanical charity, that system of grants and doles, by which society too often endeavours to compound with its con- science and dispense with the necessity of individual exertion^ No, what the poor crave and appreciate is sympathy ; but there can be no sympathy where there is no knowledge. And how is. this knowledge to be obtained ? Between the rich and the poor- 372 GOOD SAMARITANS. in England yawns a gulf almost as impassable as that which in the parable separates Dives and Lazarus. They form "two woilds," wholly distinct and apart from each other in their feelings, tastes, ideas, sentiments, and needs ; having no points of attraction, but rather of repulsion. Writers upon India tell us that the great difficulty of the British Government is its in- ability to get at the real opinions of its Indian subjects ; between the Hindoo and the Englishman rises a barrier of ignorance which prevents the growth of an intelligent and practical sympathy. We know nothing of the millions whom it is our lot to govern. Such, in England, is, on the whole, the position of the " upper ■classes " towards the lower. They have little, if any, knowledge, and certainly only a superficial knowledge, of the currents of thought and feeling by which they are swayed. Upon this lamentable fact hinges the plot of a striking novel recently published, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," in which the hero and heroine are represented as conscious of its existence, and as chivalrously bent upon obtaining a real and thorough acquaintance with the lower orders by the expedient of living among them. They abandon their social habitat, and in fictitious characters descend from the one world to the other ; submit themselves to entirely new conditions of life ; and divest themselves as far as possible of their old associations. What is here so ingeniously portrayed as a romantic enterprise was, to a certain extent, actually undertaken and carried out, less than twenty years ago, by a philanthropic member of the " privileged class : " and his heroic work was done in the very part of London, — Stepney, the east-end, — in which the authors of the novel referred to place the scene of their ingenious inventions. " Two millions of people, or thereabouts," as they remark, " live in the east-end of London." Yet "they have no institutions of their own to speak of, no public buildings of any importance, no municipality, no gentry, no carriages, no soldiers, no picture- galleries, no theatres, no opera, — they have nothing." There is no grace or beauty to brighten their lives and refine their tastes. The " respectable " streets are dull and monotonous, narrow thoroughfares, with rows of small brick houses on each side, distinguished by their uniformity of ugliness. As for the poorer and less reputable highways and byways, their unloveliness, theii WILLIAM DENISON'S LIFE AMONG THE LONDON POOR. 373 squalor, is almost beyond belief. An artist condemned to spend his whole life in this miserable region would, we think, soon go mad — mad with disgust and despair — mad with a sense of the depths to which humanity degrades itself. It was, however, in the centre, or almost the centre, of this strange region that Edward Denison took up his abode in the autumn of 1866. The spot he chose is called Philpot Street, and it Hes between the din and dinginess of the Commercial Road and Mile-end Road. For the son of a Bishop, a scholar who had gained high University honours, a man of culture and refinement, an athlete who had rowed in '* the eight " of his college, was a good shot and a skilful horseman, no more un- promising residence could apparently be selected. But he went there voluntarily, and he went there on " a mission," a self- imposed mission, characteristic of the generosity of his temper and the enthusiasm of his character. For some years his atten- tion had been gravely directed to the condition of the lower classes. He had studied them abroad, during his travels in France, Italy, and Switzerland; and at home he had sought to grapple with many of the problems which their habits and manners involve. He was no theorist or sentimentalist, how- ever, and would not advance a step without some knowledge of the ground which he was treading. He soon arrived at the conclusion that to know the poor you must live among them ; and as one of the visitors or almoners of the Society for the Rehef of Distress, he resolved to live among those who inhabited the Stepney district of East London. Here is his own account of his field of labour : — "Stepney is in the Whitechapel Road, and the Whitechapel Road is at the east end of Leadenhall Street, and Leadenhall Street is east of Cornhill ; so it is a good way from fashionable and even from business London. I imagine that the evil con- dition of the population is rather owing to the total absence of residents of a better class — to the dead level of labour which prevails over that wide region, than to anything else. There is, I fancy, less of absolute destitution than in the Newport Market region ; but there is no one to give a push to struggling energy, to guide aspiring intelligence, or to break the fall of unavoidable misfortune. ... It is this unbroken level of poverty which is tlu 374 GOOD SAMARITANS, blight over East London ; which makes any temporary distress so severely felt, and any sustained effort to better its condition so difficult to bring to a successful issue. The lever has to be applied from a distance, and sympathy is not strong enough to bear the strain. It was as a visitor for the Society for the Relief of Distress that I first began my connection with this spot, which I shall not sever till some visible change is effected in its condition. What a monstrous thing it is that in the richest country in the world large masses of the population should be condemned by an ordinary operation of nature annually to starvation and death ! It is all very well to say, How can it be helped ? Why, it was not so in our grandfathers' time. Behind us as they were in many ways, they were not met every winter with the spectacle of starving thousands. The fact is, we have accepted the marvellous prosperity which has in the last twenty years been granted us, without reflecting on the conditions attached to it, and without nerving ourselves to the exertion and the sacrifices which their fulfilment demands." Denison undertook a two-fold duty, — he was a helper and a teacher. He carried to the distressed and suffering the assistance they needed in food, medicine, and clothing ; he advised them on the better ventilation of their houses ; he gave to some of the most deserving a start in life. But besides and above this, he laboured to raise the intellectual status of the community and to awaken their spiritual nature. All that he did had the religion of Christ as its basis ; the Bible was the book from which his teaching was mainly drawn. He felt that a man was immeasurably elevated in the scale of humanity when he became a Christian. One of his schemes was the establishment of an evening class of instruction for working-men, and it proved very successful. His hearers hung delightedly on his lips while he traced to them the course of the Gospel history, illustrating it from his large stores of miscellaneous knowledge. " Why," he said, — " why don't the clergy go to the people as I propose to go ? What is the use of telling people to come to church, when they know of no rational reason why they should ; when, if they go, they find themselves among people using a form of words which has never been ex- plained to them ; ceremonies performed which, to them, arc c ntirely without meaning ; sermons preached which, as often as HE BRINGS THE CHURCH TO THE PEOPLE. 375 not, have no meaning, or, when they have, a meaning intelligible only to those who have studied theology all their lives ? " The interest excited by these weekly scriptural lectures was not ephemeral : it extended and deepened. Of one of the later he writes : — " I am warming to my work here. I gave them fifty minutes last night on the text, ' Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together ; ' and though I am confident they understood nearly all I said, it might perfectly well have been addressed, with some modifications, to an educated audience. I preached Chris- tianity as a society, investigated the origin of societies, the family, the tribe, the nation, with the attendant expanded ideas of rights and duties ; the common meal the bond of union; rising from the family dinner-table to the sacrificial rites of the national gods; drew parallels with trades unions and benefit clubs, and told them flatly they would not be Christians till they were communicants." He flavoured his lectures with plentiful quotations from Words- worth, Tennyson, and the poets generally, believing that, if his hearers did not wholly understand them, they would catch here and there a beautiful image or thought, and be pleased by the melody of the verse. While he infused so true a religious spirit into his teaching, he was far from being an advocate of voluntary, that is, denominational, education. In truth, his experience con- vinced him of the complete inadequacy of the system to meet the national wants. And thus, some years before the Elementary- Education Act was passed, which has covered England withi Board Schools, he wrote : — " I comfort myself with the confident hope that we are even at the threshold of State secular education.. Elementary mental training is but making the jar ; it is no argu- ment against the jar that you don't know what may get into it; unless you are allowed also to fill and solder it up. People must: have a very queer notion of human nature who fancy that a mindl which has been taught to think will be a less fit receptacle of Divine Truth than one which is incapable of thinking. I am inchned to say with the Roman Emperor, when he was told the Christians were about to destroy a temple, ' Let the gods defend themselves.' I feel it a blasphemy even to think that God's truth can suffer by the extension of man's truth." Indiscriminate charity was one of the evils against which our reformer resolutely set his face. " If we could but get one honest 24 376 GOOD SAMARITANS. newspaper," he says, "to write down this promiscuous charity and write up sweeping changes, not so rauch in our poor-law theory as in our poor-law practice, something might be done. . . . Things are so bad down here, and that giving of money only makes them worse. I am beginning seriously to believe that all pecuniary aid to the poor is a mistake, and that the real thing is to let things work themselves straight ; whereas by giving alms you keep them permanently crooked. Build school-houses, pay teachers, give prizes, frame workmen's clubs, help them to help themselves, lend them your brains ; but give them no money except what you sink in such undertakings as these. " The remedy is, to bring the poor-law back to the spirit of its institution — to organise a sufficiently elastic labour test, without which no out-door relief can be given. Make the few alterations which altered times demand, and impose every possible discourage- ment on private benevolence. Universal administration of poor law on these principles for one generation would almost extirpate pauperism." But it is a question whether this arbitrary drying-up of the .'springs and sources of private charity would not have an in- jurious moral effect. Charity is twice blessed; it blesses the .giver as well as the recipient; it expands his sympathies and spiritualises its aim. To interfere with it would be to favour the igrowth of individual selfishness ; and we cannot but believe that ihe morality of the nation would eventually suffer. Promiscuous charity no doubt deserves the severest censure: in truth, it is not charity, but laziness ; to inquire into the merits of every case would be a serious trouble, and it is easier to satisfy one's con- science by a general bestowal of alms. But private benevolence need not be, and very often is not, promiscuous charity ; and we may encourage the former, the true Samaritanism, without en- couraging the latter, which is simply its counterfeit. For several months Mr. Denison continued to labour in the field he had chosen, though at times he felt very profoundly the depression arising from its unchanging unloveliness. *' My wits," he writes on one occasion, " are getting blunted by the monotony and ugliness of this place. I can almost imagine — difficult as it is — the awful effect upon a human mind of never seeing anything but the meanest and vilest of men and man's works, and of ^'SUNSHINE IN A SHADY PLACED 377 complete exclusion from the sight of God and His works — a position in which the villager never is, and freedom from which ought to give him a higher moral starting-point than the Gibeonite of a large town." He carried on his weekly lectures with in- creased enthusiasm as he perceived that they grew in popularity. He visited the sick, he organised schools, he taught the children, he " interviewed " the local authorities, he promoted the sanitary improvements of the neighbourhood. All this was good and useful work ; but no doubt the best work was done by the mere fact of his presence — the presence of a refined, cultivated, God- fearing gentleman — in such a district. In Spenserian phrase — he made a sunshine in a shady place. He was an example, of which everybody could recognise the significance and beauty ; an ideal to which many, we can well believe, were fain to make their little efforts to rise. If there is anything of good in the practice of the Christian virtues, his self-denial, his active bene- volence, his generous devotion, his purity of life and speech, could not but exercise a happy influence. We can well believe that if his chivalrous conduct found any considerable number of imitators, the gulf of which we have spoken as separating almost hopelessly the rich and the poor would soon be bridged. It was not possible, perhaps, that a man of Mr. Denison's social position, with his many duties and responsibilities, should always be able to isolate himself among the poor of East London; and yet we can hardly help regretting that his singular and beautiful experiment was not of longer duration. But his friends and relatives, and among them his uncle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, were urgent that he should enter into Parliamentary life, and he at length consented to become a candidate for Newark. He was elected; but he made no con- spicuous figure in the House of Commons, notwithstanding his unquestionable mental power. And this because his interest in political questions was merely speculative, while in social questions it was active. "The problems of the time," he wrote, "are social, and to social problems must the mind of the Legislature be bent for some time to come." It was to these his own mind was given. He cared very little for the strife of parties, for the fierce contentions between the "ins" and the "outs." He had no political ambition ; what he wanted was to see the condition of 378 GOOD SAMARITANS. the poor ameliorated, and the national life of England made purer and happier. Into what special channel his activity would have finally been directed it is impossible to say. With his large views and broad sympathies, his abilities, force of character, and wide experience, we cannot doubt but that he would have made his mark in his time had he lived long enough. One would have supposed that for a man of such exceptional gifts God would have had some exceptional work to do ; but His ways are not as our ways, and for all we know, Denison's work was, by his life in that East-End London district, to set an example and a pattern. However this may be, his physical strength gave way beneath repeated attacks of congestion of the lungs, and in the autumn of 1869 his illness assumed so serious a character that he was ordered to winter at Cannes, or take a voyage to Australia. As the latter alternative seemed to offer the fuller opportunities for the ac- quisition of knowledge, it was accepted. But during the outward voyage he sank very rapidly, and on January 26th, 1878, within a fortnight of his landing at Melbourne, he passed away, in his thirtieth year. To a man of such brilliant promise, so prema- turely cut short, we may say — " Thy leaf has perished in the green, And, while we breathe beneath the sun, The world, which credits what is done, Is cold to all that might have been." At the village of Hauxwell, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, was born, on the i6th of January, 1832, Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison, the daughter of the Rev. Mark Pattison, rector of Hauxwell. As a child she was very delicate, but was distinguished by the sweet equableness of her temper, and by her love of fun and mischief. Her faculty of observation was very fully developed, and in her tenacious memory she accumulated a constantly increasing number of facts and particulars to be made use of in after life. There seemed no reason to suppose at that time that her career would have in it anything extraordinary ; yet a judge of character, taking note of her strong will, her fortitude, her self-control, her quiet reserve of power, would have seen that for an extraordinary career she was m every way fitted. Her devotion of herself to others "SISTER DORA'S'' STRENGTH OF PURPOSE. 370 was early manifested. As she grew in years, she grew in strength: became a good and daring horsewoman, riding across country and following the hounds with true Yorkshire zest ; and gradually developed into a tall, strong, and very handsome creature, with a great capacity for humour, a merry laugh, and an incessant activity. In height she was about five feet seven inches; she was beautifully proportioned, with small and finely-formed hands. Her features were almost Greek in their regularity ; the forehead was wide and high ; the mouth small, with exquisite red lips, which, when they parted, disclosed a perfect set of pearly teeth ; her dark-brown eyes, somewhat widely apart, shone with eloquent expression ; and her hair, of the same colour as her eyes, waved all over her head in crisp curls. A more fascinating woman one seldom meets with ; for in addition to this rare personal beauty, she possessed a wonderful charm of manner, — that almost magnetic influence which is virtually irresistible. The finer faculties of her nature seem to have been first awakened by Miss Florence Nightingale's work during the Crimean War ; and if her father had consented, she would have joined the band of devoted women who went out as nurses. Her longing, however, for a more stirring and more useful career than the home-life afforded did not subside ; and after her mother's death, in 1861, she was left free to gratify it, Mr. Pattison refrain- ing from further opposition. The first essay was as a village schoolmistress at Little Woolston, near Bletchley, where she re- mained for three years. But the post did not bring out all her capabilities ; she felt, to use her own expression, that she was not doing her utmost, — and on her recovery from a severe illness, induced by daily toil and night nursing, she entered the Sisterhood of the Good Samaritans, whose head quarters were at Coatham, near Redcar, in Yorkshire. This was in the autumn of 1864. The training to which she was immediately subjected tested with sufficient harshness her sincerity of purpose. She made beds cleaned and scoured floors and grates, swept and dusted, and finally *' did the cooking" in the kitchen at Coatham. But it was coarse work, and, as it seems to us, useless work, which could have been done as well, or perhaps better, by a hired " help " ; and was, at all events, wholly unworthy of Dorothy Pattison's fine intellect and many gifts. We rejoice when she was finally esta- 38o GOOD SAMARITANS. blished in the Cottage Hospital at Walsall ; for we feel that then she had at last discovered her true sphere of labour (1865). She had a great deal to learn, for she had had no regular train- ing in the art of nursing, but she had the will and the capacity. Her special ambition was to prove a good surgical nurse ; and her tenacious memory and keen faculty of observation assisted her in discerning the character of wounds and the exact position of fractures. Her coolness, courage, and talent gave her an imme- diate command over the rough men, coUiers and operatives, who were her principal patients, while her beauty and her charm of manner and her ready sympathy drew their hearts towards her, so that they became her willing slaves. Constitutionally able to bear, without disgust or shrinking, the terrible details of loathsome diseases and ghastly accidents, her profound pity for human suffering gave a lighter touch to her skilful hand and a warmer light to her beaming eye. She moved to and fro in the hospital wards like an angel sent down from Heaven to bless and to save. The wounded bore their agony more patiently when she looked upon them ; the dying yielded their last breath more calmly if she sat by their side. A beautiful and a fascinating woman, to whom was open the path of wedded life, with its fair prospects of domestic happiness, she deliberately chose a lot which brought her into hourly contact with pain and affliction in their most repellent aspects, because she felt that in such a L. she could best exercise her varied powers, and lift up others to her own moral height. x\nd she accepted it with so much enthusiasm, and with so fine an aptitude, that " Sister Dora " soon became a household word in Walsall, and a type of self-sacrifice and ardent Christian zeal. Walsall, as everybody knows, is a large and populous town situated on the borders of "the Black Country," amid a labyrinth of tall chimneys, which vomit forth clouds of smoke and tongues of flame, darkening the heavens with a pall of lurid gloom, and filling the atmosphere with a pungent odour. Here, on the brow of a hill, a new hospital was erected in 1867, and placed under the charge of Sister Dora, who, out of her private means, had given liberally towards its erection. It contained twenty-eight beds, but, at need, could accommodate a larger number ; and was so arranged that the entire nursing could be done by one person, if that person possessed Sister Dora's activity of mind and bodv. HOSPITAL WORK AT WALSALL. 381 The three wards into which it was divided opened upon one another in such a manner that when she read prayers she could be heard distinctly by the inmates of all. The out-patient department was connected with it by a glass passage, which Sister Dora's taste converted into a greenhouse. The hospital windows overlooked a garden, and a breadth of green turf, and clusters of trees and shrubs, which defied the smoke. At the bottom of the hill ran the South Staffordshire railway, and the passage of the trains afforded a constant amusement to the patients, especially to those connected with the railway, who were able to recognise the driver of each passing engine by his peculiar and characteristic whistle. In 1868 the hospital was opened, under the personal superin- tendence of Sister Dora. The same year was marked by an oat- break of small-pox in Walsall, which added greatly to her labours, as, after her hospital-work was done, she sped from house to house to tend the unhappy sufferers. "One night," says her biographer, " she was sent for by a poor man who was much attached to her, and who was dying of what she called 'black-pox,' a violent form of small-pox. She went at once, and found him almost in the last extremity. All his relations had fled, and a neighbour alone was with him, doing what she could for him. When Sister Dora found that only one small piece of candle was left in the house, she gave the woman some money, begging her to go and find some means of light, while she stayed with the man. She sat on by his bed, but the woman, who had probably spent the money at the public-house, never returned ; and after some little while, the dying man raised himself up in bed with a last effort, saying, 'Sister, kiss me before I die.' She took him all covered as he was with the loathsome disease, into her arms, and kissed him, the candle going out almost as she did so, leaving them in total darkness. He implored her not to leave him while he lived, although he might have known she would never do that. It was then past midnight, and she sat on, for how long she knew not, until he died. Even then she waited, fancying, as she could not see him, that he might be still aUve, till in the early dawn she groped her way to the door, and went to find some neighbours. " Than this the annals of heroism present few finer instances of generous and self-sacrificing courage. Is it wonderful that a woman capable of such deeds became the idol of the poorer 382 GOOD SAMARITANS. classes of Walsall, — that the rough, rude men who wrought in; its coal-pits and iron-works would have died for her, as she would have died for them ? No doubt there was some slight alloy of baser metal in the gold. Sister Dora was proud of her power,, and not insensible to the homage she received. But against this admixture of human weakness she strove very resolutely ; and after all, it does but bring her nearer to our sympathies. Otherwise she had been something too perfect, too pure and good for human nature's daily food ; whereas it is as a woman, with a woman's tenderness and devotion, and something of a woman's foibles, that we love to regard her. To what is known as conservative surgery, a surgery that seeks to save rather than to cut away the diseased or broken limb^ Sister Dora paid special attention, and in this department she attained a remarkable degree of success, owing, I think, to her patience and tenacity, and womanly dexterity and delicacy of manipulation. A fine vigorous young man was brought into the hospital one night, whose arm had been torn and twisted by a machine. The doctor pronounced immediate amputation indis- pensable. Observing the sufferer's look of despair, and moved by his agonized lamentation. Sister Dora scrutinized the wounded limb very carefully. " Oh, Sister ! " exclaimed the man ; " save my arm for me, it's my right arm ! " She turned to the surgeon. " I believe I can save it if you will let me try." " Are you mad ? I tell you it's an impossibility ; mortification will set in in a few hours; nothing but amputation can save his life." To the anxious patient she said, simply : " Are you willing for me to try and save your arm, my man ? " His consent was rapturously given. The doctor walked angrily away, saying : *' Well, Sister, remember it's your arm : if you choose to have the young man's death upon your conscience, I shall not interfere ; but I wash my hands of him. Don't think I am going to help you." Heavy as the responsibility was, she accepted it, encouraged by the patient's evident confidence in her ; and for three weeks she watched and tended his arm, and prayed over it, day and night. At the end of that time, catching the doctor in one of his most amiable moods, she asked him to examine the limb ; and with no little reluctance, for no professional man likes to be proved in the wrong, he complied. There it was, straight, firm, and healthy \ SISTER DORA'S GREAT TACT AND SURGICAL SKILL. 383 *'Why, you have saved it!" cried the doctor, '* and it will be a useful arm to him for many a long year." We shall not attempt to describe Sister Dora's feelings, in which a sense of triumph was not unnaturally mixed with thankfulness ; or those of the patient, who thenceforth became one of her loyalest admirers. He went by the name of " Sister's Arm," and after he ceased to be an in-patient, constantly came to have his limb looked at, — that is, to gaze on the noble and devoted woman who had done him so great a service. Not the least remarkable of her qualifications was her tact. She managed her patients with as much address as the most experi- enced diplomatist could handle the Powers on the political chess- board. A man who had been brought into the hospital seriously hurt, swore all the time she was dressing his wounds. " Stop that!" said she, abruptly; and the man did stop, only to begin again when the pain returned. " What's the good of it ? " said Sister Dora; ^^ that won't make it any easier to bear." "No> but I must say something when it comes so bad on me. Sister." " Very well, then, say ' poker and tongs.' " And " poker and tongs " was adopted by the ward in place of unseemly oaths. Her genial humour and love of fun diffused a pleasant atmo- sphere through the Hospital. She would invent games for the boys, and sometimes sit down with a patient at chess or draughts. Men of the working classes have very little genuine amusement in their lives ; hard work and dull homes weigh upon them with a constant pressure; and the monotony of dulness which surrounds them is, I think, one of the painfuUest results of nineteenth-cen- tury civilisation. Judge then of the freshness and novelty of' the scene which that Hospital presented ! A beautiful and cultivated woman, who knew how to preserve her dignity, whom they instinctively felt to be immeasurably above them, could yet joke and laugh with them every day, could raise their spirits by her delightful humour, had always a ready answer to their questions, and inspired them with a pure and wholesome merri- ment of which previously they had had no conception. " Make you laugh ! " said a big Irishman ; " she'd make you laugh when you were dying I " Truly, she realized the graceful words of the ward, and made a sunshine in a shady place ! From Miss Lonsdale's admirable biography of *' Sister Dora" .;84 GOOD SAMARITANS. we borrow the following account of an average day's work at Walsall Hospital, as recorded by one of Sister Dora's lady- pupils : — Sister Dora used to come down into the wards at half-past six in the morning, make the beds of all the patients who were able to get up, and give them their breakfasts, until half-past seven, when it was time for her own breakfast. The bright, sunshiny way she always worked, with a smile and a pleasant word for every one, was in itself a medicine of the best kind. She would quote proverbs or apt pithy sayings, and she often asked questions which would set all the men thinking — such as " What is a gentleman ? " By the time she came back into the wards, they would have their answers ready. ** To go to church with a gold watch in your pocket " constituted a gentleman, according to one man. ** To be rich and well-dressed, and have a lot of fellows under you," was another answer. Some men were m.ore thought- ful, and said, " Nay ; that won't make a gentleman." But although most of them knew what a gentleman was not, they found a great difficulty in defining what he was. Then would Sister Dora, while she was dressing the wounds, or going about her work, give them her own views on the subject, and show how a man could be rich and well dressed, and yet be no gentleman. She told me once that she often cried when she went to bed at night to think how many good words she might have spoken in season to her men. She used generally to invent some queer nickname for each of them, in order that they might (as she said) the sooner forget their former lives and associations, if those had been bad. Thus one man would always be spoken of as "King Charles" (even having it written upon his eg!? for breakfast), because his face suggested Charles the First to Sister Dora. " Darkey," and " Cockney," and " Pat," and " Stumpy," would answer to no other names. Rude, rough fellows, of course, constantly came in \ nobody had ever seen such a woman as this before, so beautiful, so good, so tender-hearted, so strong and so gentle, so full of fun and humour, and of sympathy for broken hearts as well as for every other kind of fracture, and the best friend that many of these poor maimed men had ever known. She was the personification of goodness and unselfishness to them ; skilful and rapid in her work, — a great matter where wounds ONE DAY'S HOSPITAL WORK. 385 are concerned, and in a place where there was much to be done and few people to do it. After her own breakfast she read prayers on the staircase, so that all the patients in the three wards could hear and join. Then came the daily ward work — the washing of breakfast-things and of patients, and the dressing of wounds. At half-past ten o'clock there were usually several out-patients, who came regularly to have their wounds poulticed or lanced, or otherwise attended to. The doctor generally appeared about eleven, and went his rounds. At twelve came the patients' dinner, at which Sister Dora attended minutely to every detail, and always carved herself. Then she read prayers in the little general sitting-room, the lady-pupils, if there were any,, and the servants only attending. " Then followed dinner for the nurses, a very movable feast ; sometimes put off for an hour or more, and sometimes omitted altogether, as far as Sister Dora herself was concerned, if any visitors whom she was obliged to see or ...ly accidents came in, at that time. Out-patients, who were treated every day, began tO' arrive at two o'clock, and truly their ' name was legion,' when it was no uncommon event for sixty or a hundred persons to pass through the little rooms in the course of an afternoon. It was a most interesting sight to watch Sister Dora with her out-patients. They had the greatest confidence in her skill, and with good reason. All faces brightened whenever she approached ; she generally knew all about them and their circumstances — had perhaps nursed some of the family before as in-patients, and she always had a word of sympathy and advice for each. The doctors got through their part of the work quickly, for they passed on to her such minor operations and dressings as are entrusted to experienced dressers in large hospitals. The setting of fractures, and even the drawing of teeth, when no surgeon was present, were common operations to her. Her bandaging was so good that a surgeon at Birmingham called upon all his students to admire, and to study as a model of excellence, the bandaging of a man's head, which was her handiwork. The treatment of the out-patients often took between two and three hours, so that the in-patients' tea at five o'clock had sometimes to be prepared by the servants, when neither Sister Dora nor her pupils could be spared. About half- past five or six the nurses had their own tea ; but it was rarelv 3B6 GOOD SAMARITANS. that Sister Dora got a quiet meal, for either some one would come tapping at the door, saying 'she was wanted/ or the' surgery bell would ring, as, indeed, it often did all day long. ' There is no peace for the wicked,' she would say, as she got up to do whatever was needed After tea she went into the wards again, and this was the time to which her patients looked forward all day. She would go and talk to them individually, or a probationer would play the harmonium, and they would sing hymns, she joining with her strong, cheery voice, while she washed up the tea-things. Some of the patients would play at games, in which she occasionally took part. She had a way of inducing the men to wait on each other, and many of them did this, besides a great deal of work in the wards. She always had a devoted slave in some boy, whose ailments kept him a long while in the hospital. A poor diseased boy called Sam, who was about ten years old when he came, served her with preternatural quickness and intelligence. One morning his arm was so painful that, instead of getting up as usual, he covered his face with the bed-clothes, and sobbed as noiselessly as he could underneath them. Sister Dora was obliged that morning to fetch the various articles she needed herself — cotton wool, syringes, bandages, ointment, old linen, etc., which Sam usually looked out, and put in order ready for her use. ' Tell Sam I do miss him,' she said. Hoiv his tears ceased, and his face beamed all over with delight, when her words were repeated to him ! He instantly dressed himself, and ran to fulfil his daily office. He followed her about like her shadow, and was never so happy as when doing something for her. She used to amuse herself by consulting him occasionally, saying, * Now, Doctor ! ' (such was his nickname), * what would you do in this case ? ' Sam would promptly reply, ' Iodine paint,' or ' Zinc ointment,' or whatever he thought he had observed that she used in similar cases. ** A boy about seventeen years of age, whom Sister Dora called Cockney,' because he had been ' dragged up,' as he expressed it, in London, came in with an injury to his leg from a coal-pit accident. He seemed to have no one belonging to him, and his leg was long in healing, partly because, short of strapping him down, it was impossible to keep him from hopping continually out of bed, when he ought to have been quiet. He was possessed LOVE AND A DO RAJ ION OF THE PATIENTS. 387 with a spirit of fun and mischief, and would have made a capital clown in a pantomime or a circus. Jests and jokes flowed from him spontaneously on all occasions. He gave a great deal of trouble, but everybody liked him. One of the nurses whom he plagued most remarked, ' I wonder Sister Dora has not had more influence for good over him.' After he had left the hospital, he came up one day to the out-patients' ward, and waited long for a sight of * Sister,' saying afterwards, ^ Isn't she beautiful ! That is what I call a real lady.' How could any one, indeed, live with her without realizing how much there was to love and admire? and will not the recollection of her beautiful Ufe and ministry prevent many a man from falling into ' that worst of scepticisms, a disbelief in human goodness ' ? ' Cockney,' probably, will often look back with regret on the ' Christian tent,' as he called the hospital where it was his good fortune to be taken. By eight o'clock wounds had been dressed tor the night, and the patients supper was served. Sister Dora read prayer always, even when. IS sometimes happened, her many duties and labours had sc delayed her that most of the patients were asleep, for she said. * The prayers go up for them all the same.' Just before bedtime came her own supper, when she would often be very merry, and would relate her many remarkable experiences with intense fun and drollery. Her keen sense of the ridiculous must have preserved her from much weariness of spirit. This was the time to which the lady-pupils looked forward, and when they expected to enjoy themselves, but they were not unfrequently disappointed. Sister Dora would just look in at the door and say, ' I am going to bed ; I don't want any supper to-night.' This often happened on Fridays or during Lent, and how she managed to get through such constant hard work upon the very meagre diet she allowed herself was a marvel. Her life was one long self-sacrifice. ' We mtght to give up our lives for the brethren,' she said, and she acted upon her convictions."* We have already hinted that Sistei Dora was not a *' perfect cha- racter," but a life which was one long self-sacrifice may be allowed to counterbalance many imperfections. I wonder whether the Good Samaritan was a ''perfect character"? Maybe that at * ** Sister Dora." A Biography, by Margaret Lonsdale, pp. 93-100. GOOD SAMARITANS. home he displayed, to the criiical eyes of his own household^ some glaring weaknesses, — infirmities of temper and of purpose, arrogance, self-will, or indecision ; but for all that he kept alive in his heart the flame of charity, and when he fell in with the poor and afflicted, he did not pass by on the other side. And, therefore, we may believe that much was forgiven to him. Shall we not forgive something to Sister Dora ? She was, we are told, a person of strong, almost violent prejudices, as a woman of such strength of character assuredly would be, — robust in her failings and foibles as in her virtues. She grudged others a proper share of work \ she was over-impatient of feebleness or hesitancy ; she loved her own way, and took care to have it ; she was a little too fond of showing her physical strength, and a little too conscious of her superior capacities. Let all this be granted, and she remains a noble woman, of a type peculiar, I think, to England. Shrewd common-sense she combined with a highly imaginative tempera- ment. Her piety was sincere, deep, and unostentatious. Her charity was boundless; her self-abnegation immense. She was a glutton of work, that is, of work in a good cause ; and every unoccupied minute she regarded as a minute lost. Let us take her, then, as she was — a woman of rare gifts and powers, but not without some flaws of character, and yet thank God that He gave us such a pattern to live by. A pattern and an example ! It is the peculiar felicity of men and women of the type of Sister Dora that they help their fellow- creatures, not only by their own efforts, but by the efforts of those whom their life and teaching have inspired. Sister Dora's sphere of individual action and direct personal influence was compara- tively limited ; it did not extend, in her lifetime, beyond Walsall ; but who shall pretend to compute the range of her indirect influ- ence ? How many have been inspired by her example ? In how many hearts has the seed ripened which fell, day after day, from her lavish hands ? Well, she lived for us as well as for others ; and cannot we profit by her life ? The reader shrugs her shoulders contemptuously ; she replies, " We can't all be Sister Doras ; we can't all superintend a Cottage Hospital, and tend the sick, and dress the wounded, and straighten the limbs of the dying." True ;. but we can all take of her spirit of pure philanthropy, her Christian charity, her deep devotion, and with these high graces. THE DUTY THAT LIES NEAREST, 389 adorn our own little lives. We can be Good Samaritans in our own small circles, in our neighbourhoods, by our own firesides. There is no greater mistake than to believe no work good unless it is done on a large scale. Mary Magdalene's pot of ointment is as precious in the Master's eyes as St. Paul's prison-chains. Sister Dora herself was too sagacious not to see that her way could not be, and ought not to be, every woman's way. To a friend who had asked her opinion of woman's work, she said : — " I feel pretty much like Balaam of old, as if I should give quite the contrary advice to what you wanted of me ; to wit — you would like me to urge women working in hospitals, etc. I feel more inclined to harangue about women doing their work at home^ being the helpmeet for man, which God ordained, and not doing man's work. Then, when they have faithfully fulfilled their home duties, instead of spending their time in dressing, novel- reading, gossiping, let them spend and be spent." In our experience we have frequently noticed the dangerous delusion possessing young minds, that work to be good work must be heroic ; that one must follow in the missionary's steps, and carry the Gospel of Christ into savage lands, or take charge of a hospital, — or at the least assume the robes and rules of a Sister- hood, — if one would merit and receive the Saviour's commenda- tion, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant ! " We have called it a dangerous delusion, because those overmastered by it: are prone to sink into apathetic indolence, — to do nothing,, because the work which lies close at hand is not grand enough for their lofty ideas. Ah, friends, let us take hold of that which lies. close to our feet; let us do it in our best way; and finish, it off as best we can, assured that the benediction of heaven willi descend upon it. Those are fine hopeful words of Joubert's : — - "Whether one is an eagle or an ant in the intellectual world! matters little ; what is essential is to have one's place markedi there, one's station fixed, to belong decidedly to a wholesome and regular order. A small talent, if it keep within its limits, and rightly discharge its task, may reach the goal just as well as a greater one." And the spirit in which we should address ourselves to our labour has been well described by Archbishop Trench : — "* Not as though we thought we could do much. Or claimed large sphere of action for ourselves : 25 390 GOOD SAMARITANS. Not in this thought — since rather it be ours, Both thine and mine, to ask for that calm frame Of spirit, in which we know and deeply feel How little we can do, and yet do that." In February, 1875, a fresh visitation of small-pox afflicted the town of Walsall ; and to induce the poor to send their cases to the Epidemic Hospital, erected for that purpose, Sister Dora volunteered to take charge of it. Thence, in the following month, she wrote to a friend the following characteristic letter : — " My darling .... " Your letter, which I received last night, made me cry : It was so long, so full of affection, and I had never seen anyone all day beyond my patients to speak to. My darling, you must not come ; if anything should happen. You are a very likely •subject to take it, and this place smells of pox from the moment you open the door. You must not fret. I rejoice that He has permitted one so unworthy to work for Him ; and oh, if He should think me fit to lay down my life for Him, rejoice, rejoice, at so great a privilege ! My heart is running over with thankful- ;ness, and as I toil on I seem to hear the still, small voice, ' Ye 'did it unto Me.* . . . Oh, don't talk about my life. If you knew it, you would be down on your knees crying for mercy for me, a sinner. How God keeps silence so long is my wonder. Re- member me at Holy Communion . . . ** If things were only going on well at the Hospital I should not mind, but .... is so naughty again. . . . The text and verse for to-day are so beautiful — ' I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.' 'Once more He speaks— no stem rebuke. No anger in the word — ** Is it so hard to turn from all, And walk with Me, thy Lord ? Come ; thou hast never heard My voice As thou shalt hear it now ; I have no words for brighter days Like those the dark ones know ! '* * Now, is not that beautiful? One man is blind with the pox. Another, a woman, is very delirious; she tried to escape last night ; LIFE IN A SMALL-FOX HOSPITAL. 391 it took myself and the porter to hold her down. That fellow is very good ; he scrubbed the kitchen floor only this morning to save me. You would laugh to see me washing my babies. Poor things ! they are smothered in pox. I am obliged to put them into a warm bath. . . . They are getting quite fond of me ; but they do make washing. We have all that to do besides the night nursing, so you may fancy ! " I am writing this while waiting for my potatoes to boil. My bedroom and sitting-room is getting to look quite gay with flowers. I find time to read to my patients. They have scarcely ever heard of Jesus, and they are so ill they cannot attend to much. You must write again. I have no one to speak to, no time to read, and my letters are company at meal-times. I really wish you could take a peep at me; I am very bright and happy, and like this hospital better than the other. I have also much under my eye. Of course there is not the change of work, and no time for breathing a mouthful of fresh air. Faithful Murray comes every evening, and does my messages, etc I believe he would not mind taking the small-pox for me to nurse him ! Remember me most kindly to your husband. Kiss all my darling children. " Believe me your affectionate " Sister Dora." To me, the most remarkable episode in Sister Dora's career seems her ministration to the sufferers by the Burchells explosion in October, 1875. Eleven men, one Friday afternoon, were seated underneath the furnace, when an explosion took place, and a cataract of molten metal, seething and glowing, dashed down over them. In their agony and sudden alarm, they leaped into the neighbouring canal ; but being, with some difficulty, rescued, they were conveyed to the hospital. The spectacle presented by their charred bodies was singularly awful. They were so burnt and disfigured as scarcely to retain the semblance of humanity. Some, in their deadly thirst, cried out, " Water ! water ! " A few were dying painlessly, their wounds having literally annihilated sensation ; others moaned or shrieked, *•' Sister, come and dress me ! " **Z>^ dress me ! " "Oh, you don't know how bad I am ! " She answered, — " Oh, my poor men ! I'll dress you all, if you'll give me time." To each she administered a glass of brandy, and 392 GOOD SAMARITANS. then endeavoured to undress them ; but the flesh was so burnt away that it was almost impossible to cut off their clothes. So frightful were both sight and smell that the medical men of the town, who were promptly on the scene, suffered from constant sickness, and could hardly stay in the ward. Ladies who had proffered their assistance were driven away, overcome by their sensations; but Sister Dora, true to herself and her mission, never flinched. For ten days she tended the sufferers with un- flinching fortitude, and did her best to alleviate their miserable condition, and to smooth for them the path to the grave. Only two recovered. One of these, named Cassity, describes her as going from bed to bed, talking, laughing, and even joking with the victims ; sitting by their bedsides, and seeking to divert their thoughts from themselves by telling them stories. '' She was with us," he said, ** almost night and day ; " and after all had died, except himself and a man named Ward, she would still come down twice or thrice in the night to see that these two were doing well. Cassity described her as, in cap and slippers, silently going round at two in the morning, from bed to bed, with a soft smile on her face. " It did you good only to look at her." Cassity, as he related his simple tale, would bare his burnt and shrivelled arms in testimony to the wonderful skill and patient attention of his nurse. Every time he mentioned " Sister Dora " he stood up, and reverently pulled his forelock, as if he had pronounced the name of a saint or an angel, which he was scarcely worthy to utter. " What we felt for her I couldn't tell you ; my tongue won't say it." Cassity went by the name of ** Burnty." His feet were so much injured that he never expected to walk again ; but Sister Dora assured him that he would certainly be able to do so, and, accordingly, before he left the hospital, sent him to be measured for a pair of boots, which was to be her parting gift. " Well," said the woman at the boot-shop, " I wouldn't be such a softy as to think you'll ever be able to wear a pair of boots with those feet." Greatly discouraged, Cassity returned to the hospital. "You'll wear out; many pairs of boots, my Burnty," said Sister Dora. "And so I have," said Cassity; "she was right enough. But it was all along of her^ who never left my burns a day all those months, without looking to them with her own hands." A HAIR OF THE DOG THAI BIT YOU. ' 393 Our first impression, on reading Miss Lonsdale's biography of this remarkable woman, was, we confess, that it was greatly exaggerated in colouring and tone; but a medical friend, who resided at Walsall daring the period of Sister Dora's reign, assures us that it nowhere exceeds the literal truth. He speaks of Sister Dora as fascinating in the extreme ; and as distinguished by the highest quahties of womanhood, as well as by those which men are apt to regard as almost exclusively belonging to their own sex. Courage and tenderness were fairly blended in her heroic nature. Of her generosity one must speak as highly as of her fortitude; of her brightness of disposition as of her patience; while her capacity for self-sacrifice was deepened and strengthened by her profound and unaffected piety. That she was " a clever woman " goes without saying ; she had a natural gift of organiza tion, a remarkable quickness of perception, and an extraordinary fertility of resource. In society she must have achieved quite a brilliant reputation ; but a more lasting and a purer fame will be hers as "Sister Dora," of the Walsall Cottage Hospital. We gather a few more anecdotes from Miss Lonsdale's pages. Sister Dora, like most sunny and sanguine natures, was sin- gularly successful in extracting amusements from what the world calls trifles, and in an hour's walk in the streets would find matter enough for the diversion of her patients for many a day. She had a great spontaneity of spirit, and loved to share her pleasures with others. One day, she fetched her lady-pupil to see a case in the out-patients' ward ; and, with laughing eyes, exclaimed, " I have often heard the old saying, ' a hair of the dog that bit you,' but never before saw the remedy applied." She pointed to a dog- bite, on which a mass of hairs had been plastered, whether of the offending animal, or of some other dog, did not clearly appear. On another occasion, a woman, who had been roughly handled by her brutal husband, came up to the hospital with a severe cut on her head. While she dressed it. Sister Dora listened with keen sympathy to the woman's simple narrative of her troubles, and her determination to go before the magistrates on the follow- ing morning, and prefer a charge against her husband. '*Are you quite sure now to go ? " asked the Sister. " Yes ; I can bear such treatment no longer." Thereupon Sister Dora began to bandage the head much more elaborately than the wound required. 394 GOOD SAMARITANS. and, observing her lady-pupil's look of surprise, remarked aside, with a look of keen enjoyment, ** I think the husband will get an extra week for my beautiful second bandage." A clerical eye-witness of Sister Dora's work for three years (187 1 to 1874) has put on record his views of her character, all I confirming the impression that she was a woman of extraordinary \ gifts and graces. " She had," he says, "a bright, ready wit, and a playful irony that never wounded, but often had the effect of stirring up some poor, feeble-spirited patient, bracing him like a tonic. . . . There was a man whom she induced to become quite a leader of the responses at prayers, by saying that his very name, Clarke, ought to make him help the parson. Poor fellow ! Clarke had to lie many weary weeks with a shattered leg, and often he grew desponding. Fragments of bone used to work through the skin to the surface, and Clarke used to keep these splinters in a box. She used to rally him about his boneSy and many a time made all in the ward laugh by asking Clarke * to show his bones to some visitor.' She always tried to make Sunday a day of extra brightness, and the same at Christmas and Easter. (On these days there used to be full choral services held in the hospital). On the evening of New Year's Day she used to give an enter- tainment to the inmates, and as many old patients as she could accommodate. These festivals were most enjoyable. There was first a kind of * People's evening,' or 'Penny readings entertain- ment,' and the patients seemed to forget their pains ; and good humour and bright faces filled the great ward where it was held. Before it was ended, some one generally gave an address to the patients. Then came supper, to which all who could move off their beds sat down, and those who could not were well cared for. Many a poor fellow now at work in coal-pit and work-shop will long remember those evenings of bright and innocent mirth. " She sometimes had patients who were utter sceptics. She soon found them out, and was always very careful, and used much tact in dealing with them. She knew that they were scanning her conduct, and w^ould judge of Christianity more or less by the way she presented it to them in her daily actions. Many who came in scoffers went out convinced that Jesus was the Christ. I know none who were not convinced that she, at least, was true and good. One hard sarcastic Scotchman spoke SPECIAL ''MISSION" AT WALSALL, 395 to me about her just before he left the hospital. He was one ot those working-men who are not uncommon in towns — men who have imbibed Tom Paine and Voltaire through secondary sources, and are bitterly prejudiced against Christianity and its professors, especially parsons. He told me he had watched her carefully while he lay there, and gave as his emphatic verdict, * She's a noble woman ; but she'd have been that without her Christianity !'" He forgot that, at all events, her Christianity made her nobler. But was it true ? Would she have been what she was " without her Christianity " ? Was it not her Christianity which taught her to sympathize with the poor and suffering, with the feeble and distressed? The ancient world produced no such women as Sister Dora ; because its creeds did not teach the beauty and sublimity of a life of self-sacrifice, of that *' Altruism " which spends and is spent for the sake of those who fall in life's battle, and would perish of their wounds by the wayside, if the " Good Samaritan " did not perceive and bind them. While the keynote of the old philosophy is Endurance, that of the Christian teaching is Self-sacrifice ; and Sister Dora, in her short but beautiful career, elevated the heathen virtue by blending it with the Christian. One grand example of her faithful heroism must not be omitted. She took an active part in one of those admirable religious move- ments which the Church calls "missions," held in Walsall, in November, 1876, and conducted a special effort organised for the rescue of the wretched women who crowd the streets of a great town at night, — a class from whom the happier and purer of their sex generally shrink with loathing and disgust. In the course of her work she passed, with two companions, into a " slum,'' or narrow court of particularly evil repute. Pausing before a small house, which was brilliantly lighted, they looked in at the window^ and saw a circle of women gathered round a table, and evidently receiving orders from an ill-looking man, apparently their master. She knocked at the door ; no answer. She knocked a second time ; and a man's voice growled, " Who's there ? " " Sister Dora," was the reply. Then came a volley of oaths, and the question, " What do you mean by coming here at this time of night ? " " Open the door," she replied ; " it's Sister ; I want to speak to you." Still swearing, the man obeyed. She paused on the threshold, and addressed him with much compassion in her 396 GOOD SAMARITANS. iook and tones. " Why, Bill, what possesses you to treat me like this ? Don't you remember what you told me the last time you came up to have that head seen to ? " Growls and oaths were the only reply, with orders to "Be quick, and say what she wanted/' " I'll tell you what I want," answered Sister Dora, advancing into the room, and holding out her hand, first to one woman and then to another ; and as they crowded round her, she addressed them severally. " Well, Lizzie," or " Mary, how are you ? " and *' I've seen you before — did up your arm last winter twelvemonth — but I can't put a name to you ;" or '* You came up to see me two months ago." Then, speaking to them all, " I want you to go down on your knees with me now, this moment, and say a prayer to God." To the astonishment of the two clergymen, the whole party knelt with Sister Dora, while from a full heart she appealed to the Divine Father on behalf of her "brothers and sisters." As the man rose from his knees, he turned to her in a shamefaced manner, saying, — *' I'm very sorry. Sister, I was so rude to you. I didn't mean it : you've been good to me." " Then," was the quick reply, "if you're sorry, will you do what I ask you ? " "That I will." *' I want you, and all these women here, to come with me into a room we've got hard by, and to listen to something some friends of mine have to say to you there." The man at once complied, and all repaired to the little mission-room, which was quickly filled. Night after night, the waifs and strays, the fallen and the miser- able, of Walsall assembled in this temporary place of worship. As many as thirty-five of the fallen women of the town were some- times assembled : all gathered in by Sister Dora's unassisted exertions. They dropped in by twos and threes, most of them very quiet, and were received by Sister Dora with a few words of encouragement and sympathy. '* There was something very touching," says an eye-witness, "in her treatment and attitude towards them. No condescension, no 'stand apart, for I am holier than thou ; ' but yet, though she was so gracious and sisterly, they seemed to feel that she was rather a pitying angel than one of their own sex. It seemed to me that she knew them nearly all by name; and she told me that she had doctored nearly all of them at different times. Many of them used to seek her only DISREGARD OF PERSONAL RISK. 397 after nightfall, but she was ever ready to help, and never scorned them. I know not whether I need dwell on the service. There were three clergymen present The service began with a hymn, which many of them joined in. Prayer followed. Then two shor. addresses were given, and were listened to intently, and not with- out evident emotion on the part of some. Earnest appeals were made to them to forsake their present courses, and offers of guidance and assistance to such as should resolve to do so. When the service was over Sister Dora spoke to each of them as they left, and obtained promises that they would come again. A second service was held, and seemed even more successful than the first. Several stayed behind at its close to speak with the clergy and Sister Dora. Three, I believe, were eventually rescued (I can only speak of one myself). Many of them seemed to feel them- selves ' tied and bound with the chain of their sins,' but yet they had no strength to get free. Some of them were little better than slaves to some tyrant — some * Bill Sikes,' who treated them like a dog, and whom yet they clung to with dog-like fidelity. " For some weeks after the mission Sister Dora still continued her labours amongst these poor sinners. Every Sunday night there was a late service held, and, braving no small risks amidst the drunken and dissolute. Sister Dora indefatigably visited their homes, and compelled them to come in. Sister Dora always paid these visits alone. One visit she described to me. It was a much better house than any she had been in before — most of them being mere cottages— and the occupant was evidently superior to most of her neighbours in education. She was well-dressed, and when she asked in a stately manner, * To what am I indebted for the pleasure of your visit ? ' Sister Dora owned that she felt almost in- clined to leave without delivering her soul. She began her difficult task, and was met at first with quiet, civil-spoken contempt ; but her heart warmed as she reasoned and pleaded, and her words became inspired, and before she left the woman broke out into sobs, and they knelt together in prayer. "It was work at times not unaccompanied by personal risk, but I have met few persons more utterly fearless. She cariie back to where I was waiting for her after diving into one of the rookeries, and told me she had had a narrow escape. She had encountered a ruffian inflamed with drink, who burst out into a torrent of wild 39« GOOD SAMARITANS. blasphemy, and threatened to have her life. He was quieted at once by his partner in sin, who said, ' Shut up, you fool ! it's Sister Dora.' He even muttered some apology. Two of the women who had attended some of the services at the room were seized soon after by the police on a charge of robbery, and locked up. Sister Dora visited them frequently in the cells. Like her Master, she seemed never to despair of a human soul. The ' lost ' were those whom she knew that He came to seek and save." Sister Dora's death was not less remarkable than her life. In her last hours she displayed the fortitude and reticence of Emily Bronte, accompanied by that Christian faith which, unhappily, Emily Bronte lacked. It was in the course of the winter of 1876-77 that she first became aware of the existence of a disease which must ultimately, and at no distant date, prove fatal. Her medical adviser thought it possible that surgical aid might post- pone the result for awhile ; but she knew too much of the un- certainty attending all such measures to be willing to submit to the necessary treatment. Imposing absolute silence on her physician, she resolved to let the disease take its natural course, her desire being to continue her work as long as possible. Into that work she threw herself with redoubled ardour. It seemed her determination to get out of her body and mind their utmost capacity. Sternly repressing all signs of suffering, which none who looked upon her mature beauty and fine form suspected, she addressed herself to her various tasks with an energy and an ardour such as even she had never before exhibited. She was unwilling that a single opportunity should be lost, a single duty set aside, a single responsibility neglected. " I grudge every moment," she would say, " I must spend in taking care of this body." Necessarily her friends could not understand this apparent impetuosity, this unresting fervour, and frequently remonstrated with her, fearing lest the sword should wear out its sheath. She visited all the towns and villages withm ten miles of Walsall, until she was recognized by all as a " ministering angel," who brought with her help and a balm for the sin-laden soul as well as the disease-stricken frame. One night, the hospital doctor hastily summoned her to the case of a child in the last stage of diphtheria. As a last chance SISTER DORA NOT EASILY FRIGHTENED, 39t> he performed the operation of tracheotomy, making an incision in the child's throat, and inserting a tube in the hope of relieving the suffocation. Sister Dora knelt down by the bed, put her mouth to the incision, and deliberately drew from the child's throat the poisonous membrane which was choking it. The child recovered ; and Sister Dora suffered for three weeks from diphtheritic sore throat. One night, Sister Dora, who had retired to bed much earlier than usual, was aroused from a sound sleep by the night-nurse : — " Sister, Sister, do get up ! there's a man in the house, and I can't get him out ! We shall all be killed ! " Sister Dora hastily threw on her clothes and ran downstairs, where she found a flashy-looking man, with conspicuous rings and watch-chain, standing in the hall. Was not that, he enquired, the Cottage Hospital? "Yes," she replied, " and will you tell me your business here ? " He thought, was the answer, he could be accommodated with a bed. " Oh, dear, no ! we only give sick people beds here." " Well, anyhow, I've come," rejoined the fellow, " and I mean to stay." " Two people," said the Sister, "have to be consulted about that, and I, for one, do not mean to let you." He advanced towards her, and she hoped that, in the dim light, he could not see how her trembling frame gave the lie to her bold words. "Do you think," said he, ^^ you're going to prevent me from spending the night here if I choose ? " " Of course I can't prevent you from staying in the passage ; but you will have to force your way past me before you get any farther ; " and there, on the last step of the staircase, she extended her arms across as a barrier. The man coolly seated himself on a bench in the hall. Meanwhile, their dialogue was disturbed by a series of frantic cries from the night-nurse : — " Sister, do leave him and come upstairs ; we shall all be murdered — we shall indeed ! " to which she received for answer, " Hold your tongue, you goose I " (" I could have beaten the woman," said Sister Dora afterwards, when telling the story). For some considerable time she and her unwelcome visitor watched each other ; and she was beginning to fear that he really meant to carry out his threat of spending the night in the hospital, when he made " a sudden dart down the passage " towards the kitchen. But her alertness foiled him, and in a moment her taU 400 GOOD SAMARITANS. form barred the way. Then he turned round with the remark, — " You're a brave one — I've accomplished what I came for ; I wish you good evening," and so departed, leaving Dora to bolt the door behind him, and assail the night-nurse with reproaches for her indiscretion in admitting the man, and displaying afterwards such a nervous spirit. A few weeks after this strange incident, Sister Dora received an anonymous letter of apology, enclosing a donation of one pound for the hospital funds. The committee made every possible effort to detect the offender, but in vain; probably he was some reckless fellow who had made a bet to try an experiment on Sister Dora's reputed courage. Her courage was shown much more strikingly in the silence with which she endured the torture of the cancer that was slowly killing her. She dressed the wound, which daily grew larger, her- self. In the closing days of September, 1878, she went to London with a view of studying Professor Lister's method of treating wounds ; but the visit was cut short by her illness. She hastily returned to Birmingham, and thence was carefully removed to Walsall, as she had expressed a desire to die " among her own people." Her doctor consented to preserve her secret, and it was made known only to an old servant, when, from increasing weak- ness, she was no longer able to dress the wound with her own hands. Why she insisted upon this mystery is not very clear, unless we ascribe it to an excessive sensitiveness, or some morbid ■dislike to have it known that she, Sister Dora, suffered from such a disease. Even her own sisters she would not allow to nurse her. On her deathbed she derived great pleasure from the repetition of some of Faber's hymns, saying, that " often, when her heart had felt cold, she had sat down on the floor before she went to bed at night, to repeat and refresh herself with them, and that they had been the dearest companions of her solitary life." Towards the end of November her condition grew much worse, though her extraordinary vitaUty still struggled against the disease, and supported her under its tortures. On the 27th she wrote, or rather dictated, to a friend, — " My cough is terrible ; it will not ■cease, and I am so troubled with sickness. . . . Do pray for me, ■dearest, that I may have patience to endure unto the end what- ever He shall lay upon me, and that, when I pass through the HER ILLNESS AND SUFFERINGS, 40X dark valley, He may fold me in His arms. Write to me when you can, for I do like a letter, to feel that I am not cut off from the outer world." Again, on the 30th : — " How can I thank you for the sweet, loving letters which find their way so continually to cheer my sick-bed ! And they do cheer it, for they speak of such true heart-sympathy, entering into, and thinking of, all my pains and sufferings. Pray that my patience may not fail. . . . My nights are most distressing, owing to the cough, and now I care for nothing except water, which is my one cry all day long ; so I think I cannot live long upon that." A clergyman who frequently visited her writes : — " On two occasions she put a word in my mouth. One Sunday afternoon she asked me what my evening sermon was to be about. I told her. She said, ' Tell them to work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh, when no man can work.' It was the day when the annual collections were made for the Cottage Hospital, and in the course of my appeal on its behalf, I gave her message. The other occasion was a Sunday evening, when all the cabmen in the town had promised, at Sister Dora's request, to attend our mission- room service. Before evening service I was with her, and she said, * Oh, speak to them on this text, "What think ye of Christ?* Make it ring in their ears." " They all came except two, who were unavoidably away on duty, and I preached from the text suggested. She had great sympathy with 'poor Cabby.' Every year she used to give them all some small present — a warm muffler, a pair of driving -gloves, or something of the kind. Before her illness, she had ordered about thirty pairs of warmly-lined gloves, intending them for a Christmas-box; but when it became evident that she would scarcely live till Christmas, she asked me to call the men together and present the gloves, with a few words from her. They were much affected, and in their rough but hearty way tried to express their feelings, giving me messages of affection to convey to her, and in every way showing their sorrow at the thought that she would never be amongst them again." A friend who was very frequently with her writes : — • " I shall never forget the unselfishness, brightness, and patience with which she bore her long trial. (The last stage of her illness lasted eleven weeks.) Often, when she was suffering so much 26 402 GOOD SAMARITANS. that 1 was afraid to do anything but watch her silently, she would ask some question about my home concerns, and go on talking of them with as much interest as though she were perfectly free from pain. One of her greatest pleasures was reading letters from her friends, and dictating answers to them, in which she would make as little as she truthfully could of her own sufferings, and show the liveliest interest in any little thing that concerned her friends. Her sufferings were sad to see ; but even when she was moaning with pain which, she said, was like the cutting of a knife, she would go on dictating, as best she could, between her moans. At other times she was so drowsy that she would fall asleep before the letter was finished, or while I was reading to her ; this distressed her even more than the pain, and she would beg me most earnestly to keep her awake. I do not think she had the times of extreme happiness which some people have felt when near death, for she said, ' The suffering is so real, so present, I seem scarcely able to think of the future happiness.' - . . Her sorrow was, that she could not realize God's presence more, and her fear was lest she should seem impatient. She spoke most decidedly against the idea that we need any one to go between the soul and Christ, and I shall never forgot her bright, beautiful smile as she listened to the words, ' He that belie veth on Me hath everlasting life,' saying, with the deepest earnestness, 'That is just what I want.' ... I feel that I cannot give you any true idea of those last hours that I spent with her, or of the vivid remembrance I have of her, as her brave and loving spirit waited for the moment when God would call her to the full, unclouded daylight of eternity, into the dawn of which she seemed already to have entered." But we will linger no longer over these death-bed details. It is evident that Sister Dora's Christian courage did not desert her in her last hours, though she had her occasional fits of depression, due, no doubt, to her growing weakness ; and that she faced the inevitable future with the stern resolution which was part of her character. That the end was very near all saw on Saturday, December 21st, and her old servant came to wait upon her dear mistress through the last sad hours. Sister Dora repeatedly said, " Oh, I hope I shall sing my Christmas carol in heaven," and her hope was fulfilled. SHE PASSES THROUGH THE DARK VALLEY. 403 On Monday night the pain was almost more than she could bear; and early on the following morning, the 23rd, she said, "I am dying; run for Sister Ellen." Her servant endeavoured to soothe her : " Our Blessed Lord," she said, " is standing at the gates of heaven to open them for you." She was no longer in want of consolation ; all the dread and darkness of the future had vanished. " I see Him there," she answered ; " the gates are opened wide." When the physician had exhausted all the remedies for her relief that science could afford, she said to her attendants, " I have lived alone, let me die alone ; " and she repeated the words, " Let me die alone," until they were com- pelled to leave her, one friend remaining outside to watch through the open door. She lingered for some hours, apparently without pain. And about two p.m. the anxious watcher knew, by a sudden and slight change of position, that the long struggle was over — the battle at an end — and that the brave, puie spirit of Sister Dora had passed "behind the veil." O mystery of life and death ! How it would smite our hearts, and weigh down our souls, but for such examples of faith and hope as we find in those servants of the Cross who live and die like Sister Dora i U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES HV CD^7^13bED