IRLF 
 
 Ebb DfiS 
 
 E -JACKSON 
 
A MEMORIAL 
 
 tf 
 
 ALICE JACKSON 
 

 IN 1906 
 
^4 Memorial of 
 Jackson 
 
 By 
 ROBERT E. SPEER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 Fleming H. Resell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1908, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. CHILDHOOD .... 7 
 
 II. AT SMITH COLLEGE . . 18 
 
 III. IN THE GIRLS' CLUB AT GREEN- 
 
 FIELD 26 
 
 IV. AT CHRISTODORA HOUSE . 33 
 
 V. As SECRETARY OF THE SMITH 
 
 COLLEGE ASSOCIATION FOR 
 CHRISTIAN WORK . . 40 
 
 VI. HER SUMMERS AND HER COR- 
 
 RESPONDENCE . 71 
 
 VII. IN THE WELFARE WORK AT 
 
 LUDLOW .... 77 
 
 VIII. IN INDUSTRIAL WORK IN NEW 
 
 YORK CITY ... 94 
 
 IX. AT DANA HALL ... 99 
 
 X. THE END WHICH is THE BEGIN- 
 
 NING ..... 107 
 
 XI. HER OWN INTERPRETATION OF 
 
 LIFE AND DEATH . . .123 
 
 5 
 
 M101487 
 
Memorial of 
 Jackson 
 
 1 /.- j : : , 
 
 CHILDHOOD 
 
 ALICE JACKSON was born at Styal, 
 Cheshire, England, on December 19, 
 1 876. Her father, Stanway Jackson, 
 who died when Alice was thirteen years 
 old, was an ardent Liberal in politics, an 
 effective party worker and a powerful plat- 
 form speaker. He had a keen interest, which 
 Alice inherited, in all efforts for social prog- 
 ress and his interest, like hers, sought ex- 
 pression in practical helpfulness. He was 
 a member of the Congregational Church, 
 superintendent of the Sunday-school, teacher 
 of a Men's Bible Class, and leader of a chil- 
 dren's service. On her mother's side, Alice 
 was descended from a long line of Congre- 
 gational ministers and from both sides of 
 the family inherited her interest in foreign 
 7 
 
8 Alice Jackson 
 
 missions. In the days when the doors of 
 the great English universities were closed 
 to non-conformists, some of the candidates 
 for the London Missionary Society were 
 .educated ,in, tjie Jiome of her grandfather, 
 tae /'ReVfcrjiiicl; William Alliott of Bedford 
 .(Howard ( Cliapei), and such men as Griffith 
 ijfphHi ;of C;hinaj JyicFa'rlane of New Guinea 
 ano! Cousins of Madagascar came from that 
 library class-room. Alice was brought up 
 with the idea that work in the Church and 
 for the community was a matter of course. 
 
 In October, 1884, the family came to 
 America and made a home at Englewood, 
 N. J. Here Alice lived until she went away , 
 to Smith College, in the fall of 1894. She 
 had as a child the same rich and varied 
 individuality of character which marked her 
 in later years. Some of its beauties were 
 the natural unfolding of her early qualities, 
 and some the triumphant conquest over 
 what might have been narrowing limitations. 
 She was, like many children, shy and diffi- 
 dent, and often shrank from meeting people. 
 In her simple unselfishness she would think 
 she was not wanted in one or another 
 company, and would retire accordingly into 
 
A Memorial 9 
 
 the background. She had an intense reti- 
 cence of character which always made it 
 hard and therefore all the more impressive 
 for her to speak of the deepest things. She 
 was not a very strong child, and this brought 
 the temptation of irritability, and one. of her 
 first battles was the battle which she vic- 
 toriously fought for self-control. When the 
 shadow of a great limitation fell in later 
 years and she suffered much, even her 
 closest friends would not have known it 
 from any outward betrayal and she had 
 learned this lesson of complete self-mastery 
 as a child. 
 
 Her childhood, as all her later life, was 
 filled with joyous good humour and playful- 
 ness of spirit. She had a great desire to 
 hear funny things to make her laugh. She 
 would say, " Tell me something funny. I 
 like to laugh." She always saw the amus- 
 ing side, and no one who heard her can 
 forget the silvery ripple of gladness which 
 lightened all her talk. She had always a 
 great power of loving others and as a child 
 was especially devoted to her brother, whose 
 death occurred just a year before her own. 
 She would sit beside him while he read to 
 
io Alice Jackson 
 
 her from " Pilgrim's Progress," which she 
 loved, but would always demand that the 
 passages about " Mercy" be omitted. " Oh, 
 leave out that horrid old Merky," she would 
 interrupt. She was very fond in these early 
 years of big words and of pets and of all 
 living things. She informed an older sister 
 one day that she knew that a certain person 
 was engaged to be married for she saw her 
 wear a diamond ring, and " so my super- 
 stitions were immediately enlarged." Once 
 she came in grieving, " I've lost my white 
 mice in the piano. I wonder if I can find 
 them," and another time was plunged in 
 grief because her big green poison cater- 
 pillar had gone astray in the library. Her 
 interest in animals extended to the dead 
 ones, and she wept so over being denied 
 the privilege of seeing an older boy dissect 
 a cat that her mother had to yield, and in 
 the interest of her scientific curiosity allow 
 her to witness the dissection. She rejoiced 
 in all the usual play of childhood. One of 
 her childhood playmates writes of some 
 recollections : 
 
 " I remember our girl confidences in the 
 old apple-tree at ' Pollards ' as it was called 
 
A Memorial 1 1 
 
 then. The old tree was back behind the 
 barn and its branches hung down in a circle 
 all around, so when we were inside all the 
 world seemed shut out, and we each had our 
 own particular limb which we'd sit on and 
 sway up and down, and tell what we'd do 
 and like to be when we were grown-up peo- 
 ple. I remember Alice, even then, wanted 
 to be a missionary. Perhaps she didn't call 
 it by that name, but she was the one among 
 us who kept the rest inspired by her high 
 aspirations, and even I thought I should 
 like to follow Alice's example. Alice never 
 wished for anything for herself. When we 
 all told our greatest desire in confidence, 
 hers was always something which would 
 profit some one else. 
 
 " I recollect the time when we were playing 
 ' Bachelor's Kitchen ' and Alice's forfeit was 
 to kiss father. She was terribly afraid of 
 father, but she thought it was her forfeit and 
 she would have to do it. We never believed 
 she could, but while we were all laughing and 
 teasing her, up she marched to father, who 
 was in the hammock, and kissed him. It 
 just showed that no matter how frightened she 
 was, when she thought it was right she did it. 
 
12 Alice Jackson 
 
 " I remember the fair we girls had on 
 the lawn in the Maple Street house for 
 the Helping Hand Society. That was Alice's 
 idea. 'We girls made wash-rags, I remem- 
 ber, and sachets, and when our sachet-powder 
 gave out we used some good smelling cologne 
 of father's to make the sachets smell good. 
 We'd work up in the wild cherry-trees where 
 the Probsts' big house is built now. I don't 
 know why we always seemed to perch in 
 the trees, but we always did. The old 
 apple-tree at Pollards and the wild cherry- 
 tree, where the Probsts' house is now, are 
 among the dearest things when I look back 
 nowadays." 
 
 " The children always did things together," 
 writes one of her sisters. " I remember the 
 wedding party where Alice was the minister 
 and the five brides and grooms proved un- 
 ruly, as there came two boys who insisted on 
 
 having the same bride, so that Sammy 
 
 had to have two. And I remember the 
 lunatic asylum they played in the garret, 
 and when we objected to the noise they of- 
 fered to change to a menagerie. And then 
 there was a play where one of the older ones 
 had to be a chorus of gnomes singing a weird 
 
A Memorial 13 
 
 song. It was the doing things together as 
 children that helped Alice to grasp so 
 quickly, when she went to college, the full- 
 ness of the class spirit, the unity of team 
 work. When Alice was twelve an older 
 sister was married and the children wished 
 to earn the money for a wedding gift so as 
 to make it their very own. They gathered 
 wild blackberries and sold them to mother. 
 The proceeds were to buy three cups, one 
 from each of them, but on measuring the 
 contents of the baskets it was found that 
 Alice's weighed twice that of any one else. 
 So four cups were bought, but they were 
 given ' From us all three together/ For 
 nearly twenty years no one has drunk from 
 those cups without silently remembering the 
 spirit of the gift." 
 
 She was not a robust child. How serious 
 her physical limitations were, few ever dis- 
 covered, except when she was suffering from 
 the disease which ended her life. She ap- 
 peared to work with exhaustless energy. 
 During her college course, in spite of her 
 childhood's delicate health, she was excep- 
 tionally proficient in athletic games. That 
 was in part due to her nervous energy and 
 
14 Alice Jackson 
 
 in part to her indomitable purpose. What 
 she made up her mind to do she did and 
 nothing could change any purpose she had 
 distinctly formed. She would readily give 
 up any wish of hers for the sake of another, 
 but she would not be swerved from her own 
 conviction one hair's breadth. 
 
 Characteristic of this unswerving purpose 
 was her determination, as a child, to learn 
 her home lessons in the family sitting-room 
 where all the older members gathered after 
 dinner to sew and chat. She could not be 
 persuaded to go into a quiet room apart. 
 She liked company and she liked even then 
 to prove to herself that she could so concen- 
 trate her attention as not to hear what was 
 going on around her. Perhaps to this self- 
 planned discipline of mind may be due much 
 of her later power to accomplish work at all 
 times and in all surroundings. Sensitiveness 
 and tender-heartedness were the strongest 
 characteristics of her childhood, and it was 
 through victory over their possibilities of 
 hindrance that she gained her rich sympathy 
 with and power over others. Somehow, 
 when she was grown up, people told her of 
 troubles and temptations that they never 
 
THE CHILD 
 
A Memorial 15 
 
 confessed elsewhere, and she once explained 
 to another her plan to be of help to them : 
 " When any one tells you of a matter of 
 which she has hitherto not spoken and asks 
 your advice, she is very apt afterwards to wish 
 she had not broken silence and to feel em- 
 barrassed the next time she meets you. So 
 I always give some confidence of my own in 
 return and then we meet as equals." This 
 little speech perhaps more than anything else 
 shows how her wish to serve triumphed over 
 every other desire, for the instinctive rule of 
 her personal conduct was " Every man shall 
 bear his own burden," and though she was 
 always ready to bear another's, her natural 
 reticence made it very hard for her to share 
 her own. 
 
 A letter to an older cousin written shortly 
 after her father's death, when she was 
 thirteen, shows her sensitiveness. It begins 
 with a childish description of the excitement 
 of being taken by friends for an evening 
 sleigh-ride behind four horses and then con- 
 tinues, " I do wish papa was here with us, 
 but I don't feel as if he was dead. It seems 
 to me as if he could hear every word we say 
 and see everything we do. I do so hate to 
 
1 6 Alice Jackson 
 
 hear anybody say anything about us being 
 fatherless." It was this same friend who 
 took her sleighing who seemed to know how 
 best to comfort her after her father's death. 
 Alice went over to spend the day with her 
 and came back at night saying, " I think 
 
 Mrs. K knows what children want. She 
 
 didn't talk to me. She just left me alone 
 and gave me all the dogs to play with." 
 
 She was so tender-hearted over offense to 
 others that each evening she went to each child 
 in the family and asked forgiveness, until at 
 last the other children got tired and told her 
 one evening to stop, that she was forgiven 
 for a month. Thereupon, in her conscien- 
 tious way, she got a little book and kept a 
 record there of the time for which each one 
 had promised to forgive her. Those who 
 are discouraged because they fear that be- 
 cause of their sensitiveness or diffidence of 
 disposition they can never be influential with 
 others, need not surrender to these things. 
 They may be all the stronger for them. 
 Alice Jackson grew up through these very 
 qualities of childhood into the richest and 
 most effective service. 
 
 Her childhood days were full of sunshine. 
 
A Memorial 17 
 
 The children always played their games to- 
 gether, and while their father lived they had 
 his close companionship and interest in all 
 their pursuits and pleasures. He was their 
 playmate, too, and coming home from busi- 
 ness in the evening he would take his " Big 
 Squirrel," as he always called her, on his 
 shoulder, and would romp with her. That 
 was a part of the day that was always looked 
 forward to, not only by herself and her 
 sisters, but also by all their playmates. On 
 Sunday afternoons, too, there would be walks 
 in the woods, long English walks full of 
 the interest of nature and of the beauty of 
 God's world, which their father would unfold 
 to them. So her childhood was passed 
 abounding in her parents' love for her a 
 love which permeated her life through all its 
 years. 
 
II 
 
 AT SMITH COLLEGE 
 
 AFTER completing her preparation at 
 the D wight School in Englewood, 
 Alice entered Smith College in the 
 fall of 1894. One of her classmates wrote in 
 The Smith College Monthly for January, 1907, 
 of what Alice was and did in college : 
 
 " Since we first came together as a class in 
 the fall of '94, Alice Jackson's influence has 
 been a most consistently helpful and inspir- 
 ing one. She lived her class spirit. Her 
 ready, efficient, untiring service spoke her 
 enthusiasm. The soundness of her loyalty 
 was proven by her high standard of class 
 spirit. With her it was not degraded to the 
 standard of competition ; her work for her 
 class was not to the end that it might be a 
 successful rival, but her sturdy effort showed 
 her desire that we might attain to our best ; 
 that we might arrive at our highest class- 
 hood, close and loyal daughterhood to alma 
 mater. 
 
 18 
 
A Memorial 19 
 
 " Unusually versatile, Alice Jackson en- 
 tered into almost every phase of our college 
 life, and whatever she touched became beau- 
 tiful in her doing of it. Whether in work or 
 in play, she reached out always for the under- 
 lying ideal, unconscious of herself save as an 
 instrument of service. A member of the 
 basket-ball team, she played a wonderful 
 game, swiftly, quietly, efficiently and fairly, 
 always in the helpful place, never grasping 
 an opportunity for individual glory at the 
 expense of the team work. She grasped the 
 ethics of the game and never even knew there 
 was a selfish side. At the close of our of- 
 ficial sophomore game, as we, crushed, tragic 
 children, were trying to grip the fact bravely 
 that for the first time in our college histoiy 
 the game had gone officially to the freshmen, 
 it was our Ajax who found for us the key to 
 the situation, ' It's fine for the freshmen/ 
 
 "So in the college honours which as a 
 matter of course came to her lot, in Alpha, 
 Biological Society, Colloquium, editor of the 
 Monthly, and as a member of other organi- 
 zations, religious, social and intellectual, she 
 regarded her election not as a cause for self- 
 congratulation, not as a tribute to her own 
 
2O Alice Jackson 
 
 abilities, but simply as an opportunity for 
 further usefulness. It was in this spirit that 
 she entered into the Shakespeare prize essay 
 contest, not with the desire of winning the 
 prize for herself, but in order to fill out the 
 necessary number of competitors. When 
 word came to her that the prize had been 
 awarded to her essay, she received the news 
 with a burst of grief and disappointment : ' I 
 
 thought C would get the prize. She 
 
 worked so hard.' 
 
 " So she moved and worked and played 
 among us, strong in her simple selflessness. 
 Overwhelmed with work for other people, 
 she was never too tired to be courteous, never 
 too busy to be sympathetic, never too weary 
 to meet new demands, never too engrossed 
 to seek out the lonely or disheartened or 
 homesick to share with them her sweetness 
 and her cheer." 
 
 Letters from many of her classmates con- 
 firm this estimate of her character : " If ever 
 a girl was bent on making life count to the 
 utmost for manifesting the life and the love 
 of the Lord Christ to every one she could 
 reach, that was Alice." " Did any one ever 
 live so near God as she did ? " " She meant 
 
A Memorial 21 
 
 a new conception of life to me." " I consider 
 her one of the most perfect characters I ever 
 knew." So some of them wrote, and another 
 testified to her wonderful freedom in college 
 from that very self-consciousness which was 
 one of her crosses as a child : 
 
 " During the ten years which I have known 
 Alice, I have come more and more to realize 
 not only the wonderful beauty of her charac- 
 ter, but her rare combination of qualities. 
 Her kindliness, ready humour, personal charm 
 and generosity, none, perhaps, the traits 
 most apparent at first, all called forth a 
 warm response from all who met her. But 
 there was besides an enthusiasm, spontaneity 
 and a vigour of character which dominated 
 all physical accidents. She was never too 
 absorbed in her own weariness to show quick 
 and appreciative sympathy with the distress 
 of another, while her unfailing sweetness was 
 absolutely sincere and without sentimentality. 
 Her nature was essentially modest, often 
 self-depreciating, but she was true to the right 
 as she knew it and acted with a fearlessness 
 and resolution which showed perfect freedom 
 from self-consciousness." 
 
 It would have been a joy to her to know 
 
22 Alice Jackson 
 
 that the consistency of her Christian life in 
 her college work and college play was the 
 means of helping another into the path she 
 tried to tread. After her death a girl wrote 
 saying that when she was in college she 
 thought she would test the theory of Chris- 
 tian living by the practice of a professing 
 Christian, and so she selected Alice Jackson 
 as the one to watch. And Alice's daily life 
 stood the test. 
 
 The Christian aims, which had always been 
 dominant in her life, came to mature devel- 
 opment in college, and as her college life 
 closed, the thoughts of childhood ripened to 
 large missionary purposes. In a letter writ- 
 ten three years later, she described the growth 
 of her Christian experience and desire for 
 Christian service : 
 
 " I do not think that my Christian expe- 
 rience has differed very much from that of 
 most children of God-fearing parents. My 
 father and mother loved God and trusted ab- 
 solutely in Him, and I grew up to love Him, 
 too, and to see, at first through them and 
 then for myself, how He is indeed the loving, 
 heavenly Father, who is always ready to help 
 and strengthen His children, to bring com- 
 
A Memorial 23 
 
 fort in sorrow, strength in the time of trial, 
 to give power to overcome all temptations, 
 and to sanctify and purify and beautify all life. 
 
 " During my senior year at college, 
 I was asked to serve as the chairman of 
 our Class Prayer-Meeting Committee, and I 
 think that at that time, in planning the work 
 and in prayer for a deeper spiritual life in 
 the college, I came closer to God than ever 
 before. It seems strange that just before 
 graduating from college, doubts as to 
 whether there really was a God should arise. 
 It seemed for the moment that the whole 
 story of the Christ and of the Father might 
 be a most beautiful legend, and one which I 
 longed to believe, but had no right to do so 
 unless I really knew it to be true. I deter- 
 mined to pray to God just the same, trusting 
 that if there really was a God He would 
 answer my prayer and give me a clearer 
 vision of Himself, and soon the doubts and 
 troubles cleared away. 
 
 " Since that time Christ has seemed nearer 
 and more real than ever before and I know 
 and feel that He is indeed the truest and 
 dearest of friends, who is always near and 
 ready to help and to sympathize. 
 
24 Alice Jackson 
 
 " I think that I long now with an ever- 
 deepening desire to do God's will and to live 
 as Christ did, a life of loving, unselfish 
 service. 
 
 " Ever since I was a small child I have al- 
 ways longed to go and live among the poor 
 and unhappy. At first not from any idea of 
 doing missionary work, but simply because 
 my own life had had so much happiness in it 
 that I could not bear to think of any one 
 else being unhappy. I wanted to share my 
 joy with them. 
 
 " I always had a great admiration for mis- 
 sionaries, but their lives seemed to me to be 
 so set apart, so far above my life or anything 
 that I could ever become, that I never 
 thought that I myself might one day be a 
 missionary. It was not until the summer of 
 1898, when I was asked if I was not willing 
 to go abroad as a missionary, that the possi- 
 bility of really being able to do so came to 
 me with any force. At Northfield, that same 
 summer, I was taught that God can use our 
 lives, and working through us, can teach us 
 how to bring others into His kingdom. 
 Since that time I have longed to be a mis- 
 sionary that I may not only share the joy 
 
A Memorial 25 
 
 that has come into my life with others, but 
 that I may tell them of the love of God, be- 
 lieving that through Him, they may be 
 brought into lives of happiness and useful- 
 ness." 
 
 Only her nearest friends realized the re- 
 ligious questionings through which Alice was 
 passing in college. But there was nothing 
 to fear from them. She had a will of perfect 
 obedience and no doubts would long darken 
 her sky. One who knew her well writes : 
 
 " I never knew a college girl more con- 
 scientiously doubtful than Alice, and I've 
 never seen one come out into the sunshine 
 more fully. From doubt and darkness came 
 not only absolute trust and gladness, but in 
 many ways she was like a mystic filled with 
 the presence of Christ truly nearer than her 
 own life. I marvelled at her because she 
 was far from well spent nights awake and 
 in pain but in it all came more and more 
 into absorption in Christ and a childlike 
 confidence that made her not only winsome 
 for His cause but a distinct power." 
 
 She came out of college ready for the 
 larger service by reason of the doubts 
 which she had lived through. 
 
Ill 
 
 IN THE GIRLS' CLUB AT 
 GREENFIELD 
 
 BUT before she offered herself for mis- 
 sionary service, she turned to the 
 opportunities and responsibilities near 
 at hand which called to her, and which 
 offered the best preparation for the work to 
 which she looked forward. And as it turned 
 out, she never went abroad and her life-work 
 was as a missionary of truest character at 
 home. She took up work in the New 
 York School of Pedagogy, teaching at the 
 same time, first in Brooklyn and then in Miss 
 Audubon's school in New York, and serving 
 as a volunteer worker in the Christodora 
 House. The following two years, 1899- 
 1901, she was secretary of the Girls' Club at 
 Greenfield, Mass. This club had been formed 
 in 1895 in the Second Congregational 
 Church, and to avoid all danger of encroach- 
 ing upon other denominations, only members 
 of this church or of no church were eligible. 
 26 
 
A Memorial 27 
 
 It outgrew such limitations, however, and in 
 1 896 was made general. The club was thor- 
 oughly democratic and practical, well-to-do 
 and poor meeting on a basis of fellowship and 
 equality, and the work included courses in 
 literature, German, sewing, cooking, first aid 
 to the injured, local history and physical 
 culture. Here the friendless found in Alice 
 the very friend they needed to reveal to 
 them a greater Friend. " She remembered 
 folks that no one else took any notice of," said 
 one girl. " I always know Miss Jackson will 
 remember me whether or not I get anything 
 else for Christmas." Here as always, she 
 was not content with doing a few duties, or 
 all her duties in one sphere. She reached 
 out to all the needy lives she could touch. 
 The Congregational pastor wrote of her : 
 " She is the sanest worker of her age that I 
 have ever seen. She is just the kind of 
 worker we cannot spare here, but her heart 
 is set on the foreign field." This judgment 
 was expressed to the Presbyterian Board of 
 Foreign Missions, to which, in February, 
 1901, she offered herself for work in China. 
 " About China," she wrote, " I do long to 
 go there more deeply than to any other 
 
28 Alice Jackson 
 
 place, and especially in the interior or to 
 northern China. Mother wrote me the 
 other day that I could not go to China 
 next year. I think that the only reason is 
 the danger, and I feel that when I can talk 
 to her myself about it, she may be willing to 
 let me go in the autumn. At the same 
 time, though my greatest desire is centred 
 in China, I want to go wherever my life is 
 going to be the most useful, and I don't 
 want to let any personal desires come in. 
 So if it is really not best for me to go there, 
 it will be a great joy to go to some other 
 country. I really do want to go or to stay, 
 whichever is best, only I cannot help hoping 
 that I may be fitted for a life abroad. As I 
 have written you, I long to go as soon as 
 possible (if I shall prove to be fitted for such 
 work), but I do want to have the best prepa- 
 ration and so be really useful." 
 
 A few weeks later she wrote : 
 
 " I have given northern or the interior 
 of China as the field to which I most desire 
 to go. I do not really know whether it is 
 God's will for me to go there 'or only my 
 intense desire. If it is His will, I am very 
 sure that all obstacles will be removed. And 
 
A Memorial 29 
 
 He will make His will very clear, I believe. 
 Personally, I have no fear of going into 
 China, and feel that if persecutions and 
 danger should come, His strength to in- 
 spire courage would come in a far greater 
 measure, and that He would bring comfort 
 and even joy to the friends at home. So 
 that if it is His will for me to go, and if I 
 am fitted to go, I am willing to go to China. 
 If not, as I said before, to any land or any 
 people, to Japan, or any other place. All 
 the work, I know, is His: the work abroad 
 and the work at home. The Board can 
 judge, of course, from my papers, etc., far 
 better than I can, just where I am fitted to 
 go, or if I am fitted to go at all. I am afraid 
 that the way in which I cling to China may 
 make it seem as though I would not go 
 with equal gladness to other lands, but if it 
 is God's will for me to do so, I know that I 
 shall love the people with whom I live with 
 the same and a deeper love (as I grow to 
 know them) as I do China and her people 
 now." 
 
 In a more formal letter she gave the story 
 of her spiritual life and her reasons for wish- 
 ing to go as a missionary, in which she used 
 
30 Alice Jackson 
 
 the words already quoted about her child- 
 hood desire, adding: 
 
 " In asking to be sent to a foreign country 
 I realize that I am seeking for myself the 
 happiest and most beautiful life, and a life 
 which I am unworthy to live, except through 
 the help and grace of God, which can work 
 through even the humblest life and make it of 
 use to Himself. It is because of this hope 
 that He will use me for Himself, that I dare 
 to ask to go." 
 
 She did not offer herself for this service 
 without counting its cost, not to herself, 
 which was nothing to her, for the joy that 
 was set before her, but to her mother and 
 family. The Board asked her to consider 
 the need for a teacher in the Joshi Gakuin, 
 a large school for girls in Tokyo, Japan, and 
 she replied : 
 
 " All week I have been thinking and pray- 
 ing about this question, and now I still feel 
 that if the Board will send me there, I be- 
 long to China. I don't think that this is 
 only my own personal desire to go there. 
 
 " I know that in this decision I stand 
 alone, and that it will be a great grief and 
 disappointment to all my friends. I realize 
 
A Memorial 31 
 
 that I am asking them to make all the sacri- 
 fice and that I have no sacrifice to make, no 
 grief, except that of giving them pain. I 
 realize, too, that in asking you to send me 
 to the interior, I have asked you to send me 
 to the most dangerous part. But I knew 
 that a year ago, when I first made the re- 
 quest. I think I am right in doing this, and 
 feel that only a knowledge of disqualification 
 should keep me from doing so." 
 
 " Her family's opposition to her plan of 
 going to China," writes one of her sisters, 
 "was largely based on the fact that Alice 
 had learned but slowly the practical rules for 
 self-protection. They felt that she was doing 
 and would do a splendid work in America, 
 and that the shelter and care of her home 
 were there near at hand if she should get 
 overtired or break down and need them. 
 They felt sure that in case of Boxer uprising 
 or other calamity she would neglect even the 
 obvious precautions for her own in her zeal 
 for others' safety, and this burden of anxiety 
 was one which they did not feel it right or 
 necessary that her mother should assume." 
 
 As she grew more mature she realized 
 more the sacrifice it would mean to her 
 
32 Alice Jackson 
 
 mother if she should go to China. Her 
 mother's enfolding love was her stay in deep 
 personal sorrow and her own love given in 
 return the dominating human power in her 
 life. 
 
 The Board's medical adviser declined to 
 approve Alice's appointment, and informed 
 the Board, as he told her, that probably she 
 could never go to the mission field. He dis- 
 covered that she was suffering from an ailment 
 (diabetes) from which she had practically no 
 hope of recovery. She refused to be daunted, 
 however, and though she left the Girls' Club 
 at Greenfield, went steadfastly on in her 
 work at home, at the same time that she 
 sought to carry out faithfully all the advice 
 of the physician whom, as in the case of all 
 whom she met, she made her fast friend. 
 Nothing could disturb her serene and joyful 
 confidence that if it was God's will she would 
 get to China. 
 
IV 
 
 AT CHRISTODORA HOUSE 
 
 f ^\HE summer of 1901 she spent at 
 the Christodora House in New 
 
 i 
 
 
 York City, a Christian settlement 
 on Avenue B near Tenth Street. She had 
 worked there before, and always went back 
 when she could. She founded the Mothers' 
 Club, beginning by asking the mothers of 
 some of the children in the clubs to come 
 and drink coffee and sing German songs 
 once a week at the House. From its begin- 
 ning of six German women, who met to talk 
 over their children and to sew, the club is 
 now going on with a membership of thirty. 
 One of the women in relating the little his- 
 tory of the club in detail said, " Miss Jack- 
 son was like a stone that you put in a 
 puddle of water, for every little while I keep 
 finding a new ring." She spoke of work 
 that had come to her when she needed em- 
 ployment through the influence of the club, 
 and finally told of a lady who had sent 
 33 
 
34 Alice Jackson 
 
 her daughter to the Northfield Conference 
 one year, and on finding that this lady was a 
 friend of Alice Jackson she exclaimed tri- 
 umphantly, " There's the latest and biggest 
 ring." She had a club for boys, also, which 
 bore the name of " The Young Patriots' 
 Club." One of Alice's strongest character- 
 istics was her sense of fun and ready appre- 
 ciation of humorous situations. She always 
 enjoyed the fact that the secretary of her 
 " Young Patriots' Club " solemnly announced 
 to an assembled audience at Cooper Union 
 that the boys had spent the year in the 
 study of " history, manners, and other relics." 
 She had unique success in this, as in all her 
 work, and she attributed a good deal of it to 
 her training under Miss Washburn of Green- 
 field, whose ready humour and tact found 
 the way out of many apparent difficulties. 
 She wrote a little song for the children at 
 Christodora House, which became a great 
 favourite : 
 
 A PRAYER 
 
 Father, hear Thy little children 
 
 As to Thee we pray, 
 Asking for Thy loving blessing 
 
 Qn this day. 
 
A Memorial 35 
 
 Father, make us pure and holy ; 
 
 Father, make us good. 
 Show us how to love each other 
 As we should. 
 
 Through the day, O loving Saviour, 
 
 May we grow like Thee, 
 In the beauty all about us 
 
 Thy reflection see. 
 
 When at length the evening cometh 
 
 And we fall asleep, 
 In Thy arms of love, Thy children 
 
 Safely keep. 
 
 Father, hear Thy little children 
 
 While to Thee we pray, 
 Asking for Thy loving guidance 
 
 All this day. 
 
 The words of this song lingered in many 
 minds. The head worker of the Christodora 
 House told recently of a young woman who 
 had not been a regular attendant at the clubs 
 who surprised her by quoting some verses 
 that she had learned years before at Chil- 
 dren's Hour. Miss MacColl asked her if she 
 remembered anything else she had learned 
 at that time. She answered : " Yes, and I 
 lost a position through it." Then she ex- 
 plained : " It is the verse 
 
36 Alice Jackson 
 
 " 'Father, make us pure and holy; 
 
 Father, make us good. 
 Show us how to love each other 
 As we should.' 
 
 I have said it every day since I went to Chil- 
 dren's Hour and I found in one position that 
 I could not stay and keep pure and holy and 
 I had to give it up or stop saying the verse, 
 so I gave it up." The little children still 
 sing the song every Sunday afternoon. One 
 of the little children's societies in Christodora 
 now is the " Alice Jackson Circle " of de- 
 formed children, whom one of those whom 
 Alice inspired has gathered in her name 
 and spirit. " The Alice Jackson Circle," 
 writes Miss MacColl, the head worker, " has 
 a membership of fifteen small girls and boys. 
 Each child is a cripple. Not being normal 
 children it requires much patience and firm- 
 ness to keep them happy and at the same 
 time teach them self-control. Marion Reich 
 is wonderfully patient and sunny hearted 
 with the children and her faithfulness to 
 their club afternoon is a lesson to many who 
 are not carrying the responsibilities which 
 are on her shoulders. Stormy days, heavy 
 snow, cold-driving rain have never hindered 
 
A Memorial 37 
 
 her. Often she has looked very tired and 
 the children have been boisterous and I have 
 questioned in my heart, ' Will she keep it 
 up ? ' Once I asked her how she kept up 
 her cheer and she said, ' Oh, I am not cheer- 
 ful compared to Miss Jackson. She was 
 wonderful ! Miss MacColl, do you remember 
 how patient she was ? If I thought I could 
 ever be like her ! But I never, never can.' 
 She has often told the children that they 
 could never hope for anything more than to 
 be as good as Miss Jackson. If they were 
 like her they would never be selfish and they 
 would make everybody who knew them very, 
 very happy. 
 
 " Another girl questioned, * Did she never 
 get tired of doing things for others? She 
 never seemed to have anything to do for 
 herself. Thinking of her has made me do 
 things for others lots of times, but not all 
 the time like Miss Jackson.' 
 
 " Still another asked, ' Did you ever see 
 Miss Jackson look cross? It makes me 
 smile just to think how bright her face al- 
 ways was.' 
 
 " One woman said, ' Miss Jackson never 
 did anything I would not have been glad to 
 
38 Alice Jackson 
 
 do for others if I had only thought of it. 1 
 Then quickly, * Oh, I suppose the thinking 
 of it is the whole thing ! ' 
 
 " So mothers and babies went away to 
 spend long hot days by the sea or in the 
 country because Miss Jackson thought of it. 
 Fruit was added to the dry luncheon of a 
 hard-working factory girl because Miss Jack- 
 son thought of it. A footstool, just the 
 right height, was slipped under a pair of feet 
 which dangled wearily all day long because 
 the factory working chair was too high. 
 Miss Jackson saw the need and met it. 
 
 " Hot, sticky little fingers were taught to 
 take even stitches in aprons to surprise 
 mother. They were taught to toil patiently 
 over their thin cambric squares to make ' a 
 nice fine handkerchief for big sister.' Older 
 hands were taught how to cut and fashion 
 dainty underwear because ' Every girl wants 
 pretty underclothing no matter what outside 
 clothes she wears.' This was new and won- 
 derful news and an added bit of grace was 
 put to the knowledge when it was suggested 
 that each girl give a hand-made undergar- 
 ment to her best girl friend. 
 
 " The giving of gifts made by the donor 
 

 A Memorial 39 
 
 became the most popular thing at Christodora 
 House that winter. 
 
 " One girl began an elaborate bit of white 
 wool crocheting on which her heart was set. 
 But untrained fingers found it impossible, 
 white wool became dark, snarls and ravelled 
 loops appeared everywhere. One night the 
 girl suddenly seemed to realize that she was 
 making a failure of her work and held it up 
 to look at it with a wail, ' O, tell me, Miss 
 Jackson. Say is it all wrong ? Is the wool 
 all wasted ? Can I never do it ? ' But the 
 work had been swept out of her hands and a 
 cheery voice said, It will be all right. You 
 are tired to-night. Let us put it away and 
 begin all fresh and rested to-morrow.' At 
 half-past twelve that night I found Alice 
 Jackson labouring over that distorted piece 
 of work, and after that Alice Jackson ripped 
 out each night what the girl did in the even- 
 ing and did it over again that ' she might not 
 feel discouraged and give it up, for she is a 
 girl who needs encouragement just now.' 
 The girl never knew that her work was done 
 over each night and she marvelled at her 
 own capacity. Her work for the last two 
 nights was so good it did not need to come 
 out ! Can you imagine Miss Jackson's joy ?" 
 
AS SECRETARY OF THE SMITH 
 
 COLLEGE ASSOCIATION FOR 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORK 
 
 IN the fall of 1902 Alice went back to 
 Northampton to become secretary of 
 the Smith College Association for 
 Christian Work, and remained till the sum- 
 mer of 1904. No years could be filled more 
 full of rich and loving service than Alice 
 Jackson filled these two years at Smith. 
 What she had regarded as her limitations in 
 childhood, her sensitiveness and her re- 
 serve, had developed into the very sources 
 of her power. She was able to win every 
 one. There was no one whom she was not 
 seeking to help, and no work which she was 
 not eager to do. " What always seemed to 
 me especially remarkable was that she never 
 seemed isolated, in the least out of sympathy 
 with all sorts of people," wrote one of the 
 teachers in Smith. " She was always a won- 
 derfully good companion." But the best 
 40 
 
A Memorial 41 
 
 way to set forth what she did as secretary of 
 the College Association, and the spirit in 
 which she did it, will be to quote the state- 
 ment contributed to The Smith College 
 Monthly by Miss Van Kleeck, who was 
 president of the association in 1902-04. 
 Miss Van Kleeck wrote in the thought of 
 Alice's first Christmas Day in the Land Ever- 
 lasting : 
 
 " ' To me to live is Christ, and to die is 
 gain.' 
 
 " Alice Jackson loved Christmas Day. Its 
 spirit is the spirit of her life. For on that 
 day the world is radiant with happiness, and 
 so was she, through all her days. And the 
 radiance is the shining of the Christ-child's 
 face, whose light was her light, in whom 
 she looked upon the face of her Master. In 
 the spirit of a little child, she worshipped. 
 
 " Well she knew the tragedy of the doubts 
 which darken our age, and the complexity of 
 action and thought in which we lose our 
 way. Fighting the battle which is the com- 
 mon lot to-day, the truth shone out before 
 her eyes that not the mind alone nor the 
 heart alone can find the light, but in the life 
 of discipleship is Christ made real to mind 
 
42 Alice Jackson 
 
 and heart. The hope of the Gospel rests not 
 in argument, nor scattered deeds, but in the 
 lives of those 
 
 " ' Who, to the world, deep joy and gladness 
 
 bring, 
 
 Fulfilling by their daily lives the message 
 Which on the Christmas morn the angels sing.' 
 
 The words are hers ; nor could her own life's 
 ideal be more truly expressed. 
 
 " So it is that we see in her, not the fitful 
 working of a purpose which, however strong, 
 yet by reason of many other conflicting pur- 
 poses fails to-morrow when to-day's deed of 
 kindness is done. But we see in her the 
 radiance of a life which cannot be diverted 
 from its path, because it is lived close to 
 God. 
 
 " It is the beauty of her life that through 
 her our thoughts are lifted to the Master 
 whom she served. To this power, many of 
 those whose lives were strengthened by her 
 two years' service in college bear witness : 
 
 " ' In every picture of her which comes be- 
 fore my mind she is bringing happiness to 
 some one. With burning intensity to crowd 
 as much as possible into every day, uncertain 
 

 A Memorial 43 
 
 how many might be granted her, she gave to 
 us all a vision of the radiance of service.' 
 
 " ' Her Christlike simplicity, purity and 
 selflessness have been always my inspira- 
 tion.' 
 
 " ' All who knew her have a sense of joy 
 from contact with a life that was lived close 
 to God.' 
 
 " ' She was not constantly trying to forget 
 self, she never remembered self.' 
 
 " * She was always ready to enter into our 
 good times, and to help us.' 
 
 " * To no one did the beautiful side of life 
 appeal more strongly. Yet she met the sor- 
 did things in the cities, where she worked, 
 with patient sympathy and tender love.' 
 
 " ' She always saw the good so strongly 
 that there was no place for the bad.' 
 
 " * As Christmas draws near, many a home 
 will miss her cheery letter. She remembered 
 all her friends.' 
 
 " ' At first I could not see how her life 
 could be spared. And then I knew that 
 those who loved her would find in her 
 memory a baptism into Christlike service.' 
 
 " ' She knew all kinds of girls, understood 
 all kinds, loved all kinds. Her energy, her 
 
44 Alice Jackson 
 
 practicality, her unresting urging on of good, 
 the fire of her faith, made her verily an 
 instrument in the hands of God.' 
 
 " ' She has left no shadow, but a radiance 
 in the minds and hearts of those whom she 
 helped to a more joyous and clear under- 
 standing of the meaning of life. She herself 
 had gained the spirit of the Christ-life and 
 knew how to guide others to share it with 
 her.' 
 
 " The great love which she gave to those 
 whose lives touched hers, the human love 
 which reveals the divine, was the power in 
 all her work. Out of that love came the 
 brave good cheer with which she met the 
 failure of her purpose to go to a foreign field, 
 a service which had seemed to her the most 
 perfect fulfillment of discipleship. Yet, al- 
 though that purpose failed of accomplishment, 
 it consecrated all the work which took its 
 place. 
 
 " All this richness of life she brought to 
 her two years' secretaryship in the Christian 
 Association. Tolerant as she was steadfast, 
 sympathetic as she was zealous, untiring as 
 she was patient, she worked and prayed un- 
 ceasingly that in the college which she loved 
 
A Memorial 45 
 
 might come a vision of Christ, in whose 
 service she had taken up the task. She re- 
 garded the work as a great privilege. It con- 
 cerned not alone the girls in college, but the 
 faculty, the alumnae, the trustees and all 
 other friends. To them she felt herself 
 responsible as for a trust, fulfilled by bring- 
 ing them all into touch with the work, carry- 
 ing from them to us the inspiration of their 
 interest. 
 
 " She was ever such a messenger, receiving 
 strength from some one who had it for some 
 one who needed it, bringing to those who 
 were sad the happiness of those who were 
 joyous. 
 
 " Surely she would be willing to have us 
 remember certain words of hers : < So often 
 I feel how utterly unworthy I am of the po- 
 sition that you have asked me to try to fill. 
 You don't know how often I say, " I am but 
 as a child, and I know not how to come in 
 nor go out," but I am trying to leave it all 
 with God and to trust Him to fit me for it. 
 I have been thinking very much of Jesus 
 Christ these days, of His tenderness and 
 love and simplicity and humility. And the 
 thought that some day we shall be like Him 
 
46 Alice Jackson 
 
 is the most wonderful of all thoughts to me, 
 and one that I don't believe I can ever real- 
 ize, but which I love.' 
 
 " It is the most perfect season of the year 
 for her to pass into a fuller life, a closer walk 
 with God. With this season we shall always 
 associate her, Christmas, the day of happi- 
 ness, the birthday of Christ." 
 
 Professor Irving Wood, of the Department 
 of Biblical Literature, wrote for the same 
 issue of the Monthly, an estimate of Alice's 
 influence and work as secretary, from the 
 point of view of one of her teachers : 
 
 " If one speaks of the memory of Alice 
 Jackson from the point of view of the mem- 
 bers of the faculty who knew her -best, it 
 will be only a repetition in another form of 
 what her student friends might say ; for she 
 did not have different sides of her nature for 
 different classes of people. She was a very 
 exceptional woman. There was, first, her 
 gloriously strong personality, with which she 
 was dowered by nature. Then there was 
 her tremendous activity. It overflowed into 
 all possible fields. While she was busy with 
 college work, she was also laying plans for 
 mission study in the Christian Endeavour 
 
A Memorial 47 
 
 Societies of the churches of Northampton 
 and vicinity. That is only an example of 
 her energy for work. But all this was not 
 done merely for the sake of doing things. 
 She cared primarily about people. Very few 
 persons of her age had and kept more at- 
 tachments to people of all sorts than she. 
 Even the children of the families of her ac- 
 quaintance had a remembrance at Christmas. 
 Whether working girls or college graduates, 
 she seemed never to forget any one with 
 whom she came in contact. There was 
 nothing she would not do to help any one. 
 She very often came to her friends on the 
 faculty with problems, but they were seldom 
 her own. They were the problems of some 
 one else, whom she wanted to help. But one 
 felt in it all that her entire activity was con- 
 trolled by one motive, the will to do the will 
 of God. Her religion was very unassuming 
 and anything but self-confident. To those 
 who were officially connected with her sec- 
 retaryship in the association she often spoke 
 modestly of the imperfections of her work, 
 as she saw it ; but she never spoke despond- 
 ently. It was a happy religion, just a 
 happy, wholesome, human life, filled with all 
 
48 Alice Jackson 
 
 the fun and work that it could hold, and all 
 of it alike religious. She had her sorrows 
 and her disappointments, and they were very 
 keen, but she never talked of them. She 
 laid aside the things she would gladly have 
 done but could not, and turned with greater 
 energy to what she could do, and did it joy- 
 ously for Christ's sake. She has shown us 
 how the love of Christ can be translated into 
 a present day human life; and we are the 
 richer for her memory." 
 
 No girls were left out of Alice's thought 
 and planning, and she sought especially, and 
 with the most tactful sympathy, to help the 
 Roman Catholic girls. In this she had the 
 cordial help of Father Gallen of the Roman 
 Catholic Church in Florence, a village near 
 Northampton. Father Gallen has written, 
 with warm Christian sympathy, of his im- 
 pressions of her and his estimate of her work: 
 
 " I was very much interested in the work 
 of Miss Alice Jackson while she lived in 
 Northampton. Her purpose to unite the 
 active elements engaged in Christian work 
 to the end that effective results might be 
 better attained, and energies conserved in- 
 stead of wasted, seemed to me, a member of 
 
A Memorial 49 
 
 the Catholic body, a most admirable under- 
 taking. She seemed to realize that all true fol- 
 lowers of Christ agree in the essentials of what 
 constitutes holy living, and that such agree- 
 ment was really all that was necessary to create 
 in any community a working force for virtue. 
 
 " She found in the college girls trained to 
 high ideals a generous enthusiasm that 
 prompted them to give freely of their efforts 
 towards any project that promised the uplift 
 of humanity. These young women found 
 themselves full of the desire to accomplish 
 something consistent with highest purpose, 
 but as so often happens, they were without a 
 master of the vineyard to make their labour 
 useful. They needed some one like to them- 
 selves, who would mark the way by leading, 
 who could organize and direct, yet never 
 usurp the supreme leadership which always 
 belongs to Christ. 
 
 " From my knowledge of the splendid re- 
 sults that followed years of self-sacrificing 
 labour, I am convinced that the Christian 
 workers of Smith College found the leader 
 they needed so much in the person of Miss 
 Alice Jackson. She enabled them to direct 
 their best energies with good results in a 
 
50 Alice Jackson 
 
 spiritual way to themselves and others. All 
 the churches benefited by her work, and es- 
 pecially my own. She sent me teachers for 
 the Sunday-school, faithful, self-denying 
 college girls. The distance from the college 
 to my church is two miles, and some of these 
 girls, because of our early services on Sunday, 
 were forced to leave their houses before the 
 breakfast hour and to fast until noon. The 
 college students who combine the higher 
 learning with the higher Christianity cannot 
 be far from the ideal of perfection. 
 
 " I have always felt that Alice Jackson had 
 splendid natural powers for Christian work. 
 She was most gentle, yet persistent, in pur- 
 suing her object. In voice and manner there 
 was a sympathetic quality so winning as to 
 be irresistible. There seemed to be a perfect 
 consonance between her charming person- 
 ality and the beautiful teachings of the Mas- 
 ter she served and loved so well. However, 
 I like to think that her great success in her 
 life-work was due to the grace supernatural, 
 bestowed by a loving Father in the light of 
 whose Presence I trust she may ever dwell." 
 
 The love borne her by the Roman Catholic 
 students is attested by the beautiful copy of 
 
A Memorial 51 
 
 Edward Clifford's portrait of Father Damien, 
 which now hangs in the Students' Building 
 with an inscription saying that it has been 
 placed there by them in her memory. The 
 two personal treasures which Alice always 
 had with her were a little framed picture of 
 Father Damien and a verse from Robert 
 Browning's Epilogue to "Asolando." The 
 heroic peasant priest who in the leper settle- 
 ment of Molokai " made the charnel-house 
 life's home " and " matched love with death " 
 was her daily inspiration and call to service. 
 The other tangible witness to the value 
 placed upon Alice's effort is the " Alice Jack- 
 son Memorial Fund," being raised by Smith 
 College students and devoted to the carrying 
 on of the Smith College Association for 
 Christian Work among the undergraduates. 
 Continuance of work seems the most fitting 
 tribute to her who found inspiration in 
 Browning's ideal, 
 
 " Who never turned his back but marched breast- 
 forward, 
 
 Never doubted clouds would break, 
 Never dreamed tho' right were worsted, wrong 
 
 would triumph, 
 
 Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
 Sleep to wake." 
 
52 Alice Jackson 
 
 Alice was a thorough student of the con- 
 ditions in which she worked. She adapted 
 herself eagerly to the facts as she found them, 
 but it was with a large desire to understand 
 them thoroughly and to press on to better 
 things. There is a paper which she wrote in 
 reply to a series of inquiries, which sets forth 
 her judgments on a number of questions vital 
 to the religious life of college students. Some 
 parts of her replies may be quoted as repre- 
 senting her convictions on some of the fun- 
 damental problems of college life : 
 
 " ' What are the chief obstacles to religious 
 life in the women's colleges ? 
 
 " In Smith, 1st. The busy every-day life. 
 Some of the girls feel that they have not time 
 for daily Bible study and prayer. They feel 
 that other parts of the college life need more 
 attention. 2d. College societies and hon- 
 ours, which, add to an already busy life. 
 This is an obstacle which belongs to only a 
 few. Some of us belong to a good many 
 societies. I'm speaking from a personal point 
 of view now, because I think it better to do 
 so. While in college I belonged, and do 
 now, to most of the societies then in exist- 
 ence. They demanded a large amount of 
 
A Memorial 53 
 
 time. I felt that I must be present at all 
 their meetings and must give the best I had 
 to each one. It is hard to resign from a so- 
 ciety. I hope it will not be so long, for I 
 think that we give to some of them time and 
 strength which would be better expended in 
 some other direction. On the other hand, 
 the societies themselves ought to be a train- 
 ing for Christian Association work. If we 
 would put into it the time and strength that 
 we put into them, we would accomplish very 
 much more. A third obstacle is Indifference. 
 This is not as great as it used to be. 4th. 
 And this I consider the greatest of all. We 
 are content with the good, and so let the best 
 slip from us. We seek the ethical rather 
 than the spiritual; we emphasize a moral 
 rather than a religious life. I believe it is 
 true at Smith that ' the greatest enemy to the 
 best is the good.' 5th. The fear of not ap- 
 pearing broad. We dread the idea of nar- 
 rowness, so we acquiesce when we should not. 
 We do not talk enough about Christ. We 
 are content to think that showing Him in our 
 lives is enough and half the time we don't even 
 do that. I should think that this must be a 
 decided stumbling-block to some girls who 
 
54 Alice Jackson 
 
 do not believe in Him. We are recognized 
 in our little college world as Christians, and 
 we apparently don't care enough about Christ 
 to talk about Him. We may say that we 
 don't do it because our love for Him and our 
 knowledge of His love for us is the deepest 
 thing in our life, but we know, and they 
 know, too, that is not the real reason, which 
 is a selfish fear. It's cowardly, and they 
 and we know it. 6th. We are too apt to 
 wish to appear all-rounded, and so to over- 
 emphasize the other parts of college life, 
 the social and the intellectual and the ath- 
 letic. If we fail to reach all girls it is not be- 
 cause we are not ' all rounded ' : it is because 
 we offer to them less than the best. 
 
 " ' What is the prevailing attitude in the 
 women's colleges among the students as to 
 the Bible and prayer and the divinity of 
 Christ ? 
 
 "In Smith we have 1,000 girls in college. 
 I do not believe that more than 500 read their 
 Bibles for devotional purposes daily. (And 
 this is a very large number. In thinking it 
 over I don't believe that very many girls read 
 their Bibles daily : I think a larger number 
 intend to do so.) In my own four years at 
 
A Memorial 55 
 
 college I don't believe, except for the re- 
 quired Bible work (and I did not do it much 
 for it) that I ever thought of reading it, and 
 I did not because it did not occur to me to 
 do so. I'm sure I don't know why, for this 
 certainly was contrary to my home training. 
 I believe, however, there are many girls here 
 who go through the same experience. I do 
 not believe, however, that any girl could say 
 now that ' it had not occurred to her to read 
 her Bible for devotional reasons/ Every girl 
 in college has been told iri detail this year 
 individually (for the most part) about the 
 student Bible classes, which have for their 
 distinct aim a daily systematic study of the 
 Bible, striving to teach one to depend upon 
 daily Bible study and to make it a habit of 
 life. 
 
 " Prayer.' Most girls, I believe, pray each 
 day. Some, I believe, thoughtlessly. But 
 there is a growing belief in the power of 
 prayer. Many of us are growing daily to 
 believe that we simply could not live without 
 it, and that it is the solution of all problems. 
 We have prayer circles among the alumnae 
 and in the college. Our week of prayer 
 meant more to the college than any other 
 
56 Alice Jackson 
 
 part of the association work has done this 
 year. Many of us believe that the busier 
 the day and the more difficult the problem 
 that we have to meet, the greater the need of 
 prayer. 
 
 " < The Divinity of Christ.' 
 
 " Many of the girls do not believe in the 
 divinity of Christ. Many who have come to 
 college believing it, question it, but the 
 majority of these come out all right in the 
 end. The question of the divinity of Christ 
 comes up almost every year. I believe this 
 is due not only to the college life and trend 
 of thought (though it is due largely to this) 
 but also to the spirit of the time. I have 
 had letters from and talks with several peo- 
 ple during the last two or three years, who 
 represent almost every side of life, asking me 
 to tell them definitely what I believe in re- 
 gard to Christ, and especially as to His 
 divinity. It seems to me that the one and 
 sole aim of the Christian Association should 
 be to emphasize the divine Christ, and if we 
 fail to do so, we fail in our commission. We 
 have too many prayer- meetings here with 
 such subjects as Sincerity/ What we need 
 is ' Jesus Christ.' 
 
A Memorial 57 
 
 " ' Is there any positive sin in the women's 
 colleges that is a bar to religious life and 
 power ? ' 
 
 " I've heard it said that a few of the girls 
 tell lies in order to prolong their vacations 
 and so on. I've never seen any such case 
 and the popular sentiment is against it. 
 
 " We do not keep Sunday as we should. 
 It is made too much of a social day, too 
 much studying is done on it. We are trying 
 hard to have a change come through popular 
 sentiment. 
 
 " The prevailing sin in a women's college 
 is selfishness and short-sightedness. We 
 look too much to the present. We try to 
 crowd into these four years much that will 
 mean much to us personally, and we leave 
 eternity out, crowd it out of our thoughts. 
 
 " ' What are the chief temptations of women 
 students ? ' 
 
 " Ambition. We wish to achieve much 
 intellectually and socially. We like to be 
 popular and so we let little things slide which 
 we ought not to countenance. We put off 
 deciding questions that we ought to decide 
 ' until after we graduate/ if they are unpleas- 
 ant or make us uncomfortable. We crowd 
 
58 Alice Jackson 
 
 our days with so many things that we say 
 we have ' no time ' to think of them. We 
 are never alone. We won't give ourselves 
 the opportunity of quietly thinking things 
 out and facing questions of duty. We tell 
 ourselves that after college we shall have 
 time and leisure for such things. At the 
 close of college positions that please and 
 tempt us are offered to us and we take them, 
 rather than others which would not appeal 
 so much at first sight. I'm sure that if I had 
 not really the desire to go on the foreign 
 field, I should have accepted some such posi- 
 tions that are offered from time to time, and 
 should comfort myself with the thought that 
 if they did not call for distinctly religious 
 work, they would achieve good somehow or 
 other. My actual desire to be on the foreign 
 field has been my own personal safeguard. 
 But many have not this desire, and so they 
 let themselves drift into other kinds of work. 
 If we all of us here could only learn to face 
 questions as they come, honestly and fairly, 
 instead of putting them off, I'm sure we 
 would achieve more. We know the needs of 
 the world, we realize our own privileges, but 
 we love ourselves and our comfort too much, 
 
THE SCHOOL GIRL 
 
A Memorial 59 
 
 and we will not let ourselves be troubled by 
 thoughts which we think or pretend to think 
 are ' Unnecessary.' " 
 
 Throughout her two years as secretary at 
 Smith, Alice kept constantly in mind her 
 missionary purpose. She thought of plans 
 of going to the foreign field in ways which 
 would not involve loss to the Missionary 
 Board through her early death, and which 
 would enable her to determine, experimen- 
 tally, whether she could endure the climate 
 and do the work. If it was shown that she 
 could, she would then ask appointment. 
 Even the doctors' frank words to her could 
 not destroy her hopes. The following let- 
 ters, written in 1903 to a friend in the Pres- 
 byterian Board, will show what passed in her 
 mind : 
 
 " This is to tell you that I have decided 
 not to go to China next year and also not to 
 go to the Mountain Whites. I have been 
 asked definitely to go to Miss Jewell's school 
 in Shanghai, and she has told me that should 
 I be all right at the end of the year, and 
 should the Board feel that I am capable of 
 doing any of its work, I might resign in its 
 favour. I have hoped very much that it 
 
60 Alice Jackson 
 
 would be right for me to do this. But it is 
 not, this year, at any rate. 
 
 " Dr. Bovaird told me that I could not live 
 very many years, or months, I think he 
 said, in either place. I think I should go 
 just the same, if I were not convinced that 
 it would bring great sorrow to mother and 
 injure her, perhaps, physically. In every 
 other way it seems to me that the great need 
 of China would justify me making the ex- 
 periment. Please do not think that by say- 
 ing this I mean that I am big or good 
 enough for China, because I realize very 
 keenly that I am not, but the need (if better 
 people cannot go) justifies to me almost any 
 experiment. 
 
 " I did not tell Dr. McAfee that I wished 
 to go into the home work, because I under- 
 stood from him that he had more applica- 
 tions than positions, and I shall never be 
 willing to fill a position that some one else 
 can fill better. 
 
 " I believe that foreign missions have be- 
 come a part of my life now, and it does not 
 seem to me (unless I find it is a wrong de- 
 sire) that I shall ever give up the hope of 
 going. But I never shall feel justified in 
 
A Memorial 61 
 
 filling any position that some one else can 
 fill. 
 
 " I have never mentioned either of these 
 two places at home because I knew that I 
 must first decide for myself, and that by 
 prayer, and then I felt that should I decide 
 not to go, it would only be selfish to keep 
 the family in suspense. 
 
 " I am not going to write or talk to you 
 again about going out on the foreign field. 
 When I find that I have the right to go I 
 will tell you, if I may, and in the meantime, 
 I am going to do all that I can to grow bet- 
 ter physically, mentally and spiritually, so 
 that if the time ever comes, I may have a 
 better preparation. 
 
 " Now may I thank you again for all the 
 time you have given to me. I feel so sorry 
 that I have taken it so many times, and I 
 should not have done so had there not al- 
 ways been the hope, as there is still, of going. 
 
 " Please do not answer this letter. It 
 surely is one that needs no answer." 
 
 " I asked Dr. Bovaird on Saturday if he 
 thought that I should ever be absolutely 
 well again, and he said no. I asked him 
 
62 Alice Jackson 
 
 that because I want to do what is most hon- 
 est, and if you think it best to take my name 
 from the list of candidates of the Presby- 
 terian Board, will you please do so ? I 
 know Dr. Bovaird does not think that I shall 
 ever go on the foreign field. Somehow or 
 other I do, and so I am going on in just the 
 same way to try to be most fully prepared 
 when the time comes to go. If you think 
 that it is best to take my name off now, I'll 
 apply again when that time comes. 
 
 " I don't know exactly what to do about 
 taking my name off the volunteer list. On 
 the one hand I feel that I may be harming 
 the cause by having it there, and not going, 
 and on the other, if I take it away I'm afraid 
 some people will think that it is because I 
 don't care to go. - I don't mind for myself, 
 but I do for the cause. Somehow or other 
 I do seem to know so very many people who 
 do not know any other person who is inter- 
 ested in missions except myself. I'm going to 
 think this over and find out what is right to do. 
 
 " Please do not answer this letter, but 
 please do just what is best about taking my 
 name off the list, and when I come home in 
 the summer I'll find out what you have done. 
 
A Memorial 63 
 
 It does not seem to me now as if I could or 
 shall ever give up the hope of going. 
 
 " Mr. Jays spoke to us last night and sev- 
 eral of the girls are thinking of the foreign 
 field. I wish that I did more for the Volun- 
 teer Movement. I do so little, and I don't 
 know exactly how to do more." 
 
 " I've heard again from the school of 
 which I spoke to you in Shanghai, and they 
 have told me that the question of my health 
 need not stand in the way of my going there. 
 When I wrote, I said it was very doubtful 
 whether I could go. If I could, it would not 
 be for another year, and if after a year there 
 I had proved that physically I could stand 
 the climate, etc., that I should wish to be 
 transferred to the Board if you still needed 
 me. I shall, of course, do nothing definite 
 until I've seen you and until I've talked it 
 over with the family, which I'm afraid I have 
 no right to do this summer. 
 
 " I'm enclosing some questions which I'm 
 sending to the incoming class, together with 
 a letter describing some of the Association 
 work. Each one will also have a letter from 
 some other girl in college, a report of the 
 
64 Alice Jackson 
 
 last year's work and a handbook giving the 
 constitution of the Association. I have the 
 names of two or three hundred girls already 
 who are to enter, and more will be sent in 
 August. 
 
 " Every day now brings many letters from 
 alumnae and undergraduates expressing their 
 interest in the work, and so in looking for- 
 ward to next year there can be nothing but 
 hope and trust." 
 
 The questions which she enclosed were the 
 following : 
 
 " The Smith College Association for Chris- 
 tian Work. 
 
 " What church (denomination) do you at- 
 tend ? 
 
 " Are you a member ? 
 
 " Do you belong to a Young People's So- 
 ciety ? 
 
 " Are you an officer or a member of any 
 committee ? 
 
 " Do you take any active part in its meet- 
 ings ? 
 
 " Are you a member of any Bible Class ? 
 
 " Have you ever been on a missionary 
 committee or helped with any missionary 
 meeting ? 
 
A Memorial 65 
 
 " Have you done any philanthropic work 
 in your town or city ? 
 
 " In what branch of your home (church or 
 city) work are you most interested ? 
 
 " What is the name and address of your 
 pastor and of the president of your Young 
 People's Society ? 
 
 " Will it be possible to plan that a letter 
 be written by you each year to your church 
 or Young People's Society, telling of the 
 Christian Association work of the college, 
 and also that one be written by the church 
 or society to you, telling of its work ? 
 
 " What will your college address be ? " 
 
 She herself wrote by hand a special letter to 
 each of the new students who came to Smith 
 in the fall of 1903. The next year she de- 
 cided that she ought not to remain longer 
 than the two years. In January, 1904, she 
 wrote to one of her older sisters : 
 
 " For a long time I have been feeling that 
 I may not come back here next year. I 
 have felt that some one of a different type 
 may appeal better. The people in college do 
 not think so, but the question of the limit of 
 this position has come up and it ought to be 
 two years, so very likely I shall not comq 
 
66 Alice Jackson 
 
 back. The plans that I had thought of for 
 next year are not to be mine, because of my 
 health. I had thought of the Mountain 
 Whites. As to a position, I think that I 
 shall find one and shall not decide on any- 
 thing until Easter time." 
 
 The college wished her to stay, and when 
 she decided that she could not, Professor 
 Wood wrote to her : 
 
 " The Advisory Committee wish me to 
 convey to you what I am sure each has ex- 
 pressed in a less formal way, our very great 
 appreciation of your work with the Associa- 
 tion. The fact that we wished so strongly 
 to keep your services for another year speaks 
 for our appreciation. We believe that you 
 have in all things tried to do what seemed 
 best for the work. We feel that you have 
 done just what was needed at that particular 
 juncture in our history ; and we are glad we 
 could have your labours. 
 
 " Trusting the wisdom and the love of God 
 to guide your future, as it has your past, I 
 am, etc." 
 
 While she was at Smith College as secre- 
 tary, she saw repeatedly the physician who 
 had disapproved of her going out as a for- 
 
A Memorial 67 
 
 eign missionary, and after one of her inter- 
 views with him she wrote in the spring of 
 1903 to the Student Volunteer Movement : 
 
 " For the last two weeks I have been 
 anxious to write you about my volunteering. 
 When I volunteered in 1900, I felt that I 
 should very likely be able to go on the for- 
 eign field soon, but I have been unable to do 
 so on account of health. Last Christmas I 
 talked things over with my doctor (Dr. David 
 Bovaird, the examining physician of the 
 Presbyterian Board) and the opinion that he 
 held was that I probably never could go. 
 Two weeks ago he told me that I very likely 
 shall never be any better. 
 
 " I still believe that I shall go to the foreign 
 field, however. I wrote one of the secretaries 
 to see whether he thought that it would be 
 best to take my name from the lists of candi- 
 dates, and he has told me that the Board is will- 
 ing to let my relation to it remain unchanged. 
 
 " I've often wondered whether it is right 
 for me to be counted a volunteer. I'd rather 
 be a volunteer than anything except a mis- 
 sionary, but if it is hurting the cause to have 
 me counted as one and stay ' at home/ I 
 should rather have my name taken from the 
 
68 Alice Jackson 
 
 list and volunteer again when there is more 
 actual prospect of my going. 
 
 " I don't know myself which will do the 
 most harm, to have my name enrolled 
 among the volunteers or to take it off. Like 
 all other volunteers, I suppose, I've lots and 
 lots of friends all over the country who know 
 about missions only to the extent that I want 
 to be a missionary, and unless I could ex- 
 plain to them why I did not continue to be 
 a volunteer they would think that I no longer 
 cared about it or, more likely, had chosen to 
 stay at home to work. On the other hand, 
 there is always the cry that people volunteer 
 and don't go. Dr. Root advised me at 
 Christmas time not to withdraw my name. I 
 have not written her the doctor's last opinion. 
 
 " Will you please (without considering my 
 personal desires) let me know which course 
 you think is best for me to pursue to harm 
 least the Volunteer Movement ? I am sorry 
 to bother you about this, but it seems more 
 honest to write the situation." 
 
 She was advised to let her name remain on 
 the rolls of the Movement, and was willing 
 to do so. But her conscience kept the mat- 
 ter in view. 
 
A Memorial 69 
 
 In the fall of 1903 the Rev. Harlan P. 
 Beach wrote complimenting her on the sue- 
 cess of a missionary conference at Smith, at- 
 tended by delegates from the colleges and 
 schools in the Connecticut Valley. She was 
 never willing to take any credit for success- 
 ful work which she could possibly pass on to 
 others, and she wrote in reply : 
 
 " Please do not think the success of the 
 conference was in any way due to me. Mr. 
 Kilborne (who had charge of the conference) 
 thought of it and called a meeting of repre- 
 sentatives from each college to talk it over 
 last spring. The real success, I think, came 
 as a direct answer to prayer first, and second, 
 from the help and inspiration given by the 
 speakers. 
 
 " I do not think that any of us feel that we 
 have done anything for which we should re- 
 ceive any credit, but we all do feel the hap- 
 piness and the thankfulness that have come 
 through the inspiration of the conference. 
 I am writing this note because I hate to 
 think that you think that any of the credit 
 of the conference belongs to me. It does 
 not even in the slightest degree. Please 
 don't acknowledge this note. I should not 
 
70 Alice Jackson 
 
 have written it if I thought you would, or that 
 it would add one more to the many letters 
 you must receive daily. 
 
 " Thank you again so much for your kind 
 letter." 
 
 She left Smith in June, when the college 
 closed. " Her presence," wrote the head of 
 the house where she had lived during her 
 secretaryship, " Her presence was like sun- 
 shine in the house, and the thought that she 
 would return to us sometimes was a source of 
 joy. Her one thought was of helping 
 others." It was indeed ever and only that. 
 Those who knew her best can bear convinc- 
 ing testimony. They recall her loving un- 
 selfishness to little children, her utter self- 
 forgetfulness in giving help whenever men or 
 women or little ones needed help. And 
 never, amid all the sweetest memories of 
 their lives, will they forget the silver ripple of 
 her laughter or the golden radiance of her 
 glorious hair around and above a face where 
 strength and a beauty all her own and as true 
 love as ever shone from any eyes, were 
 mingled together. 
 
VI 
 
 HER SUMMERS AND HER 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 IN the summer Alice went to the Young 
 Women's Conference at Silver Bay, 
 where she had gone often with the 
 Smith delegation and where she did as much 
 for the young women from other and smaller 
 institutions as she did for her own. In the 
 statement regarding religious conditions in 
 the women's colleges which has been already 
 quoted, she wrote : " I think it would be 
 well to give the representatives from the 
 smaller colleges the best rooms and the best 
 accommodations in every way at the sum- 
 mer conferences. If any delegations must 
 be scattered let those of the larger colleges 
 be the ones." Watchful always for those 
 who were being overlooked, she arranged 
 meetings for the waitresses and servants 
 whose work kept them out of the meetings. 
 She was ever looking for the present oppor- 
 tunity. Her longing for China made her 
 
72 Alice Jackson 
 
 only the keener and more eager to do all 
 that she could for those who were near at 
 hand. This summer she went, also, to the 
 Young Women's Conference at Northfield, 
 and then on for a rest with friends at 
 Diamond Pond, New Hampshire. There, as 
 everywhere, she found people to be loved 
 and ways of helping them, and rejoiced all 
 the more in the beauty of the lakes and the 
 balsam and birch forests and the clear, uplift- 
 ing air, as she wished that others might share 
 them with her. She found these golden 
 days, too, for her correspondence. She was 
 the most tireless letter-writer. At Christmas 
 time she wrote to scores of friends, little 
 personal notes that they treasured as their 
 best possessions, and throughout the years 
 she kept in touch with friends in all situations 
 in life whom she had met and whom she 
 held and cheered. There was one Roman 
 Catholic girl whom she had come to know at 
 Smith, to whom she wrote regularly letters 
 of comfort and courage. The acquaintance 
 had begun before the girl came to college. 
 Alice had written to her one of the letters 
 already mentioned as having gone to all in- 
 coming students. This was the letter : 
 
A Memorial 73 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss : 
 
 " It was so nice a short time ago to 
 hear that you are coming to Smith College 
 this autumn, and we shall all be very glad to 
 welcome you there. 
 
 " You will enjoy the college life, I am sure. 
 It is so informal and we do have so many 
 jolly times together. 
 
 " A little later in the summer (if you have 
 not already received them) you will receive a 
 copy of our Christian Association report for 
 last year and a handbook giving its consti- 
 tution and an account of some of the other 
 sides of the college life. I do hope that 
 there will be something in the Christian As- 
 sociation that will appeal to you. Its work 
 is very varied and there is a great deal of it, 
 for besides the Bible and Mission Study 
 Classes, which we have, we do a great deal 
 of extension work in and about Northampton. 
 
 " I am enclosing some questions, which I 
 am going to ask you to be kind enough to 
 answer and to return to me this summer. 
 
 " I shall be in Northampton at 9 Belmont 
 Avenue on and after September I9th, and 
 Miss Van Kleeck, the president of the asso- 
 ciation, will return to the Tyler House the 
 
74 Alice Jackson 
 
 day before. If at any time, and in any part 
 of the college life, I can be of the least help 
 please let me, for it will be such a pleasure." 
 
 The reply indicated that the newcomer 
 was a Roman Catholic, so Alice wrote again 
 a personal friendly letter. 
 
 When the new student came Alice at once 
 took her into her heart. When her health 
 broke down under the effort of self-support 
 in college, Alice's love came to her assist- 
 ance, and when later she went West and for 
 a long time suffered in a hospital, Alice's let- 
 ters brought her ever new courage and also 
 sometimes the material help which always 
 accompanied Alice's love for any whom she 
 could help, and which if her own resources 
 were exhausted she could always command 
 from some of her friends. Thus she wrote : 
 
 " Don't begin to work too soon, dear. 
 Give us the pleasure of feeling that you are 
 resting a little longer and then you really will 
 grow stronger. I am going to ask you to do 
 a big and a hard thing, and that is to send 
 me word about any lack of money, a week 
 or two before you think it will give out. 
 
 " You are a dear, brave girl, and I love 
 you for it, as well as for yourself." 
 
A Memorial 75 
 
 " The girls at Smith are anxious to give 
 you a Christmas present, and they have just 
 sent me a check for $i 16 for you. Will you 
 please send me your address so that I can 
 send it at once to you ? I am so happy 
 about it, dear child, and I hope that for a few 
 months, at least, you will not work, but take 
 a real solid rest." 
 
 To this friend she wrote one of her letters 
 from Diamond Pond : 
 
 " I hate to think of you as suffering, and 
 so many, many times I have longed to bear 
 some of it for you. One of my sisters has 
 been very ill this summer, and that, with 
 many other unexpected events, has kept me 
 from writing to some of my friends as often 
 as I have wished to do. And yet there is 
 always so much time each day when one 
 thinks lovingly of them. And very often 
 my thoughts turn lovingly to the dear friend 
 who has taught me how much beauty may 
 come into a life ' though suffering.' Some- 
 times when I feel the need of physical strength 
 most, it seems to me that the strength of God 
 is most with me. And you, so much more 
 fully than I, have learned that lesson. . . . 
 
 " Write me whenever you feel like doing 
 
76 Alice Jackson 
 
 so, dear. My time is much more my own 
 now, and you know I am always deeply in- 
 terested in all of your plans. I have just re- 
 newed my stamp supply and am going to 
 put a few of them in this letter. You had 
 better address everything to Englewood, 
 N. J., for I shall not be here long. This is 
 such a beautiful spot above the White Moun- 
 tains. I do wish that you might share it 
 with me." 
 
 Even these quotations give a very inade- 
 quate idea of the ministry of Alice in her 
 notes and letters. On railroad trains and in 
 the spare minutes of a visit to friends she 
 would find time to write, and her little mes- 
 sages came to burdened or perplexed or lone- 
 some hearts, just in their time of need. 
 
VII 
 
 IN THE WELFARE WORK AT 
 LUDLOW 
 
 IN the fall of 1904 Alice went to Lud- 
 low, Massachusetts, as secretary of the 
 Welfare Work of the Manufacturing As- 
 sociates. The factories made coarse textiles 
 and employed 2,OOO people, mostly unskilled 
 foreign labour and largely women and chil- 
 dren. The company had b uilt and owned most 
 of the village streets, also the water and electric 
 light service. They had some 300 houses, 
 mostly single cottages with small grounds 
 about them. The town authorities managed 
 the schools, which contained over 600 chil- 
 dren ; but no instruction was given in cook- 
 ing or sewing. The village had a beautiful 
 library, containing a reading-room and some 
 3,000 carefully selected books. There was a 
 well-organized men's club, using an old mill 
 building for headquarters and with a large 
 athletic field. Of the women's work a state- 
 ment of the conditions, which was furnished 
 Alice, said : 
 
 77 
 
78 Alice Jackson 
 
 " The women's club has temporary quar- 
 ters in an old office building ; and the women 
 also use the vacant mill for basket-ball and 
 athletic work ; and here also are frequently 
 held Saturday evening dances. 
 
 " There is soon to be built a large club 
 house for the men, containing gymnasium 
 and swimming-pool, both of which will be 
 reserved for the women and children at cer- 
 tain times. An addition for the women and 
 children will be provided as soon as the man- 
 agement believe that the best line of work 
 has been satisfactorily established. 
 
 " While the men's club is patronized by a 
 large and increasing number without much 
 regard to nationality, the women's club has 
 become rather exclusive and does not reach 
 the women and children most needing its in- 
 fluence ; and this is one of the most difficult 
 problems before the social worker, and can 
 perhaps only be solved by beginning with 
 the children before they leave the school ; 
 and it is here that the main work must be 
 done. At fourteen most of the children leave 
 school with the usual primary education, and 
 begin work in the mills ; and it is the wish 
 of the company to supplement the school 
 
A Memorial 79 
 
 education by interesting these children in the 
 proper use of the library, by classes in per- 
 sonal hygiene, athletics, swimming, dancing 
 and gardening. For the boys instruction as 
 to their duties as citizens of the republic ; for 
 the girls lessons in cooking, sewing and care 
 of the house. In short, to create out of these 
 children of foreign parentage, citizens of the 
 United States, men and women with sound 
 and healthy bodies, who will enter with in- 
 telligence and interest into their village and 
 household activities ; and be acquainted with 
 the most simple forms of rational enjoyment." 
 
 This was the work which Alice took up 
 for the year 1904-05. All the while she was 
 fighting her battle for health, and even for life, 
 but with a smile so cheerful and an enthusiasm 
 for others' interests so genuine that no one 
 but her doctor and a few of her closest friends 
 knew of the struggle that was going on. 
 
 To one of her sisters she wrote from Lud- 
 low in November : 
 
 " Ludlow is a small but very pretty town. 
 It is entirely given up to the factory. Al- 
 most every one has something or other to do 
 with it, and to me it is very novel. 
 
 " There is a large population of Polanders, 
 
80 Alice Jackson 
 
 and it is very fascinating to watch them at 
 noon go to their work after dinner. They 
 wear shawls, some beautifully embroidered, 
 and then a coloured handkerchief over their 
 heads. Large numbers live in the same 
 house. They each buy their own piece of 
 meat, but cook it in a common pot. Then 
 there are Italians, French, Scotch and Irish. 
 I can hardly understand the Scotch. One 
 girl has the most beautiful voice. She came 
 down the other night and sang < Annie 
 Laurie ' and some other songs to us. I do 
 wish that her voice might be trained. 
 
 " I had to go to Holyoke last Sunday after- 
 noon, so I went to Northampton for the 
 night and did have such a good time. I had 
 to come back early the next morning, but 
 saw a good many people in the meantime. 
 I have so many friends in Northampton and 
 Springfield and all through this part of the 
 country, and though I shall not be able to go 
 to see them, yet it is nice to feel that they 
 are so near. Just at present I rather enjoy 
 being alone part of each day. I rest and do 
 my writing, and the time slips away only too 
 quickly. I do enjoy the work, and I am 
 really growing to know the people. . . . 
 
A Memorial 81 
 
 " I feel one of the most beautiful lessons I 
 have learned the last two or three years is to 
 trust in God and not be anxious. The kind 
 of work I have been doing since I left college 
 has brought me so closely into touch with 
 the sorrows and disappointments of others, 
 and so I have had a very especial oppor- 
 tunity of learning that God can help and 
 comfort, when human love and sympathy are 
 all too small. 
 
 " You would like this quaint little town 
 and all the pretty little houses which are 
 being put up on it. They are using a stone 
 that is really cement, and it will be interesting 
 to see how the experiment works. I started 
 this letter this morning, and now it is evening." 
 
 It was a characteristic year which Alice 
 spent at Ludlow. Those whom she met she 
 won and wherever any one was to be reached 
 there she was to be found. After her death 
 a classmate who had gone to Ludlow to give 
 cooking classes wrote : " The whole village 
 feels that we have lost a true friend and no one 
 can estimate how great her influence here is. 
 Occasionally an incident comes to light which 
 adds to my wonder at the amount she ac- 
 complished in so short a time." 
 
84 Alice Jackson 
 
 done for them, and she succeeded, to some 
 degree, in her efforts to bring about more 
 cordial relations. 
 
 " On her first coming, the active members 
 of the institute, having in mind previous un- 
 pleasant experiences, were a little shy in their 
 acceptance of her good offices, but it needed 
 only a few weeks' intercourse with her to 
 make every one of them without exception 
 her devoted friends, and proud to be so. 
 
 " She made arrangements for the resump- 
 tion of evening cooking classes for the mill 
 employees, securing as a director for them, 
 Miss Florence Lilly, a former college friend, 
 who was a resident of a neighbouring city. 
 
 " Then she threw herself into the work of 
 getting hold of the young people in after- 
 noon and evening sewing and other classes 
 and soon had so many of them interested 
 that the institute rooms were taxed to con- 
 tain them, and, through it all, her sweet and 
 lovable disposition made friends of the moth- 
 ers, as well as of the children, and an influ- 
 ence was exercised which could not be meas- 
 ured. 
 
 " In her efforts to reach the women and 
 girls in the mills, she was ably seconded by 
 
A Memorial 83 
 
 what she would wish some kind soul to do 
 for our boy under similar circumstances. 
 And so she came to us and was a blessing to 
 us from the day she first crossed the thres- 
 hold. 
 
 " The Girls' Institute, as the organization 
 was known, which had been formed for wel- 
 fare work among the women and girls em- 
 ployed in the Ludlow mills, had a nucleus of 
 active members and a board of directors 
 drawn from among the employees and rep- 
 resentative of the various nationalities, there 
 being amongst them natives of England, Ire- 
 land, Scotland and Canada, and they were 
 equally mixed in creed, some being Catholics, 
 some Episcopalians, some Presbyterians, 
 some Congregationalists, and so on, and to 
 avoid any possible cause of offense or fric- 
 tion, the welfare work was necessarily con- 
 ducted on strictly secular lines. 
 
 " From the beginning she set herself to 
 bridge a chasm which seemed to have formed 
 between the active members of the institute 
 and women of the community outside of the 
 mills who assumed a critical attitude towards 
 the work of the institute and even questioned 
 whether the girls were worth what was being 
 
84 Alice Jackson 
 
 done for them, and she succeeded, to some 
 degree, in her efforts to bring about more 
 cordial relations. 
 
 " On her first coming, the active members 
 of the institute, having in mind previous un- 
 pleasant experiences, were a little shy in their 
 acceptance of her good offices, but it needed 
 only a few weeks' intercourse with her to 
 make every one of them without exception 
 her devoted friends, and proud to be so. 
 
 " She made arrangements for the resump- 
 tion of evening cooking classes for the mill 
 employees, securing as a director for them, 
 Miss Florence Lilly, a former college friend, 
 who was a resident of a neighbouring city. 
 
 " Then she threw herself into the work of 
 getting hold of the young people in after- 
 noon and evening sewing and other classes 
 and soon had so many of them interested 
 that the institute rooms were taxed to con- 
 tain them, and, through it all, her sweet and 
 lovable disposition made friends of the moth- 
 ers, as well as of the children, and an influ- 
 ence was exercised which could not be meas- 
 ured. 
 
 " In her efforts to reach the women and 
 girls in the mills, she was ably seconded by 
 
A Memorial 85 
 
 the directors of the institute, and finding 
 that some of the employees who lived at a 
 distance from the mills brought their dinners 
 with them, or had them brought to them, she 
 had the lower floor of the institute fitted 
 with furniture and opened it as a dining- 
 room, where the female employees could 
 have their dinners in comfort. Not content 
 with this, she prepared tea and coffee, and 
 simple soups for them, at a practically nom- 
 inal cost, so that they might not be confined 
 to cold dinners. The idea met with a fair 
 response for a time, but, strange as it may 
 seem, the most of those who did not go 
 home to dinner felt so reasonably comfort- 
 able in their workrooms that they hated to 
 go to the trouble of leaving them, even for 
 the short distance to the institute, which was 
 quite close to the mills ; so eventually the ex- 
 periment was abandoned. 
 
 " In her work with women and girls in the 
 evening she was ably assisted by a very ef- 
 ficient physical director, who had been giving 
 the girls instruction in this line, as well as in 
 reading and dramatics, for several years, and 
 who, by her patient and tactful manner, had 
 really been the means of holding the girls 
 
86 Alice Jackson 
 
 together in the work, and was, naturally, a 
 very great favourite with them, and the cor- 
 dial and harmonious relations which were 
 established between their two leaders, and 
 the entire absence of anything like jealousy 
 between them, were a source of great satisfac- 
 tion to the members of the institute and of 
 great benefit to the welfare work in which 
 they were all interested, creating bonds of 
 practical sympathy, and spreading most 
 beneficent influence over all who came in 
 touch with the work. 
 
 " The winter, spring and summer passed 
 all too rapidly away, and, in addition to ful- 
 filling her duties as social secretary, she gave 
 much of her spare time to purely religious 
 work in connection with the missionary so- 
 cieties of churches here and in other towns 
 which she visited from time to time. 
 
 " In her ministrations among the families 
 of the employees, she was particularly suc- 
 cessful in securing and retaining their affec- 
 tion, and though the working conditions 
 were such that there was no excuse for want 
 among any of them, such occasional cases of 
 need through sickness or improper use of 
 their means as came within her observation 
 
A Memorial 87 
 
 were relieved in such an unobtrusive and 
 kindly way that much real good was ac- 
 complished. 
 
 " To some of the girls who spoke only 
 French, or Polish, she gave lessons in Eng- 
 lish, and she applied her knowledge of 
 French to giving instruction in it to English- 
 speaking girls who desired to learn French. 
 
 " She never seemed to have an idle mo- 
 ment and had frequently to be almost com- 
 pelled by friends to take needed rest. If she 
 were not engaged with clubs or classes of 
 some kind, she would be writing cheerful 
 and encouraging letters to former friends, or 
 sewing or embroidering something which, on 
 inquiry, would be found to be for the benefit 
 of some one else less fortunate than she 
 thought herself; indeed her whole energy 
 seemed to be concentrated on doing as much 
 good as was possible with what she realized 
 was likely to be the short span of life allotted 
 to her, and yet all this time she was making 
 a brave fight for what was left of it, making 
 frequent trips to her medical adviser in New 
 York, who finally, to our great sorrow, in- 
 sisted that she give up her work here and 
 return to her home in New Jersey, that she 
 
88 Alice Jackson 
 
 might be more closely under his obser- 
 vation. 
 
 " As one of the directors of the Girls' In- 
 stitute has ably expressed it, to meet and 
 speak and work with her was to be lifted out 
 of one's self and to go from her presence 
 feeling ashamed of how little goodness one 
 had." 
 
 Some of her letters from Ludlow to the 
 friend to whom she had written the letter 
 from Diamond Pond reveal her sympathies, 
 and the last one explains her plan for the 
 following year : 
 
 " Indeed, I do not think you a ' chronic 
 grumbler,' but a brave, plucky girl, and 
 one whom I love very dearly, and who 
 I like to feel will write to me often and 
 especially on the darker days, when every- 
 thing does not seem bright. Poor little 
 girl, I hate to think that you suffer. It is 
 hard to work when one does not feel well. 
 I am going to write to one or two of my 
 friends in Chicago, who may know of a posi- 
 tion which would not require so much phys- 
 ical labour. 
 
 " I often think of you, dear, and it is a 
 very real joy, that you will write to me about 
 
A Memorial 89 
 
 yourself. I myself am better, and am enjoy- 
 ing my work here among the factory girls so 
 much. We have learned to know and love 
 one another and they are very real friends to 
 me. 
 
 " I received such a beautiful letter from 
 Father Gallen a short time ago, and he sent 
 me as a New Year's gift a manual and 
 prayer-book of the Catholic Church. 
 
 " With very much love for the dear little 
 friend whose courage is a great help to me 
 and whose love a deep joy, believe me, etc." 
 
 " I am thinking of you constantly though, 
 dear, and I think soon that we will be able 
 to find just the right thing for you. . . . 
 
 " Do not grow discouraged, dear. It is 
 hard when you are ill and tired, but I believe 
 that brighter days are coming. . . . 
 
 " You know I shall always be glad to help 
 you in any possible way. I have other 
 plans, too, and will write you later about 
 them." 
 
 " I am so glad about the operation and de- 
 lighted that it was so successful. Now I am 
 sure you will be much stronger and better. 
 
90 Alice Jackson 
 
 Do not be distressed if you have to rest for 
 some weeks before beginning work, and 
 when you feel able to do so, will you send 
 me word how long the doctor would like to 
 have you stay in the hospital ? It is hard, I 
 know, to be sick, and the days must be very 
 long and lonely. I have been sick myself, 
 so I know what it feels like." 
 
 " How sorry I am that you are having so 
 much pain. The rest will do you good, 
 dear, if there is any rest when you are suffer- 
 ing. Stay in the hospital just as long as you 
 can, and when the doctor thinks that you are 
 well enough to come out, send me word. . . 
 
 " Last Monday I spent in Boston, seeing 
 some of the different forms of settlement 
 work that they are carrying on there. I was 
 very much impressed with the fact that that 
 ' slum district ' as I suppose it would be 
 called (though I hate the term) is very su- 
 perior to that of New York. 
 
 " The apple blossoms and the lilies and 
 violets are all out now." 
 
 " You are such a brave child and I admire 
 you more than I can tell you for your cour- 
 
A Memorial 91 
 
 age. We will all try to think of just the 
 best thing for you. At present I think you 
 had better stay in the hospital just as long as 
 you can. You are so absolutely sure there 
 of the very best treatment. And that is so 
 important just now. We do so hope, that 
 you will be finally cured. It is hard to be in 
 the hospital, dear child, when you are so 
 anxious to be at work, but it may mean that 
 you will be quite well some time soon. I am 
 going to write to one of my friends in 
 Chicago, who will be so glad to come to see 
 you, if she is at home. I have had a busy 
 summer so far. I came home on the fourth 
 of July and since that time have been to 
 Northfield and to Atlantic City to confer- 
 ences. Since I came home again I have had 
 a good many guests and have also been busy 
 getting a class history ready for print. I 
 may possibly go to the White Mountains for 
 a week or two before I go back to Ludlow. 
 I am going there for one month only as my 
 doctor wishes me to be in New York next 
 winter. I am going to be there to try to 
 start clubs in some of the factories and pos- 
 sibly in some of the apartment stores." 
 She went to Northfield again this summer, 
 
92 Alice Jackson 
 
 but not to Silver Bay, and then back to Lud- 
 low for a month. The following letters were 
 written in September, 1905 : 
 
 " Your life is such a strong, helpful one. 
 That means suffering, for in such a real way 
 you do carry the burdens of others." 
 
 " Death is just the going on into a life of 
 fuller love and of fuller service. I have 
 thought of death so often the last few weeks, 
 and more and more it has seemed to me to 
 be just the falling asleep, to awaken to see 
 Christ's smile and to more really feel His 
 touch. And there with Him one will feel 
 no sadness, for looking ori those whom they 
 love, who are suffering so, they will see that 
 God's arms are about them, and that out of 
 the deepness of the sorrow, He is bringing 
 peace. ... I know how your heart aches, 
 how deep it goes, and what a long, long, 
 weary way you must walk, before you can 
 join the one who will always be your nearest 
 and your dearest one. But I know that God 
 is going to help." 
 
 " She always attributed to others the quali- 
 ties which her own life abounded in," wrote 
 the one to whom this last letter was written. 
 
A Memorial 93 
 
 " Her belief in me made me, I know, strive 
 for higher and better and nobler things. . . . 
 I know that I have done a great deal because 
 she expected me to do it, and one could not 
 show a selfish side to one who was abso- 
 lutely selfless. She had that rare quality of 
 getting others to work and to work gladly." 
 
VIII 
 
 IN INDUSTRIAL WORK IN NEW 
 YORK CITY 
 
 IN the late fall she returned to New 
 York to be under the doctor's closer 
 care, but all the while to be busily at 
 work also as industrial secretary for the New 
 York City Young Woman's Christian Asso- 
 ciation. The work was among the girls in 
 the factories in New York City and was car- 
 ried on under the supervision of a little com- 
 mittee, but Alice was left free to develop the 
 work in accordance with her own ideas, the 
 aim being to improve the condition of the 
 girls but more especially to improve the girls 
 themselves by winning them to the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 Miss Louise S. Holmquist, who had charge 
 throughout the state of the work which Alice 
 Jackson was doing in New York City, 
 writes : 
 
 " In every factory where she went her 
 name is all that is necessary to give us a 
 warm welcome as her friends. She went 
 94 
 
A Memorial 95 
 
 regularly to three or four factories and had 
 an evening club where there were girls from 
 many of the industrial establishments on the 
 West Side between 42d and 59th Streets. 
 Her coming at the noon hour was always 
 greeted with great happiness and she had a 
 peculiar ability in winning the friendship of 
 individual girls and women throughout the 
 mills. It was especially wonderful to see 
 how she entered into the life of those who 
 were suffering from any need, and her work 
 in the factories was only the smallest part of 
 what she was able to do. She visited in the 
 homes and hospitals and helped many a 
 family to solve difficult problems. Until she 
 left us she wrote faithfully to many of the 
 girls whom she knew even slightly, and her 
 letters were always messengers of hope and 
 courage to those who received them. 
 
 " Her work, of course, covered the four 
 sides of their lives as she was careful to plan 
 for their social, physical, intellectual and spir- 
 itual needs. In the summer she spent the 
 hot days in planning outings and every one 
 who knew her felt that she was giving her 
 very life to these girls who loved her and 
 needed her so sorely." 
 
96 Alice Jackson 
 
 She taught on Sundays a class in the Sun- 
 day-school of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 
 Church, and, of course, kept in close touch 
 with the work at Christodora House. She 
 was at this time chairman of the Membership 
 Committee of the Women's University Club. 
 She was always eager for all kinds of service, 
 subsidiary to whatever was her main respon- 
 sibility, and being in New York, beside keep- 
 ing her near her doctor and giving her a 
 great main task in the factories, also gave her 
 the ample opportunities in which she always 
 rejoiced for many forms of personal service. 
 She gave no little service to Miss Grace 
 Dodge in her work for city girls. " She 
 once remarked to me," writes one of her sis- 
 ters, " that Daniels was the only shop in New 
 York in which she did not know some of the 
 saleswomen, and on going there was imme- 
 diately addressed as a friend by one of them. 
 Alice felt very strongly that to her had 
 been given the enthusiasm and ability to 
 organize and carry on work in its early 
 stages, work that could be well carried on 
 by others when it was once well established. 
 To this conviction and also in some measure 
 to her health were due the frequent changes 
 
A Memorial 97 
 
 in her work. She kept up with friends made 
 and letter-writing was a large part of her 
 daily work. She kept year by year a daily 
 record of those to whom she had written per- 
 sonal letters. She always felt that the value 
 of her work lay in her personal intercourse 
 with others as contrasted with the service of 
 those who work for causes rather than indi- 
 viduals." 
 
 The summer of 1906 Alice spent in good 
 part at home in Englewood, where she found 
 special ways of giving loving help to friends 
 in need. She attended the Young Women's 
 Conference at Northfield in July and wrote a 
 careful summary of Deaconess Knapp's work 
 in her Mission Study Class on Comparative 
 Religion for the September number of the 
 Record of Christian Work. In August she 
 wrote her last letter to the friend who had 
 dropped out of college : 
 
 " This summer I was at Northfield for two 
 weeks, and next week am either going to 
 Maine or to the St. Lawrence, and then am 
 hoping to visit Margaret Bridges. I wonder if 
 you will remember her. Her sister died very 
 suddenly this summer. 
 
 " I cannot help hoping that you will not 
 
98 Alice Jackson 
 
 go to work too soon. It is such a tempta- 
 tion to begin before one really has one's full 
 strength, and you must not lose what you 
 have gained in that way. I myself am so 
 much better now." 
 
IN COLLEGE DAYS 
 
IX 
 
 AT DANA HALL 
 
 IN the autumn she went to Wellesley, 
 with the doctor's consent, to teach the 
 Bible and to work among the girls in 
 Miss Cooke's School, Dana Hall. She found 
 opportunities, of course, for meeting, also, the 
 young women in the college. One of the 
 college professors writes : 
 
 " My own acquaintance with her was 
 slight, but I have rarely been so impressed 
 by any one whom I really knew so little. 
 Every time she came to our house I used to 
 say : ' What a beautiful winning girl Alice 
 Jackson is.' ... I noticed her ease in meet- 
 ing the girls, and how she drew them un- 
 consciously into earnest conversation and 
 held them by her own gentle earnestness. I 
 could readily understand that she had the 
 gift of power over people, a power that 
 radiated from her own lovely unselfish spirit. 
 ... To me it seems remarkable that she 
 should have given so definite and true an im- 
 99 
 
ioo Alice Jackson 
 
 pression to one almost a stranger, definite 
 and true and direct as light. . . . Such souls, 
 like their Master, bring life and immortality 
 to light." 
 
 Her last work was the work in Dana Hall. 
 Letters from two of the girls there will best 
 describe what her influence was : 
 
 " I loved her very much, and I realize 
 more and more all the time how great a 
 privilege it was to know her as I did, but 
 thoughts are sometimes hard to express ! 
 Miss Jackson was not here with us long, only 
 from September until December, but in that 
 short time she won the love and friend- 
 ship of all who knew her. I think every 
 one felt that she was their friend, even 
 though they did not know her personally. 
 She was always bright and cheerful when- 
 ever you met her, always ready with a smile 
 and a helpful word or act. But to the girls 
 who seemed lonely or unhappy, she was 
 kindest of all. She knew that schoolgirls 
 miss ' home ' and she used to take them home 
 with her in the afternoon and read or talk to 
 them in her loving way. She always saw 
 the good side in people and in life herself, so 
 she could show it to us too. Some of my 
 
A Memorial' 101 
 
 happiest hours last year were spent with 'her 
 in that way. 
 
 " Miss Jackson had our Junior Bible Class. 
 Sometimes the girls do not care much for 
 Bible Class. They think it is too much like 
 an English recitation or any other class. 
 But it was not so that year. Miss Jackson 
 gave the class her own spirit, she made it 
 * an hour of prayer.' The girls grew thor- 
 oughly interested and earnest. We were glad 
 to work for her, and yet she always did most 
 for us, and we appreciated that. On the 
 morning of her death that class was called as 
 usual. We were told what had happened 
 and were dismissed. The silence in the room 
 and the sorrow on the girls' faces spoke what 
 was in each one's heart. They had each lost 
 a friend. I think after all a few words of her 
 own will speak for the rest. She led our 
 prayer-meeting one Wednesday evening, and 
 she took her text from the fifteenth chapter of 
 John, the eleventh verse. She called it the 
 ' Joy of Discipleship/ and that seemed to me 
 her whole life. She talked to us of the deep 
 and abiding joy of being a disciple of Christ, 
 of loving and serving Him. I knew that she 
 loved and served Him, and that she served 
 
10*2 Alice Jackson 
 
 .those aioumUrer, r too, for His sake, for I had 
 experienced it. Surely, too, it was an act, or 
 many acts, of service and love to keep up a 
 correspondence with two hundred and fifty 
 people, as she once told me she did." 
 
 "Although Miss Jackson was at Dana 
 Hall such a short time, her influence was felt 
 by each of the two hundred girls. I do not 
 think that there has ever been another teacher 
 in the school whose personality made itself 
 more felt, in fun as well as in the more seri- 
 ous things. In games of basket-ball she was 
 referee, she took an active part in the sale 
 held before Christmas, she was deeply inter- 
 ested in getting up a school paper, she had a 
 Bible class, and of course she was a great in- 
 spiration in the Christian Association. She 
 was interested in everything that happened 
 in the school, elections, plays, athletics, in 
 fact when we talked with her we felt as if she 
 were one of us, liking the same things and 
 having the same interests. In everything 
 and everywhere, she showed the same beauti- 
 ful Christ spirit that made her the ideal of 
 some of us. 
 
 " We always had a standing invitation to 
 
A Memorial 103 
 
 take afternoon tea with her, and it was a treat 
 indeed to go, and in the twilight gather around 
 the little table and listen to her experiences, 
 both at college and in New York. One 
 night she invited me to supper, and after 
 talking about college and the girls one meets 
 there, the conversation drifted to the difficulty 
 of a girl who is not rich being with those 
 who are, and always having to accept fa- 
 vours, and never being able to return them. 
 I think I received a better insight into her 
 character than ever before, how she associated 
 with rich and poor alike, had the difficult 
 task of accepting for herself, as well as that 
 of inducing others to accept from her, and 
 what tact and keen knowledge of human na- 
 ture she possessed in order to successfully 
 accomplish her ends. I love to think of her 
 as I left her that night, standing in the door- 
 way with the moon shining full on her, and 
 her glorious hair making a halo around her 
 face. 
 
 " She was always thinking of others and try- 
 ing to do kind little things to make some one 
 happy. The night of the Christmas sale she 
 had some brass articles to sell, and among 
 them were some little candlesticks, one of 
 
IO4 Alice Jackson 
 
 which I purchased. After the sale was over 
 she came up to me and gave me the mate to 
 my candlestick, saying that it had not been 
 sold and she wanted me to have it. Then 
 again we were talking about Bible study, and 
 I happened to say that my Bible had been 
 destroyed and that consequently I was with- 
 out one. Immediately, as if she were asking 
 the greatest favour, she asked if she might 
 give me another. Every day showed fresh 
 proofs of her generosity, charity, her love for 
 every one, and the girls overlooked by others 
 were sure to be singled out for kindness by 
 Miss Jackson." 
 
 Miss Cooke herself writes : 
 
 " She entered our home to accept what 
 seemed a slight position, but we soon recog- 
 nized her as a distinct power for good in our 
 school. The Bible work took on a new in- 
 terest. She evidently spent numberless hours 
 of the most careful preparation for her weekly 
 lesson, and her pupils often told me that 
 they could not imagine studying the New 
 Testament under a more inspiring teacher. 
 
 " Her relation with all the girls was one of 
 unusually loving and helpful friendship, and 
 her own home was constantly opened to them 
 
A Memorial 105 
 
 in a way that they greatly appreciated. Miss 
 Jackson came to us in the autumn, and as the 
 Christmas season approached I found myself 
 giving frequent permissions to the girls to 
 visit her in the little home on the other side 
 of the town. Sometimes it was to learn to 
 make some pretty gift for the coming holi- 
 day, sometimes to return a book or to bor- 
 row one, and sometimes just to drink a cup 
 of afternoon tea. In such ways she drew the 
 girls very near to her, and having their in- 
 terest and confidence found many opportu- 
 nities to guide and strengthen their higher 
 life. 
 
 " As for myself, I felt her friendship and 
 earnest assistance from the beginning. On 
 one occasion I brought to her a problem of 
 school life which I felt might be solved by 
 her wider experience in Christian Association 
 work. She asked for a little time to think it 
 over, and in a day or two brought me a paper 
 most carefully written containing an inter- 
 esting, helpful, and exhaustive discussion of 
 the whole question with her own positive 
 opinion regarding it. This unusual interest, 
 with the most careful thought and study, 
 seems to me one of the most pronounced 
 
io6 Alice Jackson 
 
 characteristics of her teaching. Above all, 
 the reality of her vision of Christ, and the 
 beautifully practical way in which she lived 
 the life of her Master among us, won and 
 held her pupils and her friends in unusual 
 loyalty. Her withdrawal from Dana Hall 
 brought a deeper sense of loss than the school 
 has ever sustained. Even yet we do not talk 
 very much about Miss Jackson, though she 
 lives in a very vital way in our hearts. We 
 are deeply grateful for the vision of this truly 
 consecrated and womanly life, and for the 
 close association for a brief season with one 
 who, while on earth, ' tossed her arms among 
 the stars/ " 
 
X 
 
 THE END WHICH IS THE BEGINNING 
 
 IN December what the doctor had long 
 anticipated came. The disease which 
 she had courageously fought, to which 
 she had never for one moment surrendered^ 
 closed in inexorably. Her one thought, as 
 always, was of others. " Don't let mother 
 know I have any pain," was her entreaty. 
 " Don't let mother be sad." She did not 
 realize the danger of her last illness, but 
 thought she was suffering from some local 
 trouble which would yield to treatment in a 
 few weeks. This she thought would upset 
 the plans for the family reunion at Christmas, 
 so she begged the two sisters with whom and 
 her mother she made her home in Wellesley, 
 to arrange that she be placed in the hospital 
 so that they could go to Englewood without 
 her. She never quite understood that she 
 was the centre of the family love and care, 
 and that to leave her would have been impos- 
 sible, even if her recovery had been certain, 
 107 
 
io8 Alice Jackson 
 
 but her thought, as always, was for others, 
 and not for herself. Her suffering was not 
 for many days, and on December i$th she 
 entered into the great light for which she had 
 longed, and saw in His beauty the King she 
 had ever loved and served. 
 
 Her death was felt at once by hundreds 
 who had known her, as a great personal loss, 
 but also as a great personal gain and as a new 
 and irrefutable proof of life's unendingness. 
 Testimonies of what she had been and done 
 came from every quarter, from rich and poor, 
 from near and far. Those who had known 
 her in college wrote : 
 
 " How many times I left my restless long- 
 ings in her care and tried again." 
 
 " To me it was especially remarkable the 
 way in which she appealed to and reached 
 girls of all types, the religious, the worldly, 
 and the indifferent girls all loved her and 
 were her friends. 
 
 " I never knew a person who could always 
 find the best in every one as she could. If 
 anything was ever said against another per- 
 son, Alice was always ready to find the best 
 qualities in that person." 
 
 " It was the first year since college that I 
 
A Memorial 109 
 
 had had no Christmas letter from Ajax. 
 ... I don't believe you can read this, for I 
 can scarcely see as I write, for though you 
 say she would not have us grieve, how can 
 we help it?" 
 
 " The beauty of Alice's spirit, her gen- 
 tleness, her marvellous generosity of under- 
 standing and sympathy, her great big love 
 of people. Never have I known any one 
 with greater and more unconditional unsel- 
 fishness." 
 
 " Every picture of Alice which comes 
 across my mind is one in which she was doing 
 something for some one else, that other peo- 
 ple knew nothing about. I simply can't 
 count the number of things she has done for 
 me, but as I wrote her a month or so ago, 
 she came nearest my ideal of a saint of any 
 one in all the world." 
 
 " Did any one ever live so near Him as 
 she did, or was any saint of old more ready 
 to go?" 
 
 " If ever a girl was bent on making life 
 count to the utmost for manifesting the life 
 and the love of the Lord Christ to every one 
 she could touch, that was Alice." 
 
 " It seems to me that any one so good and 
 
no Alice Jackson 
 
 helpful to every one who knew her as Ajax 
 was, is surely more needed here than in 
 heaven. Poor old '98 ! We all loved her so 
 much, and I can't think what a reunion or 
 anything else will be like without her." 
 
 " This sorrow is shared by innumerable 
 others whose lives Alice has touched. The 
 whole class of '98 will feel her death keenly, 
 for she, and she alone, made the effort to 
 keep us in touch with one another. 
 
 " How full to the brim her life was ! She 
 accomplished more than many who live twice 
 as long. It seems wonderful that she could 
 so work up to the very end." 
 
 A doctor in Northampton, who also was 
 her personal friend, wrote : 
 
 " Although I have known for some years 
 that dear Alice might any day be taken from 
 us, still, she was always so oblivious of self 
 in and for others that it was not easy to be- 
 lieve that the poor timid child could ever fall 
 asleep in just that way. 
 
 " Dear Alice, the most unselfish person 
 I've ever known, and among the few per- 
 fectly winsome ones ! I can't imagine any 
 one who could leave so many friends to miss 
 her, and yet to be happy because she has 
 
A Memorial in 
 
 taught them some of the secret of her own 
 unselfishness." 
 
 Professor Irving Wood wrote : 
 
 " She was so full of abounding energy that 
 one can hardly imagine her as having stopped 
 her labour. I never have known a person of 
 more tremendous and more unselfish activity. 
 You know what she has been at Smith Col- 
 lege, but I want to say it that those who do 
 not know us so well as you do may realize 
 that we shall value very highly her memory. 
 She has written her name in a very sacred 
 place on the hearts of hundreds of both stu- 
 dents and faculty, of hundreds that in the 
 total become thousands. She has helped us 
 to be better, and the world is poorer for us 
 without the thought of her in it. She has 
 shown a great many of these young people 
 what religion is, and how it can rule a busy, 
 happy, free life. She has shown us all how 
 a person may carry a bright face with a 
 heart that must often have been sad and 
 troubled. Never but once did she open up 
 to me the side of sorrow, and then she told 
 me of mingled joy and sadness, with entire 
 emphasis on the side of joy ; and that was 
 characteristic." 
 
112 Alice Jackson 
 
 " The memory of her winsome personality 
 and her enthusiastic self-denying Christian 
 life will long be cherished by all who knew 
 her," wrote President Seelye. Other pro- 
 fessors wrote : 
 
 " Alice was as fine an example of devotion 
 to high ideals as I have known. She will 
 long be remembered for the work she did 
 here. She did all her work faithfully and 
 her memory will be revered." 
 
 " What always seemed to me especially 
 remarkable was that she never seemed iso- 
 lated, in the least out of sympathy with all 
 sorts of people. Alice was always such a 
 wonderfully good companion." 
 
 " It was an honour to be her teacher for a 
 little while, and later she was with us at Smith 
 in the bloom and sweetness of her young 
 womanhood. I count her friendship among 
 the treasures of my life, and the heavenly 
 country more to be desired now that her 
 home is there, and I think she is not far 
 away." 
 
 Many to whom Alice's letters would no 
 more come, thought naturally first of their 
 loss and how they could go on without the 
 good cheer which always came from her. 
 
A Memorial 113 
 
 This was the thought of many of her Chris- 
 todora girls. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Jackson," wrote one of them 
 to her mother, " I shall miss my angel ' so 
 much ; what she has been to me and what 
 influence her dear sweet self has been in my 
 life, no one can realize, and her memory and 
 entire self shall live forever in my life. 
 Never, never shall I forget her. I have 
 grown to love her so dearly ever since I first 
 met her at Christodora House about nine 
 years ago, and she has taken such a personal 
 interest in me, has helped me in so many, 
 many ways, and I have looked upon her as 
 my very dearest friend. It was always such 
 pleasure to receive her letters, and hardly a 
 week went by without receiving just a word 
 or thought. 
 
 " What a blessing she was here among us 
 all, so self-sacrificing, never thinking of her- 
 self at all, but always for others. It has been 
 quite a lesson. 
 
 " It has been quite a privilege to have 
 known Miss Alice, and she shall forever be 
 my beautiful ' angel ' and my ' Guiding Star ' 
 through life. I will try very hard not to 
 think her gone away forever." 
 
114 Alice Jackson 
 
 The Mothers' Club at Christodora passed 
 the following resolutions of sympathy 
 with those who were nearest to Alice, 
 and the secretary of the club transmitted 
 them: 
 
 " Mrs. Jackson and family : 
 
 " At the last meeting of the Mothers' 
 Club of Christodora House, the members 
 heard with deepest concern that our 
 heavenly Father had called to her eternal 
 rest your lovely daughter and sister. 
 
 " WHEREAS, Most of us knew Miss Jackson 
 well and loved her not only for her gentle 
 and sunny disposition, but had also become 
 endeared to her through many acts of kind- 
 ness and self-abnegation. 
 
 " WHEREAS, We are indebted to her as the 
 founder of this club, which will be a monu- 
 ment to her insight of the needs of the neigh- 
 bourhood, it was 
 
 " Resolved, That we extend to you the 
 heartfelt sympathy of thirty mothers, many 
 of whom have been called upon to bear sim- 
 ilar losses and know how to feel and pray for 
 others; it was further 
 
 "Resolved, That we do pray that the 
 God who doeth all things well, will show the 
 
A Memorial 115 
 
 light of His countenance upon you and give 
 you peace ; and it was further 
 
 " Resolved, That we send to you a copy 
 of these resolutions and that the same be 
 spread upon our minutes." 
 
 And an Italian mission worker in the city 
 wrote : 
 
 " You do not need to have me tell you 
 what an influence Miss Alice exerted every- 
 where she went. You all know that, and 
 it may truly be said of her that though she 
 is not present with us in a material form, she 
 is living in the lives of many. There is no 
 greater comfort that could come to you 
 than the knowledge of this fact. I could 
 not help speaking concerning her and her 
 work to my Italian people last Sunday 
 morning." 
 
 For all these classes no one could speak 
 with more knowledge and sympathy and au- 
 thority than Miss Grace Dodge. " It is a 
 pleasure," wrote Miss Dodge, " to look back 
 upon her beautiful, happy life, and I appre- 
 ciate to the full what she has meant to so 
 many hundreds of girls. They will all grieve 
 over her going Home, and I express for them 
 all my deep sympathy in your loss." 
 
n6 Alice Jackson 
 
 Among those who felt keenly Alice's 
 going, were not a few older women to whom 
 she had been a closer and more helpful in- 
 fluence than any older friends. Three of 
 these wrote : 
 
 " After my great sorrow came to me, I felt 
 that I was the child and dear Alice the 
 woman, she gave me so much comfort, she 
 wrote me such beautiful letters, and helped 
 me to live a better life for having known 
 her. ... I have lost a great comforter. 
 I know, of course, we have not really 
 lost her. Just to have known her is to keep 
 her always." 
 
 " Alice used to write me such lovely let- 
 ters ; she wrote me just before she was taken 
 ill, and in the letter she wrote these two or 
 three lines : 
 
 " ' For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice, 
 And he who suffers most has most to give.' 
 
 She has sent me these lines before ; she was 
 very, very fond of them." 
 
 " When I knew her but slightly, I was sur- 
 prised to find myself turning to her, instead 
 of an older friend, in my first real sorrow. I 
 
A Memorial 117 
 
 have never ceased to be thankful ; for the im- 
 pulse, the strength, comfort and wisdom of 
 her loving words help me still." 
 
 There were men who had known her glory 
 of character and watched her heroic struggle. 
 One wrote : 
 
 " Her ability to bear suffering without giv- 
 ing the slightest manifestation of it, seemed 
 superhuman, as indeed it truly was. Her 
 Christ never left her. 
 
 " To me her life is the most wonderful 
 demonstration of what Jesus Christ can do 
 with a person when He has absolute right of 
 way, that I have ever seen." 
 
 And another : 
 
 " If there is greater joy and larger life and 
 a sure reward for any of us human beings in 
 the next life, she certainly is having it now. 
 Indeed, of no one whom I know that has 
 died am I more confident than of her, that 
 she is living still, living a fuller life in the 
 companionship of the Father and of Jesus 
 and of other departed ones. Of Miss Alice 
 Jackson I feel more confident than of almost 
 any other friend whom I know, that over and 
 above the advantage to herself in having en- 
 tered the heavenly life, her actual service to 
 
1 1 8 Alice Jackson 
 
 this world has not finished, but that she will 
 continue to do much for those here whom she 
 loved, perhaps even more. You and her other 
 sisters and her mother and her friends will 
 come to know more of what she already ac- 
 complished in loving service, and I believe 
 we will love her more tenderly and actually 
 be helped by her in our daily life more ef- 
 fectively than ever before. Sad as it is to 
 be parted from her and for the world to be 
 deprived of her bodily service, I know of no 
 one, it seems to me, for whom the joy and 
 satisfaction are more exceeding. 
 
 " To me, as to many others, she has been 
 verily a Christ, an Appointed One, an 
 Anointed One, revealing the Father, inter- 
 preting Jesus, helping to the divine life 
 through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Her service has by no means ended. In 
 other lives made more Christlike by her con- 
 tact, she is still living ; through them her 
 ministry is continuing." 
 
 And Dr. Bovaird, who had been her physi- 
 cian and friend from the day she came to 
 him for examination as to her fitness for mis- 
 sionary service, writes : 
 
 " I can hardly express my opinion without 
 
A Memorial 119 
 
 using language which may, to those who 
 never knew her, seem extravagant. How- 
 ever, I shall make the trial. 
 
 " My knowledge of her dates back to the 
 time when defeated in the desire of her 
 heart to go as a missionary to China, she 
 had to face the duty of going on with her 
 work here while suffering from the disease 
 which ultimately brought such an untimely 
 end to her life. At first there was a hope 
 that she might possibly throw off her trouble 
 and be able, in the end, to carry out her 
 purposes, but as time went on with very little 
 change in her condition, it became evident 
 that even that hope was vain. Briefly put, 
 the circumstances under which I came to 
 know Alice Jackson, far from being favour- 
 able, were such as would test, to the limit, 
 the character and will of any one. All this 
 is said only to make it clear that my ap- 
 preciation of the beauty of her character 
 did not take its colour from the chance in- 
 fluence of the conditions under which it was 
 developed. 
 
 " During all the years I knew her she was 
 the same active, earnest, faithful, but above 
 all joyous woman, radiating sunshine as 
 
1 20 Alice Jackson 
 
 naturally as the flowers. To see her smile 
 or hear her laugh always brightened a day. 
 To be sure, there did come times when the 
 strain on both body and mind, the disap- 
 pointment of all her hopes, would bring un- 
 bidden tears to her eyes, but they were al- 
 ways dashed away and the smile that 
 followed seemed all the brighter. I have 
 known stoics who could meet adversity with 
 courage, the resigned who could bear trial 
 without complaint, but I have never known 
 any one who could so smile in the face of 
 the keenest trials that men or women know. 
 
 " Others will tell of her work from various 
 standpoints. The marvel to me was that she 
 should work at all, yet the fact was that she 
 was never idle. The very intervals of travel 
 or waiting were filled with some activity, 
 and she would not consent to give up work 
 even when she knew that physically it might 
 help her. Hard work for others seemed to 
 be the real pleasure of her life. 
 
 " Her laughter and smiles did not come 
 from lack of knowledge of the things that 
 make many sad. Her work brought her into 
 contact with the hard features of poverty, 
 and the scars and deformities of evil were 
 
A Memorial 121 
 
 not unknown to her. Nor did she lack 
 sympathy with those who suffer. Some- 
 where in her heart there was a well-spring 
 of peace and joy that made the hard places 
 smooth, the dark ways brighter, and the end 
 of all things good. 
 
 " Twenty years ago I spent a summer in 
 the eastern part of Oregon in a part of what 
 used to be called the Great American Desert. 
 There rain falls only once in a year or two and 
 the heat of summer is intense. In mid-July I 
 was called upon to make a day's journey over 
 the mountains that separate the middle and 
 south branches of the John Day River in search 
 of supplies for the party with which I was then 
 hunting fossils in those parts. There was no 
 road, and the trail was covered with boulders. 
 Jolting over them would have tried one 
 under the best of conditions. At that 
 season, with the sun burning in a cloudless 
 sky, the heat made the very air palpitate and 
 the journey tried one's endurance thoroughly. 
 Late in the afternoon, having crossed the sum- 
 mit of the mountains, we rapidly made our way 
 down the side, my companion and I shaken 
 and parched into suffering silence. Finally 
 we reached the valley and saw at a distance 
 
122 Alice Jackson 
 
 the wood-lined banks of the river, where we 
 knew there would be some relief. Hurrying 
 towards it we suddenly slipped over the edge 
 of a little ridge, descended a short slope and 
 entered a bit of road entirely overarched by 
 a growth of willow and wild roses. But a 
 little distance jn we pulled up at a clear little 
 stream where both horses and men could 
 drink and revive. So long as I live I can 
 never forget the welcome shade from the 
 burning sun, the fragrance of the cool air 
 which had caught the sweetness. of both 
 flowers and water, and finally the draught of 
 the clear stream itself. Beside the thought 
 of that spot with its welcome shade, the 
 sweetness of the air, and its clear, cool 
 waters, stands the memory of Alice Jackson. 
 She had a mind and heart that left just such 
 an impression upon one. A sweeter, truer 
 Christian woman I never expect to meet." 
 
 From far-off China one woman wrote : 
 " She was one of my saints ; and she had such 
 a rare combination of character. She was 
 so brave, so loving, so true, and she had the 
 widest love and charity for other people." 
 
XI 
 
 HER OWN INTERPRETATION OF 
 LIFE AND DEATH 
 
 SO she passed on, leaving behind her 
 this trail of glory. The Wednesday 
 after her death would have been her 
 birthday. It was her birthday, only not here 
 but in a far fairer country. There, beyond 
 all the pain and limitation against which she 
 strove bravely here, she began the blessed 
 service of eternity. We may be sure her 
 coming in was as Valiant for Truth's when 
 the Holy Pilgrimage was done. " My 
 sword," said he, " I leave to him that comes 
 after me in my pilgrimage, my courage and 
 skill to him that can get it, my marks and 
 scars I carry with me to be witnesses that I 
 have fought His battles who is now to be 
 my rewarder. So he passed over, and all the 
 trumpets sounded for him on the other side." 
 But what she was and what death meant 
 to her, some of her own simple verses tell 
 us better than any borrowed words. Her 
 123 
 
124 Alice Jackson 
 
 own life fulfilled the lines which she wrote 
 about another for one Christmas Day. 
 
 Her life was one of sweet simplicity. 
 Forgetting self, unconsciously each day, 
 She taught the lesson of that sweet denial, 
 The joy of those who on the altar lay 
 Their lives to take them up again for others, 
 Who to the world deep joy and gladness bring, 
 Fulfilling by their daily lives the message 
 Which on the Christmas morn the angels sing. 
 
 The " Harmony " of which she wrote in 
 the little book of college verses called " Cap 
 and Bells " was never in any life more 
 sweetly present than in hers : 
 
 His life was one of quietness, 
 
 No mighty field of action had he sought. 
 
 Yet even as the silence of the evening hour 
 
 The most sublime of harmonies has wrought, 
 
 The harmony of night, 
 
 So, too, his heart, 
 
 Touched by the great musician of all life, 
 
 Sang its own part 
 
 In the great song of songs, 
 
 The Song of Love. 
 
 Men heard the music in their hearts, 
 
 Echoed again the soft low strain, 
 
 Yet hearing it, they could not tell 
 
 From whence it came. 
 
A Memorial 125 
 
 Through all the shadows of her way her 
 own faith saw the Light of God. Of " Even- 
 ing," she had written : 
 
 A golden pathway, stretching forth 
 From earth to heaven, 
 Whereon, at even-tide, the prayers of many 
 Ascend unto the very throne of God. 
 
 Darkness descends, the sun fast sinks to rest. 
 
 And o'er the world a gray cloud 
 
 Hangs outstretched 
 
 To fold all light and brightness in a close embrace. 
 
 Then from above, the great Father of all light 
 
 and truth 
 
 Looks down and sees the earth in her distress, 
 And showers on her 
 The radiance of other worlds. 
 
 So, too, through life darkness is not supreme, 
 
 But still subservient to the light, 
 
 The clouds but come 
 
 To vanish in the dawn of waking day. 
 
 And it was Christ who made her sure of 
 this : 
 
 We do not know, dear, where 
 
 The path on which our feet must stray 
 
 Shall lead, nor yet if dark and lonely be the way. 
 
126 Alice Jackson 
 
 But this we know, 
 
 That night shall be as day, 
 
 With Christ as guide. 
 
 We do not know just where 
 
 This heart of yours and mine 
 
 Shall, round the Cross, its tendrils deep and close 
 
 entwine. 
 
 But this we know, 
 That branches of the Vine 
 Shall share His peace. 
 
 And this we know, 
 
 That whatsoe'er it be, 
 
 Our hearts shall ever full of joy and gladness be, 
 
 Filled with a deep consuming love, 
 
 O Christ, for Thee, 
 
 Who gives us all. 
 
 And so death, of whose near coming she 
 had long known and thought, had no terror 
 for her quiet trust. She saw through it and 
 beyond. About her father she had written : 
 
 They say that he is dead, 
 
 And yet to me 
 
 He is not dead. I ever seem to see 
 
 The same familiar form, to hear his voice 
 
 Speak sweetly as of old. 
 
A Memorial 127 
 
 They say that he is dead, 
 They take me to his grave, 
 And standing there, they wonder 
 Why I do not grieve 
 
 For him as dead They do not understand, 
 
 He has not gone to some far distant land 
 But dwelleth here to-day. 
 
 They say that he is dead, 
 
 And yet to me he is not dead. 
 
 I ever seem to see into the past from whence he 
 
 came, 
 
 Into the future, whither he has gone. 
 He is not dead to me, but closer than before. 
 
 And to whom, but to herself, was she speak- 
 ing in some other lines ? 
 
 Thou would'st not die, dear ? 
 
 Thou would'st live forever 
 
 Here in this world ? 
 
 Seeking the joy that comes without sorrow, 
 
 Living to-day, with no thought of the morrow, 
 
 Thus, would'st thou live, dear ? 
 
 Knowest thou not, dear, 
 
 That death is but life 
 
 In fuller measure ? 
 
 The life of all love, where there is no sorrow, 
 
 Of one long, sweet day with no dread of the 
 
 morrow ? 
 Why fear then to die, dear ? 
 
128 Alice Jackson 
 
 She could not have refrained from think- 
 ing thus for years on what she knew would 
 not be far away, but no one ever found even 
 the shadow of anything unreal in her. No 
 unnatural moods rested upon her. To the 
 end the sunshine of God lightened her life, 
 for she knew that He was and she walked 
 with Him, even as she sang : 
 
 I cannot tell what life may be, 
 I have not walked those paths untrod, 
 But this I know, that come what may 
 Life is, and God is God. 
 
 I cannot tell what death may be, 
 The end of life. Nay, heaven's above. 
 And this I know, whate'er befall, 
 Death is, and God is Love. 
 
 Oh, Thou, the Infinite, the True, 
 Who fought the battle, won the strife, 
 Teach us aright to understand 
 That Life is Hope and Death is Life. 
 
 For her. For us ? 
 
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