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 ONE OF 
 
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 DAUGHTERS 
 
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 OF 
 
 AUSTRALIA'S 
 
 DAUGHTERS. 
 
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 Mrs. Harrison I>ee.
 
 ONE OF 
 
 AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS 
 
 OI- 
 
 Mrs. HARRISON LEE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Ideal Publishing Union, Ltd., ^^, P.\ternoster Row, E.G. 
 
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 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE. 
 
 Prologue : Life : ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 I. Death ... ... ... ... ... g 
 
 II. The Trail of the Serpent ... ... 13 
 
 III. Enoch's Point 16 
 
 IV. Saved ... ... ... ... ... ... 27 
 
 V. The Oddest Child in the World ... 33 
 
 VI. Childhood's Days ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 VII. Two in One ... ... ... ... 42 
 
 VIII. Development... ... ... ... ... 51 
 
 IX. Married 55 
 
 X. Suffering and Service ... ... ... 60 
 
 XI. Learning ... ... ... ... ... 67 
 
 XII. Lessons in Drink's Doings ... ... 83 
 
 XIII. Rungs in the Ladder ... ... ... 96 
 
 XIV. Public Work ... ... ... ... no 
 
 XV. New Avenues ... ... ... ... 136 
 
 XVI. On the Battlefield ... .., ... 158 
 
 XVII. Extracts from Letters, Conversations. 
 
 and Public Addresses 174
 
 WOMAN'S SPHERE, 
 
 «' Call for the mourning women, that they may come." — Jeremiah ix.17. 
 
 By Mrs. Harrison Lee. 
 
 She stood at the threshold shyly, and longingly looked within ; 
 She carried a sad heart's burden of poverty, want and sin. 
 The moans and cries of the children came wailing up to her ears, 
 And she knocked with timid boldness, and pleaded with hopes 
 and fears. 
 
 In the stately hail he is sitting — her brother, her partner, king, 
 And he looks at the gentle woman, as though 'twere a wondrous 
 
 thing — 
 " What brings you here, little sister ? home is a woman's place, 
 And the halls of legislature no woman's form may grace. 
 Go back to the parlour, sister, and live at your ease, I pray, 
 And rock the tiny cradle in which your fond hopes lay." 
 
 '* Home is my place, oh my brother, and ever my kingdom 
 
 shall be. 
 But homeless, and friendless, and helpless, have brought their 
 
 burdens to me. 
 Parlours have crumbled and vanished, cradles are coffins now. 
 And the needs of my people have given a crown of thorns to my 
 
 brow. 
 I cannot go back to sit idle, the call of my God I have heard, 
 And woman no longer can linger, when she by that call is 
 
 stirred." 
 
 " Come hither, my little sister, thy God hath wisely done, 
 He made thee for me for my helpmeet, the twain shall now be 
 one." 
 a
 
 ( 6 ) 
 
 Into the stately palace, up to his side she goes, 
 
 Tenderness breathes from her presence, Love from the pure face 
 
 glows. 
 Womanly, sweet and gentle ; God's greatest gift of all. 
 Shut too long, by error, out of the nation's hall, 
 She gathers the scattered fragments, smoothes out the tangled 
 
 skeins, 
 Sweetens the bitter portions, banishes all the pains. 
 
 Side by side they are standing — as God ever meant they should — 
 
 She so winning and loving; he so noble and good. 
 
 'Twas a glorious day for the nation when the door was opened 
 
 wide, 
 And the man with wise affection called woman up to his side, 
 And history soon shall tell us, as history only can, 
 How nobly woman aided her gallant partner, man. 
 And God who gave the helpmeet, smiled from His throne above, 
 For the nation's King was Wisdom, and the nation's Queen was 
 
 Love. 
 Together the man and woman ruled wisely and well the world, 
 And the banner of peace and progress never again was furled.
 
 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 An infant's cry on the midnight air. 'Tis the night of the 
 lothof June, i860, and June being the month of deepest 
 winter in Victoria, the cold in the pretty mining town of 
 Daylesford, high among the hills, is very intense ; but a 
 mother's heart is warm and loving, and the little baby who 
 has come at such a cheerless season of the year is soon 
 nestled into the sweetest, softest, warmest place on earth, 
 and the cry is stilled on mother's breast. 
 
 Lying in her cradle trying to catch sunbeams, and 
 laughing ecstatically as they ever eluded the clutch of the 
 dimpled fingers, the little winter baby looked the living 
 embodiment of joy, while the mother — sweet, and worn, and 
 pale — with a little ray of another world softening the light 
 in the dark eyes, turned with a prayer up to baby's Creator, 
 that ever the source of lasting joy might be in her wee 
 darling's heart. Not long, she knew, could she be with 
 her loved, ones ; it was only a question of time, for con- 
 sumption, that fell disease, had fastened on her frail form, 
 and was — true to its common title — consuming her life 
 away. But all was well, she knew. She had heard the 
 grand message before baby came. " Him that cometh
 
 b ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 unto Me I will in no wise cast out." She had come to 
 the One who had uttered the words, and firm and fixed on 
 the Rock of Ages waited quietly for the call to another 
 world, day by day lovingly doing her duty in this. When 
 Bessie was eight years old, the call came, and the mother 
 went to rest, leaving a memory of love and tenderness with 
 her little child, which strengthened and grew with years, 
 and influenced the whole of her after life. 
 
 And now I step aside to let the child tell part of her 
 story in her own way.
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Your mother is dead, Bessie." I heard the words, but 
 they conveyed no meaning to my mind. Mother had 
 always talked so happily of " going home." We, for there 
 were five of us little people, knew that some day mother 
 was going to a land to be made well for ever, and we had 
 gleefully talked of the happy time when mother would 
 never be tired, never have a headache, and never cough at 
 night. And we had eagerly watched for the day to come 
 when mother should have a new, strong, beautiful body. 
 
 The day had come at last, but my uncle didn't use 
 mother's terms, so I didn't know what he meant. I had 
 a vague idea of death being something sad. For once, 
 I remembered mother going to a miner's cottage, taking 
 me with her. There was a long black box, ornamented 
 with silver on the lid. There were women weeping in 
 the room, and mother was weeping too. I heard the 
 women whispering incomprehensible words. " It was the 
 drink did it." 
 
 " She was papering her room to have it nice, and he 
 came home drunk and kicked the table over, on which 
 
 A
 
 10 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 she was standing ; the baby was born that night, and both 
 died before morning." 
 
 And then some one lifted me up, and in the long black 
 box 1 saw a woman with a cruel mark on her face, and 
 a tiny baby on her arm. I put my head down on the 
 friendly shoulder, and sobbed. I knew not why. 
 
 Another time I remembered there had been an accident 
 in a mine, and a stretcher carried by pitiful-faced men 
 passed our door. There was something on the stretcher 
 covered with a piece of canvas, and I heard mother's 
 sobbing voice say — 
 
 " Poor Tom Hocking ! but thank God he was 
 ready. . . ." 
 
 Uncle took me into the room where lay a long black 
 box, such as I remembered seeing in the miner's cottage. 
 He lifted me up, and there, with her own tender smile 
 curving the pale lips, lay mother sleeping. And how 
 sweet she looked, in the pretty embroidered dress they 
 called a shroud, and with the lovely roses decking her 
 wasted form. I was so proud of my pretty mother, and 
 smiled dowm upon her, expecting her to open her eyes and 
 smile back again. I touched the flowers crowning her 
 waving black hair, the buds in the thin white hands, and 
 then uncle said — 
 
 " Kiss your mother, and we will go out." 
 I obeyed readily, but a thrill shot through me as my 
 warm lips touched the ice-cold brow, and mother didn't 
 kiss me back again. I shivered and shrunk back from 
 that still, white, cold figure, and turned away with a 
 conviction in my little heart, "that isn't mother." They 
 dressed us all in black, and took us, as they said, to the
 
 DEATH. II 
 
 cemetery, " to see the last of mother." I cried bitterly 
 because I saw the others crying at the grave, but in my 
 heart was a glad, sweet secret, that I did not know how 
 to share with anyone else. " Mother had gone away, 
 and that box they called a coffin didn't hold her at all." 
 
 "What a child that is," said a neighbour. "Just 
 listen to her actually singing after her mother's funeral ! 
 
 Yes, I was singing over and over again, " Oh, that will 
 be joyful, when we meet to part no more ! " There 
 was a solemn family conclave after the funeral, and 
 grave discussion as to the disposal of mother's bairnies. 
 To me it was a matter of supreme indifference what 
 was done with me. I loved everybody, and was willing 
 to go with anybody who wished to have me, so while 
 uncle and my poor sad-faced father planned about our 
 future, I sat on the doorstep and stroked the crape on 
 my little black dress, and sang, " In the sweet fields 
 of Eden there is rest for the weary," and I looked up 
 at the fleecy clouds hurrying across the sky, and felt so 
 happy because I knew the dear, loving, weary mother 
 was resting " in the sweet fields of Eden." 
 
 " Bessie, you are to go with your uncle and be his 
 little girl," said my father. 
 
 I had been six months already with this uncle in his 
 home near the city, while mother was so very ill ; so, 
 rippling over with smiles, I climbed over on uncle's knee, 
 and warmly kissed him in token of adoption. Poor father 
 sighed, and drew me to himself, and I felt a hot tear fall 
 upon my forehead. In an instant my arms were around 
 his neck, and my eager heart and tongue united to remove 
 any sting my action had planted. The other children
 
 12 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 were placed in comfortable homes ; the furniture was sold ; 
 the home let, and we all parted not to meet again for 
 many years. 
 
 A long coach journey, followed by a still longer train 
 journey, brought me, in my uncle's care, to his beautiful 
 home near the city. My aunt received me with open 
 arms, and I nearly strangled her in the warmth of my 
 embraces. I was taken to my room, and though tired and 
 homesick, and longing for mother, I bravely winked the 
 tears away and tried to sing 
 
 " There is a happy land 
 Far, far away, 
 Where saints in glory stand 
 Bright, bright as day."
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. 
 
 I WOULD have been wonderfully happy in the home which 
 was really my own now, were it not for one cruel 
 hindrance. Both my aunt and uncle took drink, and 
 drink, at all times a cunning enslaver, was fast becoming 
 their tyrant. Kinder none could have been, when the 
 pitiless enemy was not at hand ; more cruel and heartless 
 none were when the drink had the mastery. Soon my 
 uncle lost his splendid situation, and then began the 
 downhill career. Bit by bit the furniture went ; the 
 carpets and pictures were sold ; then they removed from 
 their comfortable home to a cheaper suburb. My aunt 
 would one day treat me with a love inexpressible ; the next 
 my bruised and blackened body would give evidence that 
 drink had had the ascendancy. 
 
 I have heard some people declare that drink is a 
 blessing. A year of awful experience in my young life 
 has for ever proved to me that drink's doings are an 
 unmitigated curse. A man may stand where the gun is 
 fired, and declare that the beautiful little piece of 
 mechanism can do no harm, but those who stand where 
 the bullets strike can tell a very different tale. That one 
 year of my childhood stands out as a great black blot on 
 the white page of memory, and in after years it made of
 
 14 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 me a worker and pleader for little helpless children. To 
 those who have never passed through a similar experience, 
 there can be no conception of the anguish of body and 
 mind a little defenceless child has to suffer at the hands 
 of a drink-maddened woman. 
 
 The days of brightness in between, when no drink was 
 procurable, were bits of elysium indeed ! I loved my 
 aunt intensely when she was at all lovable, and was then 
 as happy as a little skylark. She would lift me on her 
 lap, and take down my dress, and look at the great wales 
 and bruises on my shoulders and arms, and kiss the 
 wounds with a tenderness most pathetic ; while the great 
 tears would break from a heart full of bitterest remorse. 
 I would then put my arms around her neck, and hug her, 
 and declare the "bruises didn't hurt a bit." And then I 
 would lift a corner of my pinafore and wipe away the hot 
 tears, and comfort the grief-stricken woman as best I 
 could. And in my little heart I would fairly worship her, 
 and think her the dearest woman in the world, and my 
 periods of bliss would last just as long as the periods of 
 poor aunt's enforced abstinence. 
 
 Then would come the awful blackness of fear and 
 suffering, and palsying terror again, when the whole 
 world was a world of horror and woe, and there seemed no 
 place of safety for a terrified, distracted little creature. To 
 this day the memory of that year brings back the old 
 stricken, hunted feeling. I feel myself again the white- 
 faced, fear-numbed little child, cowering away in dumb 
 horror from the woman possessed with a devil. And that 
 memory has nerved my soul and thrilled my tongue many 
 a time when on the platform I have pleaded for drink's
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. 15 
 
 destruction for the sake of helpless childhood, if for no 
 other reason on earth. Oh, the wee bairnies! the poor 
 little lambs of God's flock ! What a sin and a shame that 
 such awful suflfering should be their portion, through the 
 legalised sin of our land. Surely, surely the revenue paid 
 into the State coffers cannot outweigh the cries and the 
 tears of the real victims of licensed wrong. 
 
 " Do you hear the cries of the children, brothers ! 
 Rising up on the midnight air ; 
 
 Does the sound reach the hearts of God's fathers and mothers, 
 When each cry is a pitiful prayer ? 
 Do you see the thin faces and forms, my brothers ! 
 The children are pleading for bread ; 
 
 Will you build up the State on foundations like these, brothers ? 
 Oh ! God that the children were dead. 
 Better, far better, if death, like a mother 
 Tenderly folded the bairnies around 
 Than that here for the sake of enriching the country. 
 Such martyrs to greed should be everywhere found."
 
 ( i6 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Enoch's point. 
 
 A GREAT surprise came to me one morning when, quite 
 unexpectedly, my father presented himself at the door of 
 our now very humble dwelling. And still greater was the 
 surprise when we learned he had come to take me away to 
 the mountains where he then lived. His brother was 
 going to be married in a few days, and as he had to take 
 his bride to a most lonely spot, it had been agreed that I 
 was to be removed from the care which father had found 
 was not of the very best, to the safer haven of Uncle 
 William's home. I was relieved beyond measure to be 
 taken away from the crushing influences of that drink- 
 cursed home. Yet full of grief at parting from the woman 
 who had been so kind to me in her better days. It was 
 hard to say whether sorrow or joy predominated as I left 
 that house for ever, and turned my face toward the 
 Australian Alps, where God's unrevealed wonders lay. 
 
 But it was not long before my buoyant spirits were 
 brimming over like an " ower-fu' pot." I sang in the 
 train, till my patient father's head must have ached, and 
 the thousand questions tumbling one over another, with 
 no time between for answers, must have made him wish 
 for the " Sweet fields of Eden, where there was rest for 
 the weary." But, indulgent to a fault, father let me rattle
 
 ENOCH S POINT. 17 
 
 on like an exploding steam pipe, no doubt wisely 
 thinking that plan would the sooner exhaust the torrent 
 of my speech. 
 
 But, oh ! the wonders of that journey ! For many a 
 long day they formed the theme for rapturous description 
 to all who would listen, and for joyful retrospection to 
 myself when no one else was near. The train was 
 delightful, but the coach journey was bewildering. The 
 driver never slackened rein up hill or down, over stumps 
 and ruts, through creeks and gullies, skirting the Goulburn 
 river, or skimming around the mountain side. We were 
 bumped up and down, thrown first into a lap on the 
 opposite seat, and then against a most unyielding board at 
 the back. I wouldn't have cried for the world if I had 
 been bruised from head to foot, for was not father there, 
 and didn't the people in the coach praise me for standing 
 the knocking about in the coach so well ? After the praise 
 my lips were effectually locked, and I believe if every 
 bone had been broken no word of complaint would have 
 escaped. I valued good opinion highly, far too highly, 
 and would have died to deserve it ; a characteristic of my 
 whole life, and a trait I have had to fight against most 
 determinedly. 
 
 At night we drew up at an hotel, which was the stopping 
 place of Cobb and Co.'s coaches, and I learned that the 
 rest of the journey — fifty miles — would have to be resumed 
 the next day, first on foot and then on horseback. 
 
 Blissfully unconcerned as to ways and means of transit, 
 full of enjoyment of the lovely scenery, and happy beyond 
 measure in father's company, I dropped asleep, and knew 
 no more till father's kiss awakened me, and I learned the
 
 l8 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 night had passed, and we had to begin the longest and 
 hardest part of the journey into the mountains, A good 
 breakfast formed a foundation for the day's toil, and father 
 taking my very modest little bundle in one hand, and my 
 hand in the other, set his face towards the hills. I didn't 
 sing so much on this day, but my tongue knew no rest. 
 Everything was so wonderful and beautiful ; the trees, the 
 wild flowers, the lovely creepers, the creek to be crossed 
 on a narrow log, the laughing jackasses, the kangaroos, 
 and, crowning delight and wonder of all, an encampment 
 of blacks on the way. 
 
 We rested that night at a wayside hotel near the blacks' 
 camp, and I fraternised with the sleek little picaninnies, 
 and looked with open-eyed interest at two black gins 
 attiring themselves in dark blue blankets, fastened in most 
 mysterious fashion with wooden pins. I eyed with great 
 awe the old white-bearded king of the tribe, and looked at 
 their mias-mias from every point of view, though at very 
 safe distances. And at last I went to a little room for 
 the night, a very tired, but very happy little maid. Fairy 
 ^and itself could not have bestowed one half the enjoy- 
 ment that I was getting out of what to some might have 
 seemed a very tiring journey. 
 
 The next day was a repetition of my delightful picnic. 
 I would have been quite content to walk on for ever, so 
 long as father held my hand and there were regular 
 intervals for rest and refreshment. The reaching of the 
 goal did not concern me a bit while I was having such a 
 glorious time. But father looked uncommonly thankful 
 when, at the next stopping place, we met a friend with 
 horses to take us the rest of the way. A horse journey
 
 Enoch's point. ig 
 
 had the charm of novelty, and I felt quite important, as 
 seated on the top of my little bundle, securely fastened 
 to father's saddle, and held firm by father's arm, the last 
 stage of the journey was begun. 
 
 I wonder if any words can possibly convey to my 
 readers the sublime beauty of the Australian xMps ? I fear 
 not, so will not here attempt a description of the heights 
 and depths of those great mountains, the lights and 
 shades on every peak and hill, the wonderful vegetation, 
 the crystal streams, the feathered life, the clear rarified 
 air filled with the songs of a thousand different songsters, 
 every turn of the road revealing some new and exquisite 
 beauty, and majestic old hills looming away up into the 
 deep blue sky, like mighty walls built by some great 
 giant's hand to keep back puny man's approach. My 
 heart was filled with awe too deep for words, and my 
 tongue was silent at last. 
 
 It was evening when we reached our destination, a busy 
 little mining township on the banks of the Big River. 
 The little town of a single short street was all alive. The 
 pack-horses and mules, &ome twenty or thirty in number, 
 were being unloaded, for over the great mountains no 
 wheeled vehicle had ever crossed, and every article of food 
 and drapery, every bit of mining machinery and house 
 requisite, had to be brought by pack-saddle over narrow, 
 dangerous tracks. The two hotels were in full business, 
 and the four stores, each with a liquor license, were also 
 doing a roaring trade. 
 
 Mingling with the tinkling of the pack-horses' bells 
 could be heard the bleating of the home-coming goats, 
 and the hilarious laughter of the ridiculously merry
 
 20 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 jackasses ; there was bustle and life and fun on every 
 side, and all awe was chased away as we passed through 
 the street. I couldn't help adding my smile to father's 
 nods of recognition to the many who saluted him, and I 
 felt ready to be friends with everybody, and it was 
 evident that the feeling was reciprocated by the warm- 
 hearted miners of Enoch's Point. 
 
 At Bain's store we alighted, and here I was taken 
 charge of by my merry-faced uncle and his intended wife. 
 I loved my uncle at once, and soon found that he was a 
 general favourite with old and young. A more generous 
 and open-hearted man it would have been hard to find, 
 and his comical stories and ringing laugh had a charm 
 for all. In a few days the marriage took place, and 
 uncle took his bride to the little log hut at the foot of 
 Mount Terrible, which was to be their abode until the 
 more pretentious weather-board cottage could be finished. 
 
 Oh ! that dear old log hut. What a lasting impression 
 it made on me, with its great chimney taking up all one 
 end of the place, its bush sofa and three-legged stools. 
 The bag safe tied at the mouth for the meat, and the 
 camp oven in which the bread was kept when it was not 
 engaged in baking the same ; the bark roof, the earthen 
 floor, the smoke-blackened ceiling, the tiny low doorway, 
 all are remembered with a child's affection to this day. 
 My aunt was one of the thriftiest of women, clean, 
 capable, energetic, no idle person dared come near her. 
 Her keen eyes took note of every fault and failing, and 
 her rebukes fell like scorching lead on a ne'er-do-weel's 
 head. Strong of body, and ten times stronger of will, 
 she had no pity for weakness or shiftlessness, and many
 
 ENOCH S POINT. 21 
 
 a time did I feel as if I must really crumble into dust, 
 so withered and scorched was I beneath the awful 
 rebukes falling thick and fast on my devoted head. 
 
 I suppose I was a real trial to that brisk, industrious 
 woman. I had never been taught to do any work, and at 
 eight and a half was a very useless little creature. But 
 I was in the right hands to have my defects remedied. 
 Aunt resolved that first of all I should learn to knit, 
 which I accordingly did. And from that hour I and a 
 set of knitting needles were inseparable companions. 
 Sitting on the old bush sofa on wet days, out in the 
 garden on lovely summer evenings, or roaming the hill 
 side, I was scarcely ever without a stocking in my hands, 
 and from nine years old I earned every article of clothing 
 I wore by knitting. I don't think aunt was very well 
 acquainted with the Bible, but both she and uncle liked 
 to see me reading my own little book, and enjoyed 
 listening every Sunday morning^^ to my small stock of 
 dear old hymns, "The sweet fields of Eden"; "Mothers 
 of Salem," etc. 
 
 There was not a bit of romance or nonsense of any 
 kind about aunt. Practical, matter-of-fact, unsentimental, 
 she was yet just the one approved of God to fashion my 
 character. To her the whole of the Decalogue was 
 summed up in two of the Apostle's precepts, and these 
 were impressed upon me day after day, till they became 
 ingrained in every fibre of my being. One was, " Be 
 diligent " ; the other, as I grew nearer womanhood, 
 " Keep thyself pure." 
 
 Aunt had come from Erin's beautiful isle where the 
 women rank first in the world for purity, and purity was
 
 22 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 in aunt's eyes the cardinal virtue. She was a sensible 
 woman, and knew that a soft-hearted child growing up in 
 a mountain home, with no girl companions near, and 
 surrounded by miners who came from no one knew 
 where, who all drank, and blasphemed, and desecrated 
 the Sabbath day, and lived regardless of God's laws, was 
 in peculiar danger, and so her vigilant eyes were never 
 at rest, and her warnings and lessons were many and 
 strong. 
 
 "Remember," she would say, "you have nothing in 
 the world but your good name, if you lose that you had 
 better die at once. Keep yourself right and every one 
 wull respect you. Once slip and every one will scorn you. 
 You can die but once, better far to die before dishonour 
 than after." 
 
 I don't know whether I understood half of what 
 aunt wanted me to know, but 1 understood enough as I 
 grew older, to make me hold honour as the dearest thing 
 on earth. About this time, too, there was a case in the 
 weekly Australasian of a young girl in New Zealand who 
 had been cruelly murdered by her lover because of her 
 resolute resistance to his wishes. He had buried the 
 body in a field, and it was only discovered by people 
 noticing how carefully he ploughed over that particular 
 part. When arrested, he confessed his crime, and told of 
 how the noble girl had preferred death to dishonour. 
 The ladies of the place -raised a white marble statue to 
 the name of Australia's daughter who could die but could 
 not sin. Oh ! how proud I felt of that girl, and what a 
 lasting impression was made upon my impressionable 
 heart. I do not remember her name, but she died not in
 
 ENOCH'S POINT. 23 
 
 vain, for not only is her heroism recorded in white 
 marble, but in the purer character of more than one of her 
 country-women. 
 
 Of schooling I had very little. In Daylesford I had got 
 as far as a-b ab, b-a ba, abba. In Footscray I had gone 
 to a Ladies' Seminary to learn to read and write. At 
 Railway Creek we were three mountain miles from Enoch's 
 Point, but I was eager to learn and pleaded hard to be 
 allowed to go to school. The road was lonely and hardly 
 safe, with many snakes and dingoes, and more dangerous 
 still, drunken men often to be met. But I was blithe and 
 fearless, and hungering with intense hunger for knowledge, 
 so at last I was permitted to go. I loved school. 
 Learning was no trouble. Everything was a joy, snow or 
 rain, heat or cold was all the same to me, as I took my 
 little dinner bag, and my lesson books at seven o'clock each 
 morning, and trotted off to the Point. 
 
 On the way there was a spot which became very sacred 
 to me, after my conversion, of which I must tell you 
 presently. It was half way down a great hill called 
 Beelzebub, and was what I called my church. Four 
 wild cherry trees grew at equal distances apart, as though 
 planted by human hands at four corners. They met over- 
 head and formed a beautiful shelter, with their graceful 
 foliage and bright red fruit. In my little church I knelt 
 every morning to pray, vmless anyone happened to be 
 near. I was far too shy, and my inner feelings too sacred, 
 to court ridicule, and if accompanied by anyone, I would 
 simply pass on with a reverent glance at my 'little 
 sanctuary. Twenty-five years from the time when I first 
 knelt in the dear little church God's own hand had
 
 24 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 built for his little child, I knelt again with my best loved 
 friend by my side. One tree was gone and the branches 
 looked eld and gnarled, but as we knelt there to thank 
 and praise the wonderful God of Jacob, it was again to 
 me the most hallowed spot on earth, more dear and sacred 
 than any cathedral built by the hand of man. 
 
 Alas ! my school days came to an abrupt conclusion 
 in six months' time. My strength was unequal to 
 the severe strain upon it, and twice I fainted in the 
 little school house. I fought against the weakness of 
 body, for the thirst of soul w'as insatiable, but aunt 
 learned of the collapses and sent forth the fiat, " No 
 more schooling," Oh! how I mourned, and would, if I 
 had dared, have rebelled. She was inexorable as Fate, 
 and I had to submit with bitter tears to grow up 
 without schooling, church, religious teaching, or child 
 companionship. 
 
 But the bitterness wore off in time, and I tried to 
 learn all I could from other sources. A book shop was 
 unknown at Enoch's Point, but most of the miners took 
 The London Journal, The Family Herald, Bow Bells, and 
 other periodicals of a like nature, and from far and near 
 they brought me their treasures to have the first read, 
 and there would I sit reading aloud to aunt, while uncle 
 was on night shift, till two o'clock in the morning, with 
 the inevitable needles clicking away and my mind getting 
 filled with the queerest mixture that surely child ever 
 had. There are metals which have an affinity for each 
 other, and when brought together immediately fuse and 
 form an inseparable mass, but there are others which have 
 no attraction for each other and cannot be made to blend
 
 Enoch's point. 25 
 
 by any method. This is the only reason I can give for 
 not being utterly ruined by such reading as I had. All 
 that was heroic and noble and grand I gloried in, and 
 tried to fashion my life by ; all that was vile and 
 pernicious seemed to roll off and be forgotten in a short 
 while. At times I would get hold of a splendid book, 
 and then my soul was up on wings soaring away to other 
 realms, and losing all sight of things of earth and time. 
 
 When I was about nine years old, Milton's " Paradise 
 Lost " fell into my hands. Of course I read it, though 
 some of the words were as incomprehensible to me as 
 though they had been Sanskrit. I didn't understand a 
 third of the glorious revelations of that wonderful book, 
 but my soul enjoyed it intensely, and I fairly revelled in 
 the sublime master-piece, until there came through its 
 pages the awful knowledge that I was a lost creature. I 
 cannot tell how the first thought came exactly ; it just 
 seemed to slowly dawn upon me that beyond this life 
 there were two places, in one of which I would have to 
 spend Eternity. One place was for the redeemed, and 
 that was where mother had gone ; the other was for the 
 lost, and that was where murderers and evil-doers were 
 going, and then came another thought growing out of this 
 one, there were two states in this world in one or other 
 of which every human being was ; they were either saved 
 or lost. There was no middle course, just as beyond was 
 Heaven and hell, no middle place, and I, — I was in the 
 lost state. 
 
 As the awful truth dawned on me, my soul recoiled 
 with terror, uiy brain reeled with the horrible conviction 
 that I was standing on the brink of a fearful chasm, and
 
 26 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 that at any moment I might be hurled into that awful 
 place described by Milton's burning pen, where the wails 
 of the eternally doomed cease not night or day, and where 
 torture succeeds torture through never ending ages. I 
 fled from the book and tried to fly from the awful words 
 scoring themselves into my very brain; "You are not 
 saved, therefore you must be lost ; there is no middle 
 state." Oh ! if only mother had been alive, or if there 
 had been a Sunday school teacher near, or someone to 
 whom I could have run and poured out the overwhelming 
 horror of my soul, but there was no one, and for three 
 days and nights I suffered agony indescribable. I, was 
 afraid to go out in the daytime, lest a tree should fall 
 on me, and I should be killed, and fall for ever into that 
 fearful abyss. I dared not go to sleep at night, lest I 
 should waken and find myself for ever with the devil and 
 his angels. I could not have breathed a word of my 
 mental sufferings to aunt or uncle. They would not have 
 understood, so I just had to dumbly suffer till relief came. 
 Some people seem to look on children as little blanks, 
 and scoff at depth of feeling, or religious impressions in 
 early life. They utterly refuse to put faith in child 
 conversion, seeming to think that a child's heart is a slate 
 from which can be rubbed off all that is ever written on. 
 My own experience verifies the belief that a child's mind is 
 wax, to receive, and marble, to retain, and I have as much 
 faith in a child's stability and faithfulness, as in an older 
 person's, while my own childish sufferings have given me 
 deep sympathy with other children in their longings for 
 light and life.
 
 ( 27 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SAVED. 
 
 It was the third day in my Gethsemane, not a jot of my 
 anguish and fear and horror had abated, but I had to go 
 through my daily duties somehow, and not let aunt 
 suspect the state of my poor stricken soul. She would 
 either have scolded or ridiculed, and I could have borne 
 neither just then. As I was washing the breakfast things 
 one morning, with a heart like lead and a head like fire, 
 my eyes wandered to a side table where lay my little black- 
 covered Bible. I threw the tea-towel across my shoulder, 
 and went to the Bible. To this day I cannot tell why. I 
 did not know what I wanted, or what to look for. I don't 
 think I had ever heard the word " conversion," if I had I 
 did not know its meaning. To me the Bible was a 
 beautiful story book, telling of Joseph, and David, and 
 Daniel, and Elijah. I knew mother loved the Bible, but I 
 did not know that in its pages was to be found the only 
 way of escape from the wrath to come. I held the book, 
 not attempting to open it, not even knowing why I held it. 
 Surely it was God, who knew better than His forlorn little 
 child just what she needed, who reached His hand from 
 heaven to earth, and opened the Bible at just the right 
 place. 
 
 As the pages opened I looked down and read the 
 words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee."
 
 28 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 A great flood of light and radiance and soft beautiful 
 sunshine seemed to burst upon me. I knelt down on the 
 floor, and folding my arms on the table and laying my 
 head upon them, I whispered from a throbbing peace- 
 filled heart, though it was but a little child's, " Thank 
 you, Lord, thank you," and from that moment I was 
 saved, and lost all fear of death and hell for ever. 
 
 And now the writer of these pages takes up the chronicle 
 again, and resumes his part of the story for the time. 
 
 Everybody said Bessie was an odd child, and what 
 everybody says must have a grain of truth in it. Her 
 uncle was kept in a perpetual state of anxiety by her 
 readiness to love every creature who came in her way. 
 To her every man in the world was a hero, only waiting 
 for favourable conditions to de\'elop ; every woman was a 
 princess in disguise ; while every child was such a 
 marvellous creation from Heaven, that she could do 
 nothing but worship idolatrously at its shrine. No one 
 was common-place to her, and as for any one being 
 wicked, such an idea never once dawned in the remotest 
 degree upon her. The little child weaved the loveliest 
 romances about every new arrival at the mines, and 
 found supreme happiness in ministering, as far as she 
 knew how, to the spiritual and temporal needs of all. 
 They all belonged to her in a sense, and she belonged 
 to them fully and entirely. 
 
 Bessie was the only little girl at Railway Creek, and 
 the fruits and books and lollies continually brought for 
 her acceptance, showed the soft spot in many a rough 
 miner's heart. At times her dear charges got drunk ;
 
 SAVED. 2g 
 
 indeed, they all did so with distressin<:][ frequency, but 
 never once, by word or look, did one of them offer insult 
 to the child they vised to sometimes call their "little 
 apostle." Many a time did she find a poor, drink-stupefied 
 man lying on the track exposed to the blinding sun, and 
 the little mother-heart, unable to endure the sight, would 
 set the little brown hands to work to break down branches 
 of gum saplings or wattle boughs to cover up the helpless 
 creature. And then accepting the inevitable with utmost 
 serenity, she would career down the hillside carolling 
 out, " In the sweet fields of Eden." 
 
 But a terrible blow came one day. Every Sunday she 
 used to take her little Bible and go after dinner to the 
 men's huts near the mine. Sunday was always their 
 w'ashing day, cooking, mending, and general cleaning up 
 day, but the men expected her, and always held themselves 
 bound in honour to accord her a limited measure of time 
 in which to read to them. They would lift her up on to 
 one of the top bunks, and then light their pipes and sit 
 on their three-legged stools, or recline on the lower bunks, 
 and she would begin to read, spelling the big words for 
 her hearers to pronounce for her, which they graciously 
 did. I am afraid she lacked many qualifications for a 
 successful pastor, one of her faults being lack of perception, 
 so absorbed was she in the beauty of the Scriptures, that 
 she never knew when her hearers had enough, and it was 
 generally necessary for some big miner to cut her a lump 
 of plum pudding and say — 
 
 •' That will do for to-day, Bessie, you can come again 
 next Sunday." 
 
 With a happy smile she would close her Bible and,
 
 30 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 accepting the pudding, go spinning down the gully at 
 break-neck speed. 
 
 Among her specially dear friends was one old miner 
 named Bill Everon. Drink had been poor Bill's ruin, 
 and now, separated from wife and family, he worked like 
 a slave in the mine, and drank every penny as fast as 
 he earned it. Perhaps it was the memory of his own little 
 ones that made him so tender to Bessie. Presents of all 
 kinds were brought from the Point's stores, and the 
 child's heart was won by the unwearying affection of 
 poor old Bill. One New Year's night the men came one 
 by one from the Point. They had been having a terrible 
 carousal, and shaky, and weak, and ill, they were returning 
 to begin work on the following morning. I will now let 
 Bessie tell the story. ' 
 
 * -x- -;;■ -» ^ 
 
 Almost all the miners came to aunt's house before going 
 up the hill to their huts, and one of the last to come was 
 Bill. He lifted me on to his lap, and drew my head to 
 his breast, while he chatted to uncle and aunt. I was so 
 sorry he had been drinking, but did not dream of saying 
 a word against it. 
 
 We were so accustomed to these " sprees," as they called 
 them, that we simply accepted them as a matter of course 
 after every crushing, and aunt made soup for the poor 
 sick men, and in her vigorous way scolded and nursed, 
 rated and physicked them till they were better. 
 
 " Just one glass more, Mrs. Vickery," I heard 
 Bill plead. 
 
 " No, not one drop more, Bill," I heard aunt say, 
 " you have had too much now."
 
 SAVED. 31 
 
 " Just a glass, hot and strong, and I promise you, 
 Mrs. Vickery, I'll not touch another drop for the whole 
 of the year." 
 
 Aunt rose at once, "Very well. Bill, mind, you have 
 promised." 
 
 I saw Bill lift the glass and look at its steaming 
 contents, then he smiled down at me and up at aunt, as 
 he said, "My last glass for a year." I knew he would 
 keep his word, and so I smiled joyously and returned his 
 good-night kiss with warm affection as he left the house, 
 sending back his good wishes for the New Year. 
 
 The next morning uncle went to work, and aunt and 
 I were busy in the home. We were both pleased about 
 Bill taking the pledge, and my busy brain had already 
 begun to weave a romance, with Bill as the central figure, 
 and a happy wife and merry children making up a blessed 
 home for his future years. A step sounded on the cobble 
 stone verandah, and looking up we were astonished to see 
 uncle back. A glance at his white face told us that 
 something had happened. We both stood speechless, 
 waiting, our hearts standing still, as thought suggested 
 "some one entangled in the machinery," "a fall of earth 
 in the tunnel," or "a crashing tree on the woodcutters." 
 
 But the blow fell in two words. " Bill's dead ! " I 
 dropped the little broom I held, and bounded out of the 
 house with a cry like a wounded creature, and up the 
 hillside to the shelter of a wattle tree, where I crouched 
 with my head in my lap, covering my head in my hands, 
 to keep back the awful words that struck like sledge 
 hammers on heart and brain, " Bill's dead ! " Hours after 
 aunt found me still crouching there, knowing nothing of
 
 32 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 time's flight, only battling with the awful words rooting 
 my very heart from its place. 
 
 "What ever is the matter, child ?" she cried sharply, 
 but I knew that she had been crying. I lifted my face, 
 full of unutterable woe, and said — 
 
 " Oh, aunt. Bill's dead, and he died drunk." 
 
 Ah ! that was where the whole sting lay. She could 
 sing at her mother's grave because she knew that dear 
 mother was safe, but could only pour a breaking heart out 
 over the poor old miner who had died a drunkard's death ! 
 Afterwards she learned the full particulars of the aw-ful 
 event, how the men had mustered and waited for Bill, who 
 occupied a hut alone on the hillside. Seeing no signs of 
 life about, no smoke issuing from the chimney, they went 
 to the hut and opened the door, and there on his bunk, cold, 
 and stark and stiff, they found the old man dead — dead 
 throucrh drink.
 
 ( 33 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ODDEST CHILD IN THE WORLD. 
 
 It was years before she ceased to mourn in her secret 
 heart for poor old Bill, and had she been a Catholic, many 
 a passionate prayer would have reached Heaven's throne 
 for the eventual sahation of her treasured friend. As it 
 was, she could only fervently petition God to save the 
 many still alive, who were drinking themselves fast to a 
 similar doom. Not for a moment did she imagine that 
 drink itself was evil, she only thought the men took too 
 much of it, and that it was the excessive use of it that 
 should be deplored and prevented if possible. As for 
 prohibiting it altogether, such a possibility never crossed 
 her wildest imaginings. Drink had been from time 
 immemorial, drink was and drink ever would be, and so it 
 was worse than useless to attempt to do more than keep its 
 ravages within reasonable bounds. The story of grand old 
 Neal Dow, and the Prohibition State of Maine, had never 
 reached the ears of the child. 
 
 But I started by saying that Bessie was counted the 
 oddest child in the world by the people up there, and I 
 must tell you why. Some little time before poor Bill's 
 fate, a foreigner, named Louis Locke, was working in the 
 mine. One day word came that Louis had met with an 
 C
 
 34 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 accident and broken his arm. At once her soul over- 
 flowed ; her whole body tingled with sympathy, and she 
 loved Louis with all her heart, though up to that time she 
 had never been prepossessed in his favour. 
 
 " Hard lines for Louis," said a man jocularly one day. 
 " He won't be able to get a sweetheart with that 
 broken arm.'' 
 
 That was enough to set the busy brain at work, and 
 after long deliberation, heart and brain veered round to 
 one point, and a fitting opportunity soon after presenting 
 itself, the little maid solemnly said to Louis — 
 
 " Louis, you are ill, and won't be able to get a sweet- 
 heart till you are better, so I'm going to be your sweetheart 
 till your arm is well again." 
 
 To his credit, be it here recorded, not the w^hisper of 
 a laugh shewed itself upon his face. As gravely as the 
 proposal was made, was it accepted, and from that 
 moment Bessie assumed a solemn responsibility, the 
 weight of which never left her till Louis was well and 
 strong again. Every apple, every packet of lollies, every 
 bit of cake or toothsome delicacy, was put away till 
 Louis should arrive, and then produced and handed over 
 to him with a gravity befitting the occasion. The comical 
 side of the whole affair must have been a severe trial to 
 Louis' risibilities, but never once did the child detect the 
 lurking shadow of a smile upon his face. As he grew 
 better, her affection lessened daily, and at last when he was 
 able to work, it ceased altogether, and she finally broke 
 her bonds by saying to him, " I only belonged to you while 
 no one else would have you, so we'll shake hands and part 
 good friends, and I'm very glad you're better." They
 
 THE ODDEST CHILD IN THE WORLD. 35 
 
 shook hands, and the child walked slowly and solemnly 
 away so as not to hurt his feelings by shewing any 
 exuberance of feeling while he was in sight. But the 
 moment the trees hid her from view, she went careering 
 over the hill like a prisoner out of gaol, and made the 
 echoes ring with song. 
 
 And what of the discharged lover ? He went straight to 
 her aunt, and amid peals of laughter, described the whole 
 scene to her, and then to the men at the mine related 
 the whole love story from beginning to end, always ending 
 up with " she's the oddest child in the world." 
 
 There were other incidents continually occurring which 
 seemed to mark her as odd. At one tim.e she had read 
 some articles on certain branches of science, and at once 
 was a scientist, studying the stars in the heavens, the 
 stratas of the earth, the formation of the rocks, the roots 
 and foliage of ferns and shrubs, the conformation of 
 flowers, the currents of wind, the drifting clouds, and, 
 most wonderful of all created things, the human body. The 
 mystery surrounding the marvellous casement of beautiful 
 clay God had built for the soul to dwell in, led her to the 
 queerest experiments. She became consumed with a 
 desire to know in which part of the body feeling most 
 dwelt, and whether if a limb were detached from the trunk, 
 it, as well as the body, were conscious of pain and dismem- 
 berment. No one could solve this particular problem for 
 her, so she at last heroically resolved to solve it herself, 
 and sacrifice a limb to science. 
 
 So one day with her sharp little tomahawk in hand, she 
 started up the hill to cut kindling wood, and to immolate 
 herself on the altar of discovery. Laying her arm on a
 
 36" ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 stump she looked at it thoughtfull}^, and finally decided it 
 could not be severed at a stroke, so a finger was put out 
 and the sharp weapon raised, meaning to take the finger 
 off half way down. But alas for science, instinct caused 
 her involuntarily to snatch her hand from under the 
 descending blade, and only the top of the finger was gone. 
 As the blood gushed out, and the sharp pain went to the 
 nerve centres, interest ceased in that branch of experi- 
 mental anatomy, and her scientific exploits took other 
 directions. 
 
 Love of flowers was a passion with her. She could not 
 bear to pluck one, but would skim along the garden every 
 morning, and kiss the opening rosebuds, and caress the 
 giant gladiola, and bury her face rapturously in the beds 
 of daisies and love them and revel over them with a joy 
 and delight that caused, again and again, the utterance 
 from her aunt's lips, " that's the oddest child in the world." 
 Even in after years, flowers have always been able to 
 give her the most exquisite pleasure. When on missions, 
 baskets or bouquets of beautiful flowers have been 
 presented to her, she tells of how her heart has grown 
 tender, and her eyes humid over God's lovely stars of the 
 earth, and she could not be satisfied till she had secretly 
 kissed and joyed over them as in her early days. Again 
 and again they have made her feel a little happy child 
 once more, and the only thing missing was the voice of 
 her aunt despairingly ejaculating, "you're the oddest child 
 in the world."
 
 ( 37 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 childhood's days. 
 
 A MARVELLOUS imagination, linked to a wonderfully happy 
 nature, was God's blessed gift of compensation for all her 
 life lacked at Railway Creek. She lived in a world of her 
 own, a world so beautiful and bright, a fairy queen never 
 reigned over one more fair. She herself was queen, 
 warrior, fairy, or necromancer, according to the latest tale 
 feasted on. One day she would be Queen Elizabeth seated 
 on her throne (a tree stump) in majesty, while before her 
 Earl Essex (a fragrant wattle) drank a 'precious pearl in 
 wine ; near by Sir Walter Raleigh (a slim sapling) stood 
 ready to throw his velvet cloak for her to step upon ; anon 
 she was the Maid of Orleans, first praying in the Cathedral, 
 then leading her soldiers to battle, and, of course, always to 
 victory ; next she would be Cagliostro, bewildering the 
 French Court with magic arts ; then she would be Grace 
 Darling, bending to the oars and hastening over the 
 billows to rescue doomed men. 
 
 The trees, the flowers, the birds, the goats, were all part 
 of this beautiful world. She could not pull a rose without 
 a pain, for fear some little fairy curled up in its blushing 
 petals might be rendered homeless. To kill a worm, or 
 anything with life, filled her for days with remorse. At 
 times there were dark clouds over her summer sky, but
 
 38 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 these only came when she lived in the real world. Her 
 aunt was unmerciful over any little peccadillo, and meal 
 times specially were rendered times of acute suffering 
 through the nervousness and awkwardness which largely 
 resulted from fear of reproof or ridicule. Her uncle and 
 aunt were both anxious to have her as much like other 
 children as possible, so every bud of originality was 
 promptly nipped. Every act and word which was not 
 according to rule and measure, was pounced upon and 
 severely repressed. The sensitive, nervous child was 
 scolded and corrected in some such terms as these all the 
 meal long: "Bessie, hold your spoon right;" "How 
 clumsy you are ; " " Keep your elbows down, Miss, I never 
 saw such a child;" "Bessie, hold your head up, and 
 behave like other children." Oh, the comfort to be 
 able to leave the real world, where she felt herself to 
 be odd and outre, to enter the bright world of imagination 
 where 
 
 " She dreamt that she dwelt in marble halls, 
 With vassals and serfs at her side, 
 And of all who assembled within those walls, 
 That she was the joy and the pride." 
 
 Of course her vivid imagination was not an altogether 
 unmixed blessing. She was nervous and highly-strung, 
 and with less firm rule w^ould have degenerated into a 
 coward. Fortunately, or unfortunately, her aunt never 
 dreamed of studying child-nature, but full of legends and 
 stories of ghosts and banshees, and will-o'-thc-wisps, would 
 recount the most blood-curdling stories in front of her 
 horrified niece. A terrible test came to the nervous child
 
 childhood's days. 39 
 
 one night when sent to bring some wood for the blazing 
 fire, around the hillside. She says : — 
 
 " I was just taking up a piece of wood when I caught 
 sight of something white and glistening just a few yards 
 from me. It was moving about, yet apparently making 
 no progress. It looked like neither man nor beast in the 
 darkness, yet life, or power of motion it evidently 
 possessed. I stood petrified, expecting every moment 
 for it to spring upon me, but it came no nearer, and then 
 with a supreme effort I made towards the uncanny object. 
 Courage was a virtue I admired immensely, because I 
 lacked it so greatly myself, yet cowardice was a fault I 
 could have more readily excused in any one else than 
 myself, I should have had my own most withering 
 contempt for days if I had turned and fled from the thing, 
 so resolving to brave the worst, and die if needs be, I 
 steadily approached the weird object, and lo, it was 
 nothing more than a somewhat large piece of tin, caught 
 in a wattle-tree. Someone had, I suppose, thrown the 
 tin down the hillside, and it had caught in the branches 
 of the bush, and there swayed about in the night breeze." 
 -;f -;?■ -X- * -;5- * 
 
 This lesson in natural courage was never forgotten 
 during the rest of her life. In some things her fearlessness 
 put others to shame. One instance was when a large 
 snake was going under the stable. Quick as thought, she 
 seized it by the tail and hauled it out so quickly, and flung 
 it far from her so dexterously, that his snakeship was too 
 astonished to escape, and her aunt soon dispatched the 
 deadly reptile. 
 
 When she first went to Railway Creek, Bessie
 
 40 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 developed a great hobby for collecting pretty and curious 
 things, but this hobby met with scant encouragement from 
 her tidy aunt. The house was small and there wasn't a 
 corner to "litter up with rubbish," so with great pains she 
 fashioned herself a shelf down in the stable, where she 
 would arrange and re-arrange her bits of crystals, beautiful 
 mosses, pretty stones, odd excrescences growing on leaves 
 and bark, red gum, dead butterflies, pretty feathers, etc., 
 etc., and then picking up the abandoned stocking, she 
 would step back and knit several rounds while admiring 
 with a happy heart her treasure store. The amount of 
 innocent pleasure derived from that shelf was indescrib- 
 able, and every visitor was graciously escorted to the 
 stable to view her stock of valuables. It must be 
 confessed it decreased almost as rapidly as it gathered, for 
 if anyone expressed admiration for any particular exhibit, 
 it was forced upon them whether they wanted it or no. It 
 was the joy of her life to give anything or everything she 
 possessed. She could never keep a thing for herself that 
 was at all worth bestowing upon another, and the honour 
 and pride felt in the acceptance of her gifts often 
 transcended any other return she got. 
 
 " And what became of your treasures, Bessie ? " 
 " Oh ! that is one of the saddest little bits in my young 
 life. I will tell you about it. One day while busy in the 
 house I heard uncle call me. I hastened to the door and 
 there he was, just pitching my precious shelf and all its 
 contents down the hill. He looked up at me and laughed 
 as he did it, but to me it was no laughing matter. I 
 stormed, and raged, and stamped my foot on the cobble 
 stones, and cried with indignation and wrath. No
 
 CHILDHOODS DAYS. 4I 
 
 monarch looking at the destruction of a beautiful city, 
 could ever have felt more bitterly than I, the ruin of my 
 shelf. It was such an astonishment to me for uncle to 
 do such a thing. Had it been aunt, I wouldn't have 
 wondered a bit, and would have meekly submitted after 
 the first pang was past. But somehow from uncle the act 
 seemed so unjust and cruel, that my little heart could not 
 be pacified. I heard aunt say, as she saw the shelf 
 spinning into the scrub, ' Oh, uncle, that's too bad.' But 
 she laughed while saying it, and I flared round with 
 swelling heart and passionate words. But where was the 
 use of uttering them ? I ran away to my wattle-tree, and 
 sobbed till my anger was spent, but it was long before 
 the injustice of that deed was forgiven. I made no further 
 collections, no matter how beautiful a stone, a leaf, or 
 spray might appear. I sadly left it where it was, for 
 there was no room for my fancies anywhere."
 
 ( 42 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TWO IN ONE. 
 
 Deprived of all child-companionship, not being allowed 
 to speak unless first spoken to, having to perforce dw^ell 
 largely in her inner self, she formed the habit of conversing 
 with herself, as though she were really two separate and 
 distinct persons. The one self was a very censorious and 
 arbitrary individual, the other self was a very meek and 
 long-suffering creature. They had some wonderful con- 
 versations together, and gained great comfort and con- 
 solation from each other's society. Whenever her aunt 
 was more than usually severe, she would creep away up 
 the hill with the stocking in her hands, and transform 
 from a drooping and crushed little being into a most 
 unmerciful despot. 
 
 "Bessie," she would say severely, "what do you mean 
 by vexing your aunt as you do. Aren't you ashamed of 
 yourself? Why can't you behave yourself like other 
 children ? What do you mean. Miss ? " 
 
 And the other Bessie would dejectedly hang her head, 
 and agree that every scolding was well deserved. Then, 
 with her virtuous indignation somewhat appeased, but 
 with dire threats of what would happen if such conduct 
 were persisted in on the ill-fated Bessie's part, she would 
 descend the hillside, enter the house, and sometimes even
 
 TWO IN ONE. 43 
 
 venture to kiss her aunt. She was always repulsed, for 
 aunt "didn't believe in nonsense," she many times 
 declared. But Bessie loved her all the same, and 
 mourned that she was such a terrible trial to her aunt. 
 
 "You're an ugly little thing, not a bit like any other 
 child in the world," poor Bessie was told so often, that 
 no struggling germ of vanity ever dared reach the point 
 of life. Off she would go again and begin to rate the 
 other Bessie. And the scolding relieved the child's mind, 
 and she felt she had done her duty, and more couldn't be 
 expected of her. At other times she would undertake 
 to teach this other very ignorant Bessie everything in the 
 shape of knowledge she had been able to acquire. It 
 was a curious mixture, no doubt. 
 
 " Bessie, do you see those clouds in the sky ? " 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well," triumphantly, "they aren't clouds at all. They 
 are thousands and thousands of stars, away, away up in 
 the distance. They are called Magellan clouds, but don't 
 you ever forget they are real stars, millions and millions of 
 miles up in the sky." 
 
 Of course the other Bessie would be duly impressed, and 
 she w^ould then go on to air her knowledge by pointing out 
 Orion's Belt, Pleiades, the Southern Cross, and any of the 
 stars or constellations she knew by name. To no one else 
 could she so talk. Her sensitiveness w-as too great, and 
 her sense of utter inferiority far too keen to allow her to 
 appear to know anything before other people. So morbidly 
 sensitive to ridicule or blame was the child, that but for 
 the counter-balancing of a sunny spirit, and extreme 
 sociability of temperament, she would have sunk into
 
 44 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 herself to a very pernicious extent. As it was she just kept 
 evenly balanced in her intercourse with others. Again, 
 something similar to the following dialogue would occur 
 between the two seh'es — 
 
 "Do you see that rock covered with lovely moss?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Isn't it pretty ? " 
 
 " Yes, very pretty," would assent the accommodating 
 other self. 
 
 " If you touch it, it's soft." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "If you strike it, it's hard." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, you must be like that, soft and pretty outside 
 (that is as pretty as you can be," a bit doubtfully, as she 
 mentally surveyed the very few visible charms of that poor 
 other self), " when any one touches you, but firm as a rock 
 underneath." 
 
 "Alright, I'll try." 
 
 " Do you see that water ? " (standing by the lovely 
 creek). 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "See how clear it is?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do you notice how clean every stone is washed, and 
 yet the water gets no dirtier ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Jesus is like that. He washes every one clean. He is 
 always washing them, and yet He is always bright and 
 clear Himself." 
 
 " Bessie, sit here and I will tell you the story of little
 
 TWO IN ONE. 45 
 
 robin-redbreast. Away on Calvary's Cross the world's 
 dear Redeemer was being crucified by cruel men. In His 
 agony He cried for water to quench His thirst, but those 
 wicked men would only give Him vinegar. A little bird 
 was flying past, and saw its dear Creator hanging there. 
 More kind than the men around the cross, the little robin 
 flew to the brook near by, and brought back a drop of 
 water in its bill. As it dropped the water on the Saviour's 
 parched lips, its breast brushed a blood drop from His 
 brow, and it has had a red breast ever since." 
 * -;f •)(• * 
 
 "Bessie, what is .best worth living for and working 
 for?" 
 
 " Money," would hazard the other self, though well 
 knowing W'hat would follow. 
 
 "Nonsense," with withering contempt. "Money isn't 
 w^orth anything. Haven't you heard the story of the 
 starving man lost in the desert, who came to a spot where 
 a caravan had encamped, and began to eagerly search for 
 food. In his search he found a bag filled, as he thought, 
 with dates. He tore it open, and there showered at his 
 feet rubies and diamonds, and shells and coins, but in 
 bitter disappointment he cried, ' Money ! and I am 
 starving for food ! ' So you see, child, money isn't any 
 account at all." (Be it known that this sage young lady 
 was in blessed ignorance of money's value until after she 
 was married, never possessing any of her own, and seeing 
 everybody get what they required at the stores, settling 
 up for the same after the crushings, so her sole knowledge 
 came from book lore.) 
 
 " Well, fame ! "
 
 46 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 " No, because you will die, and your fame will die too, 
 or the people will find somebody else greater than you, 
 and you will be forgotten. Don't work for fame, Bessie." 
 (Seeing that it w^as as likely that poor Bessie would 
 reach the moon, as fame's slippery heights, the advice 
 seemed somewhat unnecessary, and was received with 
 great equanimity.) 
 
 "Well, love." 
 
 *' Ah ! now you're right, child. Love is the best thing 
 in the world, and will never die, because it comes from 
 God and is some of Himself." 
 
 " Well, then, I will work for love," Bessie would 
 obligingly answer, and satisfaction reigned around. 
 
 " Bessie " — in gleeful confidence — " There's going to be 
 a wedding," the other self manifested exactly the right 
 amount of surprise and interest, and standing on the great 
 hill now draped in winter's snowy robes, with every branch 
 drooping beneath its spotless load, every stump and fallen 
 log buried up in a soft white mass, the glowing-faced child 
 would wave her hand, and say, "Yes, gentle Annie and 
 Mount Terrible are going to be married." These were 
 the two great mountains at the foot of which Railway 
 Creek flowed. 
 
 At other times as she grew older, she sat on those 
 giant mountain sides, not talking to herself, but with 
 soul expanding and enlarging till it seemed to break 
 through its mortal bounds, and rise up, and up, still 
 swelling and growing till it found itself lost in infinity. 
 Those were wonderful times. Shut in by those majestic 
 hills, only able to see a wee bit of Heaven's dome, and 
 nothing at all of the outer world, her spirit yet, like a
 
 TWO IN ONE. 47 
 
 winged creature, defied barriers and bounds and soared 
 away to its Creator, with a rapture and exaltation beyond 
 power of expression. 
 
 On Sundays particularly, she had glorious experiences. 
 On that one day in the week, she could go up the hill 
 without her knitting needles. Seated on a log with no 
 one near, the awful silence dwelling in those great heights 
 broken only by the song of birds, or the whispering breeze 
 in the tall gum branches, she would drink in ineffable 
 bliss ; or feel her soul yearning with intense unsatisfied 
 yearning for — she knew not what. She did not under- 
 stand God was near, but oftentimes reached up her arms, 
 almost expecting to feel her hands clasped by some 
 beloved friend, and her heart would feel like a fountain 
 welling up with love and goodwill to every creature in 
 the world. 
 
 Then she would descend and enter the little cottage, 
 and perching herself on her uncle's knee, kiss him to 
 her heart's content. Her uncle rarely kissed her in 
 return, but that didn't matter. Her joy was in being 
 allowed to love, without let or hindrance, and she never 
 dreamed she was badly treated by getting so little return 
 for her wealth of affection. That her uncle loved her 
 dearly, there could be no doubt, but with an odd pride he 
 would not shew it, deeming evidence of aflection on a 
 man's part weakness. His teachings were different to his 
 wife's, and were treasured up as of incalculable value by 
 his niece. " Never break a promise ; don't make one if 
 you can help it, but once made keep it at any cost to 
 yourself." " Hold your head up straight and look every- 
 body in the face." " Never shirk, or twist, or try to
 
 48 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 wriggle out of anything." " Do a good turn to anybody 
 you can." " Never mind what it will cost, just do it." 
 She listened and drank it all in, and stored every precious 
 precept away in her memory for future use, and revered 
 her uncle deeply.
 
 ( 49 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 If her admiration for kings and queens, warriors and 
 statesmen was great, it sank into nothingness when 
 compared with her admiration for orators and writers. 
 To rule an empire might be a very grand thing, but to 
 swa}' a muhitude was divine. To enact great laws was 
 no doubt good, but to write great books was infinitely 
 better. Her reverence for those who fashioned and 
 moulded the minds of men, reached to hero-worship, and 
 in her innocence she really thought that every writer and 
 speaker was made of different material to mortals of 
 ordinary common clay. Never once did the child dream 
 of standing side by side with even the lowest of that 
 favoured race, so she revelled in their glowing words ; 
 rejoiced in their successes, and stood afar off with a 
 worshipping, happy heart, content to pour her homage at 
 their feet, though they would never know it, or possibly 
 despise it if they did know. 
 
 One day she was sent to guard some little newly- 
 hatched chickens from the cruel designs of a large 
 eagle-hawk. Her aunt, practical as ever, commanded 
 her to take her slate and pencil with her, and work out 
 some sums, and she was trying to obey. The sums 
 were very dry, though, and the rows of figures wearisome 
 D
 
 50 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 to her mind. Still, she made an attempt, and would 
 perhaps have got the usual array of right and wrong 
 figures on her slate, had there not come a sudden 
 wonderful inspiration, so over- mastering in its power,- 
 that, forgetting chickens, hawk, aunt, and everything else 
 in the wide world, she rubbed her slate clean, and with 
 eager, excited haste wrote, what had seemed to pour into 
 her brain, from some invisible source. And then with 
 the same obliviousness and absorption, she ran at full speed 
 to her aunt 
 
 " Aunt, let me read you this." 
 
 " Where are the chickens ? " demanded that lady, with 
 brows ominously gathering. 
 
 " I don't know," serenely. " Let me read you this." 
 
 And she began to read the verses on her slate. Aunt's 
 amazement at her audacity rendered her speechless, but it 
 was something else made her listen right through, and 
 then most unaccountably burst into tears. And lo ! 
 Bessie was a writer, with her advent into the glorious 
 world of literature heralded by the melting of a heart that 
 had ever seemed well-nigh invulnerable to sentiment. 
 Her uncle's pleasure was carefully concealed, when he 
 was apprised of the marvellous fact that his niece had 
 written a piece of poetry. But from that day the words 
 that had so often pained and grieved the little child-heart, 
 had another tone in them, and once or twice, it was almost 
 with pride that she heard her uncle say, " I never met 
 such a child in my life, she is like nobody else in the 
 world." Her uncle took the most extraordinary pains 
 to keep her vanity down, if ever such a thing dared to 
 peep above the surface. If she recounted any kind 
 
 M
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 5I 
 
 remark made about her by anyone, he would compassion- 
 ately say, " What a shame to make fun of you like that ! " 
 and instantly the pleasure was gone, and she was glad to 
 hide her crimson cheeks and diminished head from view. 
 
 " Will you tell me yourself about your first appearance 
 in print ? " 
 
 " With pleasure. I do not know the exact year in which 
 my first piece appeared. I think it was somewhere about 
 1872. But I well remember the day the Australian Journal 
 arrived, the month after I had sent my poor little offering. 
 I opened the Journal with palpitating heart, and when I 
 beheld the heading in black and white, ' Something to 
 do,' and saw at the foot, in real printed characters, 
 ' Bessie Vickery,' I nearly tumbled over. But uncle's 
 annoyed look, as he saw my excitement, brought back my 
 self-control, and in a voice which I tried in vain to tone to 
 calm indifference, I read aloud the piece which I cannot 
 now attempt to dignify with the name of a poem, but 
 which was the first rung in the ladder God had placed 
 for me to climb up to heights of happy service for my 
 fellow-men." 
 
 Utterly unused as she was to admiration, it was a new 
 and delicious experience to find herself famous in that 
 little out-of-the-world place. But soon she found that 
 admiration in itself was as unsatisfying as a mirage to 
 the soul thirsting for the pure, clear waters of love. She 
 was glad of everything that would make her more worthy 
 of affection, and humbly thought that if she possessed 
 neither beauty of face, nor charm of manner, nor any 
 other attraction, her gift of writing might open hearts to 
 her ; so she gloried in the new gift God had given her, and
 
 52 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 accepted it with deep intense gratitude, as a key to unlock 
 doors she could never otherwise hope to enter. About 
 this time too, her aunt began to be a little less severe 
 about her personal appearance. Thanks to the great care 
 of that W'orthy lady, one beauty had managed to develop, 
 and her aunt's pride in her abundant golden-brown hair 
 w^as very great. She would wash it and plait it every 
 night, and comb it out next day till she looked, so her 
 uncle said, "like an owl in an ivy bush." Meekly she 
 submitted, and went to bed wuth damp steaming hair, till 
 she was a martyr to neuralgia, and all pride in her 
 shimmering tresses was completely swallowed up by the 
 anguish of her nerves. 
 
 But it was a comfort to buy off her aunt's sharp 
 criticisms even at such a price, and she truly rejoiced that 
 there was something about her that was a satisfaction 
 to her at last, although she still loudly deplored the fact 
 that " Bessie was such a plain child." 
 
 Among her firm friends at the Point were Mr. James 
 and Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell. These lived together in the 
 loveliest little house on the Point, surrounded by a 
 garden, the like of which is rarely seen anywhere. They 
 were looked upon with a degree of awe by all the other 
 residents of the place, for the two gentlemen neither 
 drank nor smoked, and they kept the Sabbath Day 
 religiously. Mrs. Mitchell had great skill in herbs and 
 powders, and was ever ready to do a good turn for the 
 people around, and, in course of time, came to be looked 
 upon with a faith profound by the many she benefited. 
 They were kindness personified, and the grumble that 
 " they were too mean to spend a penny in drink " was soon
 
 DEVELOPMENT. 53 
 
 silenced by their untiring generosity. These three people 
 took the lonely little girl into their hearts from the first 
 day they met, and the friendship proved lifelong. 
 Twenty-three years after, it was Bessie's privilege to 
 nurse her old friend Mr. James in his severe illness, and 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell to stand at his grave in the 
 Yarragon cemetery singing — 
 
 " 'Twill not be long our journey here, 
 Each bitter sigh and falling tear, 
 Will soon be o'er and we shall see 
 A cloudless sky, a waveless sea." 
 
 A nobler heart never beat on earth, and Heaven gained 
 a greater charm for Bessie after the dear old man had 
 passed through the pearly portals. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell 
 still tarry here, sharing her home and anticipating her 
 every wish, with a love and devotion which never wavers. 
 Another friend was Robert Lee, a tall slim miner, who 
 used to say, with an earnestness which made smiles and 
 blushes ripple her face — 
 
 " Don't marry a miner, Bessie, you're not fit for a 
 rough life. I have a young brother growing up for you, 
 you must have him." 
 
 It was Christmas time of 1877 at Enoch's Point, which 
 unfortunately meant a time of more than ordinary 
 dissipation to the men there, and a time of visiting and 
 merrymaking among the women. In conformity with the 
 usual custom, Mr. and Mrs. Vickery with their niece were 
 going to spend the day at the little township, and we can 
 hardly wonder that Bessie dressed herself with more than 
 ordinary care, and glanced in the wee little mirror again 
 and again, to see if she looked as nice as it was possible to
 
 54 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 make herself look, when I tell you that the one who had 
 been picked out for her so long before had actually 
 arrived, and she was this day to meet him at Robert Lee's. 
 It was so romantic (and who is not full of romance at 
 seventeen) to meet someone she had never seen before, 
 yet who had been seriously and solemnly picked out as the 
 future husband. So she carolled and sang, and skipped 
 along, and jumped over logs to the great detriment of her 
 pretty blue dress, and her much-waved tresses, and felt 
 like a fairy princess going to meet Prince Charming. And 
 there he stood with his waving brown hair, clear cut 
 features, and slim tailor-clad form. He was so different 
 to the big-bearded, roughly-attired miners. She had 
 always longed for refinement, and dignity, and courtliness 
 in a man, and straightway endowed the young city visitor 
 with all these qualities. And when she later learned that 
 he never got drunk, and went to church regularly on 
 Sundays, she was more than content, and felt that God had 
 been wonderfully good in selecting for her one so high 
 above the vices and degradations, which daily saddened 
 her among the miners.
 
 ( 55 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MARRIED. 
 
 It was a bright beautiful Sabbath Day two years later, 
 when she knelt in her white robes at the Communion rails 
 in St. Peter's church and gave her hand to one who 
 promised to " love and cherish her till death should them 
 part." She had come from the country on the previous 
 Thursday in charge of her good old uncle and aunt, and 
 now with many tears they were giving up, to another's 
 care, the one they really loved best on earth. It was like 
 tearing her uncle's heart-strings out to give her away, but 
 her aunt, more practical and common-sense, had made up 
 her mind to the inevitable, although her reluctance to 
 resign all charge of her niece was made evident on that 
 Sunday morning, and there were many more tears than 
 smiles on every face, as the mountain-maid passed for ever 
 out of the old life into the new. The golden circlet was 
 on her finger, the bit of parchment in her hand as they 
 stepped out of the church ; it was exactly half-past ten, 
 and the joy-bells in St, Patrick's belfry began to peal out 
 joyously. She looked timidly into her husband's happy 
 face, then up at the blue sky, and felt that with God's grace 
 and her husband's love she could face any future ; so with 
 an answering smile she turned away from all her heart
 
 56 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 held so passionately dear, and went to the little home 
 which was to be her own. 
 
 The vast importance of being mistress of a home was 
 enough to sober a girl who had never in her life owned a 
 chair or table, or handled a pound in money ; but her 
 brimming spirits were proof against any undue gravity, 
 and blythe as a robin she turned to take up the solemn 
 duties of her new life. That there were perplexities 
 before her she soon learned, and nothing but her 
 unfailing faith in God could have triumphantly carried 
 her through. That she was happy there could be no 
 question. Her husband was proud of his wife, but soon 
 her odd ideas and ways began to surprise and startle him, 
 and she became to him as great a trial as ever she had 
 been to her good old aunt. She was so full of the kindest 
 good-will to everybody, that she made friends with all 
 manner of people. To her husband born and bred in the 
 city, people were part of a crowd ; to her, reared in the 
 country, everyone was an individual, and more than that, 
 an individual soul, and she was ready to reverence and love 
 each one. In astonishment he would sometimes say — 
 
 " Bessie, you shouldn't shake hands with your grocer ! " 
 
 " Why not ? " she would ask, in open-eyed surprise. 
 
 " Oh, well, it isn't the thing," he would bewilderedly 
 answer. But she had been too long repressed, hedged in, 
 and kept down, to be able to check the great sweet flood 
 of warm love that brimmed over on every living creature 
 with whom she came in contact. 
 
 -;f ■;;- •;;- % * 
 
 " This is the last 'bus, crush in, dear, or we shall have 
 to walk," her husband would say, as the struggling crowd
 
 MARRIED. 57 
 
 swarmed around, and into the lumbering vehicle ; but with 
 a decided shake of the head she would retreat to the 
 footpath. " What do you mean, Bess ? " he would say, half 
 pleadingly, half angrily. " You can't walk the three miles 
 with that pain in your side ! " 
 
 " If I don't walk, someone else will have to," she 
 would gently, but firmly reply, "and I would prefer 
 the three miles with the pain in my side, to crushing 
 anybody else out of the 'bus. But you go, dear, I know 
 the way home." 
 
 Of course, this was not to be thought of, and her 
 perplexed husband would draw her arm through his, and 
 they would start for home. She biting her lips many a 
 time to keep back the moan that would force itself from 
 that cruel pain, and trying to be cheerful and pleasant 
 to make amends for the action her husband could only 
 chafe at ; w^hile he, vexed and bewildered, would go 
 just a trifle quicker than there w^as any need for, with his 
 head high in the air, till the lagging step and sharp cry 
 told him the pain was too great to be borne at such a 
 pace. Then instantly, there would be a slackening of his 
 stride, a firmer clasp of her arm, and the anxious tone 
 that made amends for all, and they would reach home 
 at last ; she to sorrow that she was such a trial to him ; 
 he to wonder how on earth he was ever going to get her 
 to behave as other folk did. Their worldly circumstances 
 were not very bright, and added to scarcity of work on 
 the husband's part came the wife's fast failing health. 
 For months she w^ould not yield, or admit that she was 
 ill enough to need a doctor. She had a horror of being a 
 burden on anyone, least of all on the one whom she had
 
 58 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 meant to make so supremely happy ; so she struggled 
 through her household duties each day, weeping very 
 many tears over the weakness and awful helplessness 
 she felt growing on her, and then would brighten up and 
 smile and chat when her husband came home at night, 
 and completely deceive him as long as she possibly could. 
 
 Her experiences in the city, were, as may well be 
 imagined, very comical, and her little knowledge of 
 money and its value added to her perplexities many a 
 time. But her husband's implicit faith in her as a 
 housewife, and his undoubting trust in her ability to make 
 ends meet, at times on nothing a week, brought upper- 
 most qualities that had been latent. So they w'ere very 
 happy on the whole, and cheerily mixed the good with 
 the bad, and found that somehow or another the manna 
 daily came sufficient for their need. 
 
 One thing was a great trouble to her at this time ; she 
 had read the Bible from end to end, and formed her own 
 ideas of its teachings, unhelped by pastor or preacher 
 of any kind. She took the Bible literally as it stood, 
 and implicitly believed in giving away one dress if she 
 had two, and didn't even stop short at generously giving 
 away her husband's clothes if there came urgent need. 
 It was quite an astonishment to her when she found her 
 husband did not take the Bible just as she did, but to all 
 his despairing interpretations of the hidden meanings of 
 Scripture, she turned a smiling face and a deaf ear, placidly 
 going her own way, and driving him nearly to the verge of 
 distraction, by her utterly out-of-the-world plan of living. 
 
 She had also formed strong views about woman's place 
 and position, and bcHeved that every man should be an
 
 MARRIED. 59 
 
 Abraham, and every woman a Sarah. The man to take 
 the sole authority in the home, the woman to be the meek 
 and docile subordinate. But these views were not her 
 husband's. He wanted, not a slave, a meek will-less 
 creature, but a companion and helper, and lo ! here was 
 this little woman, in theory a most obedient, docile and 
 tractable wife ; in practice, the most difficult specimen of 
 womanhood ever poor mortal man attempted to manage, 
 bewildering him in his attempts to make a companion of 
 her by the oddest mixture of profound respect and 
 unyielding, smiling obstinacy that ever was known. 
 
 She was always blissfully happy when they went to 
 church together, and would have been willing to go three 
 times on Sunday and every night in the week, but her 
 husband felt the need of fresh air on the Sabbath day, 
 and liked to go to the parks and gardens for a stroll. 
 Of course she accompanied him, and tried hard for his 
 sake to enjoy herself, but the attempt was a pitiful 
 failure. She could not bear to see the crowds of fashion- 
 ably dressed people pleasuring on the Sabbath day. 
 The lightness, the frivolity, the worldliness, made her 
 unutterably miserable, and many a time she would have 
 spoken aloud to the people, but for fear of annoying her 
 husband. 
 
 Again and again she would turn home with a breaking 
 heart, and tear-dimmed eyes, wishing she were more like 
 other people, and able to draw^ happiness from their 
 sources, and most of all would she sorrow to hear the 
 words from her husband's lips, she had grown familiar 
 with in her young days, "Bessie, you are different to 
 any one else in the world. No one acts like you do."
 
 ( 6o ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SUFFERING AND SERVICE. 
 
 How that cruel pain would grow, till battling became a 
 physical impossibility, and again and again she had to 
 succumb to its merciless power for the time. The doctors 
 had to be consulted at last, and their faces were grave as 
 they said, " a long and tedious case," However, she was 
 wonderfully happy in soul, and cheerfulness became a 
 duty, so when very ill she lay on her couch, and smiled and 
 chatted while he washed the dishes and swept up the 
 fireplace ; and when well enough, she flew around like a 
 humming-bird, and made things tidy ; for she had been too 
 long with her capable avuit to endure a speck of dirt, or a 
 thing out of place in her little home. There were long 
 happy stretches when she could say, " Better to-day, dear." 
 There were other long stretches when the agony was so 
 awful, she could only live on because death was not ready 
 for her ; stretches when her limbs were drawn up by the 
 excruciating torture of her back, to such a degree that she 
 felt if someone would only get a sharp knife and cut the 
 contracted muscles so that she could stretch the drawn limbs 
 down, they would be doing her a kindness. But the bright 
 days were most frequent, and the blessedness of those 
 happy intervals was like the blessedness from Siloam's 
 healing pool.
 
 SUFFERING AND SERVICE. 6l 
 
 It was during one of these times of restoration that they 
 removed to Footscray, and here joined the Church of 
 England, the Church to which they both nominally 
 belonged, and here it was that she began to take an 
 interest in Church affairs. Having been reared where 
 there was no church, she, of course, did not know 
 anything about Church work, and her painful diffidence 
 formed a barrier too great to pass through to offer herself 
 as a worker. But soon the Master had need of her, and 
 sent a messenger in the shape of a dear little Sunday 
 school teacher to call her to service. The minister had 
 been pleading one Sunday morning for more teachers for 
 the school, and she had sat with eager, sympathetic heart 
 drinking in his entreaties, and lashing herself unmercifully 
 for being one of the most useless, helpless, worthless 
 creatures that ever cumbered the earth. They returned 
 from church, she with a heavy heart, her husband 
 apparently as unconcerned as though there wasn't a big 
 school near by with little lambs to be fed, and not half 
 enough workers to supply the need. After dinner, while 
 her husband buried himself in a pleasant book, she went back 
 to the old childish custom of having a talk with herself. 
 
 " Now, Bessie, what's the matter ? " 
 
 "The little children," answered the other Bessie 
 pitifully. 
 
 "Well, you can't do anything," sternly. " If only you 
 weren't such an ignorant creature you might go and take a 
 class. But supposing you went," and the little nose 
 curled scornfully at the idea, " you wouldn't know what to 
 do, or where to begin, or how to behave, or anything, so 
 you can just settle down, and admire yourself as the most
 
 62 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 useless creature I ever knew, you're not like anybody else 
 in the world." 
 
 But the other self drooped her head disconsolately, and 
 didn't appear to admire herself in any degree at all. And 
 still she sat there trying to swallow a lump in her throat, 
 and fiercely blinking away some drops of rain, or something 
 else that got into her eyes. " Oh ! if only Harry would go," 
 she ruefully thought, looking at her partner; " he w^ould 
 know something about Sunday schools and might be a 
 help." But one glance at the absorbed face, bending over 
 the book, made her abandon that plan with a sigh, and so 
 she sat on and heard the school bells ring, and wished and 
 wished in vain, and then tried another plan. 
 
 " It won't matter a bit," said she consolingly to her 
 other self, " there will be more teachers there to-day than 
 Mr. Scott will know what to do with." This view cheered 
 the other self amazingly, and she went on to explain, " You 
 see everybody who goes to church, hears how God loves 
 them, and, of course, they couldn't help loving Him in 
 return, and they learn what a lot He has done for them, 
 and as soon as they see a chance to do something for Him 
 in return, why they will jump for joy at the opportunity. 
 There will be more teachers than scholars to-day. It was 
 just because the dear people didn't know they were wanted 
 that they stayed away." This was such a pleasant view of 
 the subject that the other self had almost got to the point 
 of singing " The sweet fields of Eden," when a tiny silk- 
 robed figure appeared, and little Miss Pierce, with her 
 school books and Bible, stood before her. 
 
 " Are you going to take a class to-day, Mrs. Lee ? " she 
 asked simply.
 
 SUFFERING AND SERVICF. 63 
 
 Mrs. Lee gave an astonished gasp, which could not 
 have been greater had she been asked if she were going 
 to visit the man in the moon. 
 
 "Do come," pleaded Miss Pierce, " we are so short of 
 teachers." 
 
 " Oh! I couldn't," replied Mrs. Lee, in distressed tones, 
 " I need teaching myself." 
 
 "Oh! we need you so much," ventured the little school 
 teacher. 
 
 But Mrs. Lee rallied, and brightly said, " You won't 
 need me to-day, you'll have more volunteers than you 
 will know what to do with." 
 
 The little lady shook her head, and made one more 
 effort. " Don't you think you could mind a class, Mrs. 
 Lee ? " 
 
 Oh ! the blessed difference of that one word. Yes, 
 perhaps she could mind a class, where she could make no 
 attempt to teach one. She looked at her husband for his 
 sanction, and receiving it, in an instant was up from her 
 seat, and had fastened her hat and donned her gloves, and 
 started with a trembling heart to the Sunday school. When 
 they reached the door she looked around for the surging 
 crowd of new teachers her vivid imagination had so 
 pleasantly conjured up, but alas ! they were painfully 
 conspicuous by their absence. 
 
 As they entered the door the poor worried minister met 
 them, and seized the frightened woman as though she 
 were a great prize the moment Miss Pierce introduced 
 her as a " new teacher." She tried to explain, but he 
 was too busy to listen, and just hurried her off to a class 
 and set a chair for her, and hastened to the platform,
 
 64 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 leaving her with eighteen little boys, as merry and mis- 
 chievous as ever were created. Self-control was second 
 nature to her, so she crushed down her panting heart and 
 steadied her trembling limbs, and watched with intensity 
 of interest the actions of the teacher of the next class, 
 that for once "she might behave like somebody else." 
 " And how did you get on, Mrs. Lee, with your class ? " 
 " Well, after the hymn and prayer, the bell rang for 
 lessons. I had resolved that come w'hat might, I wouldn't 
 attempt to teach the children. Imagination saw the great 
 Judgment Throne, and gathered there all the nations of the 
 earth, among the number, a class of Sunday school boys, 
 rising in witness against a trembling, guilty woman, 
 declaring, as they pointed fingers of hatred at the cowering 
 creature, ' You taught us wrong, you set us astray, that 
 Sabbath day long ago in Footscray.' No, as I valued my 
 own soul and the souls of these boys, I would not attempt 
 to teach them anything, lest I should teach them error. 
 So I sat in my chair intending to mind them ; that is, I 
 thought all that I would have to do would be to sit 
 there and look very grave, and the boys, overawed by 
 my presence, would sit as still as little mice until closing 
 time. But whether my presence was not very awesome, 
 or whether the boys had not cultivated the bump of 
 reverence, I cannot say, I only know that the amount of 
 noise, and confusion and disorder in that class reduced 
 me to a state of abject misery. One boy was filling his 
 mouth with great egg lollies, till I feared his cheeks 
 would burst ; another was busy shelling peanuts, and 
 devouring them ; another had a nail on the end of a 
 piece of string, with which he dexterously flicked every
 
 SUFFERING AND SERVICE. 65 
 
 Other boy within reach, and from every corner of that 
 awful class came such ejaculations as, ' Please, teacher, 
 he's pinching me ' ; ' Please, Miss, he's sticking pins into 
 me,' till I was in despair. In the dense darkness fast settling 
 upon me appeared a sudden gleam of light. I had as a 
 child a talent for story-telling, and had many a time 
 held my little mates enthralled as I related some mar- 
 vellous or beautiful story within play hours, during the 
 brief months I attended school. Could I, oh could I 
 reach and charm these turbulent little urchins by the 
 same power. ' Boys,' I tremblingly said, 'would you like 
 me to tell you a story ? ' Instantly eighteen little heads 
 were popped over towards me, and a chorus of eighteen 
 voices promptly responded, ' Yes, please, teacher.' And 
 so I told them a story, and surely the King of kings 
 was at hand to help, for the eager eyes of the boys 
 never wavered, and their attention never flagged till the 
 story ended, and there was a clamorous chorus again, 
 ' Please tell us another, teacher.' I had to obey the 
 imperative command of my small tyrants and tell another, 
 and before the hour ended I learned that instead of the 
 boys being in my charge, I was in their's, and had simply 
 to do what I was told if I wanted to keep peace. 
 
 " When the school was dismissed, with friendly nods the 
 boys took leave of me ; some bolting out of the door, 
 others vaulting over the seats in their endeavours to be out 
 first, and I sat and waited for Miss Pierce with a heavy 
 heart. Here I had a golden opportunity of feeding Christ's 
 lambs, and through sheer ignorance had had to let the 
 chance slip past, and what would my Lord say by-and-by ? 
 How tender and wise our Master is ! While I sat there, 
 
 E
 
 66 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 working myself into a state of real unhappiness, Mr. Scott 
 came down, and warmly shaking my hand, said, 
 
 " ' Well done, Mrs. Lee, you managed those boys 
 admirably to-day.' 
 
 " I looked in utter astonishment at his face to see if he 
 were sarcastic. Evidently he was not, so marvelling much, 
 and beginning to have a wee glimmer of hope that perhaps 
 God had used me, I turned homeward. The next Sunday I 
 went again, and the moment I appeared in the doorway 
 eighteen boys on tiptoes, with eager faces and impatiently 
 beckoning hands, vociferated, ' Come and tell us another 
 tale, teacher.' x\nd I obediently went forward and gave 
 myself into the care of my imperious little masters, and 
 tried to 'mind them' again." 
 
 That began my work. I never attempted to teach. I 
 heard them their lessons when they were good enough to 
 learn any, and read bits of the Bible with them, and told 
 them beautiful stories about different passages, and I loved 
 my boys and they loved me with ardent affection, and some 
 of my boys are Christ's workers themselves now. Praise 
 to His wonderful Name ! And the dear little creature who 
 proved to be God's beckoning hand to me, twelve years 
 afterward passed to the Better Land, and I stood with her 
 as she trembled on the dark edge of the valley, and became 
 to her God's voice lovingly whispering, " Fear thou not, 
 for I am with thee," and I myself learned 
 
 " Whate'er may die, and be forgot, 
 Work done for God, it dieth not."
 
 ( 67 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LEARNING. 
 
 They again returned to Richmond, but this time she came 
 with warm recommendations from the church and Sunday 
 school at Footscray, and was accorded hearty welcome to 
 church work in the parish of St. Matthias. When health 
 permitted there was ample opportunity for service. Her 
 husband was away at work the whole day. Always an 
 early riser, she would have her house spic and span by 
 nine o'clock, even to the polishing of her scissors. Every- 
 thing shinable had to shine, whether the tins on the kitchen 
 shelf or the nozzle of the bellows ; while her beautiful 
 white fireplace was her object of special pride. 
 
 But even the scouring of saucepan lids and the exces- 
 sive scrubbing of the kitchen floor couldn't be made to last 
 the whole day, so she would don her outdoor apparel, and 
 sally forth to visit the poor and sick in the neighbourhood. 
 Not to preach or pray, O dear no ! But to sew, or darn, 
 or cook, or sweep for them, and to rejoice with great joy 
 when any of them permitted her to do any little extra thing 
 for them. She was so superlatively happy, and felt it such 
 a great condescension on their part to allow her to work for 
 them, that it was no wonder the old-time words began to 
 find an echo again.
 
 68 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 " You are so different to anybody else, Mrs. Lee ; there 
 isn't anyone else like you in the world." 
 
 But somehow the words didn't sting, and though she 
 could neither preach nor pray with the sad-hearted ones, 
 they were helped by her shyly proffered services and her 
 brimming sympathy, and she would work on to the last 
 minute she dared give, and then hurry home for her hus- 
 band to have a good tea, a bright fire, and a smiling wife 
 ready for him. There could not fail to come to her at this 
 time many perplexities and bewilderments in her spiritual 
 life, reared as she had been with the Bible as her sole 
 teacher. She was utterly confounded by sectarian strife 
 and dissension. To her it did not matter a jot whether 
 one belonged to the Baptists, another to the Wesleyans, 
 another to the Episcopals, and so forth, so long as they 
 all served God, and were able to stand the one test of 
 discipleship Christ had laid down for all time. " By this 
 shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one 
 another." 
 
 The intense warmth with which one denomination 
 pushed against another surprised and puzzled her, and 
 she found herself once or twice on stormy seas of theo- 
 logical dispute. But her anchor held fast and firm. She 
 knew only two things in the religious world : Love to God 
 and love to man, and could take no side with the 
 disputants, feeling herself too profoundly ignorant of the 
 roots of the matter to know who was right or who was 
 wrong, and name or creed could never do away with the 
 
 fact 
 
 " That a man's a man for a' that." 
 
 If a man, then a brother. If a brother, then to be loved
 
 LEARNING. 69 
 
 and helped as the Lord Christ loved and helped all. It 
 all seemed so simple to her, that she used to privately 
 marvel where the difficulties came in in religion. She 
 would take her Bible and have long talks with the other 
 self, something after this style : — 
 
 " Love your enemies ; bless them which curse you ; 
 pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute 
 you." 
 
 " Isn't that grand ? " 
 
 " It is sublime." 
 
 " Well, see that you live up to it." 
 
 " But everybody doesn't." 
 
 " Never mind, that's none of your business ; you won't 
 have to give an account of anybody else. Whatever they 
 do or leave undone they are responsible for. Another's 
 wrong or neglect of duty can never excuse yours." 
 
 " Why doesn't everybody love God ? Shall I tell you? 
 It is because they don't know Him. The poor South Sea 
 Islanders build images and call them gods ; they fear and 
 dread these gods, and try to buy their favour by offerings 
 and immolations and oblations. We, in a Christian land, 
 are no better than our poor heathen brethren. We build 
 up a distorted, horrible image of God, and we fear and 
 hate the creation of our own minds, and daily try to either 
 buy its favour or to drag down and destroy this hellish 
 monster we have fashioned for ourselves and dubbed with 
 the name of God. Some people think the great Father 
 has sent sickness, sorrow, suffering, and death into the 
 world, and that He takes a fiend's pleasure in the torture 
 of His helpless children. Let us see if such is the case 
 from His own words and acts.
 
 70 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 First, as to sickness. Did Jesus make anybody sick 
 while He was on earth ? No, " He healed all that were 
 afflicted." Then it is not from Him that sickness comes. 
 
 What about sorrow ? " When we cried unto the Lord 
 God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked 
 on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression, and 
 the Lord brought us forth" (Deut. xxvi. 7). " Surely He 
 hath borne our sorrows and carried our sicknesses." 
 
 Does He send us suffering ? No, " He gives the oil of 
 joy for the spirit of heaviness." 
 
 "What of death?" "God is the Author of life, and 
 Christ has conquered death for every man. There is no 
 death now to them that are in Christ Jesus, and the last 
 enemy — Death — shall be conquered by the Eternal Life 
 from God." 
 
 " Well, what is the end of the whole matter ? " 
 
 Just this. Men have set up Satan, with all his cruelty, 
 oppression, and tyranny, on the throne of their imagina- 
 tions and called him God, and then with despairing hatred 
 have tried to dethrone the monster, preferring to have no 
 God rather than a God of cruelty. Yet though men deny 
 the great Father, He cannot deny Himself. The sun still 
 shines on the just and on the unjust, and the rain falls 
 upon the evil and upon the good. The field of the infidel 
 is made as fruitful as the field of the Christian. For 
 though the man may hate God, God by His very nature 
 can only love the man. " O ! it is wonderful ! " and she 
 would close her Bible with an overpowering sense of that 
 infinite love, and soar away to mountain heights to worship 
 the King who had revealed Himself in such transcendent 
 beauty to His servant.
 
 LEARNING. 7I 
 
 It was at St. Mathias' she really began to teach, and to 
 fit herself for this, she attended the weekly Bible class and 
 absorbed all the knowledge that could be gained from that 
 source. One night the minister was giving the lesson for 
 the following Sunday on the Crucifixion. He described 
 the different crosses ; the one, St. Andrew's, shaped like an 
 X; the other the Latin Cross, with sticks athwart, which 
 we know best as Christ's cross. He spoke of how the 
 nails were driven through the quivering palms, and the 
 body suspended thereby, how the feet were crushed together 
 and nailed, how — but one of his auditors could bear no 
 more ; she was away at Calvary by the side of her dying 
 Lord, feeling the agony of hands and feet and side, watch- 
 ing the blood drops falling to the ground, and a suffocating 
 cry broke from her lips. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Sharp, don't say another word, I can't bear 
 it." 
 
 She buried her face in her hands, and tried hard to 
 control her sobs, and subdue the quivering of her whole 
 frame, while the minister and teachers, stricken dumb at 
 such behaviour, could only look helplessly on, and wonder 
 whether their new teacher had suddenly taken leave of her 
 senses. Control was not to be gained, so she left the 
 meeting, her heart welling over with the pity and pain 
 which was almost unendurable, saying over and over again, 
 " O ! my Lord, my dear Lord, I never knew you suffered 
 like that. O ! those cruel men ; how could they, those 
 nails, those awful nails, O my Lord, my Lord." It was 
 strange she had never suffered with Christ before, but 
 until that night she had never really grasped the real 
 agony and horror of the Crucifixion, and it completely
 
 72 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 overpowered her. Imagination vividly filled up any blanks 
 which the minister had left, and she saw with awful clear- 
 ness, Creation's God dying for sins not His own. Covering 
 her face to shut out the sight she cried all the way home, 
 and the burden of her cry was, " My Brother, my gentle, 
 tender, pitiful Brother, is hanging on a cross, and no one 
 near to help Him." 
 
 Among the many friends made at this time there was 
 a saintly old soul whose character Mrs. Lee has drawn 
 in her serial story " Tempted and Tried," which first 
 appeared in the Australian Journal. Mrs. Nelson was a 
 woman of simple faith and great sweetness of disposition. 
 She was also a woman of marvellous resource and in- 
 dustry. She was poor in this world's goods, and had to 
 work hard at her trade as a furrier to earn a living for 
 herself and her helpless husband. It was Mrs. Lee's 
 delight to go to her house, and work with might and 
 main to help her complete an order, or to get the dinner 
 ready while the old lady worked, and talked of the hidden 
 things of God, till the heart of her hearer was drawn nearer 
 to the great Father-heart of the world than ever it had 
 been before, and much of the fear she had always had, 
 began to be lost in the great trusting love that kindled in 
 her soul. Mrs. Nelson talked of God as a little child 
 would talk of a tender father, and she talked to Him in the 
 same sweet simple way, till many almost looked to see the 
 Visible Presence in that little garret in Collingwood. It 
 was by her side Mrs. Lee first heard her own voice in 
 prayer. It was a very confused and trembling prayer that 
 was uttered, but the dumb lips were unsealed, and from that 
 day she was able to voice her own and others' needs aloud.
 
 LEARNING. 73 
 
 Among some of the incidents in the first years of her 
 life in the great city, must be mentioned the meeting with 
 her elder sister whom she had not met since their mother's 
 death. A very wee little creature it was that stepped 
 from the train at the Spencer Street Station that cold May 
 morning. Bessie looked at her with swelling heart eager 
 to see if Mary resembled the dear, sweet-faced mother 
 enshrined in sacred memory, but the resemblance was 
 very faint. Her bright dark eyes, black hair, rich com- 
 plexion, and haughty little figure delighted her sister, while 
 her delicious arrogance and self-assurance amazed and 
 amused her immensely. Though the younger sister had 
 always been reckoned of small dimensions herself, the 
 elder scarcely reached above her shoulder, while the 
 dignified carriage of the petite little woman would have 
 done for a body six feet high. 
 
 Friendly to every living creature, she was not held back 
 by the timidity that was her sister's bane, and wherever she 
 went her frank fearless friendliness made her a great 
 favourite. Bessie was very proud of her pretty sister, the 
 more so, when she found that she was a Sunday-school 
 teacher, a worker in the Band of Hope, and a visitor among 
 the sick in Daylesford. Mary, in turn, was equally proud 
 of her sister as a writer, and used to copy ever}^ scrap of 
 poetry, and send the copies to all her friends with a 
 dignified conceit quite irresistible. 
 
 Her father, too, came on a visit from New South Wales, 
 where his home had been for fifteen years, bringing the 
 youngest of the family, Emily, with him, and about this 
 time came also the dark Angel of Death to the family, 
 taking away the eldest brother Tom. Tom had always
 
 74 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 been the dearest of all to Bessie, for he was the only one 
 she had seen at Enoch's Point, and although they had 
 not met during later years, she felt sore bereft when the 
 strong, loving heart ceased to beat, and her brother was 
 laid to rest in the little far-off graveyard in the mountains 
 of New South Wales. Amelia, the other sister, who had 
 been married when only eighteen, also visited her sister in 
 Victoria, and so the girls, who had been parted at their 
 mother's grave, met again, in God's providence, and 
 learned from each other how that mother's God had 
 kept every promise made on behalf of the children left in 
 His sacred care. 
 
 It was, I think, in the year 1883, that there came to 
 Australia Mrs. Hampson, the marvellous woman whose 
 eloquence shook the land from end to end. In Sydney 
 special trains had to be run to convey the vast congrega- 
 tions to her meetings ; in Melbourne the largest buildings 
 were crowded to excess long before the service began, 
 and patient thousands waited in the streets in hopes of the 
 second meeting, which often had to be held by this queen 
 of speakers to gratify the eager crowds. Her name was on 
 every lip, her fame was spread far and wide, ministers of 
 every denomination gathered to her aid, and in trains and 
 busses her magnificent discourses formed the one theme of 
 conversation. 
 
 For a time Mrs. Lee hesitated to go to hear Mrs. 
 Hampson, for she had imbibed all the old prejudices 
 against women speakers, or, rather, had read her Bible 
 and forpied opinions strongly antagonistic to women's 
 public work for God. But in her nature was a strong 
 desire to do justice to everyone, and she felt she had no
 
 LEARNING. 75 
 
 ri^ht to say one word against this woman, or her w^ork, 
 until she had actually seen and heard her ; even then it 
 would have been impossible for Mrs. Lee to pronounce 
 an adverse judgment, for had she not read too often such 
 words as " Judge not, lest ye be judged," " With what 
 measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 
 " Who art thou, O man, that judgest another ? " to dare 
 to utter one word of condemnation against anyone, least 
 of all against one who was, however mistakenly, trying to 
 advance Christ's kingdom. 
 
 So she went to hear the lady preacher at last, and looked 
 and listened with eager, dispassionate interest. Mrs. 
 Hampson's eloquence had not been overrated, and she 
 was so womanly withal, so tender in her pleadings, so 
 motherly in her manner, that she won affection for 
 herself at once, and her hearer came away with judgment 
 suspended. 
 
 Paul and his epistles could not be put on one side, for 
 the Bible was Alpha and Omega to Mrs. Lee. Yet could 
 she not believe that this spirit-filled woman was working in 
 direct opposition to the Spirit's commands, so, as usual, she 
 ended by condemning herself unsparingly for being stupid 
 and ignorant, and not understanding anything she should 
 understand, and the matter was laid aside till further light 
 should come. 
 
 How the light came had better here be related, although 
 it was really a time of deeper darkness than had been 
 experienced since her conversion. 
 
 A morning service for children had been arranged for the 
 Sunday School, and all the teachers were expected to take 
 turns in giving the addresses to the scholars. She loved
 
 76 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 this particular work, and many of the other teachers did 
 not, so more often than not Mrs. Lee was the children's 
 preacher. Her whole heart went out to the little ones, and 
 in the joy of leading them to Christ she lost her shyness 
 and timidity, and was a new creature. She never dreamed 
 that she was either preaching or teaching. It was simply 
 talking to the children of the One she loved best, and 
 showing them how grand and heroic, and noble and good 
 He was, and putting the glorious theme before them in 
 every possible way, that they might long to be like that 
 Splendid Example. 
 
 Occasionally the other teachers would remain and listen 
 too, sometimes looking on with wondering eyes and puzzled 
 faces as the eager, burning words fell from heart and lips, 
 and teachers and scholars often melted into tears, and were 
 led to kneel and send up to Heaven's throne McCheyne's 
 beautiful prayer, " Lord, make me as good as a pardoned 
 sinner can be made." 
 
 Once in a while she also attended the Y.W.C.A. Bible 
 Class, for she longed to learn everything possible of the 
 only thing worth learning, " How to live, and how to help 
 others to live." She was not content to simply exist. 
 Life was what she craved for. Every day seemed a 
 wonderful glorious possibility of rising to Heaven's highest 
 heights by stooping to earth's lowest depths, and raising 
 someone up. Often the quotation came to her mind, " A 
 life is but a day repeated, and every day is a little life." 
 She had begun to find that there were sorrows and troubles 
 and woes most piteous in God's beautiful, sunlit world, 
 and she longed to stand with one hand clasped in the 
 Father's strong right hand, and the other stretched out
 
 LEARNING. 77 
 
 to some poor stricken soul who was sinking beneath 
 burdens too heavy to be borne. She found that rich 
 dresses sometimes covered weary hearts ; and rags and 
 dirt hid many a crushed spirit, so, looking beyond the 
 outer garments, she saw in every human being a soul ; 
 and by this time our readers are beginning to understand 
 a little of what that meant to her. She had been blessed 
 in being reared in a place where none were rich and none 
 were poor, where the song had never been sung — 
 
 " God bless the vSquire and his relations, 
 And keep us in our proper stations ; " 
 
 but where the words of Bobbie Burns, 
 
 *' Then let us pray that come it may, 
 As come it will for a' that, 
 That man to man the world o'er. 
 Shall brithers be for a' that," 
 
 found a deep echo in her soul. All vv'ere equal at Enoch's 
 Point, and she had early learned that there was no 
 difference in souls, let the covering be what it might. Old 
 and ugly, poor and dirty, she loved them all alike, and 
 would gladly have laid herself down as a bridge over 
 which they might walk to a brighter life. This intense 
 affection for her kind made her anxious to qualify herself 
 to serve them, and whenever there was a chance to learn 
 more about God's plan of redeeming His people, it was 
 seized upon. 
 
 It was a surprise, too, one day to be asked to speak at a 
 meeting for the Young Women's Association, but she 
 accepted the invitation simply, and began to prepare a 
 Bible reading for the young members. The subject
 
 78 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 chosen was " Building on a Rock," and she laid down the 
 foundation — Christ Jesus, and took the corner stones of 
 Faith and Love and Prayer and Hope, and gathered Good 
 Works as the building materials, and the cement to bind 
 all together the Love of God ; and she intended to plead 
 with each member to copy the wise man's example spoken 
 of in Matthew vii. 
 
 With her little Bible in hand she sallied forth on the 
 appointed evening, and duly reached the building. She 
 entered, blissfully happy, expecting to find about a dozen 
 young ladies there, but the bliss turned suddenly to un- 
 utterable dismay as she beheld about 300 ladies present, 
 and learned it was not an ordinary meeting of the members 
 but the Anniversary of the Young Women's Christian 
 Association. Her aunt's training stood her in good stead 
 again. With quiet face, though throbbing heart, she 
 mounted the platform and took the proffered chair till her 
 turn came to speak. 
 
 " And how did you get on, Mrs. Lee." 
 
 " My turn came all too soon, and I lifted up my limp, 
 trembling form by an immense effort of will and faced that 
 audience. There was a faint clapping of gloved hands, 
 and a mass of faces all turned toward the platform, then 
 they blurred, my head swam, my knees shook, my voice 
 stuck in my throat, and I leaned heavily on the table to 
 keep myself from falling over the platform. It could only 
 have been for a moment, but it seemed an age. I tried to 
 think, but thinking power had gone. I stood alone in an 
 awful wilderness, and wished that an earthquake would 
 kindly come along to my relief. No earthquake was at 
 hand, but the helpless sinner's friend was. And there
 
 LEARNING. 79 
 
 came a sudden question : " Bessie Lee, what are you here 
 for, to speak of yourself or of Christ ? " 
 
 " Of Christ," I answered. 
 
 " Then speak," sternly said the voice. And with a new 
 power thrilling my whole being, and taking entire posses- 
 sion of soul and body, I stepped forward and spoke. No 
 need of the table for support now. God's strong arm was 
 there, and instead of a shrinking woman, there stood a 
 messenger from the King. I don't know what I said, nor 
 how I said it, but that very week a minister called upon me 
 to ask, " Would I preach for him on Sunday? " Of course 
 I unhesitatingly refused, and asked him how could he, a 
 clergyman, asked a woman to do what Paul had forbidden. 
 
 " But you spoke on Wednesday night, to women." 
 
 " Ah ! but they were women. Paul suffers us not to 
 usurp authority over the man". 
 
 " Suppose you do not usurp, but simply accept the 
 authority offered you by the man?" 
 
 I shook my head decidedly. 
 
 " Have you ever read the parable of the talents, Mrs. 
 Lee ? " 
 
 "Yes, many times." 
 
 " What excuse will you give to God for neglecting the 
 talent He has evidently endowed you with? " 
 
 I stared bewilderedly. He continued — 
 
 "You speak to mixed audiences of boys and girls at the 
 Sunday School, you have spoken to a large audience of 
 women, now why will you not speak to men in a church ? 
 Do you think they are not in as much need of salvation as 
 women and children ? " 
 
 Always at a loss in argument, my perplexity grew deeper
 
 8o ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 as the minister reasoned in a way I had never heard before, 
 and at last utterly vanquished, I consented to go to his 
 church and preach for him on the Sunday. 
 
 The little wooden church in Burnley, where I preached 
 my first sermon, stands exactly opposite the girlhood's 
 home of Australia's famous nightingale, Madame Melba 
 — then Nellie Mitchell — whose rich voice was often heard 
 ringing out on the evening air in Burnley. My sermon 
 was on^" Prayer." I crept up into the pulpit, a frightened, 
 perplexed w^oman, with a dark cloud over me heavily, that 
 I was doing wrong by daring to stand upon such holy 
 ground, but the moment I stood up to speak the fear fell 
 off like a wet cloak, and I spoke as the Spirit gsive me 
 utterance. Then I came down, and the damp, cold cloak 
 settled on me again, and I went home to wonder if I had 
 for ever shut Heaven's gates against myself. 
 
 All the week I prayed and pored over Paul's words, to 
 see if light would come in my darkness, but none came, 
 and I determined never again to be entrapped by specious 
 reasoning to disobey the command, " Let your women 
 keep silence in the churches." 
 
 In a little while I was put to the test. Another clergy- 
 man came to ask me to preach anniversary sermons at his 
 church in Carlton. Very, very humbly, but firmly, I told 
 him I dared not court such mental suffering and perplexity 
 again as I had endured since preaching that iirst sermon. 
 But with a persistency I was not prepared for, the gentle- 
 man said, — 
 
 "Z)o women keep silence in the churches? Do they 
 not sing hymns, anthems, and even solos in the churches, 
 as well as joining in the responses ? "
 
 LEARNING. 8l 
 
 " Yes," I answered, somewhat staggered at this new 
 view. " But they are not to teach in the church." 
 
 " But they do teach. What is the Sunday school, but a 
 miniature church ? And are there not lady teachers there 
 training up the future men of the colony ; aye, and in some 
 cases actually teaching the coming ministers. They do not 
 keep silence. They do teach, and where is the difference 
 between teaching little children, and children of larger 
 growth ? " 
 
 I prudently held my peace, and he continued : 
 
 " When the woman of Samaria brought the whole village 
 to Jesus, did He rebuke her ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to bring a whole village to Christ, 
 Mrs. Lee ? " 
 
 The question thrilled me, and at the very thought of such 
 a thing I nodded emphatically. 
 
 "Jesus sent Mary as a messenger specially to men after 
 His resurrection. Will you not go when He bids you, and 
 tell the people He is risen ? " 
 
 I could stand no more. All power of resistance was fast 
 melting away. I jumped up and ran to the outer room, and 
 dropping on my knees cried, " O Lord ! I don't know what 
 to do. Are you calling me to preach, or is this a tempta- 
 tion from the Evil One ? Tell me, O tell me, for I cannot 
 see the way. Now, Lord, like Gideon, I will put Thee to 
 the test. I will go back and tell this man I will wo^ preach. 
 If Thou really want me he will urge again, and then all my 
 responsibiUty in accepting will cease. If Thou don't want 
 me then he will say mo more, and I will know I must 
 never again open my lips in a church." 
 
 F
 
 82 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 Back I went and firmly said, " I will not preach for you, 
 Mr. Pickering." 
 
 " Oh ! Mrs. Lee, when God has given you the gift, why 
 will you not use it," he pleaded. 
 
 I was satisfied God wanted me, so I said, " I will be 
 with you on the Sunday, and may God bkss the people."
 
 ( 83 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LESSONS IN drink's DOINGS. 
 
 As a district visitor and church worker, she could not fail 
 to note drink's share in the poverty and degradation of the 
 people around, but was too accustomed to the sight of 
 drink and drunkenness to do more than deplore its dire 
 consequences. She never thought of asking the victims to 
 give up drink's use, but ventured once or twice to urge — 
 moderation. That was as far as she dared go, and even 
 that was a failure, so she sighed over the poor people, and, 
 leaving the cause untouched, did all she could to minimise 
 its effects. 
 
 One day, passing down Bridge Road, in Richmond, 
 she saw a little crowd of people gathered around an object 
 on the ground. Peeping through, she saw that the object 
 was a tattered, besotted woman. In a moment she w^as 
 beside her, trying to hft up the helpless ragged form. 
 No one offered to help, but she succeeded at last in her 
 efforts, and steadied the woman against a lamp post, 
 then, brimming over with pity, she stood by her side, 
 and when the poor Magdalene asked to be helped across 
 the street, God's child was only too willing to be her 
 servant. It was no easy task to get the drunken woman 
 to the other side. They lurched and staggered and 
 reeled, till at every step it appeared as though they
 
 84 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 would both go down. Too well taught by the spirit of 
 Christ to have any shame of the position she was placed 
 in, she yet felt shame and sorrow for the poor fallen 
 woman. 
 
 "Why do you drink that horrid beer, Sister?" she 
 asked, as they swayed from side to side. 
 
 " I haven't had a drop to-day," hiccoughed the woman, 
 with a face of such virtuous indignation that her 
 questioner was completely taken aback. 
 
 " Well, how did you come to be lying on the pave- 
 ment ? " was the surprised inquiry. 
 
 " Well, you see, my dear, I have got an impediment 
 in my legs which makes me fall down occasionally," 
 replied this most exemplary victim of circumstances. 
 Her helper said no more, but as she left her on the 
 opposite side, she looked for the first time with honest 
 indignation at the open hotels, and said, "Well, some- 
 body ought to do something. It's bad enough to have 
 men turned into drunkards, but it's a thousand times 
 worse to have our women destroyed." 
 
 Soon after this experience came another. Hurrying 
 home one night alone, she took care to keep in the 
 middle of the road, and make all possible speed, but 
 suddenly turning a dark corner she went stunfbling over 
 an obstruction in the way, and this time found that it 
 was a man that had " got an impediment," and had 
 fallen in the way of danger. Gathering herself together* 
 she ran with a beating heart up Burnley Street, but 
 suddenly a voice spoke to her inner consciousness, and 
 her flying feet stood still. 
 
 " Bessie Lee, your brother is in danger."
 
 LESSONS IN drink's DOINGS. 85 
 
 " Well, Lord, I didn't put him there." 
 
 " Go back," said the voice. " If he is killed his blood 
 will I require at thy hand." 
 
 She groaned in trepidation of spirit. How she wished 
 she didn't know the man was there. How she wished she 
 had turned some other corner. How she wished she could 
 pretend to God that the man was not in absolute peril, and 
 therefore did not need her help. She knew better. The 
 man was lying just where the 'busses and cabs turned, and 
 at any moment a passing vehicle might go over him, and 
 then in the morning paper she would see an account of a 
 man run over and killed while drunk, at the corner of 
 Simpson's Road. " While drunk ! " that was enough. 
 
 A little child's voice came wailing down through twelve 
 intervening years, *' Bill's dead, and he died drunk 1 " She 
 turned to go back, but just then, to her joy, saw a man 
 approaching in the darkness. Ah ! help was at hand, and 
 how glad we are to get some one else to do our work for 
 us. How ready we all are to do good by proxy. The 
 world would be reformed from beginning to end if only 
 somebody else would do everything. Eagerly she accosted 
 the comer to explain about the poor man at the corner, and 
 to beseech his aid in removing the man from the perilous 
 position. But, alas ! it was a Chinaman, who shook a 
 stolid head, and hurried past, saying, " Me, no savee." 
 There was no help for it, God had given her the work to 
 do, and would permit no one else to do it. 
 
 -;r -;c -X- -;;. 
 
 Have you ever heard of one of the Iron Duke's aide-de- 
 camps who was sent with a message away across the 
 deadly battlefield. Some one noticed his blanched face and
 
 86 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 said, " Are you frightened ? " " No," said the young man, 
 "but I am frightfully nervous." The kindly questioner 
 went to tell the Duke that his aide-de-camp was unable 
 to carry out his orders, but the great general bent his brows 
 upon the man and said, " Go back, you will find him half- 
 way across the field by this." And so he was. 
 
 Well might a little woman on this dark night have 
 reached out her hand in spirit from Victoria to Waterloo, 
 and claimed comradeship with that young man, for she 
 felt exactly like him — willing to face a cannon's mouth if 
 duty demanded, but frightfully nervous all the time. 
 
 Returning she searched round for a little while, till she 
 found a stick, and then went and poked the man. In 
 return for this kindness there was such a volley of oaths 
 that the startled woman ran again, but the man only woke 
 up long enough to swear, and then settled back again to 
 sleep. With her heart throbbing with apprehension, and 
 her skirts gathered up in her hand ready to run at full 
 speed if need arose, she returned again and again to the 
 charge, until at last the man staggered up and went 
 lurching on to the footpath and finally got deposited in a 
 cactus hedge, and then she went home feeling she had had 
 a hand-to-hand conflict with the powers of drinkdom. 
 
 Another experience of drink's doings was very pitiful, 
 and this time the victim was a helpless baby. God surely 
 meant to show His worker that through the legalised evil in 
 the land, suffering fell alike on women, men, and children. 
 
 The minister arrived one evening to ask if his district 
 visitor would take up the case of a dying baby near by. 
 Of course she agreed to go at once, and as her husband was 
 going off for an evening's fishing, she was at liberty to go
 
 LESSONS IN drink's DOINGS. 87 
 
 immediately after tea. Reaching the house she had been 
 directed to, she knocked several times, but, receiving no 
 reply, opened the door and entered. The faint feeble wails 
 of a little baby guided her to a back room, and she stood 
 for a moment to take in the scene. A room destitute of 
 furniture, a tall gaunt woman holding in her arms a pillow 
 on which was a little skeleton frame unlike anything human. 
 The visitor went forward and lifted the child on the pillow 
 from the woman's arms and cried, 
 
 " Get the child some food, it is starving." 
 
 " There is none in the house," the woman answered, 
 staring with dull vacant eyes at the new arrival. 
 
 " Haven't you any bread ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nor milk ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Haven't you anything at all ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all." 
 
 She laid the pillow and the little form back in the woman's 
 arms, and sped home to fill a basket with provisions. 
 Returning, she tenderly took the little object and put a. 
 cup of milk to its lips. With ravenous hunger the child 
 swallowed the milk, and pitifully moaned for more. It was 
 hard to refuse the starving little thing, but it would have 
 been mistaken kindness to have given it too much at once, 
 so she shook her head and nestled the child up to her 
 breast, and tried to croon it to sleep. 
 
 The woman's movements presently attracted her 
 attention. She had possessed herself of a large carving- 
 knife, and the cunning stealthy actions, coupled with the 
 look on her face, revealed the awful fact that she was a mad
 
 88 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 woman. As the terrible truth dawned on the visitor, she 
 reviewed like a flash the situation. She was small and 
 weak physically, and cumbered with a dying baby. Two 
 little girls were asleep in an adjoining room, and a son was 
 somewhere out in the streets. There was no one near to 
 help but the ever-present One. As the demented woman 
 caught her visitor's eye, she held the knife awkwardly in 
 her hand for a moment and then said, 
 
 " Did you ever see anyone cut their throat ? " and the 
 knife was just being drawn across her throat, when rising, 
 Mrs. Lee said in a tone so firm that it could hardly be 
 recognized as hers, 
 
 " Put that knife down this instant." 
 
 The woman looked astonished, hesitated, and then 
 obeyed, and laying the baby back in her arms, her visitor 
 seized the knife, left the house, and started for home. The 
 re-action was dreadful, and so over-wrought were her 
 nerves when she reached the house, that she could not 
 enter, but waited outside till her husband returned from 
 his fishing excursion. 
 
 Each day she went and cared for the baby, and learned 
 the unfortunate mother's sad history. She had been a 
 wealthy lady in England, but, like so many society ladies, 
 she had been accustomed to take a glass of wine 
 occasionally. In time the occasional glass became a daily 
 necessity, till the poor woman sank into open drunkenness. 
 Her husband, to save his shame, sold their possessions and 
 brought his unfortunate wife to Victoria, hoping that 
 change of scene might mean change of life, but removed 
 from all home restraints, the woman sank deeper and 
 deeper till forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and the
 
 LESSONS IN drink's DOINGS. 89 
 
 despairing husband deserted her. Then bit by bit the 
 furniture was disposed of until no more remained to be 
 sold, after which, the woman had to go out to work, and 
 she would actually lock the three elder children out on the 
 street to pick up what they could get, and the poor, helpless 
 baby in the house for twelve and fourteen hours a day 
 without a bite of bread or even a drink of water. 
 
 How the heart of the worker bled as she learned the 
 pitiful results of drink. She fought for the baby's life for a 
 week, but on the Saturday, when she laid it in its tiny 
 coffin, she thanked God that He had taken the child to 
 where they " hunger no more, neither thirst any more, but 
 where God Himself doth carry the lambs in His bosom." 
 
 As soon as the baby was buried, the woman disappeared, 
 taking with her the two little girls. That same night Mr. 
 Lee again went fishing, down the river Yarra. His wife 
 had retired to rest very early, weary with the strain of the 
 previous week. At 12 o'clock a loud knock at the front 
 door startled her from sleep. Glancing at the clock, and 
 seeing her husband was not back, she at once surmised that 
 something had happened. Quick as her trembling limbs 
 would carry her, she reached the door and faintly asked, 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Can you tell me where my mother is, Mrs. Lee ? " 
 asked a voice which she at once knew to be the voice of 
 the woman's son. 
 
 " No, I cannot tell you, I do not know where she has gone." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " I am so hungry," pathetically said the voice again, " I 
 have had nothing to eat to-day." 
 
 Behind the security of the locked door the little woman
 
 go ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 thought what she should do. The poor lad was known as 
 one of the worst of characters ; it was midnight, and she 
 was alone in the house. But softly floated to her a 
 whisper in the darkness, " Inasmuch as ye did it to one of 
 the least of these, ye did it indeed to Me." That was 
 enough. Quaking at the very thought of what lay before 
 her, yet nerved by the unseen Power, she went back, put 
 on her dress and slippers, and soon had the door unlocked 
 and her undesirable visitor welcomed to a roast of beef and 
 loaf of bread in the kitchen. The famished man ate 
 ravenously, and his hostess waited with the calmness of 
 utter helplessness for whatever might follow. All the 
 stories she had ever read of robberies, murders and other 
 crimes happening in the great sinful city, floated through 
 her mind; and she was alone and defenceless. "Why 
 had she let him in at all ? " simply because she could not 
 do otherwise. Her literal interpretation of the Scriptures 
 utterly forbade the turning of any poor man away. To 
 hand him the provisions out into the street to eat, never 
 once dawned on her mind, and if it had, she would have 
 utterly scouted such a suggestion, for she looked upon 
 every needy one as a possible representative of Jesus, and 
 could not treat her Lord or His children w4th anything but 
 truest courtesy. Even had she known beforehand that 
 her life would have had to pay the forfeit for her hospitality 
 she yet would have acted exactly the same. She did her 
 part with a quailing heart ; but did it nevertheless. 
 
 When the man had flnished his repast he arose and 
 gratefully said — 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Lee, for all your kindness," adding 
 simply, " I have nowhere to sleep to-night."
 
 LESSONS IN DRINKS DOINGS. QI 
 
 The tone put every fear to flight, and she discovered that 
 her vivid imagination had again been her tormentor. A 
 shilling was handed to him to get a place of shelter for the 
 night, and away he went, with thanks upon his lips, and 
 she never saw him again. 
 
 But the lesson of this ruined family remained with her. 
 A debased mother, a shame-stricken father, a starved baby, 
 a criminal son, all through drink. Oh the pity of it ! The 
 woeful pity of it ! 
 
 About this time too she formed the acquaintance of 
 Victoria's grand old philanthropist, Dr. Singleton. At his 
 request she began to visit the Refuges and Shelters, and 
 Mission Halls, to speak to the poor Magdalenes he was 
 constantly gathering in. It was all so new to her, so sad, 
 so utterly incomprehensible. She would take a basket of 
 fruit to the poor creatures at the Home, and look at them 
 with a melting heart and brimming eyes, and a pity and 
 love beyond all power of expression. The words of 
 Richard Baxter when he saw a drunken man reeling down 
 the street came often to her mind, "There goes Richard 
 Baxter, but for the grace of God." Never once did she 
 dare to judge or condemn these unfortunates. Their self- 
 inflicted misery was so great that not by word or look 
 could she add one title to it. The sentiments of Bobbie 
 Burns were part of her very nature. 
 
 " Then gently scan your brother man, • 
 
 Still gentler sister woman, 
 Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, 
 To step aside is human. 
 One point must still be greatly dark, 
 The moving why they do it,
 
 92 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 And just as lamely can ye mark, 
 How far perhaps they rue it. 
 
 Then at the balance let's be mute, 
 We never can adjust it, 
 What's done, we partly may compute, 
 But know not what's resisted." 
 
 And yet the horror of their awful condition led her in 
 after years to do what nothing else could have nerved her 
 to do — write in the public press an expose of the fearful 
 conditions of society, and what she believed to be in a large 
 measure the casue of these conditions — degraded marriage. 
 The lessons were not in vain, though they were learned in 
 anguish of spirit many a time. The price paid in the 
 shape of tears and heart-groans and sleepless hours was a 
 high one, but the knowledge gained was worth it all, for 
 she found herself better able to help her fellow creatures, 
 when she really knew their circumstances and sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 One fact continually perplexed and puzzled her. She 
 was told by the good old Doctor, by the Matron, and by 
 the girls themselves, that drink was largely responsible for 
 their lost condition, then why did legislators — good, wise, 
 thoughtful men — elected to make laws for the uplifting and 
 ennobling of the nation, why did they permit this awful 
 cause of demoralisation to continue in the land ; " Because 
 there's money in it," sadly said the Doctor, when 
 she timidly ventured to ask him the question. But to her 
 such an answer was utterly inadequate. With her naive 
 ideas of the value of money, she could not for an instant 
 conceive that even millions of revenue would outweigh one
 
 LESSONS IN DRINK S DOINGS. 93 
 
 immortal soul. Hadn't Jesus shown the pricelessness of a 
 soul by putting it and the world on the scales, and proving 
 that earth with all its teeming wealth was not of as much 
 worth as that one soul. So the idea of money was 
 dismissed as being utterly unworthy of a moment's belief. 
 
 But some reason had to be found to account for the 
 continued existence of the liquor traffic and all its train of 
 evils, and after long pondering she came to the conclusion 
 that the law-makers really did not know what the drink 
 was doing, and so they could not be blamed for the misery 
 everywhere resulting from its continuance. If then, the 
 legislators did not know, the people were plainly being 
 " destroyed for lack of knowledge," and there came 
 looming up the responsibility of giving them the knowledge 
 which she possessed and they lacked ; but at the thought 
 of going to the Members of Parliament to begin their 
 education on this point she shrank back with all the old- 
 time timidity, and failed ignominously. 
 
 Every Saturday afternoon it was Doctor Singleton's 
 custom to hold a religious service among the female 
 prisoners in the Melbourne gaol, and soon he decided to 
 draw his new worker into this branch of service. 
 
 An owerfu' cup is hard to carry, and sure to spill over, 
 and so the first time he took her to the prison she quite 
 lost sight of the fact that these women were all branded 
 criminals by the laws of the land, and could only see in 
 them souls so precious that a King had died to redeem 
 them. And she spoke till Christ reached their poor hearts, 
 and every head w-as bowed in tears, while sobs sounded 
 from all parts of the corridor. At the close of the little 
 service she moved among the women to speak to them
 
 94 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 individually, and learned that almost every woman there 
 was a prisoner either directly or indirectly through drink. 
 As they turned to leave the prison, she cried — 
 
 " Doctor, why don't you tell our legislators that drink 
 is filling our gaols with ruined womanhood ? " 
 
 The Doctor looked thoughtfully through his glasses at 
 the eager earnest face and answered, "They know it, my 
 dear child." 
 
 " They don't ; oh, I know they don't. Good men would 
 never legalise the drink if they knew it ruined poor women." 
 
 But the Doctor, with his experience of nearly three 
 quarters of a century, shook his head sadly as he drew her 
 arm through his to take her away. And it began to dawn 
 on her that perhaps — perhaps, though it seemed too 
 terrible to believe — men really held a human soul of less 
 account than customs returns and excise duties. She was 
 stunned with the awful thought, and tried to put it away, 
 tried not to believe it, tried to forget it, but there it was, 
 taking shape and growing more dreadful every hour — 
 " Men knew what drink was doing, yet for the sake of 
 revenue, willingly allowed it to do its deadly work." 
 
 Six weeks' illness and nervous prostration followed that 
 visit to the Melbourne gaol, and many a curtain lecture 
 had she to submit to from her perplexed husband. 
 
 " What do you want to take on like that for, Bessie ? " 
 he would say, " It is true the women are in gaol, but you 
 have been to them, trying to do them all the good you can. 
 What's the good of crying and fretting night and day like 
 this over them, you only make yourself ill, and it won't do 
 them a bit of good, they'll all get drunk again as soon as 
 they come out."
 
 LESSONS IN DRINKS DOINGS. 95 
 
 But this very practical view of the matter, instead of 
 consoling his wife, only caused her fresh trouble. 
 
 " Yes, they would get drunk again, the poor, poor 
 creatures I Because at every street corner, licensed pitfalls 
 awaited their stumbling feet." Sitting up in bed and 
 fixing her heavy eyes upon her husband she would say, 
 " It isn't right, Harry." 
 
 " No, of course it isn't right," he would say comfortingly, 
 "but it can't be helped. Drink's bound to be licensed to 
 the end of the world, so cheer up, and don't fret your 
 life out. There's sure to be drink and drunkards while 
 time lasts." 
 
 But utterly unconsoled by this chain of reasoning, she 
 would sink back among the pillows and begin to cry again, 
 as the ruined souls of Victoria's daughters rose before her, 
 and her own pitiful weakness and helplessness seemed to 
 prove that she could do nothing to save them.
 
 ( 96 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. 
 
 In 1883 Australia was visited by the world-famed Temper- 
 ance lecturers, R. T. Booth and W. Glover. Enormous 
 audiences attended their gatherings, and the bit of blue 
 ribbon became conspicuous in every street. At the 
 Exhibition Building, in Carlton Gardens, a vast Mission 
 was inaugurated. A choir of 500 voices, under Mr. 
 Broadbent's able leadership, sang Temperance songs, and 
 convinced many, while the eloquent lecturers won to the 
 Temperance Cause hundreds of converts nightly. Enthu- 
 siasm — always contagious — reached from the mansion to 
 the hut, and all creeds and classes were enrolled as members 
 of the Blue Ribbon Army. 
 
 When Mrs. Lee first heard of these great gatherings, she 
 was disinclined to go, thinking that Temperance meetings 
 were for drunkards only, but, referring to her Book of Laws, 
 she learned that she must " prove all things," and then 
 " hold fast that which is good," She went, and that very 
 first night there came God's message to her to " bind 
 herself that others might be free." She signed the 
 Temperance pledge, donned the " bonny bit of blue," and 
 started on quite a new track " to bring light to them that 
 sat in darkness."
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. 97 
 
 Enthusiastic to an extreme, she did not allow the grass 
 to grow under her feet in proclaiming the wonderful new 
 plan of curing drunkenness by stopping the drink. She 
 was here, there, and everywhere, and instead of the zeal 
 abating with time, it increased and intensified till she 
 become a terror to the drink-sellers in the vicinity. Toward 
 them, personally, she held only the most benevolent feelings, 
 and visited them, and talked to them, and gave them tracts 
 industriously, and had boundless faith that as soon as they 
 saw it was wrong to ruin men by drink, they would break 
 their bottles and barrels, and turn their places into houses 
 of accommodation only. 
 
 Blythe and bright and happy at this easy solution to a 
 big difficulty, she worked on with never-flagging hope, and 
 saw others catch the glad infection and become workers 
 too, and she looked with happy eyes on the people, and 
 with clear, undoubting vision beheld the Saviour of sinners 
 bringing the world's redemption very nigh, and, joy above 
 joy, she was actually going to have a share in the glorious 
 work. It was a pleasure to help on the Temperance Cause 
 in every possible way, and she was content to fill water- 
 pots till the end of her days, if by so doing Jesus was to be 
 helped to work miracles, and miracles she expected with 
 unquestioning trust. But one of the first miracles came as 
 a'surprise, when it was no less than transforming her from 
 a follower into a leader. 
 
 Following on the great awakening in the Temperance 
 Cause in Victoria, branches of the world-famed Women's 
 Christian Temperance Union were formed to bring the 
 women into line in waging war against woman's deadliest 
 enemy. At the close of the Temperance Mission held in 
 
 G
 
 g8 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 Mrs. Lee's district, a branch of the W.C.T.U. was formed, 
 and she was unanimously elected President. 
 
 " And how did you enjoy your new honours ? " 
 
 " When I first heard my name called from all corners of 
 the room, I protested and expostulated. But the ladies 
 would take no refusal, and there was I, totally ignorant of 
 rules, and laws, and points of order, promoted to a position 
 I was sure I could only disgrace. But they seemed so sure 
 of exactly the opposite, and laughed so heartily at my 
 undisguised dismay, that I gathered my scattered wits 
 together and comforted myself by thinking that what I 
 didn't know would have to be learned. I believe wdth the 
 poet that, ' Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.' My 
 new crown was a most uncomfortable fit, and I would 
 gladly have transferred it from my brow to any other that 
 would have accepted it. 
 
 " And what a fortnight my husband had before the next 
 meeting took place. How I plied him questions about 
 ' notices of motions,' ' resolutions,' ' amendments,' etc., 
 etc. And, man like, how he compassionated my blank 
 ignorance, and graciously instructed me morning, noon, 
 and 1 night in the art of conducting a meeting. I was 
 determined to get all the knowledge I could, well knowing 
 that knowledge would be power. 
 
 " So I set to learn exactly how to carry a meeting 
 through, how to general my forces, how to do everything, 
 from the largest down to the smallest item, in just the way 
 to bring the greatest honour to God, and happiness to my 
 workers. Parliamentary rules were pored over, lodge books 
 well studied, and everything else I could lay hands upon 
 bearing on the matter. And then I went, for the first time
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. 99 
 
 in my life, to wield the sceptre of authority. Those women 
 were splendid ; our meetings grew in size and enjoyment. 
 The capacity for work they developed was admirable, and 
 as experience brought confidence, we attempted great 
 things for God, and expected greater things from God," 
 
 -.T ■■'- -■'' * 
 
 When tlie first W.C.T.U. Convention was held in 
 Melbourne, to the joy of the devoted little band, many 
 honours were laid upon their President. She was appointed 
 editor of the W.C.T.U. page in the Alliance Record, Colonial 
 Superintendent of Literature, and one of the public speakers 
 of the Union. Of course, she meant to shake the world, 
 and hadn't a doubt that Faith was the lever, resting on the 
 fulcrum of God's power, which was to make true the asser- 
 tion of Archimedes ; but, alas for the vanity of human 
 hopes, her health utterly failed, and she was laid aside from 
 all active service. 
 
 Some time before the above events took place, there 
 attended the Sunday-school a poor, friendless, orphan girl. 
 The world had dealt hardly with Marion, and she had 
 begun to grow indifferent to the world and reckless in 
 manner. Her loneliness won the heart of the Sabbath school 
 teacher, and she took charge of the poor girl, and Marion 
 became an occasional inmate of the little home. Soon the 
 recklessness gave way to loving thoughtfulness, the in- 
 difference to intense devotion, and Marion became so much 
 the willing slave of her friend that she earned the name of 
 ]\Irs. Lee's " Sam W^eller," and not even the famous Pick- 
 wick himself ever had in his immortal " Sam " a more 
 loyal subject than Mrs. Lee had in her " Mally." 
 
 Every one had to give way before her on her m^istress's
 
 TOO ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 behalf. The best seat in the house, the best side of the 
 road, the daintiest flower was ever picked for her charge, 
 while wraps and umbrella and handbag were Marion's 
 special care, and the loyalty and devotion deepened and 
 sweetened as month succeeded month, and Mrs. Lee became 
 at last a chronic invalid. When her mistress was a little 
 better, Marion would take a situation for higher wages ; 
 when health again failed, the devoted girl would unhesitat- 
 ingly give up everything and return to take charge of her 
 treasured friend. Her faith in her " little mother," her 
 profound conviction that she was destined for great things, 
 her loyalty and affection were among the brightest glints in 
 a very cloudy sky at this time. 
 
 When strength permitted, the invalid would take her 
 pen and write, for during this time a serial story was 
 begun, and every evening when work was over, Mallie 
 with a shade of authority in her voice, but with far more 
 than a shade of affection in her manner, would say, " Now 
 little mother, read me what you have written to-day." And 
 the invalid would read to one of the most appreciative 
 audiences ever reader had. One moment Mallie would 
 wipe her streaming eyes and sob, " Oh ! that's lovely," and 
 the next minute, with peals of laughter, would say, " Oh, 
 little mother, that's delightful. How can you think of 
 such things ? " and then she would weave bright visions 
 of the day when her loved one would go to England and 
 have the book published, and become famous in a day, and 
 return to Victoria to see triumphal arches erected on the 
 pier, and " Welcome Back " gleaming on every side. 
 
 Blessed, loving, devoted Mallie. What a God-sent 
 boon she was in those dark days. What matter that the
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. lOI 
 
 castles built were all in Spain, what matter that the fond 
 dreams of love could never turn into actual facts ? It was 
 sweet to be believed in, and loved, and trusted, and rever- 
 enced, and the dreams, though only dreams, helped them 
 to better bear at times life's painful realities. 
 
 •5<- * -x- * 
 
 From doctor to doctor Mrs. Lee went in the vain 
 search for health. One after another of the medical men 
 failed to effect a cure, and at last she was told that nothing 
 but change and rest would be of any service. If she 
 could go away for twelve months or two years and 
 gather strength, then they could perform an operation on 
 her spine which might effect a cure or might — she knew 
 the alternative. 
 
 To New South Wales she journeyed in easy stages to 
 her father's home in Tumberumba, the queerly-titled place 
 away in the mountains where her father had resided for 
 over twenty years. Here, too, her sister Amelia lived, 
 with her little family of bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked bairnies. 
 Not far away was the quiet grave, shadowed by waving 
 wattles and aromatic gums where slept the one dear brother. 
 Far off could be seen the snowy mountains, with Mount 
 Kosciusko rearing its majestic heights to the sky ; around 
 and about were nature's beauties, and in the little town 
 were hearts as kind as ever beat in God's great throbbing 
 world of humanity. 
 
 Weak and ill though she was, she had strength and 
 courage sufficient for the King's service in a small measure 
 and tried to do her part. The weak efforts were wonder- 
 fully blessed of God by numbers signing the pledge, several 
 becoming converted, and the formation of a Bible Class
 
 I02 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 and Band of Hops. Kindness was showered upon her by 
 the people of Tumbarumba, but weaker and more pain 
 racked she became, till in three months' time it was deemed 
 imperative for her to return to Melbourne lest the death- 
 angel's call might come to her away from home and 
 husband. 
 
 She returned to Victoria a w^orn, weary, white-faced 
 woman, with nothing but God's great love to keep her from 
 sinking into utter despair. The future was all darkness. 
 Night or day saw no abatement of suffering. When 
 evening closed in, she longed for the morning light ; when 
 morning dawned she prayed for night to bring rest, yet 
 through all that time of pain the spirit of Christ never for- 
 sook her, and many a time a loving kiss would be pressed 
 upon her cheek and one and another would whisper, " You 
 have helped me so much, thank God I ever knew you." 
 
 At words such as these, the triumphant song of praise 
 would rise above the groans. " To be of use to others, to 
 cheer sad hearts, to brighten other lives was worth living 
 on for ; to be a blessing to others was ample compensation 
 for every pain." 
 
 One day a letter came from her father urging his wish 
 that she should consult the very best physician in Victoria. 
 She obeyed, and went to one who was considered to be at 
 the very top of the medical profession. And from him the 
 verdict came, after a careful diagnosis of the case. 
 
 " I will try to cure you, but it will be a long, tedious 
 case. I shall need to see you every second day for three 
 months, and by that time I shall be able to know whether 
 a cure is possible." 
 
 "And your charge, Doctor?"
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. I03 
 
 lie named a sum surprisingly moderate for one of liis 
 rank, but small as it was, it was more than she could 
 manage. She knew she had a faithful father, ready and 
 willing to help to the utmost, but the uncertainty of a cure 
 made her put away entirely any thought of drawing upon 
 his generosity. Her long illness with all its attendant 
 expenses, and her husband's occasional periods of non- 
 employment prevented them amassing even a small sum 
 of money, and her proud spirit could not brook any 
 obligation to a friend. She could lend but could not 
 borrow. 
 
 The doctor stood looking at her with quiet, kindly 
 interest as these thoughts crov/ded into her mind. She 
 could not speak. The disappointment was too great for 
 words, for she had built her all upon this doctor. She 
 could only sternly force back the tears and try to smile, as 
 she shook her head, and then like a drowning man from 
 whom the last straw has been wrenched, she left the 
 surgery and reached the sunlit pathway. She stood on the 
 pavement conscious that the sun was warm and bright, 
 conscious of the presence of people hurrying along, 
 conscious of every little thing transpiring in front of her, 
 yet with a great dumb despair, separating her from every- 
 thing and everybody in the happy world around. 
 
 The fiat had gone forth, " an invalid for life," and life 
 might be long, for she was only twenty-eight, and friends 
 might grow weary. Ay ! in that was the real sting. She 
 really did not mind what pain was to be endured, for grace 
 to suffer would be given each hour. But the thought that 
 those she loved might get weary of her, and secretly wish 
 her away was unendurable. In after years she understood
 
 104 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 what a cruel injustice such thoughts were to all the loving 
 hearts around, but at that time this was the one over- 
 whelming dread. So she stood there in Collins Street that 
 bright August day and looked back over nearly eight 
 years of suffering, and looked forward to perhaps another 
 twenty of even greater pain, and groaned in spirit. 
 
 "Man's extremity is God's opportunity!" From the 
 days of Moses down to the present century it has been so. 
 When Israel's Deliverer halted by the billows of the Red 
 Sea, he was a helpless, powerless man. When God said 
 " Go forward," he was omnipotent, and had the whole world 
 had to divide and make a passage for him, instead of 
 simply the bounding waves, Moses had power to level the 
 way. The God of Israel is an unchanging God, He is 
 able to divide every Red Sea of difficulty before us, and 
 delights ever to link His omnipotence to our human help- 
 lessness. The suffering woman knew this, had known it 
 long, yet never before dared to put Him to the test. Now, 
 with a sudden launching out into the deep, she cried, 
 " Lord, you know all about it ; if you want me to work for 
 you, just heal me yourself, and if not, do take me home for 
 I am so tired." 
 
 She heard no voice in response to her cry, she felt no 
 hand laid upon her physical frame, there was no miracle 
 outwardly, but the cry from Victoria's daughter reached 
 the ear of the Great Physician as surely and certainly as 
 the voice of Sarepta's daughter ; and from that moment — 
 SHE WAS HEALED. Returning to Footscray, she said very 
 quietly to her husband — 
 
 " I think I am going to get better, dear."
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER, IO5 
 
 " Does the doctor give you hope ? " he eagerly asked. 
 
 " No," she repHed, "but I think I am going to get 
 better." 
 
 Her husband had grown too wise to question her. 
 Though at times mystified, he had learned to wait till she 
 could frankly tell him the motives for speech or action, so 
 now he accepted simply what was said, and they began 
 that very week to look for a house in Richmond, whither 
 they could remove their goods and chattels, which were at 
 present stored at her sister's. Mary was now a married 
 woman with two little olive branches, and her husband, as 
 well as Bessie's, was employed on the railways. 
 
 It was at the beginning of the great land boom period, 
 when houses were scarcely to be got for love or money, 
 rents were fabulously high, and even a woodshed in a back 
 yard has been known to be rented to a poor family for the 
 extraordinary sum of nine shillings per week. The task of 
 securing a house in the desired locality close to the station, 
 and of moderate rental, was therefore no easy one, and at 
 last they were compelled to take a habitation hidden away 
 in a little back street. It wasn't at all a desirable neigh- 
 bourhood, and they had a difficulty to fancy their 
 surroundings. But it was Hobson's choice, so they made 
 the best of a very one-sided bargain and opened house 
 once more. 
 
 Her health improved daily, she gave up medicines of 
 every kind, and clung with steady faith to God's power 
 and love. Happy as a humming-bird, and ready with 
 worshipful devotion to do anything the Lord might direct ; 
 when fairly settled, her first question was, " Now, Lord, 
 what wilt Thou have me to do ? " She well knew that she
 
 io6 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 had to help bring the answer to her question, so loolved 
 around to see what there seemed to be in need of doing. 
 Soon she found that they were dwelling among people who 
 never went to church, whose children never entered a 
 Sunday school, and to whom life was largely made up of 
 getting drunk, and getting sober again. Thinking and 
 praying, finally turned to resolving and acting. 
 
 Armed with picture tracts, and pretty cards, she visited 
 every house in the lane, and asked permission to take the 
 children to the Sabbath school. Suave and polite were 
 the refusals, but they were refusals; "Johnnie hasn't a 
 coat, so he can't go, Mrs. Lee." " I like my children to 
 look as nice as another's, and until he has a new suit of 
 clothes I couldn't think of letting him go." But when the 
 new suit was to arrive was not mentioned. " If only Mary 
 had Sunday boots, I'd be delighted for you to take her, 
 but my old man didn't bring home any wages on Saturday 
 night, and the child is barefoot." And so with variations 
 it went on till she realised she was not to be a truant officer 
 for the Sunday school. 
 
 Nothing daunted, however, she made another effort. 
 Her first visit had got her acquainted with the women, so 
 emboldened to try again, she went straight for the mothers. 
 
 " Will you come to a little afternoon meeting at my 
 house, on Wednesday, at three o'clock. We will have a 
 little Bible reading, some friends will come and sing for 
 you, and we'll wind up with a cup of tea ? " 
 
 She was so lovingly persistent that one after another 
 promised to come, and exulting over her success she got 
 some singers to come, prepared the tea, and sat and waited 
 for her guests. Alas ! only one woman and a little girl
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. IO7 
 
 arrived, so the Bible meeting was added to the hst of 
 failures. By this time she was quite aroused. Every 
 disappointment served only to make her more in earnest, 
 and she was determined that those precious people should 
 learn of their great Redeemer if there was any possible 
 way of managing it. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon she sat on the doorstep, and 
 watched the bootless, ragged children trundling hoops and 
 playing imaginary cricket in the narrow lane. Was it an 
 inspiration ? She began to sing the hymn so dear to little 
 children, "Jesus loves me," and the children gathered 
 around curiously, and very warily she began to talk to 
 them. The old art of story telling stood her in good stead, 
 and quite a little crowd soon assembled to listen to the 
 story. It was with great reluctance they at last dispersed, 
 and she was filled with gratitude at the success of the little 
 ruse. 
 
 The next Sunday she was prepared for them, said pre- 
 parations taking the shape, not of a beautiful blackboard 
 lesson, but a plum pudding of fine dimensions. Singing 
 first, to gather her congregation together, she then told 
 them a story, and finally invited them into the parlour to 
 have a piece of pudding. They came, half shyly, half 
 boldly, and that honest pudding rapidly disappeared. 
 Then another hymn was sung, the Benediction was pro- 
 nounced, and the children were dismissed. 
 
 From that day there was no trouble in gathering a 
 Sunday school, all the little waifs and strays they could 
 cram into the room were there, and often respectable 
 neatly dressed little ones from round about. The blessing 
 of God rested richly upon the work. Nine little boys were
 
 io8 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 converted om afternooa, and seven little girls another day. 
 Ttie mothers were gratified at the interest taken in their 
 children, and began to send them in better clothes. A 
 point of honour was made that no child should come with 
 dirty face and hands, and uncombed hair. This led to 
 further improvements in their personal appearance, till at 
 last the children could compare favourably, a few excepted, 
 with many of the children around. Their behaviour and 
 manners grew excellent, and their little hearts turned up 
 to God, as flowers grow up to the sun. 
 
 One Sunday she showed them one of Doctor Barnardo's 
 books, and explained to them about the poor little 
 perishing children in London. Their tender hearts were 
 melted, and tears were on many cheeks as she showed 
 them picture after picture, but it was left to the poorest 
 and raggedest of them all to do something more than 
 weep for others' woes. With the tears coursing down his 
 face, little Joe rifled his tattered garments, then held out 
 his hand, in which a small coin was lying, and with 
 broken voice, sobbed — 
 
 " Here, Mrs. Lee, take this ha'penny and send it to 
 Doctor ' Bananna ' to buy bread for his poor little 
 children." 
 
 His teacher looked at the little lad, and knew that the 
 Christ in him had suddenly sprung into life, and her own 
 eyes filled with tears as she saw that little Joe was no 
 longer a colonial street arab, but a messenger of love 
 and mercy to suffering humanity. Taking the halfpenny, 
 she said — 
 
 " Joe, this is very good of you, dear, but a ha'penny 
 won't buy much bread. What do you say, children, to
 
 RUNGS IN THE LADDER. lOQ 
 
 all of US going without lollies and marbles and stickjaw 
 for a whole week, and bringing the money so saved next 
 Sunday to send to Doctor Barnardo." 
 
 The appeal was an electric current from God's great 
 heart of love to each of those little dormant souls. When 
 the next Sunday arrived an eager crowd gathered around 
 the door, waiting for their teacher's advent. The instant 
 the door was opened, a forest [of little hands was thrust 
 forward, and the shining faces and excited tongues told, 
 though not in words, the beautiful tale of self-sacrifice and 
 its reward. Possessed with a spirit of self-denial, the 
 children saved their pennies until a pound could be sent 
 to England, then they united to prepare a Christmas tree, 
 and from the sale of their handiwork, the munificent sum 
 of two pounds was raised, and sent with great rejoicing to 
 the noble-hearted little Irish doctor at Stepney. 
 
 For ten months God permitted Mrs. Lee to live in that 
 lane, and it was a time of great happiness. Then they 
 learned of a better house in a street near by, and another 
 chapter in her life work ended. Seven years later an invi- 
 tation from a Church of England clergyman reached Mrs. 
 Lee to help in a Mission in that same locality, and picture 
 her joy to find among the choir singers, and Sunday school 
 teachers, and Christian Endeavourers, many of those children 
 who during that ten months had given their lives to God. 
 They were walking in white, with garments undefiled, and 
 learning to help others up to the Kingdom they had them- 
 selves reached in that little lane in Richmond.
 
 ( no ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 
 
 In November the W.C.T.U. Annual Convention came 
 round again. Delegates, timid, retiring, home-loving 
 women, most of them, gathered from every part of the 
 colony for spiritual up-building and grace for service. The 
 first Colonial President was one of God's stars of the earth, 
 Mrs. M. M. Love, a Virginian lady, and a woman of 
 saintly character. She had also been one of the early 
 Crusaders in America. Under her loving guidance the 
 Woman's work had prospered greatly in Victoria, and calls 
 were daily coming from all parts for an organizer to visit 
 and band the women together, in each town and village, 
 under their banner, with its beautiful motto, " For God, 
 and Home and Humanity." 
 
 Unfortunately there was no fund for this pressing and 
 expensive work, neither had the Union a woman, except 
 Mrs, Love herself, capable of taking up such a very 
 important department as organizing and evangelistic work. 
 It was the first meeting after the Convention that the 
 women sat around the Council table with prayerful anxious 
 hearts and besought God to send them the right woman. 
 The qualifications required were so many and varied, that 
 they were puzzled to find anyone to come even near the 
 mark.
 
 PUBLIC WORK. Ill 
 
 For instance, she woul^ have to be physically strong, 
 for long, difficult journeys by rail, boat, coach, and 
 horseback lay before her; she must be a Christian of 
 highest character in whom ministers and others could have 
 perfect confidence ; she would need to have a thorough 
 knowledge of Temperance work, else she would fail in the 
 very objects of her journeys; she would need to be tactful, 
 wise, discreet, brave, quick, and bright, and last of all she 
 must ask no salary from the Colonial Executive, for there 
 was not a pound in the exchequer to give her. In fact, she 
 would have to go on faith without purse or scrip, expecting 
 the manna to be provided each day, as God saw best. 
 
 The women looked from one to another in silence as all 
 these special qualifications loomed before them, and all 
 sighed at the hopelessness of getting the right woman for 
 that vacant position. Mrs. Love looked through her 
 glasses, and her gentle voice broke the painful silence. 
 
 " Mrs. Lee, will you take up the work ? " 
 
 The lady addressed nearly capsized from her chair, and 
 looked in astonishment at the sweet, spiritual face of the 
 president, to see if her ears had deceived her. But no, 
 gentle, quiet and serene, Mrs. Love w^aited, looking with 
 those kind eyes at the perturbed face before her, 
 
 " My husband would never consent," was the reply, 
 at last. 
 
 " Is that the only hindrance in the way ? " 
 
 Mrs. Lee stared, feeling that Mrs. Love did not know 
 her strong-willed partner, for surely that would be hindrance 
 enough. Well did she know that if her husband gave one 
 of his decided negatives, it would be as unalterable as the 
 laws of the Medes and Persians, Mrs. Love notwithstand-
 
 112 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 ing. She simply bowed, finding no words with which to 
 reply. 
 
 " Go home, my dear," the quiet voice said, "and before 
 you reach there an angel will have rolled away the stone." 
 
 It was hard to believe that anything on earth would 
 make her husband consent to give his wife up to a public 
 life. But she went home, resolving to lay the matter 
 before him, and leave results with God, confident that if 
 the Father really needed her in the great harvest field. He 
 would indeed send His angel to prepare the road before 
 her ; while, if He did not need her, then the more obstacles 
 in the way the better. In the evening, as they sat at tea, 
 the afternoon's conversation was recounted, and quietly the 
 wife awaited the verdict. The husband was very thought- 
 ful for a little while, and like a wise woman she did not 
 hurry him. When he did speak, she found the angel had 
 indeed rolled away the stone. 
 
 " My dear, I think you had better accept the position ; 
 you love the work, the frequent changes will do your 
 health good. Try it for a time, and see how you 
 like it." 
 
 There was a companion for John Wesley that night in 
 Victoria. Talk of all the world being her parish ! W' hy 
 she felt a heaven-crowned Queen of the Universe, and 
 would not have changed places with an empress on her 
 throne. 
 
 At the next executive meeting, her appointment as 
 Colonial Evangelist and organiser of the W.C.T.U. of 
 Victoria, was unanimously ratified, and here is a condensed 
 report of the first year's work as presented to the 
 Convention of the following year : —
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 113 
 
 "COLONIAL EVANGELIST'S REPORT, 1889. 
 
 " Dear President and Sisters, 
 
 '* A year ago you conferred on me the high honour 
 of selecting me as the bearer of Holiness and Temperance 
 to the women of our colony. I trembled at the time at 
 the responsibility placed upon me, but felt that through 
 your unanimous decision the voice of God was calling me 
 to His service, so in His strength I could but answer, ' Here 
 am I, Lord, send me.' I am glad to have been able to 
 prove that sordid motives had no influence in my 
 acceptance of this office. At my own request the monetary 
 recompense from each district visited was placed at the 
 very lowest possible figure, but God's blessing has been 
 abundant recompense, and I am very thankful that we 
 adopted the system we did, as it has entirely removed from 
 the minds of the outside people the idea that missions were 
 only meant for making money. They have learned that we 
 seek their salvation, both in this world and the next, and 
 that we are willing to sacrifice all of self for their greater 
 good. 
 
 " Before leaving this subject I must record the fact that 
 every Mission proved financially successful, leaving the 
 unions or churches with a balance in every case, and in 
 three instances, the unions, in kindly recognition of the fact, 
 exceeded the modest sum stipulated as the amount to be 
 received by your evangelist, for which I here beg leave to 
 thank them. I find eight shillings per week is the average 
 amount I have received through the year. Our first mission 
 was held in Warrnambool, beginning February 5th. The 
 H
 
 114 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 programme followed in this and every other mission was as 
 follows ; — 
 
 " Morning ... Visiting. 
 
 12.30 ... Mid-day Prayer Meeting. 
 
 3 p.m. ... Bible, Cottage, or Drawing-room Meeting. 
 
 8 p.m. ... Public Meeting. 
 
 Preaching in churches on the Sabbath, holding united 
 Sunday School services, meetings for women and girls, 
 wives and mothers, and special meetings for men only. 
 
 " During some of our Missions we held four meetings 
 a day, besides visiting the hotels, hospitals, sick people, 
 and special cases, and through it all, a strength more than 
 human has been given, and carried your Evangelist through 
 every difficulty and trial. The number of pledges taken 
 and members gained, we are not able to state accurately, 
 as strict account was not kept, but we estimate the former 
 at 500, the latter 100. New Unions have been formed, in 
 different parts, and Bands of Hope in three districts. 
 The amount of money received in collections, and by 
 lectures can be given you by the local Secretaries. The 
 distances travelled on country journeys is over 3,000 miles. 
 The number of meetings held — 320. Have circulated a 
 quantity of literature ; and regularly every fortnight 
 dispatched our official organ, the Alliance Record to people 
 in remote country districts. 
 
 " What more can I say, dear sisters, than that the 
 sweetest promise ever made to mortal, has been abundantly 
 fulfilled, ' I will bless thee, and make thee a blessing.' 
 In watering desert soil I have myself been refreshed from 
 the life-giving streams, and in conveying to darkened or 
 despondent souls, the sunshine of God's love, a double
 
 PUBLIC .WORK. 115 
 
 portion has been given to my own soul. It has been a busy 
 blessed year, and my whole heart fills with gratitude to 
 Him who has led from ' victory unto victory,' and while 
 He lends me life, it shall be lent back again. Miss 
 Havergal's words may fitly express my own feelings in 
 closing, which I do with assurances of deep affection for 
 the many dear sisters, who laboured hard in every place, 
 to make our Missions a success, and to whose loving 
 prayers and earnest efforts under God, the results must 
 be largely ascribed. 
 
 " Another year of patient toil, 
 
 A few sheaves won from rocky soil 
 
 May seem not much to thee, 
 
 But all thy work is with the Lord, 
 
 And thine exceeding great reward 
 
 Thy Lord Himself shall be. 
 * -jf -::- 
 
 " Another year of service, 
 
 How can I wish for you 
 
 A greater joy of blessing, 
 
 O, fellow-worker true, 
 
 Eternity with Jesus 
 
 Will be long enough for rest. 
 
 Thank God that we are spared to work 
 
 For Him whom we love best. 
 
 " (Signed) BESSIE LEE (EvangeHst)." 
 
 Predictions were not wanting that if she worked at 
 such a rate she would be speedily back on a sick-bed, 
 especially as household duties kept her very busy during 
 the intervals between Missions. But service was such a 
 joy she could not slacken off. 
 
 In 1889, greatly to her sorrow, her happy relations with 
 the W.C.T.U. received an unexpected blow in this wise.
 
 Il6 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 In 1888, the Melbourne papers made merry over the 
 questions, "Why don't the men propose?" and "Is 
 marriage a failure ? " To one accustomed to look upon 
 such subjects in the light of eternal responsibility, the 
 absurd articles and utterly unworthy answers proved 
 distressing, and realising that these subjects were of grave, 
 national importance, she took up the pen which was to be 
 mightier than the sword, and entered the arena to do 
 battle for the right. The sensation caused by her first 
 and succeeding letters was so great, that the astonished 
 little woman felt as though the world was tumbling about 
 her ears. For my readers to clearly understand the 
 ground taken, I will here reproduce the first of a series 
 of articles written for The Herald, and one article appearing 
 in the Southern Cross. The book itself printed under the 
 title of " Marriage and Heredity," from which these 
 extracts are culled, has since run through editions of 
 several thousands, and is steadily winning acceptance for 
 the views therein contained. 
 
 "MRS. HARRISON LEE ON IDEAL 
 
 MARRIAGE. 
 
 " To THE Editor of ' The Herald.' 
 
 "Sir, — My letter on the above question, appearing in 
 The Herald of the 8th, has caused such a sensation that, 
 in justice to myself and to those who condemn my views 
 without fully understanding them, I am bound to explain 
 myself more fully. To do so I shall have to take up fresh 
 ground, and of necessity deal with social evils and social 
 purity. My letter of the 8th was addressed simply to 
 those of The Herald correspondents who avoided marriage
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 117 
 
 as entailing expense, discomfort and other troubles, as 
 typified by large families. And my advice to them was 
 not to deny themselves the love and companionship of a 
 wife, but to take a wife and do without the family ; not 
 for all time, but until by mutual help and perseverance they 
 should be in a proper position to support one or more 
 children. To those who longed for, and wished in the first 
 years of wedded life to have little olive branches, my 
 letter did not in the least apply. Let this be clearly 
 understood, as I find my views have been taken up and 
 answered in The Herald and suburban papers, not by those 
 to whom they refer, but by happy parents. Now to 
 address myself to the purpose of this present paper, asking 
 all who read it, to read as it is written — quietly, thought- 
 fully and earnestly, in the hope of doing good. Marriage 
 is so holy, so exalted a state, that Christ, the pure ^nd 
 sinless one, compares it with His own union with the 
 Church — His bride — the blending of a strong, protecting 
 love with submissive, confiding trust. Our Saviour is the 
 leader, the protector, the sustainer of His bride. The 
 Church, in fullest confidence, and with responsive affection, 
 gives herself unreservedly to the love and care that will 
 purify and exalt, and the issue of that holy union is purity, 
 piety, peace — every virtue and every happiness. And 
 such should be the union of man and maid — a union of 
 all that is strong, and brave, and noble, with all that is 
 gentle, sweet and pure. Marriage makes the man the pro- 
 tector and leader ; it makes the woman the gentle, loving 
 helpmate. Unholy desires, impure affections, degrading 
 appetites have no place here. Their marriage has been 
 made in Heaven, where sin cannot enter. In course of
 
 ii8 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 time, if they be rightly constituted, they will wish to have 
 children — heirs of the promise ; and one or more children 
 born, not of unholy lusts, but of purest desire, will bless 
 them. From their desire for one child till their desire 
 for another, their lives will be pure and continent. And 
 if they be in poverty or ill-health, years may elapse before 
 they will bring heirs of sorrow into a frowning world. 
 And so not only worldly prudence, but higher motives 
 will check the large family coming to burden rather than 
 bless. Not for one moment would I say that it is wrong 
 to have children, for such an assertion would be utterly 
 preposterous in the face of God's laws and Nature's 
 dictates ; but with unflinching courage do I assert it is 
 wrong, aye, weakly, wickedly wrong, to have them come 
 unwished for and undesired — the result rather of perverted 
 passion than any holy desire to people the earth with 
 noble children. Those who have carefully and thought- 
 fully considered the matter, and desire to have, and feel 
 equal to training ten or even twenty little blossoms for 
 their rightful positions on earth and in Heaven, God bless 
 them and give to them the desires of their hearts ; for such 
 men and women having children simply in obedience to 
 the Divine command, ' Increase, etc.,' and not as an 
 unpleasant consequence of animal gratification, are the 
 right ones to people the earth. To those who look upon 
 children as so much expense, who only have them because 
 they can't help it — to these I say again, don't have them, for 
 the issue of such Godless unions would be children impure 
 in body and soul — a worry and burden to the unfortunate 
 parents, and bearing through life the burden of a sin that 
 they have inherited, and which is eating out the very life
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 119 
 
 of purity in every city, and filling our streets and our 
 graveyards with the victims of the fearful social evil of 
 the day. I am told that in England alone there are 
 150,000 poor fallen women; in Victoria, '5,000. Where 
 do they come from ? We stand aghast at the fearful 
 numbers, knowing as we do that the length of life of these 
 poor creatures is but three or four years, in some cases 
 only ten months, before they fill unholy, dishonest graves. 
 Where do they come from ? Fathers, mothers, they come 
 from your homes, from your hearts. The seed of their 
 downfall was sown in their conception, and the sin of the 
 parents has truly been visited upon the poor off-spring in 
 after years. And parents in bitter anguish bewail the 
 fearful fate of their loved child, utterly unconscious that 
 they themselves are solely responsible for that child having 
 unholy desires and perverted passions. Fearlessly do I 
 declare that what is a sin before marriage, is still a sin 
 after Christ's words have bound a man and maid together, 
 and that the Divine command, ' Increase and multiply,' 
 should be divinely regarded and obeyed, but not made 
 the excuse of marital sin. It is utterly out of all human 
 or divine reasoning to believe that a man and woman must 
 be spotless and pure up to the day of their marriage, that 
 then the words so grand and beautiful, binding them 
 together in holy companionship for mutual help and love, 
 at once opens the way for unbridled liberty. Impossible ! 
 Increase and multiply ; but the seventh commandment 
 is as emphatic between man and woman after marriage 
 as before. That this is little understood I well know, 
 for again and again have poor burdened mothers said 
 to me, ' I did not want another.' And I have gently
 
 120 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 answered, " Well, why have one ! " The look of 
 surprise has generally been followed by the question, 
 " Do you believe in remedies ? " ' No,' has been my 
 indignant reply ; ' live as God intended you to, and 
 do not degrade the temples of His Holy Spirit to 
 the level of brute creation.' I know the astonishment 
 that will be caused by this letter, for so few have thought 
 the subject out, simply accepting what is, as what ever 
 must be. But now that the key-note has been sounded, 
 if the public wish me, I will explain my firm, deep con- 
 victions from time to time. Not rashly and thoughtlessly 
 have I dared to come forward in this vast, world-wide 
 subject, but after years of patient thought and study. 
 And I a ready to stand or fall alone, if others do not see 
 as I do. Ivly ideal marriage is perhaps too lofty a standard 
 to be reached by all ; but will those" who are longing to 
 live their lives for God, those who deplore the fearful 
 social evils of the age, those who are battling against sin 
 and crime without being able to diminish its ever-filling 
 ranks, will those lay what I have written to heart, and as 
 far as they can, do what they feel convinced is right in 
 their own homes and their own lives, and obey the 
 Scriptural injunction ? ' Whether ye eat or whether ye 
 drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all for the glory of God.' 
 I am ready and willing to carry on the matter should any 
 desire, with the kind permission of the friend of the public 
 — our Editor. In the meantime, 
 
 " I remain, 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 "BESSIE LEE."
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 121 
 
 "A MIDNIGHT MISSION. 
 
 Living, labouring, loving, I'll go 
 
 In the pathway Jesus trod. 
 Brightening the world for all below 
 
 And leading men up to God. 
 
 " During six years of visiting among the sick and poor, 
 in densely populated suburbs, I imagined I had learned all 
 that there was to learn of sin and suffering and poverty. 
 So many heartrending cases had been brought before me, 
 so many tales of horror been told me, that again and again 
 I had said, ' Surely nothing can surpass this.' 
 
 " When I first (very timidly and very humbly) put forth 
 my hand to try to help stem the time of iniquity, that was 
 bearing so many precious souls down to destruction, I 
 made many blunders ; but God, who was very patient 
 with His ignorant servant, taught me, and led me step by 
 step along the way, and showed me what I should have to 
 do to be of real service to Him. The first thing I learned 
 was that self must be completely sacrificed — heart and 
 life, soul and strength must be entirely given up. I must 
 throw aside everything on which I had before relied, and 
 take nothing but Christ with me into the work. The 
 courage that is born of faith would be given. The great 
 love for souls which had brought the King to earth would 
 possess me, and make all labour joy. So, as a broken and 
 empty vessel, I at last stood ready for the Master's use, 
 and He who is ever calling for labourers took me into His 
 service. In a short paper like this I could not even begin 
 to tell you of the sins and sorroAvs revealed to me, but I 
 want to bring before you a glimpse of Melbourne after 
 midnight, as shown to me on a midnight mission, when
 
 122 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 we went out to seek and save the lost. And here I was 
 taught how Httle I knew, as a district visitor, of the depths 
 of iniquity in our city. The appalling horrors of that 
 night ! The loathsome vices, the diabolical sins, proved 
 to me that I had before only skimmed the surface, while 
 here were depths of evil of which I had never even 
 dreamed ; and it is with the fervent hope of reaching and 
 rousing the people of our colony, and getting them to rise 
 up and fight against these awful iniquities that I have 
 ventured to take my pen and attempt, with cautious hand, 
 to bring before you the picture of a portion of our beautiful 
 Queen City of the South after dark. 
 
 " A supper had been prepared in the Temperance Hall, 
 and I, with a lady friend and a constable, was appointed 
 to visit the dens of the city to invite the poor, fallen girls 
 to attend. We started out at half-past seven, and ended 
 at half-past three next morning ; and in that time was laid 
 bare to me a state of things that I never could have believed 
 existed outsideof ' The Bitter Cry of Outcast London.' 
 
 " We started along Little Lonsdale Street, turned down 
 a narrow lane, passed through some back yards, around 
 dilapidated buildings, and at last stopped at a door, where 
 a Chinaman stood with a bottle of beer in his hand. We 
 asked for his wife, but he said she was too ill to be seen. 
 The constable pushed him aside, and we entered a low- 
 roofed, smoke-begrimed, filthy room. Its only occupant 
 was a Chinaman sitting at the end of what looked like a 
 long, broad shelf or table, on which was an opium-tray 
 containing pipes, lamp and other appurtenances of opium- 
 smokers. The same question was put to him, and the 
 same answer received — ' The missis was very ill upstairs.'
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 123 
 
 Up a steep ladder in one corner we went, till we reached 
 a garret above. A light was produced, and we looked 
 around the reeking, dirty room for a woman. At first we 
 could not discern her, but as we made a noise, what 1 had 
 taken for a bundle of bed-clothes rolled up at one end of 
 the long, low shelf, moved, and I saw it was a girl, I 
 went and lifted her up, and as my eyes became accustomed 
 to the dim light of the opium lamp, I saw she was about 
 sixteen years of age, with the stamp of death on her white, 
 thin face and in her hollow eyes. Lovingly we pleaded 
 with the poor girl to come with us, but the old Chinaman 
 had followed us up, and her looks and tones expressed her 
 fear, as she trembhngly told us 'she would not be 
 allowed.' But at last, moved by our entreaties, she 
 promised ' to come if she could.' Down the ricketty 
 ladder again, but just as we reached the floor we heard 
 angry words, then a blow and a scream, and we knew 
 that the villain was thrashing the poor dying girl because 
 she had promised to come to our supper. My whole 
 heart swelled with indignation, and I said, ' She shall not 
 be punished by that monster. I'll go back and bring 
 her away at once,' and I turned to do so. But the 
 constable laid a detaining hand on my shoulder, and 
 quietly said, ' No use, Mrs. Lee, you could do nothing 
 now ; and besides, we have no time to spare. We have 
 hundreds yet to go to.' 
 
 " Hundreds ! ' I replied, in dismay. ' Oh, not so bad 
 as that one ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, and worse.' 
 
 " My heart turned sick. As we turned away Mrs. 
 
 said —
 
 124 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 " ' To think, Mrs. Lee, that that poor girl should be 
 there at the mercy of two Chinamen.' 
 
 " ' Two,' said the constable, significantly ; why, a dozen 
 live there.' 
 
 "Oh, what a depth of degradation, what horrible sin, 
 what nameless suffering was brought to light by that one 
 brief sentence. And yet this was in a Christian land, 
 boasting of its advanced civilisation, ruled by what are 
 called just laws, and governed by a people whose proudest 
 boast is liberty. God help us when it is a liberty that 
 encourages wrong-doing, and the destruction of the 
 weak. 
 
 " In the next den we visited we found nine Chinamen and 
 four Europeans girls all smoking. The fumes of the 
 opium almost stifled us, and we could not distinguish the 
 faces of any of them ; but we urged and implored the girls 
 to come to our supper, and they consented. From place 
 to place we went. I would not dare to tell you the sights 
 we saw, and the language we heard that night. One 
 place comes before me as I write. A long narrow room, 
 containing two of the shelves such as I have described, 
 on which, in all conceivable postures, w^ere the forms of 
 men and w^omen, European, half-caste, and Chinese. One 
 young girl had just come in, and finding no room on the 
 shelves, had formed for herself a pillow with two gin 
 bottles and a sheet of paper, on a bench, and had just 
 taken up the pipe to inhale its fumes. I went up to one 
 woman, and lifted her from among the prostrate bodies, 
 and with my heart fairly breaking with sorrow, I cried — 
 
 " ' Oh, my dear sister, come away from this horrible place. 
 Do come away with us.'
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 125 
 
 " ' I can't,' she said, ' I must go home to my children 
 soon.' 
 
 " ' What ! ' I cried. ' Are you a mother and you here ? 
 Oh, what a shame.' 
 
 " ' We are past all shame when we get here,' replied the 
 poor creature, in tones of hopeless misery. 
 
 " But she was not, for the very words revealed the woman- 
 liness still existing, though buried, perhaps, under a 
 mountain of sin. And oh ! how I thanked God that she 
 was not yet passed a Saviour's redeeming love. The mercy 
 that pardoi^ed a dying thief, and the power that could save 
 a Magdalene, was still as great as in days gone by ; and 
 though the wages of sin is death, still the free gift of God 
 is everlasting life. And it was of just such as these our 
 Saviour spoke when He said — ' I have come not to call 
 the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' ' They that are 
 whole need not the physician, but they that are sick.' 
 'The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which is 
 lost.' 
 
 " And to you, dear brother and sister, who have been 
 saved from a fate so fearful, I cry — ' Will you come and 
 help us in our work — " for God, and Home, and Native 
 Land " — by consecrating yourselves, your time, your 
 talents, your money, to the great work of overthrowing the 
 strongholds of sin, and winning souls for Jesus ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh, come, let us go and find them, 
 
 In the paths of death they roam, 
 At the close of the day 'twill be sweet to say, 
 
 I have brought some lost one home.' 
 
 " You all can do something, and when our prayers and 
 labours are offered up as a sacrifice to the Lord for the sins
 
 126 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 of the people, we have surely done what we could, and the 
 Lord will repay. 
 
 " Where are the reapers to garner in 
 The sheaves of good from the fields of sin ? 
 With sickles of love must the work be done, 
 And no one may rest till the Harvest Home. 
 
 " After leaving the stifling opium dens we paused to draw 
 breath and consult for a moment. Said our guardian, 
 * Would you like to visit the grand houses ? I cannot say 
 that you will gain admittance, but I will take you to them, 
 and you can try if you wish.' 
 
 " ' Certainly we will try, and what is more, succeed ; for 
 the Lord will open doors to us when we are on His 
 business.' 
 
 " Away we went at a brisk pace, finally stopping before a 
 large two-storey brick house. We rang the bell, and 
 presently a very neatly dressed servant girl opened the door. 
 
 " ' We want to see your young ladies,' I said. 
 
 " ' Oh you can't to-night,' replied the girl respectfully, 
 ' they are nearly all away at the opera with the mistress. 
 Only a few are at home.' 
 
 "'We must see them, my girl,' I answered, gently 
 pushing her aside and stepping into the hall. What a 
 scene ! Soft carpets under foot, plush curtains draping the 
 hall, full-length mirrors and choice paintings ; everything 
 that wealth could buy on every side. Down the hall we 
 went without a moment's hesitation, and opening a door on 
 our right, stepped into a luxuriously furnished boudoir. 
 The bed was draped with satin curtains ; a crimson satin 
 quilt covered it. The furniture was of the most elegant 
 description, and two beautiful girls stood before the marble
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 127 
 
 dressing-table, attiring themselves in costly clothing. I 
 felt too sick at heart to speak, for here was gilded iniquity. 
 The same horrible sin as we had just left in its naked 
 shamelessness, here veneered and covered over with gold, 
 yet just as revolting and hateful in its thin disguise as in 
 its open boldness. My brave little friend went forward, 
 and with eloquent appeals tried to get the girls to come 
 away with us from their loathsome life. Their polite 
 manners and cultivated tones showed their delicate rearing. 
 They were evidently young girls of high education, and 
 possessed of great beauty of face and form; but though 
 grateful to us for our loving interest, and evincing the 
 deepest hatred of the horrible life and the abominable 
 woman they called ' the mistress,' they yet had neither 
 courage, nor will, to break through their fetters. 
 
 " A young girl, small, but exceedingly pretty, came into 
 the room. She was dressed in lavender plush, with the 
 train caught up and thrown over her arm ; valuable 
 bracelets, necklace and rings decked her. Something in 
 the expression of t he w^ary eyes made me put my arms 
 around her and say — 
 
 " ' Oh, my dear girl ! what is this life going to end in ? ' 
 
 " Never shall I forget her answer, given as it was in one 
 word, and in such a tone of hopeless misery as wrung my 
 very heart, for that one word was ' Death.' 
 
 " Ah, poor girl ! well did she know that the wages of sin 
 is death and death in its most loathsome form. 
 
 " How we pleaded with those poor creatures to come away 
 from certain death, and accept the life Christ so freely 
 offers. All they answered was — 'They could not;' and 
 soon we found out why. They loere nothing hut slaves. The
 
 128 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 very clothes they had on did not belong to them ; the 
 jewellery they wore was not theirs ; everything they had 
 belonged to the mistress, of whom they spoke with the 
 most deadly hatred. Spies were always on the watch to 
 prevent them escaping, and threats of law if they did go 
 out with any of their mistress' property kept them in a 
 bondage as horrible as any Mrs. Beecher Stowe was called 
 upon to depict to an astonished nation. 
 
 " We came away unsuccessful, but with the warm thanks 
 of the girls for our efforts to rescue them, and from place to 
 place we again went. As one house describes all, I will 
 not weary my readers with repetition. At twelve o'clock, 
 weary, footsore and heartsick, we repaired to the Hall, and 
 there found between sixty and seventy girls who had 
 accepted our invitation. 
 
 " After the supper, earnest, loving addresses were given 
 by several friends, and a w^arm invitation offered to everyone 
 to enter the Home provided in Brunswick for the poor 
 straying ones, A few accepted, but the greater number, to 
 our intense sorrow, returned to their awful life. And what 
 was the reason ? Why would these girls deliberately reject 
 a holier hfe, a peace-happy home, to go back to suffering, 
 insult, shame and degradation ? Simply because inborn sin 
 and the love of strong drink conquered every better feeling. 
 
 " Oh, that all-destroying drink ! How it fetters and slays 
 its victims. Can any good thing be said of it, when we 
 count its slain every year by thousands ; when we are 
 hampered and hindered in our work of reclamation on all 
 sides by its fatal influence ; when the educated and high- 
 born, alike with the ignorant and sensual, are dragged 
 down to destruction by its cruel talons ? Again and again
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 129 
 
 have I cried out in passionate sorrow and grieved amaze- 
 ment, ' How can a Christian country legalise a traffic so 
 awful in its effects, so ruinous to our young people, so 
 destructive to purity, piety and morality, so impoverishing 
 to the country at large, so injurious in any and every way 
 you look at it ? ' 
 
 " Oh, Christian men and women, brothers with power, 
 and sisters with love, come and join us in our efforts to slay 
 this cruel slayer. Help us to overthrow the enemy of 
 holiness and happiness ; unite with us to pull down the 
 strongholds built on broken hearts and blighted homes, on 
 ruined reputations and sin-wrecked souls ; and by united 
 efforts, by fervent prayer, by the power of the most High 
 God, we will conquer the foe of our country, and the scenes 
 now nightly witnessed on our Midnight Missions will 
 \anish for ever. The righteousness that exalteth a nation 
 shall be seen on every side, and the sin that is a shame to 
 any people shall be no longer known. 
 
 " Can you wonder that again and again we cry aloud in 
 anguish of heart, ' Lord send more light and remove the 
 pall of intense darkness hanging over the people ? ' Can 
 you wonder that a woman, filled with love to God and 
 man, has dared to take up her pen and reveal the depths of 
 hidden sin, when the end in view is the glory of God, and 
 the uplifting of our fellow creatures ? Oh, men and 
 women, come, I beseech you, and help us redeem the 
 world for Christ. 
 
 " Southern Cross, February, 1890. 
 
 " Australia's Watchword : — 
 " ' One People, One Destiny.' ' Prohibition and God's 
 glory.' " 
 I
 
 I30 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 At the Convention of the W. C. T. U. many of the 
 ladies objected to the advanced views put forward by Mrs. 
 Lee in these articles, and pleaded with her to utterly 
 abjure such astounding theories. But she took her stand 
 on the sentiment expressed so ably by Herbert Spencer, 
 •' Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the 
 highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of the 
 time, must remember that while he is a descendant of the 
 past, he is a parent of the future, and that his thoughts 
 are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly 
 let die." She could not lightly take up such a solemn 
 matter, nor lightly lay it aside ; she believed that God had 
 called her to do a work others shrunk from, and though 
 her own nature recoiled from dabbling in dirt, she could 
 not be one of God's good housekeepers and allow the dirt 
 to remain. The broom and pan must be used to clear as 
 much of it away as possible, even if so great a dust were 
 raised in the process, that many would see only that, and 
 not the cleansing that would follow. It was no wonder 
 that some of the women condemned unsparingly this work 
 for purity. They could not be blamed, for Mrs. Lee's 
 views to them were truly startling. 
 
 "You are injuring your own usefulness, Mrs. Lee, by 
 such advanced writings," said one excited lady. (The 
 writer winced, but bowed gravely.) " Give up such a 
 work, and keep to the Temperance Cause alone." 
 
 " If I were to give up a work God has called me to, in 
 deference to your wishes, you would be one of the first to 
 despise me," she answered, " and I should feel for ever a 
 coward cringing to the fear or favour of those I love. No, 
 I will never give up the work till God tells me to. When
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 131 
 
 He speaks, there will be no need for anyone else to say 
 a word." 
 
 " Mrs. Lee was born a century before her time," was 
 the Hon. James Campbell's verdict, very kindly given. 
 
 " Well then," she retorted, " God needed me just 100 
 years before the world did, and I am willing to live, and 
 work and suffer just when and where He wills." 
 
 "You are bringing discredit on the whole union," said 
 one lady bitterly. 
 
 -This was more than loyal flesh and blood could stand. 
 While willing to suffer any opprobrium herself, she w'as 
 jealous of the good name and fame of the W.C.T.U,, and 
 eager for the progress of the whole Temperance Cause. 
 To be a hindrance to the work so dear to her soul, was not 
 to be allowed, so after many a sleepless night and troubled 
 day a way out of the difficulty presented itself. 
 
 Only those who knew how very dear to her the Temper- 
 ance Cause had grown could have any idea of what it cost 
 to send to the W.C.T.U. Executive her resignation of the 
 various offices with which they had honoured her. It was 
 like cutting herself off from a glorious w^ork, and from the 
 comradeship of the noblest women she had ever knowm. 
 It appeared to her as though her career had suddenly 
 ended, when just begun, that henceforth she would be a 
 woman with a life spoiled, by what many would call a 
 "fad," a "caprice," and yet between God and her own 
 heart at this time, was such a oneness, that she could trust 
 even the shattered hopes, the disappointed longings, the 
 crushed desires entirely to Him, knowing that the life 
 apparently spoiled by perversity was still clay for the 
 potter, and even if she never again appeared on a public
 
 132 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 platform to fight for a sober nation and an uplifted 
 humanity, He yet could make of her some use somewhere 
 in His great work of Redemption. The resignation was 
 accepted by women who really loved her, but who honestly 
 believed that she was mistaken and wayward in the work 
 she was doing. The following lines written at the time 
 may convey some idea of how she felt in this hour of 
 severe trial. 
 
 " How far is it to Calvary, my Lord ? " 
 My heart is crushed, my strength is gone : 
 I stumble blindly on. 
 
 When first I started out to run the race, 
 
 My hopes were high, my vigour strong. My heart rejoiced to 
 
 know 
 That I was worthy deemed, to tread the way to Calvary. 
 
 A little while ; 
 I found the road all set with thorns that tore my flesh. 
 And caused the blinding tears to start ; 
 And made the groans burst forth from riven heart. 
 But faith bound up the wounds, and on I went. 
 The way grew steeper still, and rocks and stumbling stones 
 Were set to keep me back. 
 
 Kindness, mistaken kindness, tried to draw me down to earth. 
 Clouds and thick mist hid heaven from view. 
 Yet, still faith clung with voiceless prayer, 
 
 To One Unseen. 
 
 Onward. How bleak the way, how rough the road, how sharp 
 
 the thorns. 
 Friends far behind. For all alone I tread the way to Calvary.
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 133 
 
 Forsaken and bereft, I stand with heart crying aloud 
 
 For human love and sympathy. 
 
 With hands weakened and pierced by those who loved me ; 
 
 With brow circled by thorns, placed there by those who had 
 
 not felt the sting, 
 Nor knew how deep they sunk. 
 
 My flagging feet move slowly ; 
 
 Eyes blind with vain search for tender mercy, 
 
 Soul sick with yearning for some kindred soul in sympathy to 
 
 understand, I cry— 
 " My Lord, my Lord, how far is it to Calvary ? " 
 
 Onward ! still onward. My strength is waning. Great drops 
 
 of blood 
 And tears wrung out by sore oppression ; 
 Mark step by step the upward way. 
 Black night around. No ray of light to guide ; 
 No human voice to cheer. 
 Sinking beneath the cross. 
 
 Crushed down by hands that meant to light the load. 
 How dark the road and drear to Calvary ! 
 
 " My Lord, I told Thee I would follow on 
 
 Through good report and ill. Through smiles and frowns, 
 
 But oh ! this human heart cries out for rest and love. 
 
 For friendship sweet, and tender human ties, 
 
 And to be understood. 
 
 How far, O Saviour dear— how far is it to Calvary ? " 
 
 I faint, I sink, yet struggle dumbly on. 
 
 The world, a floating bubble, soon to burst, left far below. 
 
 Hands loose their hold that sought to draw me down ; 
 
 Voices once dearly loved are heard no more. 
 
 And I on Calvary's Mount am all alone.
 
 134 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 A Cross shines through the blackness high above, 
 
 And on that Cross I see the face of One whose name is Love. 
 
 Tender compassion beams in every glance ; 
 
 Pity and mercy shine upon that brow ; 
 
 Those hands outstretched give help and strength anew ; 
 
 Those gentle lips speak only words to heal. 
 
 " Saviour ! Sweet Saviour ! Am I at Calvary ? " 
 
 My blunders, failures, imperfections, sins, 
 
 Have made the journey. very long I know ; 
 
 But tell me, " May I yet the victory win. 
 
 And triumph over every inward foe ? 
 
 Or must I backward turn, and heed the lips 
 
 That told me all the bitter road I trod 
 
 Was but one huge mistake. 
 
 And could not tend to lead me nearer Heaven, or God." 
 
 " Are these my judges, Lord ? These mortal friends, 
 Who've made the journey bitter to my soul, 
 And many a stone have hurled ? " 
 
 Yet 'twas in love, I know, and meant to heal, not hurt. 
 Though bleeding wounds proclaim how true the aim. 
 " Are they all right and I all wrong ? " 
 O Lord, my King, my Judge, I cry to Thee, 
 Is this the way, my road to Calvary ? 
 Or have I missed, through earth-born fog and cloud. 
 Through pride, vain-glory, folly, selfishness, 
 The track by blood drops marked from Olivet ? 
 Speak, speak, my Lord, that I may find it yet : 
 The Christ-paved way to Calvary. 
 
 " This is the way, My child, through good and ill report, 
 Through shame and sorrow still the pathway trends. 
 Fear thou no frown ; pause not for love or hate ; 
 Heed thou no foe, nor yet the voice of friends.
 
 PUBLIC WORK. 135 
 
 This is tlie way, through tempest, storm, and fog. 
 Turning not either to the left or right. 
 Heeding not crushing scorn, or well-meant prayers, 
 But upward ever through the darksome night. 
 
 To lose thy friends, if needs be, for My sake ; 
 To have thy heart pierced through with poisoned spear ; 
 Be crowned with thorns of doubt, and hate, and wrath, 
 And count all loss for my sake dear. 
 
 It is the way that I for thee have gone, 
 
 It leads to Glory, home, and love, and God ; 
 
 How far the road thy friends and foes decide ; 
 
 Still, all the bitter way My feet first trod. 
 
 And through the deepest darkness of the awful night, 
 
 And through the stormiest woes and misery, 
 
 When love, and charity, and human judgment fail, 
 
 I walk thy side to Calvary. 
 
 And though imperfect mortals, like thyself, 
 In judgment sit, then cast at thee the stone ; 
 Yet I, who sinned not, do not condemn, 
 But bid thee welcome to a Conqueror's throne. 
 
 Press forward, then. The way to Heaven and Me, 
 Can ne'er be lost by those who tread the long rough route 
 Of Calvary."
 
 ( 136 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 New Avenues. 
 
 She knew that she was a sore perplexity at this time to her 
 beloved co-workers. They could not understand why the 
 work she was so happy and successful in, should be given 
 up, to go on with what could only bring pain and suffering ; 
 nor could she understand it herself. She only knew that 
 she had to do just what she was doing, or be for ever con- 
 demned by God and her inner self. Why such a gigantic 
 task should have been laid upon one so utterly incapable 
 she did not know. Naturally timid and sensitive, she 
 quailed from every sharp word, or disdainful look, and 
 these were plentiful now. Averse to paining others, lo, 
 she was causing pain to those she so dearly loved. Hating 
 coarse words and waitings, and everything that in the 
 faintest degree savoured of impurity, she was now spoken 
 of all over the colony as one who was advocating Mal- 
 thusian doctrines, and injuring, the young and innocent by 
 pretending to fight against sensuality in its most subtle 
 form. Was it any wonder that under this accumulation of 
 perplexities, the frail body gave way, and she was again on 
 a bed of sickness. 
 
 Angels came and ministered unto Christ, after His terrible 
 time of temptation in the wilderness. Angels came again 
 and ministered unto Him in Gethsemane's garden. God,
 
 NEW AVENUES. 137 
 
 ever mindful of them that are tempted, sent a ministering 
 angel to His suffering disciple in the form of a little Scotch 
 woman. Quaint, eccentric, and unlearned, the little woman 
 was, nevertheless, an angel of light in this dark time. Her 
 rugged Scotch tongue, her queer sayings were music sweet 
 as any seraph's song to that tried soul. 
 
 " Cheer up, dear," she would say, twinkling loving 
 glances through her spectacles at the weak woman on the 
 bed. " We'll thrash the devil yet." The one addressed 
 didn't feel like thrashing any being so powerful as his 
 Satanic majesty just then, but the confident tones and the 
 cheery words were like balm of Gilead. 
 
 Soon came an additional blessing in the shape of a 
 deputation from one of the most powerful Temperance 
 bodies in Melbourne, asking her to accept the position of 
 lecturer for them at a very good salary. Deeply touched, 
 she thanked them gratefully, but firmly declined the 
 honour. 
 
 " You see," she explained, " I get peculiar views and 
 must express them ; no matter how I try to keep myself in 
 proper form, I angle out, and the angles rub roughly 
 against others. I can't bear to hurt individuals or 
 organizations, so had better stand or fall alone." 
 
 " We are willing to take you just as you are," replied 
 the kindly spokesman. 
 
 "Consider the 'screw,'" suggested his companion. 
 
 It was such a surprise that any one should imagine that 
 money could weigh with her, that she was quite silent for 
 a while, not knowing just how to explain without hurting 
 their feelings. Then she gently said — 
 
 " If God directed me to take the position you so
 
 138 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 generously offer I would take it if needs be for nothing, 
 but ten pounds a week would not induce me to take up a 
 work He has not called me to." 
 
 She felt herself sinking in their estimation as she spoke, 
 and, as the offer was never renewed, she concluded they 
 thought such an unbusinesslike woman was really no 
 great gain to their Society. As a matter of fact they did 
 not try again, because they felt themselves powerless to 
 influence one with such unworldly ways. 
 
 Next came the hearty invitation of Victoria's most 
 powerful political body, the Victorian Alliance, but while 
 willingly agreeing to help this organization, she utterly 
 refused to become their lecturer and organizer. 
 
 Then came invitations from ministers and others in 
 country districts, and after a very short interval she started 
 out entirely free from any Society. For a year work 
 crowded on her, and as day by day the mists cleared away, 
 she found God's unerring Hand was guiding into avenues 
 of greater usefulness than any before passed through. 
 Great encouragement cheered her, too, in regard to her stand 
 for purity, as the following will show — 
 
 " Mrs. Lee, you must gather all your letters and articles 
 together and have them printed in book form," said a lady 
 one day. 
 
 " I cannot, I have not the money," she replied. 
 
 " Get the book printed," said her friend, laying her 
 gloved hand kindly on Mrs. Lee's, " and call on me for 
 anything up to ^300." 
 
 Mrs. Lee looked at the lady, and took at once God's 
 bidding through her lips. The book was printed, and 
 commanded such a ready sale that she was able to pay
 
 NEW AVENUES. 139 
 
 the printer for the whole of the first edition within three 
 months, without needing to call on the lady for a penny. 
 
 -^; -Jf. ;;: :^: 
 
 About this time came her first experience of Local 
 Option work, and her first actual conflict with King 
 Alcohol on the battle-field. It was at Mentone, a pretty 
 little seaside resort, that a petition had been circulated for 
 a poll to procure a liquor license, and there seemed every 
 probability of the poll being successful unless some means 
 could be devised of turning public opinion into the right 
 channel. There were no ladies opposing the enemy, and 
 only a few earnest-hearted Alliance workers. Mrs. Lee 
 heard how the matter stood, and consulted her husband 
 on the matter, but manlike, he would take no responsibility 
 for her actions, magnanimously saying as so often before — 
 
 " Do just what you like, my dear. Please yourself and 
 you please me." 
 
 There wasn't a fragment of self-pleasing in the matter. 
 Indeed, it was rather with groanings of spirit, that she 
 sallied forth on a Saturday evening to the task before her. 
 Armed with Local Option literature, she visited all the 
 business people in the one main street, and pleaded with 
 them to refuse their votes to drinkdom. The opposing 
 parties soon got scent of her mission, and mustered in force 
 outside of a grocer's shop to await her coming. As she 
 stepped out of the shop, she found herself surrounded by a 
 little crowd of men and boys. One aggressive individual 
 threateningly accosted her, and delivered an oration on 
 woman's duties. His victim was not in any heroic mood 
 at the moment, so meekly listened to all he had to say, 
 gently answered him, and went into the next shop. A still
 
 140 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 larger crowd had assembled when she returned to the street, 
 and she found herself hemmed in, and her tyrannical friend 
 still more aggressive. 
 
 She stood in the middle of the crowd, and listened to the 
 fiery torrent of his speech, at first, with her woman's nature 
 quailing, then with all the soldier spirit rising steady and 
 strong. Soon the one had risen above the other, and she 
 faced the man w' ith a look on her face that compelled silence, 
 and began to speak. The tables were completely turned on 
 the aggressor, and he was glad to let her escape, amid the 
 cheers and laughter of the crowd. 
 
 A third time she was mobbed as she came out of a 
 bootmaker's shop ; she could not lower her dignity by 
 either calling for help, or attempting to push through the 
 assemblage ; so again stood and spoke, until the crowd in 
 respectful silence made way for her to pass. It was quite 
 dark when the visiting was finished, and she had yet to see 
 the ministers to ask them to preach against the licence on 
 the morrow. Not a chance must be lost of influencing a 
 vote, for on the Monday the Poll would take place, and the 
 salvation or destruction of the people might depend on one 
 vote. 
 
 She entered a little shop to ask the way to the Wesleyan 
 Parsonage, and found there a young man with slouched 
 hat, red handkerchief knotted round his neck, little coat, 
 bell-bottomed trousers, and all the usual "get-up" of a 
 thorough larrikin. She recognized him as one of the 
 opposing force, who had been interjecting and cross- 
 questioning among the crowd up the street. As she asked 
 for directions to the Parsonage, he turned sharply and 
 said —
 
 NEW AVENUES. I4I 
 
 " It's a long way from here, Mrs. Lee, and the road is 
 dark and lonely. It wouldn't do for a woman to go down 
 there at night." 
 
 She felt solemn, but didn't once dream of wavering, so 
 answered, " I iiinst go." 
 
 He looked at her from under that slouched brim with 
 evident perplexity, and suddenly making up his mind, said, 
 " Very well, then I'll take you down myself." 
 
 She fairly gasped as the situation flashed upon her. A 
 dark, lonely road ; a defenceless woman, an acknowledged 
 foe ; then she thanked him gratefully, and trustfully placed 
 herself under his protecting care. Talk of a gentleman in 
 disguise! he proved to be one. As he helped her over the 
 rough places, and talked in gentle, respectful tones, she 
 recognized in the rough attire, not the town larrikin, but 
 " a true brother of girls," as the Arabs quaintly sayj. And 
 that night's experience gave her, ever after, increased trust 
 in men's chivalry and true nobility. When they reached 
 the gate he politely opened it and stood back to let her pass. 
 
 " Shall I see you on Monday ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Lee," he pleaded, " don't come down on 
 Monday," 
 
 " I shall have to, it is the Polling-day." 
 
 " Oh! but there's to be free beer and whiskey all day. 
 The men will be drunk and you'll get insulted." 
 
 She ruefully admitted the fact, but unswervingly 
 answered, " I must come." 
 
 "Very well," he said, straightening himself up with 
 sudden resolve, " you come, Mrs. Lee, and if any man 
 dares to insult you" (clenching his fists), "I'll knock him 
 down."
 
 142 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 The woman looked at her strange champion with humid 
 eyes, and inwardly thanked God for the Christ-germ that 
 had suddenly sprung into life in that sin-blurred soul, 
 
 Monday morning came. Her husband was to be away 
 with his train the whole day. She got through her house- 
 hold duties, lingering over them a bit while nerving herself 
 for what lay before her, and then went off to Mentone. Of 
 course she was expected, and the contemptuous glances, 
 and still more contemptuous words which greeted her set 
 her whole soul a quiver. Womanlike she wanted to cry, 
 but Spartan-like would rather have died than shed a tear. 
 She wanted to rush away and hide her head in the darkest 
 corner of the land, but a thousand bayonets would not 
 have made her move one inch from her post. The men 
 scowled, abused, scolded, and ridiculed her to their heart's 
 content, and there she stood at the Polling booth, with 
 nerves tingling, yet upborne by the consciousness that she 
 was doing her duty. Had she been a strong-minded 
 courageous woman, the ordeal might not have been so 
 great. But timid to the heart's core, she had to flog her 
 fainting soul up to duty, and sort of " nail it there." 
 
 "What good do you think you are doing?" fiercely 
 demanded an old gentleman. 
 
 Looking into his irate countenance, she felt she could 
 truthfully answer, " None at all." 
 
 " Then what on earth are you here for ? " 
 
 "As a woman I am here to fight against woman's 
 enemy," promptly handing a voter a leaflet as he neared 
 the gate. 
 
 "You ought to be home mending your husband's 
 socks."
 
 NEW AVENUES. I43 
 
 "They are all mended," in mild surprise. 
 
 " Well you ought to be cooking his dinner." 
 
 " It would be spoiled, he won't be home till ten 
 to-night." 
 
 " Well, then, you should be looking after the poor in 
 Richmond, where you live." 
 
 " I'm trying to prevent poverty in Mentone, \vhere you 
 live," industriously handing literature all the time to the 
 voters as they came up. 
 
 He growlingly retreated, and another tormentor took his 
 place. 
 
 " Look here, Mrs. Lee, you had better go home. We 
 are sure to win the Poll, you know." 
 
 " Yes," she assented sadly. 
 
 " It isn't right for you to be here alone among a lot of 
 rough men." 
 
 She winced, but humbly explained — 
 
 " I couldn't get anyone to help me." 
 
 A policeman approached from the booth with a chair. 
 " If you're going to stay here all day you had better sit 
 down," he said ungraciously. But his kind face belied 
 his tones, and she sank into the chair, glad that her tremb- 
 ling limbs were saved from ignominously collapsing. Her 
 old antagonist curled his nose in the air, and scornfully 
 moved off. Half an hour later he reappeared with a man- 
 servant bearing a cup of tea and a plate of daintily-cut 
 bread and butter. 
 
 "You'll be fainting," he said, crossly, "if you don't eat 
 something." 
 
 Concealing her amazement she drank the tea, and did 
 justice to the bread and butter, and felt so friendly to
 
 144 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 everybody, that before they were aware of it, they were all 
 chatting about the great questions of the day most amicably. 
 
 Five o'clock came, and the door of the polling-booth 
 closed. Stiff, weary, nervous, she waited for the verdict. 
 Grudgingly it was given her. 
 
 " Not enough votes to gain the poll." 
 
 She leaped up with a great joyful svirprise and would 
 have liked to ask the assemblage to help her sing the 
 Doxology, but they didn't look kind of ready, so she sang 
 it in her own heart over and over again instead. The 
 editor of the local paper took possession of the little woman 
 for dinner, and expressed in quiet terms his admiration for 
 the courage shewn that day. Her old tormentor brought 
 her a glorious bunch of rosebuds containing over one 
 hundred of his choicest varieties, and with very kind 
 good-byes from her late enemies, she returned in triumph 
 home to get her husband's dinner ready. 
 
 One night there were grave faces gathered around the 
 council table of the Victorian Alliance. News had been 
 received that in South Gippsland polls for increase of 
 licences were to be taken all through that vast district. The 
 question before the executive was — could they oppose these 
 Polls. There were apparently insurmountable difficulties 
 in the way ; the country was densely timbered and partly 
 trackless ; the journey would have to be by coach, train, 
 boat, and — this chiefly — horseback. There were few 
 friends, if any, to provide accommodation or means of 
 transit. The population was scattered, and indifferent to 
 the views of the Victorian Alliance ; the expense would 
 necessarily be great and there was no probability of any 
 returns. But these were not the only difficulties. The
 
 NEW AVENUES. I45 
 
 Alliance workers were busy men, unable to spare the 
 necessary weeks from business on improfitable and thank- 
 less service ; the secretary was away in England, all the 
 lecturers were' already over-burdened. There were not 
 workers enough for the cities, let alone an overplus for such 
 a district as South Gippsland. 
 
 One after another of the executive officers sighed and 
 shook their heads. The three women at the Council table 
 looked equally grave, but one felt a purpose rising in her 
 breast, a purpose so great that she did not dare to mention 
 it till everybody else had had a chance. Her voice was 
 rarely heard in the Council chamber, for it must be 
 confessed that she stood in great awe of these thoughtful, 
 earnest men, but when the chairman reluctantly laid aside 
 the subject, saying — 
 
 " I am very, very sorry that we can make no opposition 
 to these licenses, but it seems we cannot, so must let them 
 go on," she found strength to utter the audacious proposal, 
 " If no one else can go, I will ; we must not let them gain 
 the licenses without a protest." 
 
 The chairman's surprise was reflected on every face in 
 the room, and chivalry was quick to protest. 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Lee, the difficulties would daunt the 
 strongest men, are you not afraid ? " 
 
 She smilingly shook her head. 
 " " What about riding through the forests, over roads that 
 have earned the name of glue-pots ? " 
 
 " I can ride," was all she trusted herself to say. 
 
 The men at last gave a pleased assent, finding she was 
 determined, and sent her forth commissioned to do just 
 anything she could, in whatever way opened before her. 
 
 E
 
 146 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 She was delighted beyond measure, but had one painful 
 fact to counterbalance the joy — she had no money to pay 
 the expenses of the expedition, and those dear stupid men 
 had not dreamed of asking her about her financial 
 resources. 
 
 The map of South Gippsland was studied with intense 
 interest during the next few days, while her home was being 
 set in order for a lengthened absence. The Parliamentary 
 Member for the district was written to, asking for names 
 of teetotalers or sympathisers if he knew any, and one or 
 two names were received in reply. To these she wrote at 
 once, and on the following Friday started on her mission 
 with just half-a- crown in her purse when her railway ticket 
 was paid for. But the ^Father was within call, so not a 
 fear ruffled the surface of her mind. With happy faith she 
 repeated to herself the words : 
 
 " I am only a little sparrow, 
 
 A bird of low degree, 
 My life is of little value 
 
 But there's One who cares for me. 
 I fly through the thickest forest, 
 
 And alight on many a spray ; 
 I have no chart or compass, 
 
 But I never lose my way." 
 
 Mirboo North was her destination, and this was reached 
 in the afternoon by rail. There she discovered a coffee 
 palace and went to it. Soon she found the place was en 
 fete. It was an annual sports day, and the people had 
 gathered from far and near. It was a golden opportunity 
 which she was not slow to seize, so she moved among the 
 people distributing Alliance literature and Temperance
 
 NEW AVENUES. T47 
 
 tracts bearing on the subject of Local Option in general, 
 and the South Gippsland Polls in particular. She was 
 looked upon as quite a curiosity, and the news rapidly 
 circulated that "a woman had come to oppose the liquor 
 interest in the forests of Gippsland." 
 
 In the evening a man sought her out, and, with great 
 pride, announced as he couldn't claim to be a teetotaler 
 himself, he had gone some miles to find the only 
 Temperance man he knew of in the district. The latter 
 proved a real help. He hired the public hall for a meeting, 
 wrote out notices for shop windows, and offered to lend the 
 lecturer a horse, saddle, and other necessaries, for wherever 
 she wanted to go. This was a fine beginning. The next 
 day she visited every house within reach, speaking to the 
 voters and their wives, and working up interest in her 
 cause. 
 
 On the Sabbath day, service w'as held in the public hall, 
 and on Monday night a lecture given to a splendid audience. 
 Forty-five pledges were taken that night, and such interest 
 aroused, that when the poll took place, the effort to get a 
 license was defeated, and she found when expenses of hall 
 hire, board and lodging, and train fare were paid, she had 
 over two pounds in hand. 
 
 On Tuesday she returned to Melbourne to reach Port 
 Albert, another part of the South Gippsland Province, only 
 reachable by boat. With faith and courage, strengthened 
 by God's e\ddent blessing on the work, the next stage was 
 begun. The tiny little coasting vessel trading to Port 
 Albert proved eminently conducive to mal-de-mer. But she 
 survived and the next day reached the Port. Here a 
 fisherman's wife met, and took her to a little hut on the rough
 
 148 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 beach, and treated her visitor to the best she had ; while 
 her many bare-footed bairns shyly interviewed the guest 
 at first, and finally adopted her as their Auntie. 
 
 Among Mrs. Lee's valued treasures now is a dirty little 
 Christmas card, on which is written, " Deer Ant, I am 
 sorrow that you are going away." This was Carrie's 
 parting gift to one who valued the pricelessness of a little 
 child's love in that time of lonely conflict. The fisherman's 
 wife being an utter stranger to Mrs. Lee, it was natural 
 that the latter's first enquiry should be, " How the former 
 knew of her intended visit." The answer showed again a 
 Hand directing — though unseen — the affairs of life. A 
 minister had heard of the projected tour and had tele- 
 graphed to this woman, who had once been one of his 
 parishioners, to meet and kindly care for Mrs. Lee. 
 
 As she had to leave in three hours for Foster, meetings 
 were rapidly arranged for. Two or three friends were 
 found who promised to do all they could before her return, 
 and then off she went in a still tinier vessel to Stockyard 
 Creek, expecting to reach the Creek that night, but a heavy 
 fog settled down on land and sea, and anchor had to be 
 cast in the channel. This was something of a predicament, 
 as there was no other lady on board, and only two gentle- 
 men passengers. No accommodation was provided for 
 either sex, and it seemed a case of sitting on deck all night ; 
 but the engineer, with rough kindness, placed his berth at 
 the lady's disposal, and she at last retired— not to sleep. 
 Insects of different kinds made that impossible, but to lie 
 listening to the lap — lap — swish, swish of the water against 
 the little vessel until daybreak appeared. Even then the 
 fog did not lift, and the poor captain tacked about the
 
 NEW AVENUES. 149 
 
 dangerous channel trying to sight beacons, till his 
 passengers were afraid he would swear. But he didn't. A 
 bit of Christian fortitude, for which he deserves, and here 
 receives honourable mention. It was nine a.m. when they 
 reached the landing, and then there were three miles to go 
 before reaching the town. The only mode of transit was 
 by a lorry drawn over rails by a strong horse, through the 
 densely timbered country. The passengers clambered on 
 the lorry, and the lady was seated on a bag of sugar 
 between two barrels of beer, and so situated made her 
 entry into Foster, feeling that if extremes had never met 
 before, they met on that lorry most ludicrously. 
 
 Immediately on arriving at Foster she sought the Church 
 of England minister, and found in him a sympathiser. A 
 welcome cup of tea and an hour's sleep prepared her for 
 the day's work, which consisted of first engaging a hall, 
 then visiting every house in the place to work up interest, 
 by which time she had only five minutes to spare in which 
 to swallow a cup of tea and hurry away to hold the 
 meeting. She sang in the street until her audience 
 gathered, and then gave a strong Temperance address to a 
 capital audience. The results were excellent in the shape 
 of pledges, collection, and interest gained against the 
 desired increase of licenses. 
 
 Then had to be faced the worst part of the day's toil — 
 the walk back to the landing through the dense bush at ten 
 o'clock at night, to return to Port Albert by the little boat 
 next morning. A Mr. Mansell, who bad come up from 
 the landing, kindly offered to escort the weary little 
 lecturer back, as the lorry did not go down at night. It 
 was Hobson's choice ; so accepting her new friend's kind
 
 150 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 offer she started, but oh, the road down that tram-line ! 
 She stumbled over the sleepers and tripped into the ruts 
 until exhausted nature gave way, and she stopped in 
 despair, saying, " I am too tired to go another step, Mr. 
 Mansell." As she sank on the tram rail the man looked at 
 her sympathetically, but with only the glimmer of the stars 
 above the tall tree tops to light up the intense darkness, 
 expressions were not visible, but his voice was very kind as 
 he said — 
 
 " You cannot turn back, Mrs. Lee, the boat will leave 
 with the tide, which may rise at four o'clock in the 
 morning. Take my hand, and try to walk on the rails." 
 
 Three miles on narrow rails ! She felt as though she had 
 not an ounce of energy left to make the attempt, but could 
 not stay in tlie forest all night, and dared not turn back to 
 run the risk of losing the boat, so breathing a prayer for 
 help she gathered her tired body up and started again. As 
 a girl she had often \valked the rails of tram-lines leading 
 to the shafts and crushing mills, and been innocently 
 proud of her ability to walk a mile or more without 
 slipping. Little did she dream that the childish play was 
 to stand her in such good stead in alter years. As she 
 balanced herself on the rail she felt the old buoyancy of 
 spirit and skill of step returning, and much cheered by this 
 feeling resumed the journey ; then a second blessing came 
 in the shape of a man with a lantern, who walked before 
 them showing the light for the rest of the way. At twelve 
 o'clock the landing was reached, and early next morning 
 the Nell, with its tired but cheery little passenger, started 
 for the port. 
 
 At Port Albert interest had been awakened, and several
 
 NEW AVENUES. I5I 
 
 good meetings were held, aud a large number of friends 
 gained. There were other places to be visited though, and 
 an opening was earnestly sought, but three days passed 
 and none appeared, and the worker had begun to feel as 
 though she had reached a full stop. No one could advise 
 her what next to do, and her own mind was a blank. In 
 this dilemma, help came from a most unexpected sourc*? ; 
 from indeed none other than a Mr. Yeomans, one of the 
 would-be licensees whom she was opposing. 
 
 At Toora he was busy erecting the intended hotel, and 
 sent an invitation to her to put up at his establishment. 
 She promptly accepted his invitation, though well aware 
 there must be some ulterior object in the apparent kindness, 
 and started the next day by coach through the forest. On 
 the way a bush fire was raging, and fearing the horses might 
 be unmanageable through the flames, the coach-driver 
 asked the passengers if they would get down and walk — or 
 rather run — through the fire. All got safely through and 
 resumed their journey, admiring, when at a safe distance, 
 the awful grandeur of a forest fire. 
 
 Hot and smoky and dusty, they approached Toora, and 
 had some difficulty in finding the hotel in the dense scrub. 
 Over fallen logs, through trees and stumps the track wound, 
 which brought them at last to the newly-erected building. 
 A lady opened the door and invited the tired woman in, 
 but the latter felt she must understand her position before 
 she " walked into the parlour," so she began — 
 
 " I am Mrs. Lee." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Yeomans is expecting you." 
 
 " Before going in I would like to know if Mr. Yeomans 
 quite understands that I am here to oppose his licence."
 
 152 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Does he know that I am a Prohibitionist out and 
 out ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Very well then, I will go in. I could not until sure 
 that I was not sailing under false colours." 
 
 l\Ir. Yeomans greeted her with the cordiality of a 
 spider towards the fly he means to make a meal of, 
 but fear was flung to the winds now that she was fairly 
 in the enemy's territory, and she began business promptly 
 by asking him if he would lend her his billiard room for 
 a meeting. This granted, she requested him to make 
 some seats of planks or barrels. He obliged, and she 
 then honoured him by electing him to preside over the 
 meeting, an honour which he accepted with great 
 gratification. 
 
 Then she sallied forth to gather an audience by personal 
 invitation. It was hard work, for settlers were few and 
 far between Snakes and bush fires were about, and the 
 forest was almost trackless. However, in the evening, 
 about thirty men and four women assembled. The chair- 
 man, though he occupied a chair, left the lecturer to open 
 the proceedings, which she did, by singing, " Rescue the 
 perishing," and then offering prayer. 
 
 In very fulsome language, Mr. Yeomans then introduced 
 the lady to the audience, and she sat buckling on the armour 
 while he did so. To flinch or leave the truth half untold, 
 must not be thought of, however unpalatable or unpopular 
 that truth might prove. Drink must be shown in all its 
 hideousness, and, if possible, the licence must be prevented 
 in the very face of the licensee. So she rose and spoke ;
 
 NEW AVENUES. 153 
 
 finishing up with Sankey's beautiful solo, " There are lonely 
 hearts to cherish." 
 
 Then up rose the chairman, feeling master of the situa- 
 tion ; he began by compliments again, which his hearer 
 took for what they were worth, then made an impassioned 
 speech about his honour and integrity being concerned in 
 the keeping of an hotel, of only the highest character, how 
 he for one would never sell adulterated liquors or poisoned 
 beers, how he would never allow a drunken man to remain 
 on his premises, neither would he serve youths with drink 
 which was not good for them. " No," waxing more and 
 more eloquent, " rather than do a dishonourable action 
 under the cloak of a licence, or permit one to be done, he 
 would take a brand and set fire to the place, and burn it 
 to the ground." As he stuck his hands in his pockets and 
 glared fiercely around after this magnificent oration, the 
 audience applauded vociferously. (Poor things, many 
 were receiving money from him for building, carting, and 
 other work, and could not quarrel with their bread and 
 butter.) Satisfied with the effect his frothy words had had 
 upon the audience, he then turned to heap coals of wrath 
 on the lecturer's diminished head, but by the law of con- 
 traries, instead of feeling a bit diminished, she was rather 
 intensely aroused. 
 
 "Mrs. Lee," he solemnly said, "you are making a 
 serious mistake in the work you are doing. Go back to 
 the city where there is need of your efforts, and try to save 
 the poor drunkards there who are hourly going to destruc- 
 tion. Try to lessen the number of low hotels there, try to 
 get good beer for people to drink, set the law at work on 
 those who break the Sabbath, and sell after hours and give
 
 154 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 intoxicated men licjuor that drives them to the Lunatic 
 Asylum ; (then piously) follow in your Master's footsteps 
 and christianize men, don't try to make them teetotal 
 fanatics. Your Master didn't come to earth with a pledge- 
 book and bit of blue ribbon, He came to save men, and you 
 should do likewise " ; and quite overcome by this view of 
 the subject, he sank into his chair, amid the applause of 
 thirty men. 
 
 She looked at the man, and said coolly — 
 
 " Do you think the people need saving ? " 
 
 " Why, yes," he said, in a startled tone. 
 
 " Then," said the lady, rising with Hashing eyes, " why 
 don't you go and do it ? If you see souls perishing, why 
 don't you reach out you hand to them ? I am doing what 
 I can when in the city to save souls, but I find, as hundreds 
 of other workers find in all parts of the world, that every 
 effort is hindered and hampered by the accursed drink. 
 You tell me to christianize men without the pledge-book 
 and a bit of blue ribbon. Are you going to christianize 
 men by means of a barrel of beer and a bottle of brandy ? " 
 
 Much more she said, for the scathing words would find 
 utterance, and the man writhed in anger under the lash. 
 
 Then, feeling she could do no more, she closed the 
 meeting with the Benediction and an appeal for pledges, 
 but not one dared to sign. 
 
 Mr. Yeomans departed instantly the meeting ended, and 
 the lady retired, knowing his maledictions were being heaped 
 upon her head. Had she been a man, he would have 
 bundled her out of his house ; being a woman he could do 
 nothing, so she remained till the coach reached Toora 
 again and then started on another stage. The rest of the
 
 NEW AVENUES. 155 
 
 work had to be done almost entirely on horseback, and as 
 she was somewhat out of practice through living so long in 
 town, the fearful roads proved rather an ordeal. 
 
 "Are you afraid, Mrs. Lee," kindly asked the missionary 
 who escorted her down a precipitous mountain side ? 
 
 " Not a bit," she cheerily answered, "seeing we are on 
 the King's business, but a pension wouldn't induce me to 
 ride down this hill on any other account." 
 
 Heavy rains had made the tracks so slippery that the 
 horse could scarce keep its footing, but slipped and slid 
 down to the creek, there to be confronted by a formidable 
 obstacle in the shape of a great tree lying right across the 
 stream. To turn to the right or left was an impossibility. 
 The tree must be got over some how. Gripping the bridle 
 more tightly, and pressing firm in the stirrup the rider 
 ^eaped her horse not over, the tree was too broad for that, 
 but on to it, and then the gallant little nag sprang to the 
 opposite side, and they had conquered. Her breath came 
 back, her heart resumed its regular beating, and she felt 
 able to sing the war-song of sweet jubilee origin — 
 " Gwine to write to Massa' Jesus, 
 To send some valiant soldier 
 To turn back Pharoah's army. Hallelujah!" 
 
 To tell more about the Gippsland trip might be tedious, 
 suffice it to say she rode seventy-two miles on horseback 
 literally through flood and fire, holding meetings wherever 
 possible ; many pledges were taken ; many hearts were 
 won for Christ, and several of the attempts to secure 
 licenses defeated. One of the meetings had to be held at a 
 navvies' encampment in the pouring rain. A minister of 
 the Presbyterian church, a Wesleyan missionary, and a
 
 156 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 Gippsland selector formed her body-guard. Her church 
 was the open air, her pulpit the saddle, her congregation 
 some 600 navvies, who had been keeping up St. Patrick's 
 Day in something stronger than aqua pnra. She sang and 
 prayed and preached from horseback, with the rain pouring 
 down in torrents till preacher and audience alike were wet 
 from head to foot, and then rode till she was dry again. 
 
 After three weeks of incessant work, she returned to 
 hand a cash balance to the Treasurer of the Alliance, and, 
 best of all, able to report that the God of Israel had not 
 failed in one word of all Plis good promise. 
 
 Three years later, Mirboo North, where a teetotaler had 
 been a rava avis, was revisited. The platform was 
 beautifully decorated, rows of white-collared Rechabites, 
 women with the white ribbon, and men, women and 
 children with the badge of blue on their breasts filled the 
 building. It was for Mrs. Lee a memorable moment when 
 one man in Rechabite regalia spoke with deep feeling of 
 the first visit of an unknown friendless woman three years 
 before to their district, and then with a sweep of his hand 
 indicating the many teetotalers present, said : — 
 
 " Mrs. Lee, you sowed the seed, here is your harvest to 
 rejoice over." 
 
 And rejoice she did with a joy akin to tears. 
 
 " Are there any other places, Mrs. Lee, that you had 
 such reason for rejoicing over ? " 
 
 " Yes, two other places stand out distinctly in my 
 memory for God's marvellous dealing. One was a little 
 town in Gippsland where we had an audience comprised 
 mainly of teetotalers. There were only nine non-abstainers 
 with us that night, and every one of the nine signed the
 
 NEW AVENUES. 1 57 
 
 pledge at the close of the meeting, so that an audience of 
 teetotalers, without a single exception, left the building 
 that night. The other place was Macorna, away on the 
 Kerang Plains. I had to hold a meeting in a tiny church 
 there one very wet night. The roads, if roads such quag- 
 mires could be called, were almost impassable. No one 
 could attend on foot, and not many by vehicle, so our 
 audience was limited. It has always seemed to me to be a 
 duty to give the brightest, happiest meeting possible to the 
 few brave souls who dare to venture out on trying nights, 
 so I told my merriest stories, and gave my brightest 
 illustrations to the small audience present. Among the 
 illustrations was the merry one about the man who walked 
 miles around his wooden leg, which had got stuck in the 
 mud. The roars of laughter greeting this little story were 
 so prolonged, that I guessed there was some local applica- 
 tion, and sure enough there happened to be a man with a 
 wooden leg in the audience. With irresistible good 
 humour the dear man stepped into the aisle, stuck his 
 wooden leg firmly down, and began to walk around it, to 
 illustrate my story. The cheers and fun and merriment 
 increased, but astonishment was added, when the old man 
 turned, and stumped up to the table, and heroically signed 
 the pledge. Three of his big farmer sons followed, four 
 others joined, and a delightful meeting ended splendidly. 
 Ended, did I say ; no, it really began a wonderful work. A 
 Rechabite tent was formed from that little nucleus, 92 
 members have passed through the Society ; 72 are still on 
 its books, and in a letter I received a year ago there was 
 this pregnant sentence, " There isn't a man in the district 
 who doesn't wear the blue ribbon."
 
 ( 158 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 On the Battlefield. 
 
 " Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war." 
 
 Again the Victorian Alliance urged her to accept the 
 position of lecturer and organizer for them, and so per- 
 sistent and earnest were their entreaties that she at last 
 yielded, and began work under their auspices. They were 
 just in the thick of many battles in the colony, excitement 
 was at white heat, success was crowning their efforts, and 
 licences were being reduced in different localities. But 
 everywhere the cry was for more public speakers. The 
 secretary, Mr. John Vale, had returned from his trip to 
 England, and was in the thick of the fight, as well as every 
 other available lecturer, and still the call was — send us 
 more labourers. For readers in other lands to thoroughly 
 understand the position of the Temperance Cause in Victoria 
 at the time of which we write, it will be necessary to here 
 give a short history of the movement. When the colony 
 of Victoria separated from New South Wales, and found 
 herself with a constitution of her own, she had, what is 
 bad for any constitution, a well developed drinking system. 
 The licensing law of the Mother Colony was kept in force 
 for some years. All applicants for licences were required 
 to produce a certificate from five respectable and well-
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. I59 
 
 known householders to prove their fitness for so lofty 
 a calling as drink selling. ^100 was charged annually 
 for a publican's licence, and £^0 for the transfer of a 
 licence from one person to another. The law provided 
 for Sunday closing, and there was no exemption in 
 favour of the bona fide traveller. Fines imposed for 
 drunkenness were paid to the local benevolent asylum, 
 which was a novel way of compelling inebriates to provide 
 for their own future. In 1857 the licence fee was reduced 
 to ;^25, which led to a large increase in the number of 
 drink shops. During the Parliamentary Session of 
 1863-4 ^ measure was introduced by Mr. Michie, and 
 was passed. It introduced grocers' licences, colonial wine 
 licences, beer licences, and night licences, which permitted 
 publicans who held them to keep open all night. In 1870 
 the beer, and the all-night licences were abolished ; of 
 course, without compensation. Six years later a new Act 
 was passed, which repealed all previous measures. By 
 this the bona fide traveller on Sunday was introduced, by 
 the casting vote of the chairman. The principle of Local 
 Option was conceded to the extent of permitting ratepayers 
 to prevent an increase of public-houses by a triennial vote. 
 There were, however, certain provisions under which 
 licences could be issued against the determination of the 
 ratepayers. In 1881 the Victorian Alliance for the 
 " Suppression of the Liquor Traffic " was inaugurated, and 
 during that year Mr. James Munro, the President of the 
 Association, moved in the Legislative Assembly the 
 resolution which Sir Wilfrid Lawson moved on several 
 occasions in the British House of Commons, viz. : — " That, 
 inasmuch as the avowed object of licensing the sale of
 
 i6o ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 intoxicating liquors is to supply a supposed public want 
 without detriment to the public welfare, this House is of 
 opinion that the legal power of restraining the issue or 
 renewal of licences should be placed in the hands of the 
 persons most deeply interested and affected, namely, the 
 inhabitants themselves, who are entitled to protection from 
 the injurious consequences of the present system by some 
 efficient means of Local Option." The resolution was 
 discussed, but did not reach a division. The following 
 year it was carried, but unfortunately with the addition of 
 an amendment in favour of compensation. In 1885 a 
 measure was passed which was supposed to concede to a 
 certain extent the principle contained in the resolution. 
 The Alliance Executive had submitted to the Government 
 a scheme which provided for Local Option to prohibit 
 the liquor traffic without compensation. The Bill intro- 
 duced by the Government, however, only provided for 
 power to reduce public-houses to a statutory number, and 
 that with compensation. After a severe struggle, in which 
 the Temperance party sought to secure a better expression 
 of their own views, the measure was passed. Several 
 short amending Acts were passed in subsequent years, 
 and in 1890 these were all consolidated with the measure 
 of 1885 into one Act, known as the Licensing Act, i8go. 
 For each and every licensing district there is a statutory 
 number of hotels, or public-houses, on the basis of popula- 
 tion, being one for each 250 inhabitants up to the first 
 1,000 and one for each full 500 beyond. Where there is 
 more than this number, a poll can be taken to reduce 
 down to it, but not below it ; where there is less, there 
 can be a poll to determine whether there shall be an
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. l6l 
 
 increase up to the statutory number, but not above it. 
 A number of polls were taken to reduce public-houses 
 under the law, and it may be frankly admitted that the 
 good done has warranted the effort put forth. But the 
 licensing courts began to use the power which they 
 possess to issue wine licences for closed public-houses ; and 
 the objections to compensation have grown with experi- 
 ence ; so that, on the whole, it is thought better to 
 concentrate the strength of the Temperance party in the 
 political arena to securing the passage of a better law. 
 The Victorian AUiance Veto Bill aims at putting the power 
 to prohibit the liquor traffic without compensation in the 
 hands of the men and women of each electoral district. 
 
 In the Alliance Secretary she found a warm personal 
 friend, and a man of incalculable value to the whole 
 colony. At first she felt very much in awe of him ; his 
 face was so impassive, his words so few, but gradually she 
 learned to admire in him the " dignity of silence " and the 
 "strength of repose," and to understand that behind that 
 inscrutable face was a mind as busy, a heart as true, and 
 a will as dauntless as could be found in the land. He was 
 a felt power by friend and foe ; his generalship was 
 admired by every section of the Temperance Army. 
 Incapable of taking a mean advantage even of an enemy, 
 he yet knew how to seize every inch of vantage ground and 
 turn it to splendid account. 
 
 Under his skilful management, the Victorian Alliance 
 had risen to be the mightiest political power in the colony, 
 with friends in every grade of society, with an income of 
 several thousands a year, an official organ of its own, and 
 a vast circulation of literature. In many a stormy Local 
 L
 
 i62 ONE OF Australia's DAur.HTERS. 
 
 Option conflict Mr. Vale's foresight, tact, and coolness 
 proved of immense value to his less skilled fellow-workers. 
 His manner of turning awkward or vexatious subjects into 
 other channels was admirable. He never reproved, never 
 implied that anyone was wrong, but by setting matters in 
 a new light in that tactful way of his, disputants were 
 often led to frankly acknowledge that they tvcve wrong. 
 He was a born leader, yet never hesitated to do the most 
 arduous and disagreeable duty, and was worthy of the 
 high place he ever held in the esteem of the Temperance 
 community. 
 
 Maryborough was chosen as Mrs. Lee's first place of 
 actual attack. In all previous conflicts she had been 
 simply a resister ; here she was to be an aggressor. On 
 three previous occasions in this town attempts had been 
 made to reduce the existing number of hotels — 22 down to 
 the statutory number — 10, but each time unsuccessfully. 
 A fourth effort was now to be made, and Mrs. Lee was to 
 be on the battlefield a fortnight before the polling day. 
 What a busy fortnight that was ; visiting all day long, 
 distributing literature, writing to the papers, organising 
 the forces and holding public meetings every night. The 
 workers who rallied round her were, true as steel, while 
 as local secretary, they had one of John Bull's lineal 
 descendants, a man with such dogged determination and 
 will and pluck, that he galvanized weak knees and 
 strengthened limp backs, and made them strong for 
 service. Willie Ribinson's name stands to many as a type 
 of the real true Britisher who knows no such word as 
 defeat, and who, in battle would carry the flag in his teeth 
 if his arms were cut off. Thank God for 6uch men ! They
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 163 
 
 are an inspiration wherever met with. May their numbers 
 be ever multiplied. 
 
 The publicans were greatly incensed at the effort to 
 reduce the number of licenses, and fought the Local 
 Optionists at every turn. The salve of Compensation 
 made no difference, the liquor dealers could not possibly 
 have worked harder, had there been no Compensation ; or 
 had they been going to lose everything they possessed in 
 addition to the government license. Many had asserted 
 that compensation would make the publicans willing to 
 yield their licenses, and that the better class of hotel- 
 keepers would work with the Temperance party to close 
 up low-grade public-houses. But these theories received 
 a rude shock, as the Temperance party had always 
 prophesied they would, by actual experience, and it was 
 found that many votes were lost through this objectionable 
 clause in the Licensing Act. 
 
 The excitement was intense, and grew greater every 
 day ; wordy war was carried on at every street corner ; 
 discussions loud and long were at every meal table ; 
 sermons were preached in almost every church, and hopes 
 rose and fell on either side daily. The open-air meetings 
 were attended by vast numbers, and the interjections and 
 cross-firing kept things lively. The publicans were 
 invited every night on to the lorry to state their views, 
 and in a few cases the invitations were accepted. But 
 their speeches provoked such derision, even from their own 
 followers, that they at last refused to mount the Tem- 
 perance lorry, and decided to have a meeting all their own. 
 For this purpose they hired the Towm Hall, and the 
 Temperance party obligingly announced that they would
 
 164 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 hold no meeting on that night, but honour the publicans 
 with their presence. The commodious building was 
 packed to the doors long before the time of beginning, 
 and the little snatches of conversation and repartee on 
 all sides made things merry. For good humour, an 
 Australian crowd cannot be excelled. 
 
 " What'll they start with ? " asked someone. 
 
 " Will they sing ' Rescue the perishing,' or ' A drunkard 
 reached his cheerless home ' ? " 
 
 " Will they open proceedings with prayer ? Who'll 
 they pray to? " interjected a scornful voice. .- 
 
 " Mrs. Lee, you ought to offer to read that chapter, 
 ' Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink.' " 
 
 And so went round the badinage. Although enjoying 
 the fun ^Irs. Lee was too much in earnest to take part in 
 it. She felt that this meeting would turn the scale one 
 way or the other, and she settled down with almost painful 
 interest to listen to the speeches of their opponents. The 
 leading lights of the Licensed Victuallers' Association 
 had been brought from all parts of the Colony for this 
 important meeting, and she expected at last to hear some 
 really weighty arguments from the liquor party. There 
 was no opening hymn, prayer, or Bible reading. 
 
 The chairman, looking pitifully uncomfortable ; in 
 stereotyped language expressed his pleasure at the 
 presence of such a large and intelligent audience, and as 
 there were so many able speakers he would not occupy 
 their valuable time, but at once call upon Mr. F — to 
 address the meeting. Mr. F — began a rambling speech 
 by a denunciation of teetotalers, and pathetically asked, 
 " Would they rob a poor man of his beer?" To which
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 165 
 
 enquiry a deep voice answered solemnly, " No, lay it on in 
 taps." The answer somewhat flustered the speaker and 
 he tried another theme. 
 
 " The British Army and Navy had been built up on 
 rum, and where could be found grander men than " 
 
 *' Haveloch's saints," interjected the voice again. 
 
 Once more thrown off" his track, the poor fellow hurriedly 
 tried to pick himself and his subject up on a new 
 line. 
 
 " The rich man has his cellar, where he can go and get 
 his wines and his spirits as he wants them ; the public- 
 house is the poor man's cellar to which he should have 
 free access." 
 
 "Alright, handover the keys," shouted someone, amid 
 roars of laughter. 
 
 The poor speaker tried no more, but sat down utterly 
 disconcerted. 
 
 The next speaker tried the caustic style, but the single 
 word "Bosh" from that deep voice in the audience spoiled 
 the whole effect. After this, interjections, laughter and 
 sallies assailed the unfortunate speakers from every corner 
 of the room. One of the speakers indulging in personal 
 invective said — 
 
 " The Temperance men of Maryborough have tried 
 three times to reduce the number of licences here ; they 
 have failed each time, and at last have called to their aid, 
 a woman who for years has been Harrassin' Lee, and now 
 comes Harrassin' us." 
 
 For a moment everyone's breath was taken away at 
 this audacious attempt at wit, then a voice rang lustily 
 out, "Three cheers for Mrs. Harrison Lee!" and such
 
 lG6 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 a .cheer went up from a thousand strong-throated men 
 that the platform orator completely collapsed. 
 
 The chairman, with angry face, then arose, and read 
 out a resolution to the effect that there were not too 
 many licenses for the requirements of the public in 
 Maryborough, and that a Local Option Poll was both 
 mischievous and unnecessary, and he pathetically appealed 
 to all right-thinking men present to hold up their hands 
 in favour of the resolution. Four hands were raised. 
 The astonished chairman cleared his throat and cried — 
 
 " You evidently do not understand the resolution, I 
 will read it again." 
 
 It was read again, more clearly and distinctly than 
 before, but again with a like result. 
 
 Then good old Mr. Carlyon, one of the Temperance 
 heroes, sprang to his feet and shouted, " Now all in favour 
 of the reduction show hands." In an instant up went a 
 forest of hands, and as the women in the balcony looked 
 down, a thousand smiling faces were upturned for the 
 approval of one pair of tear-dimmed eyes. Leaning over 
 the balcony, she responded to the faces and voices with 
 the simple words, " God bless you, my men," and they 
 were satisfied. The publicans, utterly discomfited, fled 
 from the platform, and the grand old Doxology rose and 
 swelled, and this remarkable meeting was closed. 
 
 The Polling day arrived hot and dusty, both parties were 
 early on the battlefield and no stone was left unturned to 
 secure votes. The women provided refreshments free for 
 all comers, and worked zealously the whole day long ; 
 praying bands were organised, and the voice of pleading 
 ceased not during all the long hours of the strife ; others
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 167 
 
 Stood at the doors of the booth, and worked as only 
 consecrated women can, for the putting away of tempta- 
 tions from their midst. The leader of them all stood on a 
 little improvised platform, surrounded the whole day with a 
 constantly growing crowd. 
 
 From eight in the morning till seven at night she 
 preached and sang, and prayed and pleaded unceasingly. 
 How her voice stood the strain was marvellous, but she 
 seemed to feel no weariness, no heat, no fatigue. As one 
 divinely sustained, she proclaimed the Gospel of the 
 unsearchable riches of Christ, and sought to win not only 
 the votes of the people for the Local Option Poll, but 
 souls for her Master. 
 
 At four o'clock hopes rose high that the Temperance 
 party might on this occasion prove victorious (although all 
 that money and falsehood could do had been done to 
 defeat their ends, when a sudden check was given them by 
 a line of cabs coming up from the lowest quarter of the 
 town. The vehicles belonging to each party were known 
 by the mottoes adorning them. On the teetotalers' 
 vehicles were such as "Vote for 10, and save the boys," 
 " Righteousness before Revenue," " Vote for God and 
 Country," etc., etc. The other side took their stand on 
 "Vote for 22 and British Liberty." The women looked to 
 see who was coming to vote for British Liberty ! and lo, 
 thirty-six Chinamen tumbled out of the vehicles, and 
 shambled up the steps of the booth. One of the women 
 intensely in earnest, ran forward to intercept the first man 
 and imploringly cried, "Vote 10 John." But John looked 
 blankly at the eager face, and stolidly replied, " No savee 
 10, savee 22."
 
 i68 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 With flashing eyes and burning cheeks the woman on 
 the platform viewed the scene and turned with bitter sorrow 
 away. If British Liberty (?) could only be built up by the 
 votes and support of aliens such as these, then perish 
 British Liberty for ever ! If white men cared so little for 
 their homes and children, as to seek the aid of these 
 unintellectual foreigners to vote for, or against them, then 
 perish homes and children ; and let the charter of the 
 Englishmen for ever be merged in the slavish servility of 
 the refuse of other lands. She would not move an inch to 
 plead for one of those thirty-six votes, though she knew 
 that each one would weigh as heavily in the scale as the 
 vote recorded by the man of highest intelligence in the 
 town. And for the first time there swept over her 
 a sense of the injustice meted out to her sex in this 
 respect. 
 
 Here were women who dearly loved their families, whose 
 interests were entirely bound up in the town, whose whole 
 influence was on the side of right and progress ; women of 
 noble character and superior education yet these women 
 were denied a vote on the score of mental inferiority, while 
 here were men of another race, men whose one desire was 
 to gain money and return and spend it in their native 
 land, men who could not possibly comprehend the vital 
 issues at stake in that Local Option contest, men with 
 entire lack of education, and total absence of interest in 
 the aff'airs of the Colony ; to whom a vote meant, not a 
 power to uplift a whole community, but a something out 
 of which they could make a little more money, entrusted 
 with the sacred right. At once, and for ever, her prejudices 
 against womanhood suffrage took flight, and she resolved
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 169 
 
 to add another item to her programme and fight strenuously 
 from that day for the enfranchisement of her sex. 
 
 She began to understand that a vote really meant 
 power to express an opinion on the burning questions of 
 the day where it would carry most weight and do most 
 good. She saw that women were fitting their boys for the 
 world, but she also saw that they were not fitting the 
 world for their boys. Oh ! how she wished her noble band 
 of women could have marched in after those Chinamen and 
 counterbalanced the thirty-six votes by an avalanche of 
 little ballot papers for "God, and home, and children." 
 But St. George to the rescue. 
 
 Rushing from the railway shops, the moment work was 
 done — dirty, greasy, coal-begrimed — came a grand 
 reinforcement of the Local Optionists. Cheer after cheer 
 greeted the men as they poured into the Polling booth and 
 hopes again rose. At five o'clock the doors were shut and 
 working gave place to anxious waiting. For two hours 
 the combatants were kept in suspense, but the singing and 
 praying continued the whole time, then came the glorious 
 news, " We've won the Poll." God, and His people had 
 triumphed ! 
 
 Crowned with honour, and enriched by the warm love of 
 her fellow-workers, Mrs. Lee went from Maryborough to 
 other fields of battle. At Ballarat East a splendid campaign 
 resulted in the closing of forty-eight hotels in one day. 
 Ballarat West, the model city of the colony, followed by 
 closing twenty-six. Other places followed with varying 
 success ; then came a repulse at Bendigo, caused mainly 
 by the obnoxious Compensation clause. The Arbitration 
 Court w'as awarding compensation at the average rate of
 
 170 o\E OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 one thousand pounds for each of the cancelled licenses. 
 When it is remembered that only the lowest and poorest 
 hotels were being closed, the effect of the Arbitration 
 Courts on the minds of the ratepayers can be imagined. 
 They bitterly resented the payment of these heavy awards 
 to men whose business was parasitical, even though the 
 money to be paid was first drawn from the liquor traffic 
 itself. So hostile was the feeling all over the colony that 
 the Victorian Alliance had at last to counsel entire 
 abandonment of Polls for decrease until the Compensation 
 clause should be repealed by law. 
 
 The suspension of Poll work did not, however, mean 
 cessation of work for Mrs. Lee. From every part of the 
 colony invitations poured, and work as hard as she might, 
 she could not keep pace with her engagements. A desire 
 to spread her wings for longer flight also took possession 
 of her, and she crossed to New South Wales for a three 
 months' Mission. Success crowned her efforts, and the 
 next year she went still further afield, Queensland this 
 time being the scene of her labours. Her whole tour along 
 the coast was a triumphal procession. In many places the 
 largest theatres and other buildings proved too small for 
 her audiences. 
 
 Three thousand pledges and 500 new members for the 
 W.C.T.U. were among the visible results of hes: three 
 months' work, while every Christian organization shared 
 in the benefits accruing from her visit. Her capacity for 
 work 'seemed limitless, and her health improved with all 
 the demands made upon it. Her cheerfulness, faith, and 
 warmly affectionate nature won friends for her everywhere. 
 Her industry appalled everyone brought in contact with
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD, I7I 
 
 her. In trains, 'bases, and trams she was never without 
 her pen, and many an article for the Colonial papers took 
 shape and form in a swift-speeding conveyance. Her 
 nights were all filled with meetings, many a time having 
 to take two and even three engagements on the same 
 evening in different buildings. Her days .were crowded 
 with multifarious duties, and yet she always had time for 
 one thing more. Of her Master it has been said — 
 
 " He always seemed at leisure ; 
 For everyone who came, 
 However tired or busy, 
 
 They found Him just the same." 
 
 Knowing that God's servants are also to be Christ's 
 mirrors clearly reflecting His beauty, she ever tried to lay 
 claim to that verse, and to follow Goethe's counsel, 
 " Without haste, without rest." 
 
 On'June loth, 1895, she completed half of the allotted 
 span of life, and, looking back, saw, as in a panorama, a 
 little baby nestling in a mother's loving arms in a home 
 at, the foot of snow-crowned Wombat Hill. A little 
 terrified child flying from the mad wrath of a drink-frenzied 
 woman. A little plain-faced, brown-skinned girl meekly 
 enduring reproaches for not " being like anyone else in the 
 world." A young girl looking up and away beyond the 
 towering heights of Mount Terrible in a vague but pas- 
 sionate longing for a life that should be divinely great, 
 because divinely good. A pain-racked woman resolutely 
 resolving to shine for God, even in the dark corners of 
 perpetual invalidism. A timid but eager worker, daring to 
 do and die if needs be, if thereby others might be blessed.
 
 172 ONE OF AUSTRALIA S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 A victim to scorn and jeers and derision, standing out 
 alone for Holy Marriage and life-long Purity. A woman 
 crowned with the affection of thousands in every colony, 
 honoured, loved, "and trusted by all classes, welcomed to 
 every church, invited to every society, with newspapers 
 inviting articles from her pen, and the philanthropists of 
 every class claiming her as co-worker in their tasks of 
 rescue and prevention. 
 
 Her thirty-five years had been years of steady progress, 
 but she had had to struggle for every inch of ground 
 gained. To her beloved friend and confidant, Alice 
 Macdonald, she summed the whole matter up as 
 follows : — 
 
 " I am so glad I was ever born. I am so glad I have 
 had to fight, and wrestle, and agonize, and dumbly suffer, 
 often with a smiling face as a veil to a bleeding heart. I 
 thank God for every pain He has permitted to fall to my 
 lot, for every difficulty and hindrance He has allowed in 
 my way. Pains have been ladders up which I have 
 climbed to celestial heights ; difficulties have shaped into 
 wings on which I have soared to glory's gates ; hindrances 
 have proved stepping-stones to a grander existence ; and 
 now, looking back over the half of my life that is spent, I 
 can truly say I would not have it different in any one 
 particular, for I believe it will be a help to many a girl in 
 Australia who shall live after me. God has proved that a 
 girl without education, money, influence, position, or 
 friends can, by taking Christ's hand, and trusting her all 
 to Him, rise to any eminence. I do not speak as one who 
 has yet fully attained to Olivet, but I follow on longing to 
 reach the sun-crowned summit, where I can say with all
 
 ON THE BATTLEFIELD. I73 
 
 truth, ' I am dead, and my life is hid with Ciirist in God. 
 I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ! ' I may not 
 live to see all the reforms I am working for brought to 
 pass, but God fills Eternity, and if by my life I shall have 
 hastened by a single hour the glad day of redemption a 
 million years hence, I shall have attained the highest 
 honour a mortal can possibly rise to — the honour of being 
 a co-worker together with God for the salvation of men. 
 ' He buries His workers, but His work goes on,' and I 
 dare to hope that the life of happy service and implicit 
 faith God has allowed me to live may touch some other 
 life and make it sweeter and braver than it would have 
 otherwise been. I look forward into the future, not of 
 another thirty-five years, but simply of the coming moment, 
 for that is all I have to do with, and trust for grace to so 
 live that atom of time that men will be better and Eternity 
 richer for it. I have been so happy in the past, am so 
 happy in the present, and expect always to be so happy in 
 the future, that I say again, as I said in the beginning of 
 this letter, I am so glad, Alice, that ever I was born."
 
 ( 174 ^ 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Extracts from Letters, Conversations and Public 
 Addresses. 
 
 "A STAR guided the wise men to where the young child 
 lay. May you be a star of Bethlehem to guide many to 
 Christ. Remember your Mission is not to save, but to lead 
 men to the Saviour. You must accept no offerings, no 
 homage yourself, but show the people the One to whom the 
 gold of Faith, the myrrh of Love, and the frankincense of 
 holy deeds should be given. 
 
 " Don't have faith in faith, but have faith in God. 
 Some seem to think that it is the greatness of their trust 
 that is going to move the mountains. Not so. It is the 
 greatness of their God that is going to do it. I like the 
 story of the sweet old saint, who was asked, ' Are you the 
 woman with the wonderful faith ? ' ' No,' she simply 
 replied ; but ' I am the woman with the wonderful Saviour.' " 
 
 "A great cable typifies the Woman's Christian Temper- 
 ance Union; every strand of which is a branch; every 
 fibre an individual member. Woven together, weak 
 women will form a cable strong enough to draw a whole 
 world to the loving heart of God, one individual dropping 
 out weakens the strand, a branch disbanding, takes away a 
 whole strand and the cable is proportionably injured."
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 175 
 
 " Yes, I should like to have money, for the sake of God's 
 work, but I have learned not to make money-getting even 
 a consideration of service. Satan is very subtle and 
 cunning, and will at times deceive the very saints, by 
 pretending to them they really only desire money for the 
 sake of the good they might do with it. If money had 
 been a necessity in spreading the Kingdom of Heaven, 
 Jesus would have come to us, loaded with wealth. He 
 came poor, to teach us that men and not money is the great 
 need of every age. Seek first to spread the Kingdom of 
 God and His righteousness ; trust Him to keep the promise 
 attached, but do not let the additions attached weigh with 
 you in seeking to glorify your King." 
 
 " You are wearing a silk dress, Alice, and I like to see 
 you in it, but have you fever given a thought to the little 
 creature which spun that dress for you ? ' Only a cater- 
 pillar, a little silkworm dead long ago, living only long 
 enough to help to make a covering for you. But its life 
 though brief, was not in vain. You never saw the little 
 creature, but you are the richer for its short existence. I 
 look down the ages yet to come, and I see nations clothed 
 in the beautiful robe of purity and righteousness, and I 
 look at myself and my beloved co-workers, and recognize 
 that we are the little caterpillars, weaving for them that 
 glorious garment ; our lives are short, we shall die and be 
 forgotten in a day, but the result of our lives shall be the 
 beautifying and embellishing of greater lives to come. Can 
 you say, then, that Hfe is in vain ? I tell you no, Beloved, 
 life is a wonderful possession, and though on earth of short 
 duration, can be made a glory for all time."
 
 176 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 " You tell me not to work so hard. To do less that I may 
 do more. Dear one, I cannot. I must work at full pressure 
 if I work at all. Service is the very joy of my life, and the 
 harder the work, the more I enjoy it. You say ' I will 
 shorten my life at the rate I am going.' Amen ! I had 
 rather live well than li\'e long. Angels count our lives, 
 not by the years we spend, but by the good we do. May 
 my life be measured divinely long, even if I die to-morrow." 
 
 " The more you forget self, the more will God remember 
 you." 
 
 " Put yourself in a corner, if it will put someone else in 
 the light." 
 
 " Prayer is not time lost, but power gained.'" 
 
 " There is nothing great and nothing small to our Father. 
 He inspired the beloved disciple to write the wonderful 
 Revelations, showing the rise and fall of Empires, the over- 
 throwing of Dynasties and the hidden things of Eternity. 
 And He also directed the tender words, ' Salute the friends 
 by name.' The loving consideration of others, the aflfec- 
 tionate remembrance of absent friends was not to be over- 
 looked in the greatness of the revelation given to John. 
 The lesson comes home to us in these busy days when we 
 are engaged in a great work. We must not be too busy to 
 remember the sweet little courtesies of life. A deed left 
 undone may darken a day, a letter unwritten may shadow 
 a life, a loving word unspoken may sadden a heart. 
 ' Greet the friends by name.' Lord grant us Thy holy 
 spirit to put us in continual remembrance of the little acts
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. I77 
 
 of love we owe to one another. If He who created the 
 vast Universe could stoop to fringe the daisy, and paint 
 the pansy, let no worker dare to think the greatness of his 
 or her work a sufficient excuse for neglecting the tender 
 little deeds that go to sweeten every day life" (3 John xiv.) 
 
 " For love is only love, 
 
 When from the heart of God it springs, 
 And lifts the lover and the loved, 
 
 Above the taint of earth-born things." 
 
 My tears are changed to rainbow glory in the sunlight 
 of my Saviour's love. 
 
 " ' I cannot,' changes to ' I can,' 
 When Jesus rules instead of man." 
 
 Money gained through trading on the vices or weak- 
 nesses of our people, will recoil with crushing force upon 
 our ow-n souls. 
 
 There is a glad day coming, as soon as we have learned 
 that God, and not money is the Supreme Power. 
 
 " The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." O, 
 faithless servant that I am, I am saying it by my life 
 oftentimes. 
 
 Bring everything to the crucible of God's will. . Sorrow 
 not when the fire consumes the dross, the Refiner of silver 
 is sitting near. 
 M
 
 178 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 There will never be a batter time to work for God than 
 to-day. 
 
 It is so difificult to prevent one's self being influenced by 
 what everyone is saying. When the populace cried, 
 "Crucify Him," there was no one brave enough to cry, 
 " Crown Him." 
 
 Wells of joy have ever sprung up for me in the deserts 
 of suffering. 
 
 I belong to God, and if He commands me to rule an 
 empire I will do so; or if He bids me fill water- pots, I will 
 cheerfully fill them to the end of my days. 
 
 The maid in the kitchen is as necessary as the mistress 
 in the drawing-room ; so scour pots, or receive guests, just 
 as the King wishes. 
 
 Don't be tied down by red tape. 
 
 Rules are made to help and guide societies, but there 
 should be no slavish adherence to rules and regulations, 
 when such would mean the hindrance of God's work. 
 Generally, it will be found advisable to adhere to rules, but 
 an occasion may arise when it would be infinitely better to 
 set aside all rule and precedent and — strike out. 
 
 Be a lantern to light some wanderer, rather than an 
 electric light to dazzle and blind. 
 
 Try to convince, never to confound. 
 
 I'll weave a ladder of love out of the thongs that have 
 scourged me.
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 179 
 
 Stumbling blocks have ever proved to me mounting- 
 steps to the Secret Place of the Most High. 
 
 God's measureless Might is only equalled by His 
 limitless Love. 
 
 Keep very close to Jesus if you would bring sinners 
 close to Him. 
 
 Talk much ivith God, if you want to speak /or God. 
 
 Don't dazzle by your brilliancy, but enlighten by your 
 clearness. 
 
 Enthusiasm is spiritual steam. 
 
 Pile on the coals of prayer, fill up with the water of love, 
 couple on the trucks and carriages, get up steam and go 
 ahead, praising God you are an enthusiast. 
 
 "BUILDERS WITH GOD." 
 
 The children of Israel had never seen a tabernacle, so 
 they knew not how to build it. Its shape, fashion, 
 materials, decorations, appointments, were all unknown 
 to them, and God knew this. So He called a man of 
 special ability, and endued him with wisdom from on 
 high. He taught him and trained him, and placed the 
 work in his hands, and Bezalel was then able to teach 
 others. The people brought willing offerings (Ex. xxxvi. 
 5-7), and the wise-hearted men wrought in the work, and 
 the beautiful Tabernacle became an accomplished fact, a 
 monument of God's wisdom, wrought out by men's
 
 i8o ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 hands. The women also had a share in the great work 
 (xxxv. 22, 25, 26, 29),- just as they had in after years in 
 the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem (Nehem. iii. 12). 
 To-day the children of God are called to do a great work 
 for Him. We are ignorant and weak, but " He maketh 
 wise the simple," and "to them that have no might He 
 increaseth strength." The wise-hearted men are nobly 
 responding to God's call ; the women are coming forward, 
 and soon the Tabernacle shall appear in the wilderness. 
 Every soul we win from Drink's slavery is a monument to 
 God : every little child enrolled in the Temperance Army 
 is on the way to being a Bezalel — a builder for Jehovah. 
 Have j'02< heard the call, dear reader? Have you obeyed 
 it? Pyay, pray, PRAY. Let your Jacob's ladder rise 
 wherever you are when reading this. Send up the angels 
 of faith and love, and hope and yearning, to bringdown 
 the angels of joy and gladness and peace to those around 
 you. Next you will be ready for work, and God will then 
 tell you some things you can do. But remember to pray 
 now, for without God you can do nothing, and He will be 
 inquired of. 
 
 " My friends, the largest society in the world is the 
 society of Do-nothings, their motto is, ' I mind my own 
 business,' and their daily prayer, ' God bless me and my 
 wife. Brother John and his wife, we four and no more. 
 Amen.' As Miss Willard pithily puts it, they belong to 
 the people of the past, who adopted as their maxim, 
 ' Every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.' A 
 new race is springing up with this holier creed for daily 
 life. ' Every man for his brother that there be no hind-
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. l8l 
 
 most for the devil to take.' If you belong to the 'do- 
 nothings,' leave them at once, and join the ' serve-one- 
 anothers,' whose motto is, ' Wist ye not that I must be 
 about my Father's business,' and whose daily prayer, as 
 exemplified by their daily lives, is ' Thy kingdom come.' " 
 
 *' It's all very fine to sing, ' Rescue the perishing,' and 
 then while the man is drowning in front of you, sit down 
 and wait for someone else to throw the rope to him. ' To 
 the work, to the work, let the hungry be fed,' is a beautiful 
 hymn, but how are the hungry going to be fed, when you let 
 the collection plate pass, without putting the price of a loaf 
 of bread in it. ' To the fountain of life let the weary be led ' 
 sounds sweet, but you must help to make roads for tired feet 
 to pass along. ' There are people so mean in this world,' 
 says Mr. Cox, ' that they won't pay for the wood that they 
 wear off the church seats.' A man will unmurmuringly 
 spend a penny a day in smoke, one pound ten and fivepence 
 in twelve months, and look positively insulted if asked for 
 ten shillings a year for Home or Foreign Missions. He 
 will ungrudgingly stake five shillings on a horse he knows 
 nothing about, and then piously talk of hard times, and the 
 mysterious dealings of Providence, when asked to subscribe 
 one shilling and sixpence towards a religious paper. He 
 will ask if you think he is a millionaire when you appeal 
 for half-a-crown for some struggling family, and read you 
 a lecture an hour long on the sinfulness of you expecting a 
 man in his circumstances to look after any but number one, 
 but he will spend five pounds in giving that number one 
 an annual treat without a murmur."
 
 i82 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 I believe I am of such incalculable importance that with 
 me God could shake the whole world, but I also believe 
 that I am so utterly insignificant that God's work would 
 not suffer a jot if I died to-day. 
 
 They are as well matched as a violet and a nettle would 
 be in a nosegay. You cannot get the fragrance of the one, 
 for the sting of the other. 
 
 I am not content to be good, I want also to do good, and 
 that not a little, but the utmost God places in a sinner's 
 power to do. 
 
 If there is a light in the room, it shines through the 
 window. May the windows of your soul brightly shine 
 with the light of Christ's love in your heart. 
 
 Our days fly by as a weaver's shuttle. Yes, but every 
 time the shuttle flies across, it carries a thread with it. 
 There are millions of threads in a roll of flannel or calico, 
 so there are millions of lives in God's great w'orld ; each 
 life indispensable in the weaving of His design. Some of 
 the threads tangle, and so mar the beauty and strength of 
 the whole. May God give us grace to make our lives 
 straight threads in the web and woof of His will. 
 
 Pass on at once every sweet thought and word you have 
 opportunity for. Don't delay. Lemonade must be drunk 
 while it sparkles ; bread must be eaten while it is fresh ; 
 flat beverages and mouldy bread are not only distasteful 
 but unwholesome.
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 183 
 
 It is far easier for an active mind to say, " Thy work be 
 done" than " Thy ivill be done." 
 
 The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is tying love 
 knots round the world's great heart. 
 
 Some people excuse themselves for their lack of growth 
 in spirituality, by saying, "A great deal depends on 
 temperament." Now that is not so. The God who created 
 the individual temperament, is equal to the individual re- 
 quirement. I agree that different means may be necessary 
 to fully develop the highest type of Christ in different people, 
 but to make out that God is able to raise one person to a 
 glorious position of bright happy trust, and not able to raise 
 another because of that other's clouded temperament, is to 
 lessen the power, as well as the love of God, Whatever 
 your temperament, whatever your inborn or acquired pro- 
 pensities, " my God is able to supply all your need according 
 to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Remember, not 
 somebody else's need, but your need. That is a promise 
 to each individual, no matter what the temperament may, 
 or may not be. 
 
 " His yoke is easy. His burden is light." 
 
 If only we would take the Scriptures as they stand, 
 instead of reading our own interpretations in, how much 
 happier we should be. How often we read as our whole 
 duty, " Thou shalt ivork for God, with thy whole heart and 
 mind and strength," but the Scriptures stand, " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God," etc. We make of love's silken 
 fetters, iron chains of bondage, and then chafe and fret at 
 their weight. Oh, dear tired heart, give up the weary
 
 184 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 working and content thyself with loving, only loving, with all 
 thy heart and soul, then shalt thou find that His yoke is 
 easy, His burden is light. 
 
 I am so glad that when God gave the world to man, He 
 retained some power Himself. If He had entrusted the 
 sun and the clouds to man's management we should have 
 had syndicates for sunbeams, and limited liability com- 
 panies for rain. Everybody would have to pay the price 
 or go short. Praise God we have these blessings from Him 
 without money and without price. 
 
 Self-conquest is a far grander platform to stand on than 
 self-indulgence. 
 
 Remember you sink not your individuality when you join 
 an organization. You, not your society, will be responsible 
 to God for what you do, or leave undone. If God calls 
 you to do a work, don't attempt to slip out of it by saying, 
 " Our Society does not take up that department," or " Our 
 Society does not care for that kind of work." You were 
 called, not your Society, and yovi alone will stand before the 
 Judgment bar. 
 
 This life is the first breath of Eternity. 
 
 Win people's hearts if you wish to win their souls. 
 
 When self is really dead, then, and not till then can 
 Christ really live. 
 
 To take offence may please a little mind ; 
 To stoop so low, a greater's not inclined.
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 185 
 Is your Christianity, Christ in active operation ? 
 
 Growing old ! Nay, growing fast towards perpetual 
 youth. Grey hairs a sign of age and decay ? Nay, evelry 
 silver streakihas caught from Heaven a brighter ray. 
 
 Flowers. 
 
 God's thoughts of love to us, took shapes of beauty, and 
 blossomed into flowers. 
 
 The child oi God can never be the victim of circumstances. 
 
 I would like my heart to be God's phonograph into which 
 He could continually whisper words of blessing. When 
 the cylinder is set in motion by the hand of circumstances, 
 may every tone of love, of cheer, of stimulus or warning be 
 faithfully reproduced, and may every listener reverently 
 say, " It is the Father's voice, we will hear and live." 
 
 IN GOD'S SCHOOL. 
 
 Some of us are dull scholars, and although we have been 
 going to school a long time, we are only in the ABC class 
 still. The ABC class is where we thoroughly learn that 
 Christ is our Saviour. That is the very first lesson the 
 young Christian learns ; it is the root and ground-work of 
 all that is to follow. Next we are put into the second class, 
 where we shape letters into words, prayers into deeds ; we 
 spell out words of one syllable only, G-o-d i-s 1-o-v-e. A 
 child must always learn to spell before it begins to write, 
 but having learned to spell the above three little words, we 
 are then taught to shape them on the pages of our lives.
 
 l86 ONE OF AUSTRALIA'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 We succeed in a measure, and find ourselves in the 
 enviable position of being entrusted with a copy book. We 
 are so proud that we are considered old enough and clever 
 enough to be able to write in a copy book, and we spell 
 out the first beautiful head-line, written by an unerring 
 hand, " Love your enemies." 
 
 We take up our pen, but feel frightened at the great 
 task before us. It is our heart's blood we are dipping the 
 pen into, as we try to copy the beautiful clear headline ; 
 and we go over the line, and under the line, we blot the 
 page, we erase, we draw our pen through one word which 
 has got so strangely twisted that it reads, " Love your 
 friends," then we erase another word which seems only 
 decipherable as "Hate your enemies." Oh! what a 
 blotted, dirty page at last saddens us, as we look at the 
 lesson marring the clean white copy book, so recently 
 placed in our hands. 
 
 The next day, with new resolves, we turn the page. Ah ! 
 here is a pure clean sheet, we will do better this time. 
 What is the headline? "Pray for them which despite- 
 fuUy use you." There's a hard word in that copy, we have 
 not learned to spell it correctly, so we make it up with 
 other letters, and it reads, " Pray for them which kindly 
 use you." Ah ! but that's not the correct copy, so we try 
 again. But what is this terribly illegible line marring the 
 whole page. Its crooked letters really look like, " Lord, 
 repay evil for evil to those who offend me." We lay down 
 the pen in despair, for in front of us is a page all blotted 
 and smeared and sullied. We wish we could tear the 
 whole leaf out of the book so that the Master's eye should 
 never see the dreadful blunders and mistakes we have made
 
 LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND ADDRESSES. 187 
 
 in every line. But we cannot ; the leaf is firmly fastened 
 in our life's history by the wire of fate, we cannot get it 
 out. 
 
 But the dear kind Teacher is bending over us ; His 
 gentle voice is saying, " Ah ! that is a difficult lesson, my 
 little child, I will help you with it." He takes our hand in 
 His and guides the pen, and through the blinding tears we 
 see the letters shaping, " Bless them which curse you," 
 While He guides our wayward little fingers, all is well, but 
 we tremble and weep again when He leaves us to manage 
 the lesson ourselves. It is His voice again, as we despair- 
 ingly cry, " We can never do it." " Come here, my little 
 child," He softly says, " I Avill set the lesson in another 
 way. Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with 
 good." 
 
 We take up our pen and dip it in the ink-well of love, and 
 say, " Oh ! we must add just two little words, and then we 
 shall be able to manage that lesson." With the additional 
 words it reads, " Be not overcome of evil, but tyy to over- 
 come evil with good." We are in real earnest now, to 
 make our lesson presentable, but our Master comes and 
 firmly draws His pen through our added words, and we 
 have to begin all over again. 
 
 The third class we come to is where arithmetic is 
 taught. Multiplication of good, addition of joys, sub- 
 traction of evil, division of sorrows. We make great 
 errors in our calculations, and often have to go to the 
 teacher with " Answers proved wrong." At times we 
 have to be punished for our wilful stupidity, but the 
 punishment causes us to learn and ever remember how 
 to do the sum, and we forget the pain in the victory.
 
 i88 ONE OF Australia's daughters. 
 
 On and on we go in God's school. He never keeps us 
 in one class after we are ready for a higher. 
 
 At last we come to the highest class of all, the 
 " Stand aside class." Over the door of our class-room 
 we read the inscription, " He that would be greatest 
 among you, let him be as the least." There are mottoes 
 all over the walls. " In humility, and the fear of the 
 Lord are riches and honour and long life." " Blessed 
 are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." " By 
 love serve one another," etc. We enter in, and by the 
 time we have learned to stand aside that others may 
 occupy foremost positions, the Master comes and says, 
 " Your schooling days are over, Come now and I will 
 make thee ruler over many things."
 
 MRS. HARRISON LEE'S WORKS. 
 
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