THERE was a passage from Cowper that my sister used to quote to us,
because, she said, she often repeated it to herself, and found that it
did her good:--
"In such a world, so thorny, and where none
Finds happiness unblighted, or if found,
Without some thistly sorrow at its side,
It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus
We may with patience bear our moderate ills,
And sympathize with others, suffering more."
I think she made us feel--she certainly made me feel--that our lot was
in many ways an unusually fortunate one, and full of responsibilities.
She herself was always thinking what she could do for others, not only
immediately about her, but in the farthest corners of the earth. She
had her Sabbath-school class, and visited all the children in it: she
sat up all night, very often, watching by a sick girl's bed, in the
hospital or in some distant boarding-house; she gave money to send to
missionaries, or to help build new churches in the city, when she was
earning only eight or ten dollars a month clear of her board, and could
afford herself but one "best dress," besides her working clothes. That
best dress was often nothing but a Merrimack print. But she insisted
that it was a great saving of trouble to have just this one, because
she was not obliged to think what she should wear if she were invited
out to spend an evening. And she kept track of all the great
philanthropic movements of the day. She felt deeply the shame and wrong
of American slavery, and tried to make her workmates see and feel it
too.(Petitions to Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia were circulated nearly every year among the mill-girls, and
received thousands of signatures.)
Whenever she was not occupied with her work or her reading, or with
looking after us younger ones,--two or three hours a day was all the
time she could call her own,--she was sure to be away on some errand of
friendliness or mercy.
Those who do most for others are always those who are called upon
continually to do a little more, and who find a way to do it. People go
to them as to a bank that never fails. And surely, they who have an
abundance of life in themselves and who give their life out freely to
others are the only really rich.
Two dollars a week sounds very small, but in Emilie's hands it went
farther than many a princely fortune of to-day, because she managed
with it to make so many people happy. But then she wanted absolutely
nothing for herself; nothing but the privilege of helping others.
I seem to be eulogizing my sister, though I am simply relating matters
of fact. I could not, however, illustrate my own early experience,
except by the lives around me which most influenced mine. And it was
true that our smaller and more self-centred natures in touching hers
caught something of her spirit, the contagion of her warm heart and
healthy energy. For health is more contagious than disease, and lives
that exhale sweetness around them from the inner heaven of their souls
keep the world wholesome.
I tried to follow her in my faltering way, and was gratified when she
would send me to look up one of her stray children, or would let me
watch with her at night by a sick-bed. I think it was partly for the
sake of keeping as close to her as I could--though not without a
sincere desire to consecrate myself to the Best--that I became, at
about thirteen, a member of the church which we attended.
Our minister was a scholarly man, of refined tastes and a sensitive
organization, fervently spiritual, and earnestly devoted to his work.
It was all education to grow up under his influence. I shall never
forget the effect left by the tones of his voice when he first spoke to
me, a child of ten years, at a neighborhood prayer-meeting in my
mother's sitting-room. He had been inviting his listeners to the
friendship of Christ, and turning to my little sister and me, he said,--
"And these little children, too; won't they come?"
The words, and his manner of saving them, brought the tears to my eyes.
Once only before, far back in my earlier childhood--I have already
mentioned the incident--had I heard that Name spoken so tenderly and
familiarly, yet so reverently. It was as if he had been gazing into the
face of an invisible Friend, and bad just turned from Him to look into
ours, while he gave us his message, that He loved us.
In that moment I again caught a glimpse of One whom I had always known,
but had often forgotten,--One who claimed me as his Father's child, and
would never let me go. It was a real Face that I saw, a real Voice that
I heard, a real Person who was calling me. I could not mistake the
Presence that had so often drawn near me and shone with sunlike eyes
into my soul. The words, "Lord, lift Thou up the light of thy
countenance upon us!" had always given me the feeling that a beautiful
sunrise does. It is indeed a sunrise text, for is not He the Light of
the World?
And peaceful sunshine seemed pouring in at the windows of my life on
the day when I stood in the aisle before the pulpit with a group, who,
though young, were all much older than myself, and took with them the
vows that bound us to his service. Of what was then said and read I
scarcely remember more than the words of heavenly welcome in the
Epistle, "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners." It
was like coming home, like stepping a little farther beyond the
threshold in at the open door of our Father's house.
Perhaps I was too young to assume those vows. Had I deferred it a few
years there would have been serious intellectual hindrances. But it was
not the Articles of Faith I was thinking of, although there was a long
list of them, to which we all bowed assent, as was the custom. It was
the homecoming to the "house not made with hands," the gladness of
signifying that I belonged to God's spiritual family, and was being
drawn closer to his heart, with whom none of us are held as "strangers
and foreigners."
I felt that I was taking up again the clue which had been put into my
childish hand at baptism, and was being led on by it into the unfolding
mysteries of life. Should I ever let it slip from me, and lose the way
to the "many mansions" that now seemed so open and so near? I could not
think so. It is well that we cannot foresee our falterings and
failures. At least I could never forget that I had once felt my own and
other lives bound together with the Eternal Life by an invisible thread.
The vague, fitful desire I had felt from my childhood to be something
to the world I lived in, to give it something of the the inexpressible
sweetness that often seemed pouring through me, I knew not whence, now
began to shape itself into a definite outreach towards the Source of
all spiritual life. To draw near to the One All-Beautiful Being,
Christ, to know Him as our spirits may know The Spirit, to receive the
breath of his infinitely loving Life into mine, that I might breathe
out that fragrance again into the lives around me--this was the longing
wish that, half hidden from myself, lay deep beneath all other desires
of my soul. This was what religion grew to mean to me, what it is still
growing to mean, more simply and more clearly as the years go on.
The heart must be very humble to which this heavenly approach is
permitted. It knows that it has nothing in itself, nothing for others,
which it has not received. The loving Voice of Him who gives his
friends his errands to do whispers through them constantly, "Ye are not
your own."
There may be those who would think my narrative more entertaining, if I
omitted these inner experiences, and related only lighter incidents.
But one thing I was aware of, from the time I began to think and to
wonder about my own life--that what I felt and thought was far more
real to me than the things that happened.
Circumstances are only the keys that unlock for us the secret of
ourselves; and I learned very early that though there is much to enjoy
in this beautiful outside world, there is much more to love, to believe
in, and to seek, in the invisible world out of which it all grows.
What has best revealed our true selves to ourselves must be most
helpful to others, and one can willingly sacrifice some natural
reserves to such an end. Besides, if we tell our own story at all, we
naturally wish to tell the truest part of it.
Work, study, and worship were interblended in our life. The church was
really the home-centre to many, perhaps to most of us; and it was one
of the mill regulations that everybody should go to church somewhere.
There must have been an earnest group of ministers at Lowell, since
nearly all the girls attended public worship from choice.
Our minister joined us in our social gatherings, often inviting us to
his own house, visiting us at our work, accompanying us on our picnics
down the river-bank,--a walk of a mile or so took us into charmingly
picturesque scenery, and we always walked,--suggesting books for our
reading, and assisting us in our studies.
The two magazines published by the mill-girls, the "Lowell Offering"
and the "Operatives' Magazine," originated with literary meetings in
the vestry of two religious societies, the first in the Universalist
Church, the second in the First Congregational, to which my sister and
I belonged.
On account of our belonging there, our contributions were given to the
"Operatives' Magazine," the first periodical for which I ever wrote,
issued by the literary society of which our minister took charge. He
met us on regular evenings, read aloud our poems and sketches, and made
such critical suggestions as he thought desirable. This magazine was
edited by two young women, both of whom had been employed in the mills,
although at that time the were teachers in the public schools--a change
which was often made by mill-girls after a few months' residence at
Lowell. A great many of them were district-school teachers at their
homes in the summer, spending only the winters at their work.
The two magazines went on side by side for a year or two, and then were
united in the "Lowell Offering" which had made the first experiment of
the kind by publishing a trial number or two at irregular intervals. My
sister had sent some verses of mine, on request, to be published in one
of those specimen numbers. But we were not acquainted with the editor
of the "Offering," and we knew only a few of its contributors. The
Universalist Church, in the vestry of which they met, was in a distant
part of the city. Socially, the place where we worshiped was the place
where we naturally came together in other ways. The churches were all
filled to overflowing, so that the grouping together of the girls by
their denominational preferences was almost unavoidable. It was in some
such way as this that two magazines were started instead of one. If the
girls who enjoyed writing had not been so many and so scattered, they
might have made the better arrangement of joining their forces from the
beginning.
I was too young a contributor to be at first of much value to either
periodical. They began their regular issues, I think, while I was the
nursemaid of my little nephews at Beverly. When I returned to Lowell,
at about sixteen, I found my sister Emilie interested in the
"Operatives' Magazine," and we both contributed to it regularly, until
it was merged in the "Lowell Offering," to which we then transferred
our writing efforts. It did not occur to us to call these efforts
"literary." I know that I wrote just as I did for our little "Diving
Bell,"--as a sort of pastime, and because my daily toil was mechanical,
and furnished no occupation for my thoughts. Perhaps the fact that most
of us wrote in this way accounted for the rather sketchy and
fragmentary character of our "Magazine." It gave evidence that we
thought, and that we thought upon solid and serious matters; but the
criticism of one of our superintendents upon it, very kindly given, was
undoubtedly just: "It has plenty of pith, but it lacks point."
The "Offering" had always more of the literary spirit and touch. It
was, indeed, for the first two years, edited by a gentleman of
acknowledged literary ability. But people seemed to be more interested
in it after it passed entirely into the bands of the girls themselves.
The "Operatives' Magazine" had a decidedly religious tone. We who
wrote for it were loyal to our Puritanic antecedents, and considered it
all-important that our lightest actions should be moved by some earnest
impulse from behind. We might write playfully, but there must be
conscience and reverence somewhere within it all. We had been taught,
and we believed, that idle words were a sin, whether spoken or written.
This, no doubt, gave us a gravity of expression rather unnatural to
youth.
In looking over the bound volume of this magazine, I am amused at the
grown-up style of thought assumed by myself, probably its very youngest
contributor. I wrote a dissertation on "Fame," quoting from Pollok,
Cowper, and Milton, and ending with Diedrich Knickerbocker's definition
of immortal fame,--"Half a page of dirty paper." For other titles I had
"Thoughts on Beauty;" "Gentility;" "Sympathy," etc. And in one longish
poem, entitled "My Childhood" (written when I was about fifteen), I
find verses like these, which would seem to have come out of a mature
experience:--
My childhood! O those pleasant days, when everything seemed free,
And in the broad and verdant fields I frolicked merrily;
When joy came to my bounding heart with every wild bird's song,
And Nature's music in my ears was ringing all day long!
And yet I would not call them back, those blessed times of yore,
For riper years are fraught with joys I dreamed not of before.
The labyrinth of Science opes with wonders every day;
And friendship hath full many a flower to cheer life's dreary way.
And glancing through the pages of the "Lowell Offering" a year or two
later, I see that I continued to dismalize myself at times, quite
unnecessarily. The title of one sting of morbid verses is "The
Complaint of a Nobody," in which I compare myself to a weed growing up
in a garden; and the conclusion of it all is this stanza:--
"When the fierce storms are raging, I will not repine,
Though I'm heedlessly crushed in the strife;
For surely 't were better oblivion were mine
Than a worthless, inglorious life.
Now I do not suppose that I really considered myself a weed, though I
did sometimes fancy that a different kind of cultivation would tend to
make me a more useful plant. I am glad to remember that these
discontented fits were only occasional, for certainly they were
unreasonable. I was not unhappy; this was an affectation of
unhappiness; and half conscious that it was, I hid it behind a
different signature from my usual one.