_SISTER DORA._
In S. Hildegarde and S. Theresa we have had instances of two women of
wonderful energy and talent, yet who achieved nothing of moment, because
their powers were not directed into a channel where they might have been
of use. S. Hildegarde, indeed, by her letters, threatening, warning,
reproving, did a certain amount of good—not much; those misdoers who
received her epistles winced and went on in their old courses.
Nevertheless, she was a testimony to a worldly age of the higher life
set before it in the Gospel than that world cared to follow.
S. Theresa, with a heart on fire with love to God, and inexhaustible
energy, spent herself in founding little nunneries, in which the sisters
were, as a reform, to wear sandals instead of shoes, and in which their
natural gifts were to be reduced to a general level of incapacity, by
giving them nothing practical to do, and by forbidding them the
cultivation of their intellects.
Sister Dora, whose life I purpose sketching, strikes me as having been a
double of S. Theresa, in the same persistency, determined will,
fascination of manner, and cheerfulness. Neither could be happy until
afforded scope for the exercise of her powers—but how different were the
ends set before each!
A very charming biography of Sister Dora has been written by Miss
Lonsdale, which, whilst admirably portraying her character, has given
some umbrage by painting the people among whom she laboured in darker
colours than they conceive is justified, and by a little heightening of
the dramatic situations. She fell, moreover, into certain inaccuracies
in matters of detail, and some of her statements have been contradicted
by persons who were qualified to know particulars. What mistakes were
made in that book have in part been corrected in later editions. But I
cannot find that there was any accusation made of the authoress unduly
idealising the character of Sister Dora. On the contrary, some think
that Miss Lonsdale, in her desire not to appear a panegyrist, has given
Sister Dora a tincture of unworthy qualities that were really absent
from her character.[10]
In compiling this little notice I have taken pains to obtain information
from those who knew Sister Dora intimately, and have had Miss Lonsdale’s
book subjected to revision by such as live in Walsall or knew Walsall
when she was there; and I trust that it is free from inaccuracies and
exaggerations.
In addition to Miss Lonsdale’s Memoir two others appeared, one in Miss
J. Chappell’s _Four Noble Women and their Work_, and another by Miss
Morton, which has been characterised in the _Walsall Observer_ as a
“caricature.” Neither of these afford any additional matter of value.
In addition again, but of very different value, is a notice by Mr. S.
Welsh, Secretary to the Hospital at Walsall, in which she worked, and
who was introduced to her the day after she arrived there, and was on
terms of intimacy with her till her death. His notice is in the _General
Baptist Magazine_ for 1889. This is the more valuable as being the
testimony of one belonging to a different religious communion, and is,
therefore, sure to be impartial. Another corrective to mistakes is
contained in _Sister Dora: a Review_, published at Walsall in 1880. I
enter into all these particulars at some length because Miss Lonsdale’s
book was qualified by the Rev. Mark Pattison, Sister Dora’s brother, as
“a romance,” and because some people have considered it to be so,
misdoubting the main facts because of the inaccuracies in detail
fastened on at the time. Mr. Mark Pattison was unqualified spiritually
for entering into and appreciating his sister’s character; and of her
life in Walsall he personally knew absolutely nothing. A cold and soured
man, wrapped up in himself, he could not appreciate the overflowing
charity and devotion of his sister.
Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison was born on the 15th January, 1832. She was the
youngest daughter, and the youngest child but one, of the Rev. Mark
Pattison, who was for many years Rector of Hauxwell, near Richmond, in
Yorkshire. She inherited from her father, who was of a Devonshire
family, that finely proportioned and graceful figure which she always
maintained; and from her mother, who was the daughter of a banker in
Richmond, those lovely features which drew forth the admiration of every
one who had the pleasure of knowing her.
Her father was a good and sincere man of the Low Church School. He was
thoroughly upright and strict. It is not a little painful to see how Mr.
Mark Pattison, his son, late Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, in his
_Memoirs_ can hardly mention his father without some acrimonious remark.
But in that sour effusion there is little of generous recognition of any
one. Even his sister, the subject of this memoir, comes in for
ill-natured comment.
Dora and her sisters, like a thousand other country parsons’ daughters,
were of the utmost use in their father’s Yorkshire parish. A French
gentleman who had lived a while in England and in the country, said to
me one day: “Your young ladies astound me. They are angels of mercy.
They wear no distinguishing habit; one does not see their wings, yet
they fly everywhere, and everywhere bring grace and love and peace,—in
my country such a thing would be impossible.”
These Pattison girls were for ever saving their pocket-money to give it
away, and they made it a rule to mend and remake their old frocks, so as
not to have to buy new ones out of their allowance for clothes, so as to
have more to give. Even their dinners they would reserve for poor
people, and content themselves with bread and cheese.
“Giving to others, instead of spending on themselves, seems to have been
the rule and delight of their lives,” says Miss Lonsdale.
A pretty story is told of her at this time. A schoolboy in the village,
who was specially attached to her, fell ill of rheumatic fever. The
boy’s one longing was to see “Miss Dora” again, but she was abroad on
the Continent. As he grew worse and worse, he constantly prayed that he
might live long enough to see her. On the day on which she was expected,
he sat up on his pillows intently listening, and at last, long before
any one else could hear a sound of wheels, he exclaimed, “There she is!”
and sank back. She went to him at once, and nursed him till he died.
Her beauty was very great: large brilliant brown eyes, full red lips, a
firm chin, and a finely cut profile. Her hair dark, and slightly
curling, waved all over her head; and the remarkable beauty and delicacy
of her colouring and complexion, added to the liveliness of her
expression, made her a fascinating creature to behold. Her father always
called her “Little Sunshine.”
But the most remarkable feature about her was to be found in her inner
being. An indomitable will, which no earthly power could subdue, enabled
her to accomplish an almost superhuman work; yet at times it was to her
a faculty that brought her into difficulties. She was twenty-nine before
she was able to find real scope for her energies, and then she took a
bold step—answered an advertisement from a clergyman at Little Woolston,
in Buckinghamshire, for a lady to take the village school. Her mother
had died in 1861, and she considered herself free from duties that bound
her to her home. Her father did not relish the step she took, but
acquiesced. She went to Woolston, and remained there three years, during
which time she won the hearts, not of the children only, but of their
parents as well. She had to live alone in a cottage, and do everything
for herself; but the people never for a moment doubted she was a real
lady, and always treated her with great respect. Not thinking a little
village school sufficient field for her energies, she resolved to join a
nursing sisterhood at Redcar, in Yorkshire. It was a foundation made by
a clergyman of private means, the Rev. J. Postlethwaite, and there were
in it no vows made except one, limited in period, of obedience to the
Superior. The life was not quite suited to her with her strong will, but
it did her good. She learned there how to make beds and to cook. “At
first she literally sat down and cried when the beds that she had just
put in order were all pulled to pieces again by some superior authority,
who did not approve of the method in which they were made.” But it was a
useful lesson for her after-life in a hospital. She was there till the
early part of 1865, and then was sent to Walsall to help at a small
cottage hospital, which had already been established there for more than
a year.[11]
Walsall, though not in the “Black Country,” is in a busy manufacturing
district, chiefly of iron. At the time when Sister Dora went there it
contained a population of 35,000 inhabitants. It is now connected with
Birmingham, by almost continuous houses and pits and furnaces, with
Wednesbury as a link.
As fresh coal and iron pits were being opened in the district round
Walsall, accidents became more frequent, and it was found impracticable
to send those injured to Birmingham, which was seven miles distant;
accordingly, in 1863, the Town Council invited the Redcar Society to
start a hospital there. When the Sister who had begun the work fell ill,
Sister Dora was sent in her place, and almost directly caught small-pox
from the out-patients. She was very ill, and even in her delirium showed
the bent of her mind by ripping her sheets into strips to serve as
bandages. She was placed in one small room, with a window looking into
the street, of which the blinds were drawn. The most absurd rumours got
about that this was the Sisters’ oratory, where they had set up an image
of the Virgin Mary; and stones and mud were thrown at the panes of
glass, and the Sisters were shouted after in the streets. The committee
of the hospital were interrogated, and denied that any religious
services were conducted in an oratory. Indeed, no formal oratory would
have been allowed; but no doubt the committee were unable to prevent the
poor Sisters from saying their prayers together in a room if they agreed
to do so, and in community life common prayer is a requisite.
A boy who had received an injury was taken to the hospital. One night,
when he was recovering, Sister Dora found him crying. She asked him what
was the matter. At last it came out: “Sister, I shouted after you in the
street, ‘Sister of _Misery_!’”
“I knew you when you came in,” she said; “I remembered your face.”
This is the true version of a story Miss Lonsdale gives.
Mr. Welsh says: “When the cottage hospital—which was the second of its
kind in England—was opened, the system of voluntary nursing was unknown;
the only voluntary nurses heard of then being those who had gone out to
the Crimea with Miss Florence Nightingale; consequently the dress of the
Sisters was uncommon, and the name of Sister strange. Therefore, a good
deal of misunderstanding was the result; but in course of time people
began to judge the institution by its results. Still, when Sister Dora
came to the hospital, there lingered doubts and suspicions that the
nurses were Romanists in disguise, come to entrap and ruin souls rather
than cure bodies. But Sister Dora, by her frank, open manner, disarmed
suspicion, while the sublime eloquence of noble deeds silenced
slanderous tongues, put all opposition to shame, and won for the
hospital the confidence of the public, and for herself the admiration
and affection of the people.”
In 1866 she had a serious illness, brought on by exposure to wet and
cold. She would come home from dressing wounds in the cottages, wet
through and hot with hurrying along the streets, to find a crowd of
out-patients awaiting her return at the hospital, and she would attend
to them in total disregard of herself, and allow her wet clothes to dry
on her.
This neglect occurred once too often; a chill settled on her, and for
three weeks she was dangerously ill. Then it was that the people of
Walsall began to realise what she was, and the door of the hospital was
besieged by poor people come to inquire how their “Sister Dora” was.
At some time previous to her going to Walsall, her faith had been
somewhat disturbed by one who ought not to have endeavoured to subvert
her trust in Christianity. This gave her inexpressible uneasiness and
unhappiness. There seems to have been always in her a keen sense of
God’s presence, and confidence in the efficacy of prayer. She now went
through this terrible inner trial. An unbelieving artisan who was once
nursed by her, and had observed her critically and suspiciously, said,
when he left, “She is a noble woman; but she would have been that
without her Christianity.” There he was mistaken. It was precisely her
fast hold, which she regained, of Christianity that made her what she
was.
Happily she had one now of great assistance to her as a guide—a very
remarkable man, the Rev. Richard Twigg, of St. James’s, Wednesbury.
Every Sunday morning, when able, she walked over to St. James’s to Early
Communion. She found in Mr. Twigg a man of deep spiritual insight, and
with a heart overflowing with the love of God, and consumed with a
desire to win souls to Christ. He was a man with the spirit, and some of
the power, of an Apostle—a man who left his stamp on Wednesbury, that
will not soon be obliterated.
The struggle through which she had passed, the sense of _need_ in her
own soul for all that the Christian Church supplies in teaching and in
Sacraments had a great strengthening and confirming effect that never
left her; and the love of Jesus Christ became an absorbing personal
devotion that nothing could shake. It was this—the love of God—that made
her what she was, and endure what she did.
Some time after this she became deeply attached to a gentleman who was
connected with the hospital, and he was devotedly fond of her, and
proposed to her. But he was an unbeliever. Again she had to pass through
an agonising struggle. She felt, as Mr. Twigg pointed out, that to unite
her destinies with him was to jeopardise her recovered faith, and she
was convinced that to be true to her profession, above all true to her
Master, she must refuse the offer. She did so, and probably felt in the
end that peace of mind which must ensue whenever a great sacrifice has
been made for duty.
Miss Lonsdale represented Sister Dora as somewhat domineering over the
managing committee of the hospital. But this is incorrect. A
Nonconformist minister says: “The noble object (_i.e._ the hospital) had
moved men of every shade of politics, and every form of religious
belief, to the work, and there have been passages in its history not
pleasant to remember, but not one of these in the remotest degree
involved Sister Dora. On the contrary, her presence and counsel always
brought light and peace, and lifted every question into a higher sphere.
‘Ask Sister Dora,’ it used to be said. ‘Had we not better send for
Sister Dora?’ some member would exclaim out of the fog of contention.
Thereupon she would appear; and many well remember how calmly
self-possessed, and clear-sighted, she would stand—never sit down.
Indeed, there were those who worked with her fifteen years who never saw
her seated; she would stand, usually with her hand on the back of the
chair which had been placed for her, every eye directed to her; nor was
it ever many moments before she had grasped the whole question, and
given her opinion just as clearly and simply and straight to the purpose
as any opinion given to the sufferers in the wards. Nor was she ever
wrong; nor did she ever fail of her purpose with the committee. No
committee-men ever questioned or differed from Sister Dora, yet in her
was the charm of unconsciousness of power or superiority, and the
impression left was, of there being no feeling of pleasure in her, other
than the triumph of the right.”[12]
In 1867 the cottage hospital had to be abandoned, as erysipelas broke
out and would not be expelled. The wards were evidently impregnated with
malignant germs, to such an extent that the committee resolved to build
a new hospital in a better situation.
“Sister Dora’s work became more engrossing when this larger field was
opened for it; the men’s beds were constantly full, and even the women’s
ward was hardly ever entirely empty.”
Just at this period an epidemic of small-pox broke out in Walsall, and
all the energies of Sister Dora were called into play. She visited the
cottages where the patients lay, and nursed them or saw to their being
supplied with what they needed; whilst at the same time carrying on her
usual work at the hospital.
“One night she was sent for by a poor man who was dying of what she
called ‘black-pox,’ a violent form of small-pox. She went at once, and
found him in the last extremity. All his relations had fled, and a
neighbour alone was with him. When Sister Dora found that only one small
piece of candle was left in the house, she gave the woman some money,
begging her to go and buy some means of light whilst she stayed with the
man. She sat on by his bed, but the woman, who had probably spent the
money at the public-house, never returned; and after some little while
the dying man raised himself up in bed with a last effort, saying,
‘Sister, kiss me before I die.’ She took him, all covered as he was with
the loathsome disease, into her arms and kissed him, the candle going
out almost as she did so, leaving them in total darkness. He implored
her not to leave him while he lived, although he might have known she
would never do that.” So she sat through the night, till the early dawn
breaking in revealed that the man was dead.
When the bell at the head of her bed rang at night she rose at once,
saying to herself, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee!” Indeed,
she loved to think that she was ministering to her Blessed Lord in the
person of His poor and sick. Miss Lonsdale prints a letter from a former
patient in the hospital, from which only a short extract can be made: “I
had not been there above a week when Sister Dora found me a little bell,
as there was not one to my bed, and she said, ‘Enoch, you must ring this
bell when you want Sister.’ This little bell did not have much rest, for
whenever I heard her step or the tinkle of her keys in the hall I used
to ring my bell, and she would call out, ‘I’m coming, Enoch,’ which she
did, and would say, ‘What do you want?’ I often used to say, ‘I don’t
know, Sister,’ not really knowing what I did want. She’d say, ‘Do you
want your pillows shaking up, or do you want moving a little?’ which
she’d do, whatever it was, and say, ‘Do you feel quite cosy now?’ ‘Yes,
Sister.’ Then she would start to go into the other ward, but very often
before she could get through the door I’d call her back and say my
pillow wasn’t quite right, or that my leg wanted moving a little. She
would come and do it, whatever it was, and say, ‘Will that do?’ ‘Yes,
Sister.’ Then she’d go about her work, but at the very next sound of her
step my bell would ring, and as often as my bell rang Sister would come;
and some of the other patients would often remark that I should wear
that little bell out or Sister, and she’d say, ‘Never mind, for I like
to hear it, and it’s never too often.’ And it rang so often that I’ve
heard Sister say that she often dreamt she heard my little bell and
started up in a hurry to find it was a dream.”
Sister Dora said once to a friend, who was engaging a servant for the
hospital, “Tell her this is not an ordinary house, or even a hospital. I
want her to understand that all who serve here, in whatever capacity,
ought to have one rule, _love for God_, and then, I need not say, love
for their work.”
She spoke often, and with intense earnestness, on the duty, the
necessity, of prayer. It was literally true that she never touched a
wound without raising her heart to God and entreating Him to bless the
means employed. As years glided away, she became able almost to fulfil
the Apostle’s command: “Pray without ceasing.” And her prayers were
animated by the most intense faith—an absolutely unshaken conviction of
their efficacy. It may truly be said that those who pray become
increasingly more sure of the value of prayer. They find that, whatever
men may say about the reign of law and the order of Nature, earnest
prayer does bring an answer, often in a marvellous manner. The praying
man or woman is never shaken in his or her trust in the efficacy of
prayer. “She firmly held to the supernatural power, put into the hands
of men by means of the weapon of prayer; and the practical faithlessness
in this respect of the world at large was an ever-increasing source of
surprise and distress to her.”
Since her death, in commemoration of her labours at Walsall, a very
beautiful statue has been there erected to her, and on the pedestal are
bas-reliefs representing incidents in her life there. One of these
illustrates a terrible explosion that took place in the Birchett’s Iron
Works, on Friday, October 15th, 1875, whereby eleven men were so
severely burnt that only two survived. All the others died after their
admission into the hospital. It came about thus. The men were at work
when water escaped from the “twyer” and fell upon the molten iron in the
furnace and was at once resolved into steam that blew out the front of
the furnace, and also the molten iron, which fell upon the men. Some
suffered frightful agonies, but the shock to the nervous system of
others had stupefied them. The sight and the smell were terrible. Ladies
who volunteered their help could not endure it, and were forced to
withdraw, some not getting beyond the door of the ward. But Sister Dora
was with the patients incessantly till they died, giving them water,
bandaging their wounds, or cutting away the sodden clothes that adhered
to the burnt flesh. Some lingered on for ten days, but in all this time
she never deserted the fetid atmosphere of the ward, never went to bed.
She had so much to do with burns that she became specially skilful in
treating them. Children terribly burnt or scalded were constantly
brought to the hospital; often men came scalded from a boiler, or by
molten metal. She dressed their wounds herself, but, if possible, always
sent the patients to be tended at home, where she would visit them and
regularly dress their wounds, rather than have the wards tainted by the
effluvium from the burns. Her treatment of burnt children merits
quotation.
“If a large surface of the body was burnt, or if the child seemed beside
itself with terror, she did not touch the wounds themselves, but only
carefully excluded the air from them by means of cotton wool and
blankets wrapped round the body. She put hot bottles and flannel to the
feet, and, if necessary, ice to the head. Then she gave her attention to
soothing and consoling the shocked nerves—a state which she considered
to be often a more immediate source of danger to the life of the child
than the actual injuries. She fed it with milk and brandy, unless it
violently refused food, when she would let it alone until it came round,
saying that force, or anything which involved even a slight further
shock to the system, was worse than useless. Sometimes, of course, the
fatal sleep of exhaustion, from which there was no awakening, would
follow; but more often than not food was successfully administered, and
after a few hours, Sister Dora, having gained the child’s confidence,
could dress the wounds without fear of exciting the frantic terror which
would have been the result of touching them at first.”
Children Sister Dora dearly loved; her heart went out to them with
infinite tenderness, and she was even known to sleep with a burnt baby
on each arm. What that means only those know who have had experience of
the sickening smell arising from burns.
Once a little girl of nine was brought into the hospital so badly burnt
that it was obvious she had not many hours to live. Sister Dora sat by
her bed talking to her of Jesus Christ and His love for little children,
and of the blessed home into which He would receive them. The child died
peacefully, and her last words were: “Sister, when you come to heaven,
I’ll meet you at the gates with a bunch of flowers.”
One of the most heroic of her many heroic acts was taking charge of the
small-pox hospital when a second epidemic broke out.
Mr. S. Welsh says:—“In the spring of 1875 there was a second visitation
of the disease, and fears were entertained that the results would be as
bad as during the former visitation. One morning Sister Dora came to me
and said, ‘Do you know, I have an idea that if some one could be got to
go to the epidemic hospital in whom the people have confidence, they
would send their friends to be nursed, the patients would be isolated,
and the disease stamped out?’” This was because a prejudice was
entertained against the new small-pox hospital, and those who had sick
concealed the fact rather than send them to it. “I said,” continues Mr.
Welsh, “‘I have long been of the opinion you have just expressed; but
where are we to get a lady, in whom the people would have confidence, to
undertake the duty?’ Her prompt reply was, ‘I will go.’ I confess the
sudden announcement of her determination rather took me by surprise, for
I had no expectation of it, and not the most remote idea that she
intended to go. ‘But,’ I said, ‘who will take charge of the hospital if
you go there?’ ‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I can get plenty of ladies to come
there, but none will go to the epidemic. And,’ she added, by way of
reconciling me to her view, ‘it will only be for a short time.’ ‘But
what if you were to take the disease and die?’ I inquired. ‘Then,’ she
added, in her cheery way, ‘I shall have died in the path of duty, and,
you know, I could not die better.’ I knew it was no use pointing out at
length the risk she ran, for where it was a case of saving others,
_self_ with her was no consideration. I tried to dissuade her on other
grounds.... A few days later, I was in company with the doctor of our
hospital, who was also medical officer of health, and who, as such, had
charge of the epidemic hospital, near to which we were at the time. He
said, ‘Do you know where Sister Dora is?’ ‘At the hospital, I suppose,’
was my reply. ‘No,’ he rejoined, ‘she is over there!’—pointing to the
epidemic hospital.... The people, as soon as they knew Sister Dora was
in charge, had no misgiving about sending their relatives to be nursed,
and the result was as she had predicted; the cases were brought in as
soon as it was discovered that patients had the disease, and the
epidemic was speedily stamped out.”
She had, however, a hard time of it there, as she lacked assistants. Two
women were sent from the workhouse, but they proved of little use. The
porter, an old soldier, was attentive and kind in his way, but he always
went out “on a spree” on Saturday nights, and did not return till late
on Sunday evening. When the workhouse women failed her, she was
sometimes alone with her patients, and these occasionally in the
delirium of small-pox.
It was not till the middle of August, 1875, that the last small-pox
patient departed from the hospital, and she was able to return to her
original work.
One of the bas-reliefs on her monument represents Sister Dora consoling
the afflicted and the scene depicted refers to a dreadful colliery
accident that occurred on March 14th, 1872, at Pelsall, a village rather
over three miles from Walsall, by which twenty-two men were entombed,
and all perished. For several days hopes were entertained that some of
the men would be got out alive; and blankets in which to wrap them, and
restoratives, were provided, and Sister Dora was sent for to attend the
men when brought to “bank.” The following extract, from an article by a
special correspondent in a newspaper, dated December 10th, 1872, will
give some idea of Sister Dora’s connection with the event:—
“Out of doors the scene is weird and awful, and impresses the mind with
a peculiar gloom; for the intensity of the darkness is heightened by the
shades created by the artificial lights. Every object, the most minute,
stands out in bold relief against the inky darkness which surrounds the
landscape. On the crest of the mound or pit-bank, the policemen, like
sentinels, are walking their rounds. The wind is howling and whistling
through the trees which form a background to the pit-bank, and the rain
is coming hissing down in sheets. In a hovel close to the pit-shaft sit
the bereaved and disconsolate mourners, hoping against hope, and
watching for those who will never return. There, too, are the swarthy
sons of toil who have just returned from their fruitless search in the
mine for the dear missing ones, and are resting while their saturated
clothes are drying. But another form glides softly from that hovel; and
amid the pelting rain, and over the rough pit-bank, and through miry
clay—now ankle deep—takes her course to the dwellings of the mourners,
for some, spent with watching, have been induced to return to their
homes. As she plods her way amid pieces of timber, upturned waggons, and
fragments of broken machinery, which are scattered about in great
confusion, a ‘wee, wee bairn’ creeps gently to her side, and grasping
her hand, and looking wistfully into her face, which is radiant with
kindness and affection, says, ‘Oh, Sister, do see to my father when they
bring him up the pit.’ Poor child! Never again would he know a father’s
love, or share a father’s care. She smiled, and that smile seemed to
lighten the child’s load of grief, and her promise to see to his father
appeared to impart consolation to his heavy, despairing heart.
“On she glides, with a kind word or a sympathetic expression to all. One
woman, after listening to her comforting words, burst into tears—the
fountains of sorrow so long pent up seemed to have found vent. ‘Let her
weep,’ said a relative of the unfortunate woman; ‘it is the first tear
she has shed since the accident has occurred, and it will do her good to
cry.’ But who is the good Samaritan? She is the sister who for seven
years has had the management of the nursing department in the cottage
hospital at Walsall.”
This is written in too much of the “special correspondent” style to be
pleasant; nevertheless it describes what actually took place.
Mr. Samuel Welsh says: “I remember one evening I was in the hospital
when a poor man who had been dreadfully crushed in a pit was brought in.
One of his legs was so fearfully injured that it was thought it would be
necessary to amputate it. After examining the patient, the doctor came
to me in the committee-room—one door of which opened into the passage
leading to the wards, and another into the hall in the domestic portion
of the building. After telling me about the patient who had just been
brought in, he said, ‘Do you know Sister Dora is very ill? So ill,’ he
continued, ‘that I question if she will pull through this time.’ I
naturally inquired what she was suffering from, and in reply the doctor
said, ‘She will not take care of herself, and is suffering from
blood-poison.’ He left me, and I was just trying to solve the problem——
‘What shall be done? or how shall her place be supplied if she be taken
from us by death?’ when I saw a spectral-like figure gliding gently and
almost noiselessly through the room from the domestic entrance to the
door leading to the wards. The figure was rather indistinct, for it was
nearly dark; and as I gazed at the receding form, I said, ‘Sister, is it
you?’ ‘Whist!’ she said, and glided through the doorway into the wards.
In a short time she returned, and I said to her, ‘Sister, the doctor has
just been telling me how ill you are—how is it you are here?’ ‘Ah!’
replied she, ‘it is true I am very ill; but I heard the surgeons talking
about amputating that poor fellow’s limb, and I wanted to see whether or
no there was a possibility of saving it, and I believe there is; and,
knowing that, I shall rest better.’ So saying, she glided as noiselessly
out of the room as when she entered.
“On her recovery—which was retarded by her neglecting herself to attend
to others—she called me to the hall-door of the hospital, and asked me
if I thought it was going to rain. I told her I did not think it would
rain for some hours. She then told me to go and order a cab to be ready
at the hospital in half an hour. I tried to persuade her not to venture
out so soon; but it was no use—she went; and many a time I wondered
where she went to.
“About six months afterwards I happened to be at a railway station, and
saw a pointsman who had been in our hospital with an injured foot, but
who, as his friends wished to have him at home, had left before his foot
was cured. I inquired how his foot was. He replied that had it not been
for Sister Dora he would have lost his foot, if not his life. I said,
‘How did she save your foot when you were not in the hospital, and she
was ill at the time you left the hospital?’ ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘you
know my foot was far from well when I left the hospital; there was no
one at our house who could see to it properly, and it took bad ways, and
one evening I was in awful pain. Oh, how I did wish for Sister Dora to
come and dress it! I felt sure she could give me relief, but I had been
told she was very ill, so I had no hope that my earnest desire would be
realised; but while I was thinking and wishing, the bedroom door was
gently opened, and a figure just like Sister Dora glided so softly into
the room that I could not hear her, but oh! she was so pale that I began
to think it must be her spirit; but when she folded the bedclothes from
off my foot, I knew it was she. She dressed my foot, and from that hour
it began to improve.’
“A few days after this interview with the pointsman I was talking to
Sister Dora and said, ‘By the bye, Sister, I have found out where you
went with the cab that day.’ She replied with a merry twinkle in her
eye, ‘What a long time you have been finding it out!’”
Her old patients ever remembered her with gratitude. A man called Chell,
an engine-stoker, was twice in the hospital under her care, first with a
dislocated ankle, severely cut; the second time, with a leg crushed to
pieces in a railway accident. It was amputated. According to his own
account he remembered nothing of the operation, except that Sister Dora
was there, and that, “When I come to after the chloroform, she was on
her knees by my side with her arm supporting my head, and she was
repeating:—
“‘They climbed the steep ascent of heaven,
Through peril, toil, and pain:
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train.’
And all through the pain and trouble that I had afterwards, I never
forgot Sister’s voice saying those words.” When she was in the small-pox
hospital, avoided by most, this man never failed to stump away to it to
see her and inquire how she was getting on.
There were, as she herself recognised, faults in the character of Sister
Dora; and yet, without these faults, problematical as it may seem, it is
doubtful whether she could have achieved all she did.
One who knew her long and intimately writes to me: “A majestic
character, brimming over with sympathy, but, for lack of
self-discipline, this sympathy was impulsive and gushing. Her character
would have been best formed in marrying a man—either statesman,
philanthropist or author—whose character would have dominated hers, and
she would have shone subdued. Her glorious nature, physical and mental,
was marred by undisciplined impulse. Her nature found its congenial
outlet in devoted works of mercy and love to her fellow-creatures. How
far she would have done the same under authority, I fear is a little
doubtful.”
I doubt it wholly. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John iii 8). The
truth and depth of these words are not sufficiently appreciated. They
teach that in those governed by the Spirit of God there is an apparent
capriciousness and impulsiveness which does not commend itself to
worldly wisdom or vulgar common-sense. Unquestionably, in community
life, this masterfulness in the character of Sister Dora might have been
subdued, but—would she have then done the same magnificent work? It
seems to me—but I may be mistaken—that we should suffer these strong
characters to take their course, and not endeavour to crush them into an
ordinary mould. It is precisely those who soar above the routine-bound
souls that, among men, make history—as Cæsar, Napoleon, Bismarck—and let
me add Lord Kitchener. And in the Church it is the same.
Miss Twigg, who knew her well, writes me: “She was a lovable woman, so
bright and winsome. She used to come into our rather dull and sad home
(our mother died when we were quite children) after evening service. She
would nurse one of us, big as we were then, and the others would gather
round her, while she would tell us stories of her hospital life.... She
was a _real_ woman, though with a woman’s failings.”
There is one point in Sister Dora’s life to which sufficient attention
has not been paid by her biographers. It is one which the busy workers
of the present day think of too little—namely, the writing of bright,
helpful letters to any friend who is sick, or in trouble. Somehow or
other she always found time for that, wrote one who knew her well,[13]
and who contributes the following, written to a young girl who was at
the time in a spinal hospital, and who was almost a stranger to her:—
“MY DEAR MISS J.,—I was so glad to hear from you, though I fear it must
be a trouble for you to write. I _do_ hope that you will really have
benefited by the treatment and rest. I am so glad that the doctor is
good to his ‘children.’ Such little attentions when you are sick help to
alleviate wonderfully. I wish I could come and take a peep at you. Did
Mrs. N. tell you that she had sent us _£5_ for our seaside expedition?
Was it not good of her? Oh! we shall have such a jolly time. To see all
those poor creatures drink in the sea-breezes! We have had a very busy
week of accidents and operations. It has been a regular storm.[14] My
dear, it is in such times as you are now having that the voice of Jesus
Christ can be best heard, ‘Come into a desert place awhile.’ Know you
surely that it is God’s visitation. Take home that thought, realise
it:—God _visiting you_. Elizabeth was astonished that the Mother of her
Lord should visit her. We can have our Emmanuel. I can look back on my
sicknesses as the best times of my life. Don’t fret about the future. He
carrieth our sicknesses and healeth our infirmities. You know infirmity
means weakness after sickness. Think of the cheering lines of our hymn:
‘His touch has still its ancient power.’ When I arose up from my
sick-bed they told me I should never be able to enter a hospital or do
work again. I was fretting over this when a good friend came to me, and
told me only to take a day’s burden and not look forward, and it was
such a help. I got up every day feeling sure I should have strength and
grace for the day’s trial. May it be said of you, dear, ‘They took
knowledge of her that she had been with Jesus.’ May He reveal Himself in
all His beauty is the prayer of
“Your sincere friend,
“SISTER DORA.”
It does not truly represent Sister Dora to dwell on her outer life, and
not look as well into that which is within, as it was the very
mainspring of all her actions, as it, in fact, made her what she was.
The same writer to the _Guardian_ gives some sentences from other
letters:—
“Take your cross day by day, dearie, and with Jesus Christ bearing the
other end it will not be _too_ heavy.” “If we would find Jesus, it must
be on the mountain, not in the plains or smooth places. ‘He went up into
a mountain and taught them, saying,’ etc. It is only on a mountain-side
that we shall see the Cross. It was only after Zacchæus had _climbed_
the tree he could see Jesus. I have been thinking much of this lately.
It is not in the smooth places we shall see Jesus, it is in the rough,
in the storm, or by the sick-couch.” “A Christian is one whose object is
Christ.” “I am rejoiced that you are enjoying Faber’s hymns; they always
_warm_ me up. Oh! my dear, is it not sad that we prefer to live in the
shade when we might have the glorious sunshine?”
It was during the winter of 1876-7 that Sister Dora felt the first
approach of the terrible disease that was to cause her death, and then
it was rather by diminution of strength than by actual pain. She
consulted a doctor in Birmingham, in whom she placed confidence, and he
told her the plain truth, that her days in this world were numbered. She
exacted from him a pledge of secrecy, and then went on with her work as
hitherto.
“She was suddenly brought,” says Miss Lonsdale, “as it were, face to
face with death—distant, perhaps, but inevitable: she, who was full of
such exuberant life and spirits, that the very word ‘death’ seemed a
contradiction when applied to her. Even her doctor, as he looked at her
blooming appearance, and measured with his eye her finely made form, was
almost inclined to believe the evidence of his outward senses against
his sober judgment.... She could not endure pity. She, to whom everybody
had learnt instinctively to turn for help and consolation, on whom
others leant for support, must she now come down to ask of them sympathy
and comfort? The pride of life was still surging up in her, that pride
which had made her glory in her physical strength for its own sake, as
well as for its manifold uses in the service of her Master. True, she
had been long living two lives inseparably blended: the outward life,
one of hard, unceasing toil; the inner, a constant communion with the
unseen world, the existence of which she realised to an extent which not
even those who saw the most of her could appreciate. To all the poor
ignorant beings whose souls she tried to reach by means of their maimed
bodies, she was, indeed, the personification of all that they could
conceive as lovable, holy and merciful in the Saviour. At the same time
she judged her own self with strict impartiality. She knew her own
faults, her unbending will—her pride and glory in her work seemed to her
even a fault; and, in place of looking on herself as perfect, she was
bowed down with a sense of her own shortcomings. At the same time—with
death before her, she hungered for more work for her Master. His words
were continually on her lips: ‘I must work the works of Him that sent Me
while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work.’”
At last, in the month of August, 1878, typhoid fever having broken out
in the temporary hospital, it was found necessary to close it, and
hasten on the work of the construction of another. This gave her an
opportunity for a holiday and a complete change. She went to the Isle of
Man, to London, and to Paris.
But the disorder was making rapid strides, and was causing her intense
suffering, and she craved to be back at Walsall. She got as far as
Birmingham, and was then in such a critical state, that it was feared
she would die. But her earnest entreaty was to be taken to Walsall: “Let
me die,” she pleaded, “among my own people.”
Mr. Welsh says:—“On calling at the Queen’s Hotel, Birmingham [where she
was lying ill], I was told the doctor of the hospital (Dr. Maclachlan)
was with her, and thinking they were probably arranging matters
connected with the hospital, I did not go to her room, but proceeded to
the train. I had scarcely got seated when the doctor called me out, and
we entered a compartment where we were alone. He asked me when it was
intended to open the hospital. I replied, ‘On the 4th November.’ ‘Then,’
he said, ‘that will just be about the time Sister Dora will die.’
“The announcement was to me a shock of no ordinary kind, for I had not
heard of her being ill, and no one could have imagined, from the
cheerful tone of a letter I had received from her a week or so before,
that there was anything the matter with her. Not being able to fully
realise the true state of affairs, I asked him if he were jesting. He
replied he was not, and that he thought it best to let me know at once,
so that arrangements might be made for getting some one to take her
place when the hospital was opened. I said, ‘I suppose she is going to
Yorkshire?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘and that is another thing I wish to speak
to you about. She wishes to die in Walsall, and she must be removed
immediately.’
“On Sunday [the day following] I saw the chairman and vice-chairman of
the hospital. On Sunday evening I returned with Dr. Maclachlan to the
Queen’s Hotel, where he found his patient very weak. On Monday morning,
a house was taken, and the furniture she had in her rooms at the
hospital removed to it. Her old servant, who had gone to The Potteries,
was telegraphed for, and arrived in a few hours, and by midday the house
was ready for her reception. My daughter, knowing Sister Dora’s fondness
for flowers, had procured and placed on the table in the parlour a very
choice bouquet; and when all was ready, Dr. Maclachlan drove over to
Birmingham, and brought her to Walsall in his private carriage.
“The disease was now making steady progress, and it was evident that
every day she was becoming weaker; but she never lost her cheerfulness,
and any one to have seen her might have thought she was only suffering
from some slight ailment, instead of an incurable and painful disease.”
“A few hours before her death,” writes Mr. S. Welsh, “she called me to
her bedside and said, ‘I want you to promise that you will not, when I
am gone, write anything about me; _quietly I came among you, and quietly
I wish to go away._’” And this desire of hers would have been faithfully
complied with had not misrepresentations fired the gentleman to whom the
request was made to take up his pen, not in defence of her, but in the
correction of statements that affected certain persons who were alive. I
must refer the reader for the detailed account of her last hours to Miss
Lonsdale’s book. One remarkable fact must not be omitted.
Among the members of the Basilian Order in the Eastern Church, it is the
rule, as soon as one of the brothers or sisters is dying, that all
should leave the room. The last office performed is to screw an ikon or
representation of the Saviour to the foot of the bed, that the dying may
in the supreme moment not think of any earthly tie, any earthly comfort,
but look only to the Rock of his Salvation. Of this, Sister Dora knew
nothing. In her last sickness she had a large crucifix hung where she
could constantly gaze at it, and when she found her end approaching, she
insisted on every one leaving the room,—it was her wish to die alone.
And as she persisted, so was it, only one nurse standing by the door
held ajar, and watching till she knew by the change of attitude, and a
certain fixed look in the countenance, that Sister Dora had entered into
her rest.[15]
Mr. Welsh says: “It was Christmas Eve when she passed away, and a dense
fog, like a funeral pall, hung over the town and obscured every object a
few feet from the ground. Under this strange canopy the market was being
held, and people were busy buying and selling, and making preparations
for the great Christmas Festival on the following day; but when the deep
boom of the passing bell announced the melancholy intelligence that
Sister Dora had entered into her rest, a thrill of horror ran through
the people, who, with blanched cheeks and bated breath, whispered, ‘Can
it be true?’ Although for eleven weeks the process of dissolution had
been going on before their eyes, they could not realise the fact that
she whom they loved and revered was no more.”
The funeral took place on Saturday, the 28th of December. “The day was
dark and dismal, the streets, covered with slush and sludge caused by
the melted snow, were thronged with spectators.... There was general
mourning in the town; and although it was market day nearly every shop
was closed during the time of the funeral, and all the blinds along the
route of the procession were drawn.... On reaching the cemetery it was
found that four other funerals had arrived from the workhouse; and as
these coffins had been taken into the chapel there was no room for
Sister Dora’s, which had consequently to be placed in the porch. This
was as Sister Dora would have wished had she had the ordering of the
arrangements; for she always gave preference to the poor, to whom she
was attached in life, and from whom she would not have desired to be
separated in death.”
True to her thought of others, in the midst of her last sufferings she
had made arrangements for a Christmas dinner to be given to a number of
her old patients, in accordance with a custom of hers in previous years;
but on this occasion the festive proceedings were shorn of their
gladness. All thought of her who in her pain and on her deathbed had
thought of them. Every one tried, but ineffectually, to cheer and
comfort the other, but the task was hopeless. One young lady, after the
meal, and while the Christmas tree was being lighted, commenced singing
that pretty little piece, “Far Away,”—but when she came to the words,
“Some are gone from us for ever,
Longer here they could not stay,”
she burst into tears; and the women present sobbed, and tears were seen
stealing down the cheeks of bearded men.