THE ORPHAN HOME.
Isolated as was the life she lived at Hoxton, Mary Bosanquet was not
wholly severed from her parents. At intervals her father would drive
up in his carriage, bringing her some present and renewing his
persuasions to her to live at home upon the terms of spiritual silence
on which he had previously insisted. But though, to all appearance
peculiarly alone, the two years spent in her solitary lodging was a
time of the richest blessing, during which she entered into such
communion with God as influenced the whole of her after-life.
An almost curious sensitiveness to the sorrows and needs of men so
possessed her that all consideration of self or repining at her
condition was entirely shut out, and with this insight into the woe of
the world came a wonderful baptism of Divine love. God became all in
all to her soul, and she lived in the spirit of Gerhardt's inspired
hymn:--
Oh, grant that nothing in my soul
May dwell but Thy pure love alone;
Oh, may Thy love possess me whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my crown!
Strange flames far from my heart remove,
My every act, word, thought, be LOVE!
It was inevitable that her Methodist friends should suggest to her a
less lonely life; some of them, indeed, went so far as to speak of her
in connection with Mr. Fletcher.
"Ah, if I were to marry _him_," she thought, "he would be a help
and not a hindrance to my soul!"
She little knew that Fletcher had been fighting the same thought.
Indeed, it was not long after this that, in answer to Charles Wesley's
practical suggestion, that a wife would be helpful in his lonely work,
Fletcher drew up as quaint a set of _Reasons for and Against
Matrimony_ as have ever been committed to paper:--
FOR.
1. A tender friendship is, after the love of Christ, the greatest
felicity of life; and a happy marriage is nothing but such a
friendship between two persons of different sexes.
2. A wife might deliver me from the cares of housekeeping, etc.
3. Some objections and scandals may be avoided by marriage.
4. A pious and zealous wife might be as useful as myself; nay, she
might be much more so among my female parishioners, who greatly
want an inspectress.
AGAINST.
1. Death will shortly end all particular friendships. The happier
the state of marriage, the more afflicting is the widowhood;
besides, we may try a friend and reject him after trial; butwe
cannot know a wife till it is too late to part with her.
2. Marriage brings after it a hundred cares and expenses; children,
a family, etc.
3. If matrimony is not happy, it is the most fertile source of
scandal.
4. I have a thousand to one to fear that a wife, instead of being a
help, may be indolent, and consequently useless; or humoursome,
haughty, capricious, and consequently a heavy curse.
Fortunately for Mary Bosanquet, towards the end of these two years
there came to London her friend Mrs. Ryan (housekeeper of Wesley's new
Room at Bristol), who fell ill, was nursed by her with great devotion,
and afterwards taken home to share her rooms.
"I acknowledge," she writes, "I neither gained honour, gold, nor
indulgence to the flesh by uniting myself to a sickly, persecuted
saint; but I gained such a spiritual helper as I shall eternally
praise God for."
Shortly after their union a house of Miss Bosanquet's at Leytonstone
became vacant, and in March, 1763, the Friends moved into it, and
began private and public meetings under their own roof-tree.
One evening, as Miss Bosanquet was speaking to a large company
assembled in her kitchen, the fore-gate bell clashed with a mighty
peal. The servant went to answer it, and meantime there strode through
the back door into the kitchen four ill-looking men with clubs in
their hands. The servant hurried back trembling, saying that a
messenger had come to warn them of a great mob coming to upset them,
the ringleaders being four men with clubs.
Mary Bosanquet cast a glance at her audience and answered the maid
aloud, "Oh, we do not mind mobs when we are about our Master's
business. 'Greater is He that is for us than all that can be against
us.'" Then calmly she continued her subject, unhindered by any.
Having upon her table a few copies of the simple "Rules for the
Society of the People called Methodists," she handed one of them to
each of the four ringleaders, begging their acceptance that at their
leisure they might see the nature of the profession made by the
worshippers. They received them with respectful bows, and no more was
heard of "mobs" for that night.
The house was a lonely one, open on one side to the forest, and in it
at that time lived only Mary Bosanquet, Mrs. Ryan, a maid, and Sally
Lawrence, a little child of four years, whom Miss Bosanquet had taken
from her mother's coffin to her own warm care. When the nights became
dark, a disorderly crowd would gather at the gate to pelt the
worshippers with dirt, afterwards invading the yard to reach the
unshuttered windows, where they would roar like so many wild beasts.
But the protecting hand of God kept them from any real bodily harm.
"The Lord was with us," wrote the lady of the house most sweetly, "and
preserved us under Love's almighty shade."
Little Sally was the first of many orphans who followed. Through
various misfortunes and deaths around her, Miss Bosanquet quickly
found herself mothering six of them. The number grew until twenty
children and several grown people found a home beneath her hospitable
roof at one time. This family involved much nursing, for there were
never more than six in the house in perfect health.
Miss Bosanquet adopted for the whole household what was almost a
uniform of dark purple cotton; she fed them upon simple diet, kept
them to regular hours for meals and employment, trained the children
for service, and nursed sick people until they were well. Hers was
indeed a House of Mercy!