"Tis True, 'Tis Pity." 683 that she felt called to take up the work of temperance and came to offer herself to me. She had no credentials that were sufficient to identify her, no fitness for the work that I could see, and when I gently remonstrated with her, she took such an excess of nerves," as the French say, as was harrowing to behold, crying so loudly at the boarding-house in which I placed her, and where I paid her expenses for some time, that the people thought she was likely to do herself harm. A merchant in good standing, and a bright man, desired me to prevent his wife from securing a divorce. A young minister was confirmed in the conviction that I alone, of all people on this continent, would direct him to the right woman as partner of his joys and sorrows. A miner in Idaho, who confessed himself to have been one of the worst of men, but was now thoroughly reformed, and sent references to people altogether creditable, wanted me to forward to him from our Chicago Anchorage Home for degraded women, one who had reformed, whom he promised to marry and be faithful to, saying, with a sense of justice too infrequent, that he was well aware she was the only sort of person fit for him. A woman desired me to send her a hired girl away out to Colorado. Another asked me to secure for her a patent on a new style of rolling-pin. A man wished me to arrange for the manufacture of his new carpet-sweeper, and would give me half the proceeds. A woman said if I would get her husband the appointment to be postmaster in their village, she would pay me twenty-five dollars. A woman whose daughter had evinced elocutionary talent, said if I would write her a speech, she could quite likely support the family by rehearsing it in California. A young man wished me to write his part in a debate, that was to occur in a certain college, on the Prohibition question. Another wrote: "You wod doe us a grate favor if you Could Send us a mishineary to this Place." One who "was born a prohibitionist," after detailing her husband's financial losses, asked if "I would be so kind as to 684 'Pity 'Tis, 'Tis True." present her with a dolman or some other wrap, and a dress that would be nice enough to go into company of any kind." Another good friend-a perfect stranger-who was in debt, inclosed two bills in the letter, and asked me to pray over them, and then pay them. Another was sure I would gladly aid in the circulation of a book she had written concerning myself. The following is from a poem dedicated to the W. C. T. U., and placed in my hands at one of our National Conventions: To you Who Comes With Hearts So Brave Like a Statue to Behold White as marbel Pure as Gold With Words of truth From throbing Heart Turned the key of Pandors Box And threw the Rubish ore your Flock Revealed to light the dark conclave But not with you By Power of might For He Who claved the Red Sea A HELPFUL BOOK. No single book has helped me more in these last years tan the little French treatise translated by Hannah Whitall Smith, entitled, "Practice of the Presence of God." Brother Lawrence, a Franciscan friar, who did the cooking for his monastery, is the hero of the narrative and I do not believe it possible for any wellintentioned person to read the contents of this little volume once a month throughout a single year without being lifted above the mists and vapors of his every-day environment into the sweet, clear air of that spiritual world which is always with us if we only knew it, and in which we may perpetually dwell if we only try, or rather, if without trying we just accept its presence and its hallowed communion. *** In all the harvest there was nothing sweeter to us than the sense of independence and security that came from feeling that the old farm could supply our wants; could garner up for us and all the hundreds of four-footed and two-winged creatures that were our fellow-beings and our friends, enough to keep us safe and sound in all the winter's cold. We liked to watch our mother's wonderful butter, that smelt of clover blooms. We rejoiced in her pickles and preserves, he wild plums, and "rare ripe" peaches, and it seemed to us that people who buy everything at the store, live at a poor dying rate, and take everything second-hand-finding life a sort of hash of things left over. Happy this harvest home of the honest handed farmer, who knows and loves the good creatures of God too well to turn into crazy,drinks what a bountiful Creator has given him for food. As "Old Ryenid Make me up into loaves, and your children are fed; If eaten, to strengthen, if drunk, to destroy." What mind I have is intuitional. The processes of calculation are altogether foreign to me, and old school-mates will testify without dissent that while I stood at the head of my classes in all other things, I hobbled along with a crutch in "higher algebra." It consoled me not a little to read in some of General Grant's biographies, that when officers galloped up to him in battle bringing bad news and asking his commands, he never commented on the disaster, consulted nobody, but as swiftly as the words could be uttered, told just what he wanted done. This trait that he showed as a great chieftain I have had always on my own small field, that is, I have never been discouraged, but ready on the instant with my decision, and rejoicing in nothing so much as the taking of initiatives. Such facilities as I have are always on hand. What I do must be done quickly. Perhaps it is the possession of this very quality that by the law of opposites renders a reflective life, the otium cum dignitate of which I have never for one moment tasted since we left the farm, supremely attractive to me in contemplation. To my thought, conversation is the filling and soul of social life, the culmination of the spirit's possible power, the giving of a life-time in an hour, though its form and method certainly have changed in this electric age when the phonograph has come into being. I half suspect that there will be a strike in the physical manufactory one of these days; the muscles of the face will refuse to do their duty, the tongue will make believe paralytic, and the lips will join the rebellion. But there is this good fortune about it, people will be more careful how they talk when the electric waves are secret as well as open message-bearers, when the concealed phonograph may be acting as reporter in any place they enter. Science will make us all behave and put us under bonds to keep the peace. Its outcome always is the betterment of mortals. My nature is to the last degree impressionable, without strong personal antipathies, and though ready with some remark for any one into whose company I happen to be thrown, nothing short of a congenial atmosphere can "bring me out." A human being, like a cathedral organ, has many pipes and stops and banks of keys; the sort of music that you get depends upon the kind of player that you are. Oliver Wendell Holmes never wrote a subtler thing than that he likes people not so much for what they say, as for what they make him say! Judged by this standard, I do not believe that six persons have ever heard me talk, and not more than three ever in private converse heard my vox humana, simply because they were not skilled musicians. There is no egotism in this statement, it is so universal. All of us have been so happy as to meet a few persons who made us blossom out. We did n't dream ourselves half so great, so noble, so lovable as they proved us to ourselves to be. "Is it possible I can talk like that?" I have said to myself in such companionship. The intoxication of it is the soul's true wine. There are a few fortunate and elect spirits who have expanded under such sunny skies into flowers whose fragrance was the rarest fame,-perhaps all might; in some world let us hope all will! For myself, I know so little of it, that only as a foretaste of heaven's companionships do I think of such beatitude at all. I shall never forget how like a flash it came to me one winter day, when I was preceptress of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, N. Y., in 1866, as I was seated in my large, pleasant sitting-room, with as many of my pupils gathered around me, chiefly sitting on the floor, as the room could possibly accommodate, and while we were planning something good, I do not recall what, in which we were all greatly interested, that just what was happening then in the way of aroused enthusiasm, unified purpose, and magnificent esprit de corps might just as well happen on a scale involving thousands instead of scores. I did not then determine that it should, but only with swift intuition and sudden pain felt that I might have filled a larger place. I have been called ambitious, and so I am, if to have had from childhood the sense of being born to a fate is an element of ambition. For I never knew what it was not to aspire, and not to believe myself capable of heroism. I always wanted to react upon the world about me to my utmost ounce of power; to be widely |