Verses taking the Form of Prayers, Dedications, Etc.
Amongst all the verses that adorn samplers there were none which apparently commended themselves so much as those that dedicated the work to Christ. The lines usually employed are so familiar as hardly to need setting out, but they have frequent varieties. The most usual is:—
“Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first Effort of young Phoebe’s hand
And while her fingers on this canvas move
Engage her tender Heart to seek thy Love
With thy dear Children let her Share a Part
And write thy name thyself upon her Heart.”
Harriot Phoebe Burch, aged 7 years, 1822.
A variation of this appears in the much earlier piece of Lora Standish ([Fig. 43]).
Another, less common, but which again links the sampler with a religious aspiration, runs:—
“Better by Far for Me
Than all the Simpsters Art
That God’s commandments be
Embroider’d on my Heart.”
Mary Cole, 1759.
Verses to be used upon rising in the morning or at bedtime are not unfrequent; the following is the modest prayer of Jane Grace Marks (1807).
“If I am right, oh teach my heart
Still in the right to stay,
If I am wrong, thy grace impart
To find that better way.”
But one in my possession loses, by its ludicrousness, all the impressiveness which was intended:—
“Oh may thy powerful word
Inspire a breathing worm
To rush into thy kingdom Lord
To take it as by storm.
Oh may we all improve
Thy grace already given
To seize the crown of love
And scale the mount of heaven.”
Sarah Beckett, 1798.
Lastly, a prayer for the teacher:—
“Oh smile on those whose liberal care
Provides for our instruction here;
And let our conduct ever prove
We’re grateful for their generous love.”
Emma Day, 1837.