OUR DUTY TO STRANGERS.
"Deal gently with the stranger's heart."—Mrs. Hemans.
The factory girl has trials, as every one of the class can testify. It was hard for thee to leave
"Thy hearth, thy home, thy vintage land.
The voices of thy hindred band,"—
was it not, my sister? Yes, there was a burden at your heart as you turned away from father, mother, sister, and brother, to meet the cold glance of strange stage-companions. There was the mournfulness of the funeral dirge and knell, in the crack of the driver's whip, and in the rattling of the coach-wheels. And when the last familiar object receded from your fixed gaze, there was a sense of utter desolation at your heart. There was a half-formed wish that you could lie down on your own bed, and die, rather than encounter the new trials before you.
Home may be a capacious farm-house, or a lowly cottage, it matters not. It is home. It is the spot around which the dearest affections and hopes of the heart cluster and rest. When we turn away, a thousand tendrils are broken, and they bleed.—Lovelier scenes might open before us, but that only "the loved are lovely." Yet until new interests are awakened, and new loves adopted, there is a constant heaviness of heart, more oppressive than can be imagined by those who have never felt it.
The "kindred band" may be made up of the intelligent and elegant, or of the illiterate and vulgar; it matters not. Our hearts yearn for their companionship. We would rejoice with them in health, or watch over them in sickness.
In all seasons of trial, whether from sickness, fatigue, unkindness, or ennui, there is one bright oasis. It is
——"the hope of return to the mother, whose smile
Could dissipate sadness and sorrow beguile;
To the father, whose glance we've exultingly met—
And no meed half so proud hath awaited us yet;
To the sister whose tenderness, breathing a charm,
No distance could lessen, no danger disarm;
To the friends, whose remembrances time cannot chill,
And whose home in the heart not the stranger can fill."
This hope is invaluable; for it,
"like the ivy round the oak,
Clings closer in the storm."
Alas! that there are those to whom this hope comes not! those whose affections go out, like Noah's dove, in search of a resting place; and return without the olive-leaf.
"Death is in the world," and it has made hundreds of our factory girls orphans. Misfortunes are abroad, and they have left as many destitute of homes. This is a melancholy fact, and one that calls loudly for the sympathy and kind offices of the more fortunate of the class. It is not a light thing to be alone in the world. It is not a light thing to meet only neglect and selfishness, when one longs for disinterestedness and love. Oh, then, let us
"Deal gently with the stranger's heart,"
especially if the stranger be a destitute orphan. Her garb may be homely, and her manners awkward; but we will take her to our heart, and call her sister. Some glaring faults may be hers; but we will remember "who it is that maketh us to differ," and if possible, by our kindness and forbearance, win her to virtue and peace.
There are many reasons why we should do this. It is a part of "pure and undefiled religion" to "visit the fatherless in their afflictions." And "mercy is twice blest; blest in him that gives, and him that takes." In the beautiful language of the simple Scotch girl, "When the hour o' trouble comes, that comes to mind and body, and when the hour o' death comes, that comes to high and low, oh, my leddy, then it is na' what we ha' done for ourselves, but what we ha' done for others, that we think on maist pleasantly."
E.