Deep gloom was upon the soul of poor Grace, when she was carried to the large, dull, cheerless-looking building, which to her appeared but as a prison. She sank beneath the weight of her cross, and even her religion seemed for a time to bring her no comfort. Satan, ever busy to tempt us, whether in days of wealth or tribulation, was whispering hard thoughts of God. Grace saw in her trial no sign of the love of her Heavenly Father; she thought herself forsaken—forgotten; she longed for death, little conscious at that moment that she was unfit to die!
"Oh! That I should ever be brought down to this!" was her thought, as she was borne across the court-yard of the poorhouse, where a few old women, in pauper's dress, scarcely turned their heads to observe a new sufferer carried to a place where sickness and sorrow were things too common to attract much notice. "I, well-born, highly educated, degraded to the position of a pauper! Why has God, in whom I trusted, forsaken me? Why has He placed me in a position where I can be but a burden to myself and to others? God gave me talents, and with a willing mind I had devoted all my powers to His service; but now He has taken away the opportunities which once I possessed, of exercising my talents to His glory, and the good of my fellowmen."
Grace was wrong in three important points: first, She was wrong in thinking herself degraded by becoming a pauper, when she was so not from idleness, nor extravagance, nor any other sin of her own. It was God who had appointed her place, and the post which He assigns to His people must be a post of honor to those who faithfully fill it. Oh! Let the lowly ones of Christ remember this to their comfort! Can poverty be a disgrace when it was the state chosen by the Son of God for Himself, when He deigned to visit the earth? The Lord's people are kings and priests unto God, heirs of a crown, and inheritors of heaven, whether they dwell in a palace, or lie in a poorhouse ward.
Secondly, Grace was wrong in doubting for one moment the loving care of her God, because He was trying her faith in the heated furnace of affliction. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Grace had been an earnest and active Christian; but she had little knowledge of the weakness and sin of her own heart, till affliction stirred up the quiet waters, and showed her what evil lay below. She had hoped and believed that her will was conformed to the will of God, till sudden misfortune revealed how much of self-pleasing, pride, and unbelief had lurked behind her devotion. Grace now thought herself worse than she had ever thought herself before, only because she now knew herself better; the medicine for pride was most bitter, but it was the hand of love that had mixed it.
And thirdly, Grace was wrong in supposing that all opportunity of glorifying God and of serving others had been taken from her for ever. Never, perhaps, does the Christian's light shine more brightly, or more profitably, to those who behold it than from the bed of sickness and pain. Wherefore glorify God in the fires! is the watchword for the suffering saint. Happy those who to the words, "We rejoice in hope of the glory of God," can add, And "not only so but we glory in tribulations also," knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us!
Grace was carried to a ward containing twelve of the aged or sick, and placed on a bed in a corner of the room. The ward was clean and airy, and, in some respects, more comfortable than Grace had been led to expect; but she was little disposed to see in it anything but the dreary aspect of a prison. She looked with sadness on the bare walls, the high windows—affording no prospect but the sky—and the rows of beds occupied by those with whom she deemed that she would have not a single feeling in common. Grace particularly shrank from the pauper whose bed was next to her own. Ann Rogers, a coarse-looking, red-faced woman, with a rough manner and loud voice, which jarred on the nerves of the sufferer.
"Well, poor soul, how came you into your troubles?" were the words with which Ann first addressed Grace, standing beside her with her arms akimbo, and surveying the newcomer with a look of mingled curiosity and pity.
Grace flinched like one who had a rough hand laid on a wound, and murmuring a short reply, she closed her eyes in the hope of stopping further conversation.
"You have seen better days, I take it, and so have I. I was cook in a gent'man's family, I was, and little thought of ever coming to this—." Ann added an epithet so coarse that I do not choose to repeat it.
"Oh, misery! can I not even suffer in silence?" thought the poor girl. "Must I have that horrible voice for ever dinning in my ears?" Grace said nothing aloud, but her face probably betrayed something of her feelings, for Ann went on in the tone of one who is offended. "There's no use in anybody's playing the fine lady here, or turning up her nose at the company she meets with. This ain't the place for airs, and I'd advise no one to try 'em upon me!"