Weary days passed; often and often did Sarah’s spirit so sink within her, that she felt as if it could never rise again. Her father’s moroseness returned; affection, in a character like his could not obtain effective power over the evil habits of long years. Sarah could not realize that he loved her, and had it not been for her firm confidence in the love which was unending, pitying, strengthening, as the gracious Lord from whom it comes, her every energy must have failed. She exerted herself to effect a reformation in their dwelling and in her father’s slender wardrobe. To look on him, any one would have believed him a very mendicant; yet there were some few articles of clothing easily to be repaired, and so made decent, and this Sarah did. Struck by her method, her perseverance, and the quiet easy way in which she did everything, Esther Cardoza, old, and often ailing as she was, did not disdain to profit by her example; she became more tidy, more careful, and was surprised to find that it was just as easy to be clean and neat, however poor her apparel, as the contrary, and for comfort the one could not be mentioned with the other. One sweet source of pleasure Sarah indeed had. She had excited an ardent desire in the old woman’s mind to become thoroughly acquainted with God’s holy volume, and many an evening did they sit together, and Esther listened to the sweet pleading voice of her young companion, till she felt with her whole heart that God must be with Sarah; she could not be the good, gentle, yet strong-minded creature she was without His help: and then came the thought and belief, that if she sought Him, He would be found too of her, unworthy and lowly as she was. Such a rich treasury of promises did Sarah open to her longing heart and eyes, that she often wondered how she could have been blind so long; and she would thank and bless her with such strong feeling, that Sarah would feel with thankfulness, and chastened joy, in the midst of her own sorrows, that she had not left her own dear home in vain.
“I begin to think, dearie,” Esther one day said, “that I must have been cross and harsh myself, which made folks abuse me as they did; since you have been here, I feel an altered creature, and now meet with kindness instead of wrong.”
“Perhaps you are more inclined to think it kindness,” said Sarah, smiling.
“Perhaps so, dear; but that is all your doing. Since you have read to me, and proved to me that God, even Abraham’s God, cares for and loves me, I am as happy again, and I think if He can love me, why, surely some of my fellow-creatures can too. They cannot be as unjust and harsh as I once thought them. What would have become of me if you had taken my advice, and gone home again?”
“Then you see, Esther, I was not sent here for nothing; humble as I am, I have made one fellow-creature happy.”
“You must make every one happy who talks with you, darling; but I want you to be happy yourself, and you have not come here to be that, I’m thinking.”
“It is better for me that I should not be happy yet, Esther, or our Father would make me so. You know He could, with a word, and He will in His own good time. I did not think I should find one friend, but His love provided you.” Her voice quivered, and she threw her arms round old Esther’s neck, to hide and subdue her emotion, which kindness alone had power to excite.
But though for Esther she had been permitted to do so much, her father seemed neither to understand nor appreciate her; and to change the opinions to which he so often gave vent, and which, from their strangeness and laxity, often actually appalled her, seemed to her utterly impossible. The sacred name of God was with him a common interjection, introduced in every phrase; it mattered not whether called for by anger or vexation, or any other feeling. Sarah shuddered with agony as she heard it—that awful name, which she never dared pronounce save with reverence and love, which should be kept far from all moods and tempers of sin—that name, the holiness of which was enjoined as strictly, as solemnly, as “thou shalt not kill,” and “thou shalt not steal.” She could not conquer the feeling which its constant and sinful use excited, and once so horror-struck was her countenance, that her father marked it and demanded its cause. Tremblingly she told him, and a rude laugh was his reply, coupled with an injunction not to preach to him—words which ever checked her when, in his moments of irritation against the whole world and his own fate, she sought to comfort him by the religion of her own pure mind; she gave up the effort at length, but she did not give up prayer. She would not listen to the agonized supposition that for such as he even the long suffering of an infinitely compassionate God would be of no avail. She prayed and wept for those who prayed not for themselves, and there was comfort in her prayer.
But to pass her life in idleness was impossible. From the first week of her residence in London, she had sought for employment. Her father would not hear of her living out, and so she endeavoured to find daily occupation, or to work at home. In both of these wishes, as old Esther had foreboded, she failed.
In the low neighbourhood where her father dwelt there was no one to employ her, and she had no friend to speak for her in the higher classes. In vain she had at first urged she must seek for a situation in a private family, as upper housemaid, lady’s maid, or nurse. Levison so raged and stormed at the first mention of the plan, that Sarah felt as if she never dared resume it. Yet as weeks passed and the little fund she had brought from Liverpool would very soon be exhausted, something must be done. Our readers, perhaps, think that her idea of the duty she owed her father went so far as even in this to obey him; they are wrong if they do. Sarah’s mind was not of that weak cast which could not discern right from wrong. She knew it was a false and sinful pride which actuated Levison’s refusal. “Jews were Jews,” he declared, “and one class should not serve the other; his daughter was as good as any in the land, and she should not call any one mistress.” Mildly, yet firmly, Sarah resisted his arguments. We have not space to repeat all she said, but her father at length yielded, with an ill grace indeed, and vowing she should go nowhere unless they would let her come to him when he wanted her. But still he yielded, and Sarah thankfully pursued her plan. But, alas! she encountered only disappointment; there were no Jewesses established as milliners, dressmakers, or similar trades in London, and therefore no possibility of her getting occupation with them as she wished. She would not heed old Esther’s assurances that no one would take Jewish servants. Unsophisticated and guileless herself, she could not believe that her nation would refuse their aid and patronage to those of their own faith; and she strained every energy, she conquered her own shrinking diffidence, but all without effect. Again and again the fact of her being a Jewess completed the conference at once. One said that Jewish servants were more plague than enough, they should never enter her house. Another, that their pride and ignorance were beyond all bounds, and as for a proper deference towards their superiors, a willingness to be taught or guided, it was not in their nature. Another, that a Jewish cook might be all very well, but for anything else it was quite out of the question; they knew the low habits, the laziness and insolence that characterised such kind of people, and they certainly would not expose themselves to it with their eyes open. In vain Sarah pleaded for a trial—that she was willing, most willing to be taught her duty; that she was not wholly ignorant, and humbly yet earnestly trusted she was not proud. Her duty to her God had, she hoped, taught her proper deference towards her superiors on earth. Some there were who, only her superiors in point of fortune, stared at her with stupid surprise, and utterly unable to understand such pure and truthful feelings, sharply terminated their conference at once. Others would not even hear her. Some there were really superior in something more than fortune, and anxiously desirous to alleviate distress and aid their poorer brethren, but they shrank from being the first to engage a Jewess as lady’s maid or nurse. Some, touched by her respectful, and gentle manner, would have waived this, but when the question who was her father, was asked and answered, the most kindly intentioned shrank back—it could not be. In vain she told them she had never been under his care, and offered references to many respectable families in Liverpool. A daughter of Levison was no fit servant for any respectable family; they were sorry, but they could do nothing for her.