Several years after my excommunication, when I had come to observe that religion and “mere morality” do not always go together, I had a final interview with one of the deacons who had labored with me. He was an overseer in the room where I worked, and I had noticed his familiar manner with some of the girls, who did not like it any better than I did; and one day, when his behavior was unusually offensive, I determined to speak to him about it.
I called him to my drawing-in frame, where I was sitting at work, and said to him something like this: “I have hard work to believe that you are one of those deacons who came to labor with a young girl about belonging to your church. I don’t think you set the example of good works you then preached to me.” He gave me a look, but did not answer; and shortly after, as I might have expected, I received an “honorable discharge” from his room.
But let me acknowledge one far-reaching benefit that resulted from my being admitted to the Orthodox church, a benefit which came to me in the summer of 1895. Because of my baptism, administered so long ago, I was enabled to officiate as god-mother to my grandchild and namesake, in Pueblo, Colorado,—one among the first of the little girls born on a political equality with the little boys of that enlightened State, born, as one may say, with the ballot in her hand! And to any reader who has an interest in the final result of my religious experience, I may add, that, as late as 1898, I became a communicant of the Episcopal Church.
When the time came for me to become engaged to the man of my choice, having always believed in the old-fashioned idea that there should be no secrets between persons about to marry, I told him, among my other shortcomings, as the most serious of all, the story of my excommunication. To my great surprise, he laughed heartily, derided the whole affair, and wondered at the serious view I had always taken of it; and later he enjoyed saying to some of his gentlemen friends, as if it were a good joke, “Did you know my wife had been excommunicated from the church?”
And I too, long since have learned, that no creed—
“Can fix our doom,
Nor stay the eternal Love from His intent,
While Hope remaining bears her verdant bloom.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY FACTORY GIRLS.
When I look back into the factory life of fifty or sixty years ago, I do not see what is called “a class” of young men and women going to and from their daily work, like so many ants that cannot be distinguished one from another; I see them as individuals, with personalities of their own. This one has about her the atmosphere of her early home. That one is impelled by a strong and noble purpose. The other,—what she is, has been an influence for good to me and to all womankind.