A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland

by Laura S. Haviland

When I left them I shook hands with them all, for by the time our conversation closed about all their little community had convened, and I took occasion to speak highly of Father Mathew, the great temperance reformer of Ireland; and my little congregation pronounced as strong blessings upon me as they had curses. Even my systematic curser was among my best friends after that, and my scholars, as well as myself, were treated with the utmost respect ever after, and two of them sent for me when very sick and not expected to live, one of whom died a few days after. As she was in great distress of mind, I read to her some of those precious promises of our Savior, from which she drew great consolation. It would seem to many like casting pearls before swine to turn aside to present the truth to such ignorant and disliking people, but it is ours to obey these little impressions, and leave the result with the All-wise Director.

During my work in Toledo I called on a colored woman to solicit a little change for a very sick man who was very low with consumption, and was being cared for by a very poor family, and as she gave me twenty-five cents a beautiful white girl was sitting by, who gave another quarter. After school I called again and inquired for that young woman who gave for that sick man, without giving me time to ask for her mite, and to my surprise, found she was an inmate of a house of ill-fame, and tried to make Mrs. Buck promise not to tell me where she was living; for if I knew it I would never speak to her. I sent for her to meet me the following day after school, at her house. I found her sitting in the parlor waiting for me. As I took her by the hand, placing the other on her head, I said, "My dear girl, you are an unhappy child." And she burst into a flood of tears, and as soon as she could sufficiently command her feelings to relate her history I found she was compelled by her stepfather to live away from home. She had lived a year or more with a worthy woman, who kept a boarding-house in Cleveland; and there came to board a few weeks a fine appearing young man, who professed great affection for her, and proposed marriage. He told her his father was a very wealthy merchant in Toledo, and he was there on business for his father. After he had won her affections he proposed to take her to Toledo, and place her in a boarding-house until she could make up two rich silk dresses and other clothing suitable for her, as he was not willing his folks should know he was marrying a poor girl. He could easily take a dress pattern from each bolt of silk and his father never know it, and any other goods she needed. As his father was going to New York for a new supply of goods, he would supply her with other goods to make up until his father's new goods came, then he would hire a dressmaker to make up her silk dresses. All this she fully believed, as from a true and faithful lover, to whom she had given her heart's best and purest affections. She said, "A number of days I hesitated, because I wanted to tell my mother all about it, but he persisted in leaving Cleveland secretly, and return on our bridal trip to surprise my mother and that cruel stepfather. At last I foolishly consented, to my ruin and sorrow, for I haven't seen one moment of peace since I was deserted by that man;" and again bathed herself in tears. Recovering herself, she continued, "I wouldn't have my mother know this for the world. She is a good Christian woman. She's a Methodist, and has seen a sight of trouble with my stepfather; and, if she knew this, it would break her heart." On further inquiry I found he brought her to this house as an excuse to keep her secluded until they were about to be married, when he would pay her board a few days in the finest hotel in the city. "The next day after our arrival he brought me a beautiful lawn dress-pattern and a package of other material for me to make up while waiting for his father's goods. And not till then had he offered in word or act any thing amiss from a perfect gentleman. It was the next day after our arrival in this city, and to this house, that he proposed to live two weeks as if we were married, as it would be about a week or two at longest when the goods would be here, and he would get one of two dressmakers to prepare me for my wedding. I cried two days over this proposition, and by this time I had learned the character of this house. Here I was, a stranger to every body, but still had confidence in my new friend; and again, to my bitter sorrow, I yielded. But day after day of anxious waiting passed until two weeks expired, and no new goods yet, but another lawn dress-pattern came for me to make for myself, and another two weeks rolled away with only hearing (he said) that the goods were on the way. But at the close of the third two weeks he was missing. Daily I waited his coming. At length I went on the street. I inquired for his name and the name of his father's store, when, to my utter astonishment, no such store or names were found in the city. Here in a strange place, deserted, ruined, and filled with shame, I had no heart to go to my friends." She had been here six months. I advised her not to remain in this house another twenty-four hours.

"But what shall I do? Mrs. Cassaday will lock me up if she knows I am going to leave her. She called me a fool for giving you that quarter; she says these Christians are down on us; and if any of us should die, there wouldn't one of them come to pray for us. I told her I believed you would," I told her to pack her trunk, and if she was down town near the time for the boat to leave for Cleveland, to call a drayman to take her trunk to the boat and follow it, if possible, before Mrs. Cassaday came in. I told her how to manage in going to her old employer, and to tell her you were deceived by that young man, but you found him untruthful. "As you say Mrs. Cassaday kept you sewing most of the time, you can tell her you were employed most of time in sewing; but do not, at present, tell her or your mother of the life you have lived, and place of your residence while here." She promised she would gladly take my advice, and leave for Cleveland the first opportunity. As we parted she leaned her head upon my shoulder, with fast dropping tears, and said, "I shall always thank you for acting the part of a mother in helping me away from this horrible place." The following morning she called to leave word with Mrs. Buck, that fortunately for her Mrs. Cassaday was out just in time for her to call a drayman, that had just gone with her trunk to the boat, and she was now on her way to Cleveland, happier than she had been in six months, and that she should do, in all respects, as I had advised. Here was a beautiful girl decoyed and led from the paths of virtue by an artful, designing, and licentious young man, who basely sought her ruin by winning the affections of an innocent girl. Hundreds and thousands of these girls are in like manner led astray, and might be saved if mothers in Israel would take them by the hand of sympathy and lift them from the mire of this moral pollution.

At another time a request was left with my hostess to go to see a very sick woman, who was thought nigh unto death; but for a little girl that heard the request I should not have received it. She said, these poor white trash would curse me in health, and when they thought they were going to die, they were ready then to send for me to pray for them; and, as I was tired enough to rest after teaching all day, she did not think I ought to go for their calls. I told her if she would be so kind as to deliver all errands of that character I would be very thankful, and hastened to the bedside of an old soldier of the cross, who, with her aged companion, were visiting their children. She said she did not expect to remain much longer in this world of checkered scenes; but her son had been here a short time only, and had not formed any acquaintances among Christian people, and their hired girl said "she was passing your school-house one morning and heard you opening your school with prayer, and I told her to find your boarding-place, and leave word for you to come after your school closed, as I wanted to hear the voice of prayer once more." I read a chapter and offered prayer by her bedside. She and her weeping husband and children thanked me for the call, and desired me to call the day following, after school. I found her somewhat improved, and the next door neighbor said Dutch Mary was in the adjoining room, and seemed much affected, and said that was the first she heard read from the Bible in seven years, and the first prayer she had heard in that time, and she would be glad to see me, but she would not disgrace me by coming to her house. Then the woman told her she would ask me to see her in her room, and send for her when I came to see the sick woman.

I met her in great distress of mind. She told me of the wicked life she had spent during the last seven years of her widowhood, and wanted to know if I thought there was any hope whatever for her. "Do you think God can forgive me? I have never so much as opened my Bible that lies in the bottom of my chest all these seven years, until yesterday I went home and took my Bible for the first time to read in these years; and I felt so condemned after I read awhile that I laid it back, and didn't know whether it was of any use; for I have lived such a wretched life so long I doubt whether God can forgive me, for I feel worse and worse. Do you believe he can?"

"Certainly he is able to save to the uttermost. It is the enlightening influence of God's Holy Spirit that is showing you the exceeding sinfulness of sin."

I read to her the readiness of the Lord Jesus to forgive sin. "How ready to bless the humble and contrite heart! Only believe this with all thy heart, and the blood of Jesus is sufficient to wash away every stain that sin has made. Though they be as scarlet, he will make them white as snow." We knelt together, and she too offered earnest prayer for strength to live the new life, which she firmly resolved to do.

I saw her a week later, and she said she informed those men with whom she had committed those darkest of sins of her firm resolution to live a virtuous life, and she locked her door; but they persisted in troubling her through the night, threatening to tear her house down or burn it.

"Three nights I suffered from them. But by constant prayer, believing God would take care of me, I was delivered from them. And I have plenty of washing, ironing, and house-cleaning to do; and I get along so much better than I expected I could. I do want to go to meeting; but so many know of my wicked life I am afraid to go inside of a church."

I told her to go to whichever Church she felt most at home, and the Lord would open the way for her, and enable her to bring up her little girl of eight years in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.