"Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." This is very high praise, but Grace Darling deserves it. Few women, if any, have done so good a deed as she. It was not for the sake of winning renown, praise, or reward. There were no witnesses of her act, excepting her aged father, and the poor creatures to whose help she had come. It would have been very different had it been a deed that could have been done before an admiring world. For instance, Joan of Arc was a noble girl, full of inspiration and courage; but her deeds were great as the world looks on greatness, and there was much of pomp and show about her achievements. But this girl went out on the angry waters in the grey light of an early morning, with the simple purpose in her heart of saving from drowning those whose lives were in jeopardy. She did not care whose lives they were. They might be only those of a few poor sailors or emigrants. It did not matter to Grace. They were human lives, and therefore precious. She must have had the purest motives in what she did, and in this she excelled many women who have been praised. Dear, indeed, she was to the hearts of her father and mother, and all who were more immediately concerned, and dear also to the world, which admired her heroic virtues. Another sermon which she preaches from this chapter is, that women should not be satisfied with less than the best. Even good actions and kind words are not enough; they must be the sincere expressions of good and pure motives.
"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." There have been other illustrious women besides Grace Darling: some, whose beauty has been so great, that men have gone mad over it, and hearts have been broken, and homes made desolate by it. But when we come to search for any good which came of it, we cannot find it. Beauty was there, but not "the fear of the Lord." When these two are seen together, then indeed there is
"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command."
Grace Darling was not what is called beautiful; but she had a pleasant face, and she made no wrong use of it. She had favour, too; but, perhaps, in her case, it was not deceitful. But better than beauty or favour is conscientiousness, that fears to do wrong and displease God. It is true that she did not parade her religion, and even refused to give satisfactory answers to some of those who sat in judgment over her, and wished to pry into her Christian experience; but no one could know her, or could read the records that have come down to us, without knowing that she was "a woman who feareth the Lord." There is a rule by which she never needed to have feared to be judged, "By their works ye shall know them." And Grace Darling's life showed only good fruits. Her heart must have been right, or her actions must not have been so worthy. And few women ever found greater truth in the words, "She shall be praised." She was praised, indeed, most eloquently and generously. She had not to complain that she was not appreciated, for honours were heaped upon her, both while she lived and after she was dead. And now a new generation adds its honours to those which were rendered by the old.
Will not the women who read this history also take the wise words to heart? Favour is deceitful. To be praised is not enough to satisfy a woman's heart alone. To be admired and flattered may be pleasant while it lasts; but it does not last long. People soon tire of their favourites, and cast them aside for new ones; and then there is desolation indeed in the hearts of those that have been carelessly rejected. And beauty is vain. It is often a snare to its possessor. The love which owes its being to nothing besides is not particularly worth having. For beauty fades; and the faded flower is often thrown away as something that is worthless. But beauty and favour are indeed God's gifts, which many women know how to use to His glory, and the good of those who love them, or are in any way connected with them. But it is only where these things are sanctified and controlled by the fear of God that they are really valuable possessions. The first thing necessary, then, is to seek that religion which comes from above, and, making the heart right, causes the life to be also right.
The last verse of this remarkable chapter of Proverbs is peculiarly applicable to the case of Grace Darling—"Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates." No true, and kindly person will begrudge her the praise she received, since she really earned it. She sowed the seeds, and it was only right that she should reap the fruit. And of all the praises that were heaped upon her none equalled the simple unvarnished story of her own deed. To describe her exploit, with no word of comment, was to load her with commendation of the highest kind. And it is well indeed when that can be said of any woman—which is always the case when her life is right. On the whole, even now people get pretty much what they deserve. For a little time an individual may be misunderstood and maligned; but in the long run it will be found that
"Ever the right comes uppermost,
And ever is justice done."
The world is not so unfair as it seems. It is not very quick to read people, but it gets to comprehend them at last, and no one who is really good has to confess that he gets no praise.
These seem to be the teachings of Grace Darling's life. If the women of these times will take them to their hearts, and profit by them, the noble lighthouse-girl will do a better and more enduring work now, than when she went out with her father to the wreck of the "Forfarshire."