It was principally owing to this impression, and also the great desire which I felt to do something, however feeble, to bring more happiness and comfort into the houses of my poor neighbours, that induced me, five or six years ago, to commence a Mothers’ Society. The usual ways of helping the poor seemed to me to effect little real good. The nice soup sent for the sick man was spoiled by being smoked in the warming up, or by the taste infused into it from the dirty saucepan: the sago intended for the infant was burnt, or only half cooked; and medicine and food alike failed to be efficacious in the absence of cleanliness, and in the stifling air which the poor patient was doomed to breathe. The mothers of the little, thin, fretful babies would complain to me that they could not think why the child did so badly, for they managed to get a rasher of bacon for it whenever they could, and always fed it two or three times in the night. I saw that the wise man was indeed right in saying “that knowledge is the principal thing;” and that if I could help them in any way to “get knowledge,” it would be a gift far surpassing in value anything else I could offer them. The applications constantly made to me for information on the best modes of establishing and conducting these Societies, induce me to suppose that they have taken some hold on the public mind, and that these institutions supply a want that is every day increasingly felt.
The only value that can be attached to any remarks which I have to make is, that they are the result of some years’ experience; and that the plans which I have adopted, though capable of great improvement, have been to some extent successful. But the principal motive in my own mind for sending these simple narratives forth into the world is, the hope that more attention than ever may by their means be directed to that great and difficult subject, the improvement of the homes of the poor. As a few notes of a bird, the lisping of a child, the sound of the wind dying away, have sometimes been sufficient to awaken the spirit of harmony in some master-mind, and so led to the composition of the music which has thrilled and delighted all who have heard it; so, it is hoped, the suggestions here made may be of use to many minds, and that anything already effected may be as the drop to the showers, or as the first buds of spring to the luxuriance of summer.
8 Lansdowne Crescent,
May 10, 1859.
CONTENTS.
| PAGE |
Introductory Chapter | |
CHAPTER I. | |
A Village—Not Picturesque | |
CHAPTER II. | |
Illustrations of Character | |
CHAPTER III. | |
Slow Advancing | |
CHAPTER IV. | |
Sowing Seed | |
CHAPTER V. | |
Homes and No Homes | |
Difficulties | |
CHAPTER VII. | |
Giving and Receiving | |
CHAPTER VIII. | |
Light upon a Dark Subject | |
CHAPTER IX. | |
Our Missionaries | |
CHAPTER X. | |
Our Baby | |
CHAPTER XI. | |
Letters | |
CHAPTER XII. | |
Obstacles: Who shall remove them? | |
Appendix | |
INTRODUCTORY.
“Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less and more.”Wordsworth.
A FEW weeks ago I was visiting the Library in the British Museum. Two gentlemen, who stood near me, appeared very earnest in the pursuit of something which they wanted. Presently, by an exclamation of delight, I understood that their search had been successful; they had found what they had sought. And what had they found? A very old book, so badly printed as to be read with difficulty, and containing information of what must have taken place at least two thousand years ago—information very interesting and important to the old Romans, no doubt; and which would have been still more so, if they could have foreseen what delight it would have imparted, centuries later, to two inhabitants of a remote island in the north, who could not possibly be affected by it. But so it is: some minds prefer to dwell on the past; others live in the present; and some seem of opinion that “man never is, but always to be, blest.” This diversity is no doubt necessary; all do some good: the antiquarian adds to the interest of our libraries, if not of our lives; and we owe much to those who teach us to look forward, if they will only at the same time help us to look upward: but to such as wish to do something, who desire to have an influence on the great living history which every day is writing afresh, the passing events of the time have the greatest charm, because they not only present food for reflection, but opportunity for exertion.
We not unfrequently hear people speak of life in such a way as would lead us to suppose that there had been some mistake as to the date of their birth. Had they come a little earlier or a little later, it would have been different; but the present seems to afford them no object of interest. They complain of intolerable dulness, the weariness of life; and in watching the cheerless, the objectless existence of such people, we wonder that it is recorded of only a single individual, that one morning he shot himself, for the reason assigned on a slip of paper which he had left on the dressing-table—“I am tired of living only to breakfast, dine, and sup.”
I have often thought, when listening to such complaints, of the prayer of Elisha for his unbelieving servant, “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see;” and if the Lord would do for them as He did for this servant, and open their eyes—not to see “mountains full of horses and chariots of fire” waiting to deliver them—but alleys, and lanes, and villages, full of the needy and the sick, waiting for loving hearts and kind hands to come and help them to rise from their degradation, wretchedness, and filth,—the strain would be changed; and, in the contemplation of such a vast amount of labour, followed by such rich reward, we should rather expect to hear, if it must still be the language of complaint:—