“Yes; these white curtains I bought last ar’n’t quite so nice as I should like ’em to be.”
I smiled. I could not help looking back a few years, and remembering the wretched hovel in which I had first become acquainted with her and her children, when even a pair of clean hands or a clean face would have been as great a rarity as snow in harvest.
“Why, Mrs R—,” I added, “you have become particular, indeed. I see something new every time I come. I don’t know where you are going to stop.”
“Never, I hope, ma’am. We saves up, and gets one little thing after another; and such rejoicing goes on here at every fresh thing that comes. The children have saved their halfpence for a long time past, and last week they bought two new hymn-books; and the first thing we hear in the morning, when we wakes, is their singing; and their voices is so pretty.”
The children rushed to shew their treasures, carefully unwrapped them from the paper, and produced two threepenny “Curwen’s Hymn-books.” No landed proprietor could have felt richer, or looked happier.
“I often think, ma’am,” said the mother, “of how we was when you first came to us; and I often think, too, how I could dare to keep such a place for my poor husband and children as I did then. I hope the Lord have forgive me.”
Here was the secret of all this social improvement. “How can I dare to keep so much misery about me, that I could and ought to prevent? How can I dare to leave these children, whom God has entrusted to me to train for Him, without trying in any way to prepare them either for time or for eternity? How shall I dare to stand before God’s judgment throne, to give an account of the deeds done in the body?” It is this awakening of conscience that alone enables a poor mother to see her true position, and gives her the courage and resolution to do her best for her husband and children, in the face of difficulties of which the rich have scarcely any idea. Where conscience has slumbered long, or, as in most cases, has never been aroused, the progress will often be slow; but let this right principle be once established, and the work is done.
In introducing subjects of a domestic nature, the word “us” should be more frequently used than “you.” It is well sometimes to speak particularly of our own difficulties and mistakes; it helps our listeners to regard us as fellow-sufferers—as friends, who can understand and sympathise with them. When a poor mother tells us how much misery the bad behaviour of her children is causing her, we must not say (though it might be true), “Ah! that is just the natural consequence of all your bad management; if you had only done what I advised, it would not have happened.” It must be—(and what mother cannot truthfully say so?)—“Ah! I can feel for you; for my children trouble me a good deal sometimes, and occasion me much anxiety. I don’t know what I should do, if I could not bring them to God in prayer, and hope in His mercy for them.”
On one occasion, while about to leave home for a few weeks, I received a message from a poor woman that several of her children had been attacked by fever. I could not, of course, go to her then; but I wrote to her the next day from the sea-side. I happened to mention, in my letter, that I was under some anxiety for the health of one of my children. In her reply, after thanking me for my remembrance of her, she said, “And I thank you very much for telling me about your own child being ill. I pray for her, too, when I pray for my own children; and I seem to feel more sure that God will hear me.”
During the first year, as I have already mentioned, I had to conduct this society alone; being without the kind assistance which I now enjoy. I was, of course, very anxious that nothing should ever prevent my being there at the appointed time. I had at one time, for some days, been suffering from toothache; and when the day for the meeting came, I was in such an unnerved state, that the slightest noise distressed me very much. But when the evening came, I felt that I must go. I remember standing at the foot of the stairs, trembling in every nerve; and wondering how it was possible to mount to the top, and go into the room to face all the women. I had, indeed, to look up to “Him who giveth power to the faint;” and He did not forsake me.