One subject that comes under my notice, very frequently, is the inquiry for places of service for the daughters, sisters, and friends of the higher class of women in our society. Many secrets of service have been confided to me; and I ought, therefore, to be wise; but the subject is difficult. It is painful to be constantly hearing from mistresses that there are scarcely any good servants to be met with; and from servants, “there is no good places going, scarce.” Something must be wrong. That two classes so necessary to each other, and intended by the wise Disposer of all events to bless and benefit each other, should entertain such feelings of animosity and ill-will, is deeply to be deplored. If there is any remedy for so great an evil, if any solution of so difficult a problem is possible—here, almost more than on any other subject, is there room for the whole energy of the philanthropist—here is one of the most direct roads that can offer, to the elevation of those who greatly need raising, and to the amelioration of our whole social system.
I think it must now be three or four years since several circumstances brought this matter more prominently before us. I said that we would give up one evening to the special discussion of it. I appointed the next week, and invited the mothers to bring with them their own daughters, and any young people they liked. The number that came, shewed that the subject was popular with them.
It was not difficult to find an appropriate Scripture lesson for the evening. The Old Testament abounds with interesting reference to servants. It is remarkable that the first-recorded appearance of an angel in this world was to a servant—Hagar. Abraham’s servant, Eliezer, was to him as his right hand. The character which we particularly dwelt upon was Rebecca’s nurse, Deborah,—beginning at the first mention of her. “And they sent away Rebecca, their sister, and her nurse.” We traced her probable life, as can easily be done from the history that is given us of the families in which she lived; the long quiet years with Isaac and Rebecca alone, when she doubtless had her trials, arising, perhaps, from the want of perfect truthfulness in her mistress, or from the quiet, contemplative disposition of her master, who did not always appreciate her efforts to please. Then came two little boys to be nursed, who, while they gratified her pride, gave her as much trouble as little boys of the present day. How often the nurse and mother conversed together about them, as they grew up to be young men!—Deborah sometimes, with a heavy heart, not liking to tell the mother all that went on behind her back. Her earlier discovery of the vast difference in the dispositions of the brothers, had already awakened in her mind a fear that trouble was in the distance. And when the trouble came—when the little household, once so peaceful, was distracted by the contention of the brothers—when the uncongenial daughters-in-law, who were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca, were introduced into the family—when her mistress discovered too late, that whatever is purchased at the expense of truth, brings only sorrow—and when at last she had to witness the distress of her mistress in parting with her favourite son,—through all this, how often must the kind assistance and sympathy of this faithful servant have been sought! how many tears shed by the poor mother in secret were wiped away by the hand of this unfailing friend!
After the last kind offices were performed for Rebecca, we find Deborah in Jacob’s family, living her old life over again in the care of his children, and winning love and respect even from Rebecca’s lawless descendants. Is it any wonder, if, after all this, a chosen spot, “under an oak,” was selected as the place of her burial, and that the numerous family who attended her to the grave should have wept so much, that the name of the place ever after was called “Allon-bachuth,” the “oak of weeping?”
Now, how many times, through all these eventful years, difficult and trying circumstances must have occurred: long illness, perhaps; quarrelsome children to contend with; great changes in the household management; and so forth? A modern servant would have said, many times over, “Well, I can’t stand this; I must be off, and try for something easier.” “If people will get into such messes, they must get out of them.” “It is no business of mine: all I have to do is to take care of myself;” and off she would have gone. After repeating this many times, is it any wonder that, instead of finding a home in the house of a master’s favourite son, and attended to her grave by a weeping family, she finds herself an outcast in the world, and understands the true and bitter meaning of what, in the heyday of her health and strength, she used boastingly to sing—
“I care for nobody, no, not I,
And nobody cares for me?”
“But now, ma’am,” said one of the women, “I don’t think it’s fair to speak of places as if they could be always stopped in. I have had my daughter ill at home for months. She was expected to be on her legs from seven o’clock in the morning till twelve at night, and only two hours out every other Sunday: she had to sleep in a room beside the kitchen, so that she never changed the air hardly; and she got so ill, that I am sometimes afeard she’ll never get well again.”
“And, ma’am,” said another, “some missuses is so mean, they wouldn’t like anybody like you to know; so that you might go to a house many times, and never find it out: but they stints the poor servants in their food and their rest, and seems to be always a-thinking how much they can get out of ’em, and how little they can give ’em. I’m sure I know people about here that ain’t fit to take care of a dog.”
Several others spoke to the same effect.
At last I said, “I should, indeed, be sorry for you to suppose that I think it is entirely the fault of servants that we are doing so badly in this way at the present time. So far from it, I think mistresses are quite as much to blame as servants. But it would not be a wise thing for us to spend the little time we have together here in talking about what we cannot help.