SISTER DORA.

XVIII
SISTER DORA.

In S. Hildegarde and S. Theresa we have had instances of two women of wonderful energy and talent, yet who achieved nothing of moment, because their powers were not directed into a channel where they might have been of use. S. Hildegarde, indeed, by her letters, threatening, warning, reproving, did a certain amount of good—not much; those misdoers who received her epistles winced and went on in their old courses. Nevertheless, she was a testimony to a worldly age of the higher life set before it in the Gospel than that world cared to follow.

S. Theresa, with a heart on fire with love to God, and inexhaustible energy, spent herself in founding little nunneries, in which the sisters were, as a reform, to wear sandals instead of shoes, and in which their natural gifts were to be reduced to a general level of incapacity, by giving them nothing practical to do, and by forbidding them the cultivation of their intellects.

Sister Dora, whose life I purpose sketching, strikes me as having been a double of S. Theresa, in the same persistency, determined will, fascination of manner, and cheerfulness. Neither could be happy until afforded scope for the exercise of her powers—but how different were the ends set before each!

A very charming biography of Sister Dora has been written by Miss Lonsdale, which, whilst admirably portraying her character, has given some umbrage by painting the people among whom she laboured in darker colours than they conceive is justified, and by a little heightening of the dramatic situations. She fell, moreover, into certain inaccuracies in matters of detail, and some of her statements have been contradicted by persons who were qualified to know particulars. What mistakes were made in that book have in part been corrected in later editions. But I cannot find that there was any accusation made of the authoress unduly idealising the character of Sister Dora. On the contrary, some think that Miss Lonsdale, in her desire not to appear a panegyrist, has given Sister Dora a tincture of unworthy qualities that were really absent from her character.[[10]]

In compiling this little notice I have taken pains to obtain information from those who knew Sister Dora intimately, and have had Miss Lonsdale’s book subjected to revision by such as live in Walsall or knew Walsall when she was there; and I trust that it is free from inaccuracies and exaggerations.

In addition to Miss Lonsdale’s Memoir two others appeared, one in Miss J. Chappell’s Four Noble Women and their Work, and another by Miss Morton, which has been characterised in the Walsall Observer as a “caricature.” Neither of these afford any additional matter of value.

In addition again, but of very different value, is a notice by Mr. S. Welsh, Secretary to the Hospital at Walsall, in which she worked, and who was introduced to her the day after she arrived there, and was on terms of intimacy with her till her death. His notice is in the General Baptist Magazine for 1889. This is the more valuable as being the testimony of one belonging to a different religious communion, and is, therefore, sure to be impartial. Another corrective to mistakes is contained in Sister Dora: a Review, published at Walsall in 1880. I enter into all these particulars at some length because Miss Lonsdale’s book was qualified by the Rev. Mark Pattison, Sister Dora’s brother, as “a romance,” and because some people have considered it to be so, misdoubting the main facts because of the inaccuracies in detail fastened on at the time. Mr. Mark Pattison was unqualified spiritually for entering into and appreciating his sister’s character; and of her life in Walsall he personally knew absolutely nothing. A cold and soured man, wrapped up in himself, he could not appreciate the overflowing charity and devotion of his sister.