# Women worth Emulating/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
Sarah Martin and the Last Duchess of Gordon.
LOWLY AND LOFTY LESSONS.
"One in Christ." "Rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the Maker of them all."
​temptation and hindrance. Loftiness of social position is frequently a stern limitation to freedom of action.
Yet, as in all things the Christian can come off conqueror through Him that helpeth him, many examples are found in modern biography of women whose social status has exhibited the greatest possible contrast, yet whose personal experience and life-work have plainly shown the oneness of their hope, and the true spiritual kinship of all believers.
I propose giving my young readers a brief sketch of two lives, taken from entirely different classes of society, each of which teaches them a most valuable lesson for time and eternity. I select that noble Christian lady, the last Duchess of Gordon, and the humble seamstress and pious philanthropist, Sarah Martin, of Great Yarmouth.
I take the last first. In the early years of the present century, a young girl might be seen at Yarmouth going to and from her work as a dress-maker's apprentice. There was nothing remarkable in her appearance, except perhaps a look of keen observation and intelligent thoughtfulness. She was an orphan, and had been reared by an aged, pious widow, her grandmother. Some schooling had been given her, and she was fond of reading in a desultory way.
It is rather a curious fact in the mental history of the orphan Sarah Martin, that she had a positive dislike to religion and the books that inculcated it, ​the Bible especially. Many young people are indifferent, or mere formalists in the matter of religion; but I think very few indeed can charge themselves with so strong a feeling as dislike.
At the time when Sarah Martin was a school-girl, the Bible was often made a lesson or a punishment book; and bat little was done to make its truths attractive or clear to the minds of the young. Pictorial aids, sweet narratives, poetic elucidations, and interesting questions were rarely used—never, I may say, in the ordinary schools of the time; so that the Scriptures seemed like a sandy desert, and young feet soon grew weary in traversing it. But our gracious Lord does not leave Himself without a witness, where there is a thinking mind. Frivolity and the love of pleasure are the thorns that most frequently choke the good seed of wisdom and truth.
At the age of nineteen, Sarah heard a sermon that impressed her, from the words: "Knowing the terrors of the law, we persuade men." This was a ray of light to her, but the dawn came slowly. It was however a great matter that, with the growing light, she was able to see herself as she was—a sinner. She began to read the Bible and examine for herself; but with at first no other result than great self-condemnation, and some confusion of mind from theological books. But as she beautifully says in her simple memoir, "Seeing salvation, not in ​its commencement only, bat from first to last to be entirely of grace, I was made free; and looking upon a once crucified, but now glorified Saviour, with no more power of my own than the praying thief had upon the cross, I also found peace"
This change of heart was followed, as, when real, it ever is, by a change of life. She began not only to search, but to love and rejoice in the Scriptures. The Bible was the companion of her leisure hours, and its precepts the guide of her actions. She was conscious that her former hardness of heart and dislike of religion had been a trial to the beloved aged parent who had protected her orphan childhood; and we can imagine the joy there was between the widow and the orphan when they were one in the faith and the hope of the gospel.
"Did you ever despair of my conversion?" she asked of her aged guardian. "No; I always prayed for you, my child," was the reply. Ah, dear readers, what constant, hallowed incense of prayer is rising from loving hearts for many of you! Long ere you could pray for yourselves, long after you have wilfully neglected prayer, the supplications have been and are continued. Think of it, and give your pious kindred the greatest joy that you can afford them, the sweet assurance that their prayers are answered.
It was quite in accordance with the true spirit of Christianity, that as soon as Sarah Martin's heart ​was right she should wish to be useful to others. Christianity is an active principle—swift, cheering, and vivifying as light.
She began, as many of our best young people begin to work for their Master, by teaching in the Sunday School. Here she found ready access to the hearts of the children of her class, and through them to their parents. Some memorable conversions through her instrumentality followed.
Then she had a strong desire to visit the poor in the workhouse. Her wish was granted; and here, too, she had almost immediate evidence that she was in the path of duty. District visitations, Bible classes and readings, home missionary activities, are all more modern plans of usefulness which existed not then; and the sight to the sick and aged poor of a kind young face bending in pity over them, and a gentle voice pleading with them and reading to them, must have been as a revelation of Heaven to many whose hold on earth had been painful and wearisome.
In the workhouse, Sarah Martinis first work was found. She did not confine her ministrations merely to the aged and the sick. She very wisely sought to do good to the children, then more likely to be trained for crime than for anything else, in our pauper houses. Any man who could read, and perhaps write a little, was selected from among the paupers as schoolmaster, irrespective of character and fitness. Of three, whom she in the course of ​years came in contact with at the workhouse, two were drunkards^ and one. was a thief! With her clear mind and sympathising heart, she pitied both the teachers and the taught, and strove, not in vain, to do them all good.
But her special life-work commenced in 1819, when she was about twenty-six years of age. She then gained admission to the prison. Here her plans were most practical. She set herself to shut out indolence, that seducer to crime, and her skill as a seamstress gave her great help in teaching the women and girls. She learned straw-plaiting and the making of bread seals, much used then, and some other occupations, so as to instruct the men in the prison. She knew that all reformation is but transitory that does not touch the heart and give some light to the soul; so in much diffidence, yet with devout resolution, she began to give some religious instruction. She read the Scriptures on the Sunday, and taught and encouraged the prisoners to read, and instituted and conducted for them a devotional service, there being there then no gaol chaplain.
Meanwhile, of course her business, on which she depended for bread, suffered. She gave up one entire working day in the week to teaching industrial pursuits in the prison. A lady paid her for another day, as if she were at work at dressmaking, so that she might devote herself more fully to these waifs and strays of humanity. Then ​she set on foot plans to preserve the prisoners, on their release, from the temptations of drunkenness and idleness, and was the means of reclaiming many from the ranks of crime to tread the path of honesty.
The Sabbath day of course was hers to spend, as the Lord appointed, in doing good to the souls of men. In her case we see what a blessed institution the Lord's-day is; how it affords to the worldweary and the criminal a means of spiritual refreshment and enlightenment; how the Christian, who has to toil for the bread that perisheth, may on this day break the bread of life, and rescue, from the hard grip of worldly . business, time to do and to get good. Oh, dear young reader, cherish your Sabbaths!
Twenty-three years of continued usefulness were permitted to this devoted woman. For the first half of these her services were unnoticed by any of the influential of the earth. She did them to the Lord—that was enough for her. Fees, reward, or praise, she never sought. Of course she had the inward recompense of an approving conscience; and the sweet tribute came to her of the tear of repentance, the smile of humble gratitude, and the blessing of those who were ready to perish.
But at length public sympathy was aroused. Inspectors of prisons and town councillors were startled into attention to her methods of reformation. The prison and its inmates were so altered. ​they could not but notice it. Her simple history and humble means became known and honoured. She was compelled—reluctantly on her part—to receive some acknowledgment, and the sum of twelve pounds a year was forced on her acceptance, which, with the interest of some three hundred pounds that she inherited on her grandmother's death, comprised her means of livelihood.
Very touching and sweet were the little addresses which she composed for the prisoners, and also for the workhouse children. Always warm from the heart, and vital with her own experience, were her teachings, and that made her so successful in winning souls from Satan's dominion.
Never of robust health, her constitution became seriously impaired; and from April, 1843, to the October of that year, she became the tenant of a sick room, prostrated by a painful illness, from which, after much suffering, she was released by death. Her pen, during intervals of her pain, was used when she could no longer speak to those for whom she had laboured; she wrote affectionately to them, and one address she prepared to be read to them the Sunday after her death.
Her own summary is the best close to this sketch:
"In the absence of all human sufficiency on my part, whether of money or influence or experience, it is plain that God alone inclined my heart, instructed me by His Word, and carried me forward in hope and peace. Hence arises the boundless ​encouragement which it presents to others; for the most humble individual may, in any department of the providence of God, build on the promises as firm as eternity. 'Whatever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,' Yes; for grace will prompt the prayer, and make it in accordance with the Divine mind and will."
We are differently led; and such a work as Sarah Martin did is not appointed to many; but all workers in the Lord's vineyard can emulate her self-sacrifice, her diligence, her faith, her love, and thus live blessing and blessed.
Elizabeth, Duchess of Gordon,
was descended from the noble Scottish family of Brodie. Her mother died when she -was six years of age. Two maiden aunts at Elgin then took charge of her, and though motherless, she had a happy, healthy, mirthful childhood. She was removed for education to a boarding-school near London; and without anything in her career out of the ordinary course of a young lady of her rank, she made progress in all that she was taught, and grew up dignified in person and graceful in manners.
Her father seems to have been careful to instil ​humility into her mind; and she seems always to have remembered, as well as recorded in her journal, his saying, "If I did all I ought to do, I should still be an unprofitable servant."
At nineteen. Miss Brodie was introduced into society, and was speedily much admired. She seems to have mingled with a gay circle, who thought that, if they gave a sort of patronage to religion by attendance at church in the morning, they might spend the evening in pleasure—even at cards! A reproof that sank deep came to this young lady from a very unexpected quarter. She was very fond of children, and a beautiful child of three or four years old being in the house she was visiting, she amused herself by playing with the little creature and winning its love. One day, however, when she called to her little playfellow, the child would not come, but turned away, saying, —
"No; you are bad—you play cards on Sunday."
Struck to the heart by this admonition, she replied sadly, "I was wrong; I will not do it again;" and she resolutely kept her word. Who can say but that one little seed of truth, wafted on an infantas breath, sunk deep into the recesses of her mind to spring up vigorously in after-days.
In 1813, she married the Marquis of Huntly, and for many years her life resembled that of other merely fashionable people. She was not blessed with children; and she, and her lord, who was many years her senior, travelled much on the ​Continent, and saw the brilliant life of many great cities, as well as that of London and Edinburgh.
This lady lived to record that her career was unprofitable and idle. She was not happy in this state. There was a latent perception that life was given for a higher purpose than dressing and visiting, laughing and talking—that under the thin veil of pleasure there lurked selfishness and vice—and her moral sense was aroused. In her distress, she sought refuge in her Bible,—that fortress for the weary soul—that asylum for the sin-sick spirit. The Scriptures soon became to her—what they are to every earnest student—a guide through the labyrinth of the world.
One day she was found by gay companions reading the Bible, and they ventured to ridicule her, and spread a report that the Marchioness of Huntly had turned Methodist. The weapon of ridicule, while it alarms the weak, is often a useful goad to arouse the strong. Lady Huntly was not a person to be laughed out of her convictions. More than ever she resolved to persevere in a new endeavour to attain a higher life than she had yet lived, and grace was given her to begin to work for God and man with a zeal that never wearied.
At Kimbolton Castle her entire change in the mode of employing her time was first known among her circle. Lady Olivia Sparrow, of pious memory, became her friend, and some few like-minded women of rank were her companions.
​In 1827, the old Duke of Gordon died, and Lord and Lady Huntly came from Geneva to take possession of Gordon Castle. Lady Huntly was thirty-three years of age when she became Duchess of Gordon. Her distinguished rank only deepened her sense of responsibility. She had felt the burden of sin, and the sweet sense of release from that burden by being enabled to cast it off at the feet of Jesus; and nothing was stronger, as a distinct purpose with her, than to live by faith and prayer a life of usefulness. With this purpose kept steadily in view, her coronet did not so much ennoble her, as she added a lustre to it.
Of course she had her difficulties and seasons of depression, for her piety was likely to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Once, when somewhat low-spirited, it is recorded in her life, she was visiting a ruined old castle on the Gordon estates, and saw some stone letters over a fire-place that none of the company could read. She pensively lingered after the rest, when on a sudden a sunbeam streamed through the hall, and she read in its light the words taken from an old version of the Bible: "To thaes that love God all things virkkis to tee best." She recorded, "It was a message from the Lord to my soul, and came to me with such power that I went on my way rejoicing.^
She resolved, as far as lay within her own ​province, to regulate her house in the fear of the Lord. Her discretion and sweetness prevented her pious plans from annoying the duke, who did not then see as she saw; but instead of his being estranged, his affections were increased, for he knew that lofty principle guided her actions. When calamities came—as a fire that destroyed one wiug of Gordon Castle, and a great flood that not only devastated the duke's property but injured his poorer tenantry—he said in his grief, "I have been unfortunate in everything except a good wife"
The establishment of schools on her estate was the first work of benevolence on which the duchess entered. In these she took deep interest, visiting them herself and questioning the children, the infant school especially. A pretty incident is recorded of a visit once made to the latter. She took a bright little boy on her lap, and put the question, to the children who gathered round her knees, "What does Jesus mean where He says, 'Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven?'" Nothing is harder some-times (even to far elder folks than were listening to the duchess) than a definition, and therefore it is not surprising that she failed to get an answer. Turning to the child on her lap, she repeated the question; and he said, "A little child kens (knows) that it can do naething its lane" (alone, or of itself) . It certainly was a beautiful exposition, never to be forgotten by the noble lady who once again heard ​from the lips of a child a blessed truth: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings He perfecteth praise."
The losses of property recorded, rather limited the Duchess of Gordon's liberality; and her visitations and benefactions to the poor, her schools, and other charities taxed her personal resources to their full extent. In the spring of 1835, while the family were out at dinner, her jewel chest was stolen from their town house in Belgrave Square. Scarcely any but the plainest of her ornaments was left her. Her comment on this was, "My treasure is where thieves do not break through and steal."
Queen Adelaide, who was a personal friend, sympathising in her loss, sent her a handsome present of her own favourite jewels—a gift valued for the spirit of the giver, more than for any other worth. In 1836, the Duchess of Gordon became a widow. She had the inexpressible satisfaction of seeing that change of heart in her beloved husband which is, the Christian's greatest consolation in bereavement. Her faithfulness was thus recompensed, and her deep sorrow sanctified.
Removing to her dower house, Huntly Lodge, henceforth her life and fortune were devoted to extending the Saviour's kingdom. Her work in founding schools was followed by building places of worship. To this end, when she had not money to give, she devoted relics of former splendour. A gold vase, worth £1,200 was so dedicated. Then, ​in process of time, her jewels were again thus given. In former years she had recorded, "The duke allowed me to sell £600 worth of diamonds, quaintly saying 'that stones were much prettier in a chapel wall than around one^s neck'"
Now that she had no one to consult but her own will, she cheerfully laid her ornaments on the altar of benevolence and piety.
On the disruption of the Church of Scotland, on the subject of State patronage, the Duchess of Gordon took a most decided course. It is impossible to do anything like justice in this brief sketch to so important a subject as the establishment of the Free Church of Scotland. It is enough to record that, faithful to her convictions, the Duchess of Gordon helped forward what she believed to be the right. It was a trial—a loss to her—to be obliged to differ from many whom she loved and esteemed; but we have seen enough of her character to know that she would not confer with flesh and blood, or be deterred by any worldly considerations in treading what she deemed the path of duty. Her course was resolute, and her name will ever be venerated among those faithful ministers of the Kirk, who were willing to encounter the loss of all earthly benefits, so that the purity of the Church, in their belief, might be promoted.
Of course, for years there was turmoil and great searchings of heart; but yet, living among her ​schools and cottages, and doing her works of kindliness, this honoured lady was kept in perfect peace.
A severe illness in January, 1861, from which she recovered, was felt as a premonition of the end. She diligently began from that time to set her house in order; comforting her heart by thinking of others, and devising good to the hundreds of children in her schools and to their parents.
Her last illness was rather sudden, and it does not seem that she was aware of its alarming character; but her life had long been a preparation for death. Holy living is what we should emulate, and leave the dying testimony to shape itself as the Lord directs.
On Sunday evening, the 31st of January, in her seventieth year, she closed her eyes on this world, to open them in the land of the blest; realizing the words of her favourite hymn, on the last words of Rutherford:—
"The sands of time are sinking; The dawn of heaven breaks; The summer morn I've sighed for— The fair sweet morn, awakes. Dark, dark, hath been the midnight, But the dayspring is at hand; And glory, glory dwelleth In our Immanuel's land."
* ↑ Life of Sarah Martin, p. 9. Beligious Tract Society.
* ↑ Life of the last Duchess of Gordon. By Kev. A. Moody Staart.