The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-09-15
For the National Era. !
MY He r. 0 N { .
BY EDWARD sHNcER;

% ID"'ND " 1890
CHAPTERI
Mediocre and cowardly as the people of this
world are, in the general average, many heroes
and heroines have yet spruag from their midst.
1t is very well for us that this has so happened,
for we all of us need tonics, and there is not
greater moral stimulant in existence than just
this personal example. We, who live in these
modern times, and who pad 10 history and
biography, need not to be told how many are the
operations of personal example, nor how potent
its influence. From Alexander's studies in
Achillean deeds, down to Miss Nightingale and
her corps of nurses at Scutsf, wesee continual
ly how the stars lead, and The wisest not only
do not disdain to follow, bet are prompted to
the deed itself by the stars presence. And,
where one is ploted by 9. star, there are ten
thousand who follow on h safety and loving
kindness after the feeble but true shining tapers
which are everywhere held up to guide us
through the paths of private; life. 1t is wonder
full indeed to reflect upon she grand antisepsic
influence of individual herdssm !; and it is i'm
possible, almost for us to over estimate its eff
fciency towards the regeneration or, at least,
safely, of the world. Still more wonderful is
the fact of this heroism itself, and that such
thing should by any means be possible where
sel6shness holds such suprasne sway. 1t is no
great task to be hero before the eyes of the
world it is comparatively easy for a man to
do and say great things, when he knows he has
mankind for audience and spectator. ] sup
pose no one will doubt but that the gazing city
gave nerve to Horatius, when he hewed away
at the bridge, with the enemy at his heels; and
/ am pretty sure that Maniius Consul remem-
bered the kept archives of Rome's great sons,
when he spurred him into the pit. So, think
there is higher kind of E,roisn than this, a
heroism purely unselfsh, ose whose act is I'M
seen, which per chance recVls upon the actor,
and, anyhow, goes entirely pn5ewarded, save o.
itself and of God. This Is what | mean by
"private heroism," and from t9 most retired
walks wish to single out an example, such as
perhaps would rarely be met with, and one so
entirely rounded and signal that fiction would
not venture to attempt it. Excepting names,
what / shall relate is true in almost every par
ticuar of fact, and, so far as have been able
to make it, in every essential Of color and pro-
portion.
She, my heroine, is dead long. since, but still
lives in the memory Of many.grateful hearts,
who have owed prosperity happiness, perhaps
even their capacity for gratitnds, to her minis
trations and aid. She died fuA of years, and
my earliest recollections picture Miss Betsy
$50 every one called herr as axauiet little old
maid, who wore usually a subtSed sort of mob
cap, that impresses me as beits less extrava-
gantly ugly than the orthodox pattern, and,
1 H., III la;, ot- hon
net with satin ribbons. These, and her habitual
black silk apron with its outside pockets, are
the only features of her dress which can re-
member, and probably am able to recall 80
much simply because of some subtle but I'M
conscious sense Of aesthetic fitness emanatng
| from them.
| But / very distinctly remember her face, pale,
peck marked and thin, but lighted up by such
sweet and placid smile that it was really
pleasant to look upon her. The lovely soul
that was hers beamed out so beautifully bright,
that no one could fail to recognise its nobility !;
had she worn very deaths head, we would
have hailed it with pride, conscious of the
honey hived therein. The disease which had
so scanned her face had taken forever the light
from one of her eyes, but the other, soft and
brown, shone with a compromising significance
of charity and loving kindness towards all men,
and withsl, invested her eptire aspect with an
air of such eminent sweet contentment that she
| impressed every one as if knowing peace like
the peace of country church-yard There was
perhaps little spice of primness in her man
ner, and she was indisputapy an old maid {"
but you forgot all that when you heard her
speak, for no voice was ever more exquisitely
modulated, sweet and low" yet rich, flexible,
musical, and full of unutterable melody, loaned
her of Heaven. No amounting oil of confession
1 n fox Df ON Cd
the soul of the wearied hfearaveller, sinking to
his last rest, did her voice, singing some gen
tie hymn of Charles WESLEY, or of Isaac Watts,
fit and touching orchestral accompaniment to
the ringing down of life's cartainI That music
could watt soul on its way homeward, as the
murmur of running waters will lull an infant to
slumber and to pleasant dreamsl
Thus / remember Miss Betsy in my early
childhood, and remember that with my rever-
ence and love for her was mingled feeling
indescribably compact of. respect, sympathy,
compassion, and regret, born perhaps of a
subtle consciousness that only the touch of
profound sorrow could so e<quisitely attune the
chords of life into responsive harmony with the
worlds nocturne music. Terceiving how emf,
nently she was a Sister sof Charity" in the
| most comprehensive and beautiful sense of the
term seeing how universal was her sympathy
and acquaintance with grief, how untiring her
efforts to assuage it from the simple salve of
honeyed word with which spe healed the child's
cut finger, to the deep and thrilling prayers
which she made into balm for the bruised and
broken heart; beholding her intimacy with
sorrow, her knowledge of the hidden springs
of woe, l could not fail, eten in my most un-
reasoning childhood, to recognise the fact that
she must have become acquainted with these
things through her own Heart, that she must
have learned their language, and been taught
their mysteries, out of thes.experiences of her
own soul. Sympathy only follows subjective
knowledge. TO be able to touch with healing
balsam the very secret spot of sorrow, we must
have felt the blow ourselves, and, through our
own senses, been taught to know where 1t will