Connecticut western news., 1876-02-25
AN OBSCURE LIFE.
What n Poor Woman Did for Humanity Without Ostentati0n and with no Hopo of Earthly Reward.

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 | Without Ostentati0n and with no Hope 1 of Earthly Reward.
 | Here is the record of an obscure life which may be worth the attention oi that intelligent, well-to-do majority which1is made up, after all, of obscure people. It is story which suits all classes or any time, yet perhaps this especial time best, when men and womer in the cities who have anxiously tried to be of service to God and their fellow men are aptto be daunted and depressed | by the contrast between the great work accomplished by others and their OWL domestic quiet labor. The story is oi | 8 poor seamstress in mill town in Indi ana, who was left widow some fifteen years ago, dependent on her needle fol her daily. bread: She lived near one o1 the factories where hundreds of both sexes were employed, and night and morning large gargs of girls and men passed her door miserably hungry and gloomy, or more miserably boisterous. It was a mill where the hands are driven like cattle and regarded as cattle in every other sense.- The woman who saw the young girls pass so often that she learned to know their faces pitied them as mother might have done. Indeed, we question if she had any exceptional quality or means of influence in the world other than her motherly nature. She was an uneducated, homely little body, but with patience and tenderness enough in her heart to serve all the children in the world. CT wanted,' she said, "to give these girls a chance like other women ]; they had no chance as it was to be anything better than the mules which drew away the stuff they spun."
 Our poor reformer took one-just one girl into her kitchen. She half starved herself to do that. She made the girl clean, and taught her to remain clean taught her to scrub, wash, cook, and tell the truth. It took years to accomplis b so much; years of patience and sef-sac- riflce. When she had finished, instead of @ coarse dirty animal, she had nodded for use and service in the world 0 clean minded honest woman, with skillful hands and intelligent brain. She took one after another of these wretched girls and trained them as seamstresses, cooks, chambermaids, at her own cost of time and money. Situations were readily found for them; the housekeepers of the town soon discovered how different the women were whom she had trained from any others; but she never parted with them unless she was confident that the work she had begun would be carried on in the same hearty spirit. In two cases the girls whom she thus adopted were deformed and sickly. These both remained with her until her death, sup porting themselves by some light handi- work. In other cases they were rescued from worse places than the mill. A few of the girls became sincere Christians, but all (except one) led virtuous, hon. est, useful lives. One peculiar effect of her training was that her pupils caught from her her own genial, helpful spirit; they were missionaries of kindness in their humble world: and cheerful face in a cook, or gentle, tender manner in a nursemaid, are not merits so common as to be despised.
 The widow and her work were never known to fame, even in the town where she lived. People supposed when she took larger house so as to accommo- date more inmates that she kept kind of
 
 house, and there were not wanting many in her own rank of life to hint that she paid herself somehow from the labor of these poor that she "feathered her nest we'll" None of tho women whom she had helped ever wronged her by @ suspicion. Next to God, whom she faithfully tried to teach them to serve, they believed in Der. If she had proved humbug, the faith of many poor soul in His goodness would have been shaken, for all they knew of the goodness or beauty or pleasure He has sent into the world they knew through this poor woman. There were other women who could preach of Christ by words more effectually than she some of them, quite as uncultured, had a "gift of prayer, or a real native eloquence which moved their hearers in class meeting or the church. Aunt Hannah, as she was called, never spoke in class or meeting she was slow and dull of speech any where. She often no doubt felt her de- ficiencies bitterly, and wished that she could serve her Master in some great and striking way. It seemed poor commonplace thing to her, as it may to our readers, to teach girls how to make or wear clothes neatly, or to cook a savory dinner to watch and labor in- cessantly day after day, year after year |, to wipe out this or. that little fault, to strengthen weak virtue. She would have been glad, no doubt, as we all would, to convert the great masses of vice and uncleanliness in the world into purity and goodness, in an hour-to play Divine Providence, in word. In stead, she had small, coarse work set before her, and did it. Of another woman it was said, "She hath done what she could," when she anointed her Sayior's head with precious ointment.