Smyrna times., 1877-08-15
Sabbath School History.
For the Smyrna Times

The eight ladies, founders of the Union
Sunday School, were ali members or proba.
TONERS of the NJ. E. Church, save two.
One OF them was the granddaughter of the
Rev. Mr.. Abbott, so celebrated in the early
history of Methodism in the Atlantic
States; the other was of Presbyterian de.
scent, and after she left Smyrna Joined
the Presbyterian church, i'll Wilmington,
of which the greatly admired Mr. Gilbert
was pastor. In 1885 she left the United
States and travelled extensively in Europe,
married in Africa, and sojourned at Algiers
with her husband, who was general in the
French army during the reign of Lewis
Phillip, and second in command of the
French forces. She ultimately settled in
Devonshire, England, and died there in
December, 1862.
In the early part of the present century,
plain costume for the ladies in Smyrna was
the rule-gay attire was the exception.
This may be attributed to the influence of
of the two predominant sects here, the
Methohsts and Friends. Their apparel was
of the plainest description, and their au.
thority unquestioned. Only one of the
eight had ever exercised her taste in dress,
and she was beyond their discipline.
When her heart was touched bv divine
grace, she abandoned her fashionable garb
and went into the school as plain as the
rest. Some of these teachers dressed
palmer than usual when in the school, so
that the children's attention might not be
diverted from spiritual teaching by out.
ward appearances. Becausethey were plain
it need not be supposed they were INDECENT,
for the parents of some of them were
among our most wealthy inhabitants, and
were well able to equip their daughters in
the most costly and fashionable style. That
absurd doctrine (which we hear so frequent
ly repeated in these days. that selfindul
gence is no sin under certain circumstances
and that you may dress and live in mag
nlhcence if you are able to sustain it wa.
not in vogue in the early part of the nine
teenth century. Self.denial was one of tho
most prominent doctrines and peculiar
characteristic of the Christian professors o
the village. They were taught to set :
good example and not offend veal
brother or sister by their self-indulgence
They lived and dressed economically, anC
envy was not excited by magnifcenct
which it could not initiate. If the Metho
dists and Friends throughout the Union
had not yielded to the outside pressure
made against them by formal professor
and designing politicians, who knows bu
we might have been saved from the sac
experience of civil war, an enormou
national debt, of repeated and terrible
bankruptcies, and three millions of unem
ployed men.
1t may be said that if the young ladie
had not established the Union school her
in 1920, denominational ones would hav
sprung up long since in the common cours
of events. The vineyard is the Lords, an,
He did not see proper to wait, but en-
ployed them to do His work at tim
when they were fully prepared by the rev
val baptism. All the Sunday Schools in thi
section are the outgrowth of this. Th
work extended to the country at differen
appointments on the circuit. God will nc
deduct any amount of credit from thei
work and apply it to others from the mer
possibility that they might in time hav
engaged in the same service. But tn
good that has resulted from the sectaria
schools may be traced to the first, as W
trace our genealogical descent. 1t is ell
eouraging to think that good act with
pure motive will never die, but go OF
influencing others long after the actor hs
been consigned to the tomb.
Mrs. S. P. MASON.