Year: 1876

AN OBSCURE LIFE.


What n Poor Woman Did for Humanity


Without Ostentation and with no Hope


of Earthly Reward.


Here is the record of an obscure life
which may be worth the attention of
that intelligentS well-to-do majority.
which is made up, after all, of obscure
people. 1t is a story which suits all
classes or any time, yet perhaps this
especial time best, when men and women
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 own
domestic quiet labor. The story is of
a DOOR seamstress in mill town in Indi-
ana, who was left widow some fifteen
wears ago, dependent on her needle for
her daily bread. She lived near one OF
the factories where hundreds OF both
sexes were employed, and night and
morning large gapgs of girls and men
passed her door miserably hungry and
gloomy, or more miserably boisterous.
twas 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 q 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
childrensin the world. "I wanted, !"
she said, "to give these girls 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 accomph' b
SO much; years of patience and self-sac-
rifce. When she had finished, instead
of coarse dirty animal, she had nodded
for use and service in the world 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 cook, or gentle, tender manner In
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
intelligence office, or cheap boarding
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 the women whom
she had helped ever wronged her by a
suspicion. Next to God, whom she
faithfully tried to teach them to serve,
they believed in Der. If sLe had proved
a 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 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. 1t seemed e poor
commonplace thing to her, as it may to
our readers, to teach girls how to make
or wear clothes neatly, or to cook
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 hourIto
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
Savior's head with precious ointment.