Josephine E. Butler. Butler Josephine Elizabeth Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ these we crowded as many as possible of the most friendless girls who were anxious to make a fresh start. This became inconvenient, and so in time my husband and I ventured to take a house near our own, trusting to find funds to furnish and fill it with inmates. This was the “House of Rest,” which continued for many years, and developed, about the time we left Liverpool, into an incurable hospital, supported by the town. It was there that, a little later, women incurably ill were brought from the hospitals or their wretched homes, their beds in hospital being naturally wanted for others.

      A few months later, encouraged by the help offered by a certain number of generous Liverpool merchants and other friends, we took a very large and solid house, with some ground round it, to serve as an industrial home for the healthy and active, the barefooted sand girls, and other friendless waifs and strays. We had a good gathering of friends and neighbours at a service which my husband held at the opening of the industrial home. His “dedication prayer” on that occasion was very touching, and full of kindness and heart-yearning towards the poor disinherited beings whom we desired to gather in. This house was very soon filled, and was successfully managed by an excellent matron, a mother. Besides the usual laundry and other work, we were able to set up a little envelope factory in one of the spacious rooms. This work called out some skill and nicety, and interested the girls very much. Several tradesmen and firms bought our envelopes at wholesale prices, and we also supplied some private friends disposed to help us. As chaplain, friend and adviser in these two modest institutions, my husband showed the same fidelity and constancy which he did in every other seriously accepted or self-imposed duty. He often said that it was a rest and refreshment to him to visit our poor people in the evening, and more especially on Sunday. In the House of Rest were received “incurables” so-called (of whom not a few recovered). There was a very peaceful atmosphere in that house answering to its name – a spirit of repose, contentment, and even gaiety among the young inmates, scarcely clouded even by the frequent deaths, which came generally as a happy and not unexpected release, and were regarded by the living as a series of fresh bonds between the family in heaven and that on earth.

      Drink was the great, the hopeless obstacle which I found among them. It was on this side that they would lapse again and again. Though it involved no change in my own habits, I thought it was best to take the pledge. I joined the Good Templars, who had many lodges in Liverpool.

      Shortly before the creation of these two homes, we had a visit from my sister, Madame Meuricoffre. She and her husband, with their dear little girl, Josephine, had come from Naples to England, and had paid a visit to our father in Northumberland. They had, a short time before, lost a beloved child, their little Beatrice, during an outbreak of the cholera in Naples. The surviving little girl seemed to droop after the death of her companion. She (little Josephine) took ill on the way from the north, and before they reached Liverpool this darling of her parents had gone to join her beloved sister in the presence of God. The parents came to us in deep sorrow, bringing with them the earthly remains of their child.

      My sister joined me in my visits to the sick, criminal, and outcast women of Liverpool. We visited the wards of the great hospital together. The strong sympathy of her loving nature quickly won the hearts of desolate young girls, while she greatly strengthened me in the hope that we might be able to undo some of their heavy burdens.

      Among the first who came to us to our own house, to die, was a certain Marion, who seemed to us a kind of first-fruits of the harvest, in the gathering in of which we were to be allowed in after years to participate. The first time I saw her was in a crowded room. Her face attracted me: not beautiful in the common acceptation of the word, but having a power greater than beauty; eyes full of intelligence and penetration; a countenance at once thoughtful and frank, with at times a wildly seeking look, as if her whole being cried out, “Who will show us any good?” She was ill, her lungs fatally attacked. I went up to her, and with no introduction of myself said, “Will you come with me to my home and live with me? I had a daughter once.” She replied with a gasp of astonishment, grasping my hand as if she would never let it go again. I brought her home, my husband supported her upstairs, and we laid her on the couch in the pretty little spare room looking on the garden. She lived with us, an invalid, three months, and then died. It was difficult to suppress the thought, “If she had not been so destroyed, what a brightness and blessing she might have been in the world.” Untaught, unacquainted with the Scriptures till she came to us, she mastered the New Testament so thoroughly in that brief time that her acute questions and pregnant remarks were often a subject of wonder to my husband, who spent a portion of almost every evening with her in her room, conversing with and instructing her. Some of the intellectual difficulties which assail thoughtful students occurred to her. I witnessed many a severe struggle in her mind. She would often say, “I will ask Mr. Butler about it this evening.” But her questions were sometimes such as cannot be answered, except by God Himself to the individual soul. This she knew, and through many sleepless nights her murmured prayers were heard by her attendant, “preventing the night watches.” My husband said her remarks concerning the nature of a true faith sometimes strikingly resembled portions of the writings of a well-known modern philosophical thinker, which she had never read, for she had read nothing. I speak of her intellect, but her heart was yet greater. What capacities for noble love, for the deepest friendship, had been trampled under foot in that dear soul.

      A well-known divine came to visit us, and hearing of our poor invalid, kindly offered to see and converse with her. My husband and I agreed that we would say nothing to our friend of Marion’s past life, for we thought that, saintly man though he was, he probably had not faith enough to do justice to her and to himself in the interview if he had this knowledge. (There are few men whose faith comes up to that measure.) When he joined us again downstairs his face was radiant, and he spoke, not of any teaching or comfort which he might have conveyed to her, but of the help and privilege it was to himself to have held communion during a short half hour with a dying saint, so young, yet so enlightened, and so near to God.

      I recall the day of her death. It was a cold, snowy day in March. In the morning my husband went to see her early, before going out to his college work. She could scarcely speak, but looking earnestly at him said, as if to reward him for all his painstaking instructions, and guessing what he wished to know, “Yes, God is with me, sir; I have perfect peace.” Her long death-struggle lasting twelve hours, joined with the peace and even joy of her spirit, was very affecting. Though it was bitterly cold, she whispered, “Open the windows, for the love of God.” Her long black hair, thrust wildly back, was like the hair of a swimmer, dripping with water, so heavy were the death-dews. She became blind, and her fine intelligent eyes wandered ever, with an appealing look, to whatever part of the room she thought I was in. Towards sunset she murmured, “Oh, come quickly, Lord Jesus.” During that long day she continually moved her arms like a swimmer, as if she felt herself sinking in deep waters. Then her poor little head fell forward, a long sigh escaped her parted lips, and at last I laid her down flat on her little bed. My husband and sons returned from college, and we all stood round her for a few minutes. She had become a household friend. She looked sweet and solemn then, her head drooping to one side, and with a worn-out look on the young frail face, but a look, too, of perfect peace.

      A few days before her death I telegraphed, at her request, to her father, who had had no tidings of his lost child for five years. He was an extensive farmer, well to do and honourable, living in a beautiful district in the midland counties. We were surprised, on his arrival, to see a very fine-looking country gentleman, as one would say, reminding us, in his noble height and figure and dignified presence, a little of my own father. He carried with him a valise and a handsome travelling rug. We took him to her room and retired. Their interview was best witnessed by God alone. After two hours or so I opened the door softly. He was lying on a couch at the opposite side of the room from her in a deep sleep, tired probably more by strong emotion than by his journey. She raised her finger for silence, and with the look and action of a guardian angel whispered, “Father is asleep.”

      After her death her poor mother came to attend her funeral. I had filled Marion’s coffin with white camelias, banking them up all round her. With her hands crossed on her breast, and dressed as a bride for her СКАЧАТЬ