Margaret E. Winslow

“ They were as content to work as are most men and boys who seem to take it for granted that it is in the course of nature for them to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, but they had been at it long enough to have lost the sense of novelty and to understand that it was work and not play which their sister was undertaking.
"Won't you be sick of it!" said Alfred, in answer to one of Katie's outbursts, "and long, when Saturday comes, to go out nutting with the girls, or off on a hay-ride, or something! You'll wish you were free before you've been a slave many months, or I'm no prophet." ”

“ You didn't want to keep from saying those spiteful things about Tessa and Katie a little while ago, or he would have helped you do it. You didn't want the jealous, envious feelings taken out of your heart just then, or he would have taken them."
"How, Miss Eunice?"
"Whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive," said she.
"But do you mean I ought to have kneeled down to pray then, just that moment, before all the girls?"
"It is not necessary always to kneel down when we pray; though it is best to do so when we can. ”

“ But, as she lay upon the lounge, rested by its soft cushions, warmed by the fire, and soothed by the purring of the cat, she began to be ashamed of such thoughts. How many comforts, how much happiness God had given her! A nice home, a loving mother, plenty to eat and wear, and health and strength to earn enough to make them all so much more comfortable. She knew that all good things come from God, and if he had not put it into the heart of Mr. Sanderson to speak to Mr. Mountjoy for her, she could not have got the situation in the mill. ”

“ How dreadful, thought the young lady, to be compelled to spend one's life in such wretched surroundings. Is it any wonder that the women become hopeless slatterns, and that the children grow up in vice and sin? How thankful I ought to be to the heavenly Father who has surrounded me with such different influences! how I wish I might do something to raise and elevate these, and give them a few of the blessings of which I have so many!
Etta Mountjoy had grown since that early June Sunday when she had visited her pastor in such sorrow and perplexity. ”

“ I can't bear to think of my little girl, whom I have guarded so tenderly, going among all those girls and men, and fighting her way in life."
"I don't think I shall be much of a fighter," laughed Katie, looking at her diminutive hands; "and why is it any worse to go among the boys and girls in the factory than among the boys and girls in school? ”

“ If every one in the world were a Christian, and did the work which came to him to do, upon Bible principles, endeavoring to fulfil the precept: 'Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' and accepted his living, small or great, from his hands, just as a little child accepts his from his father's hands, we should hear nothing about the degradation of service. ”

“ Why should he care to have one of his factory girls "feel at home and happy"? some one will say; his relations with them are only those of business: so much work for so much money; it was nothing to him what they thought or felt. Mr. James Mountjoy did not feel so. He thought that his father and he were placed in this responsible position and given the care of several hundred human souls expressly that some good work might be done for them. He felt that human beings are more precious than machinery, and that happiness is an important factor in goodness. ”

“ If we really believed what the Bible says,—that the servant of all is the chiefest of all,—we should value work and workmen just in proportion to the use which the work they do is to the community and the world. In that sense, Alfred, a doctor's work or a minister's work might stand a little higher than a manufacturer's, a teacher's position be more desirable than that of a factory-girl, because in all of these professions there is more opportunity to do good to the bodies and souls of men ”

“ Miss Eunice then knelt down while all the girls knelt around her, and prayed in low tones that the influences of the Holy Spirit might be poured out upon all present; that they might have wisdom to see their duty at this solemn moment and grace to do it; that they might not be self-deceived, but really surrender their hearts into the hands of their Saviour, and, putting their whole trust in him, be willing to confess him before men, that he might confess them before the angels and his Father. ”

“ There are often times when our work would suffer, or when we are so surrounded by others that it would be impossible. But a few earnest words spoken in the silence of our own hearts will always bring our strong, loving Saviour to our help; and we may, every time, no matter what our temptations are, be 'more than conquerors through him who hath loved us.'"
"Every time? Oh, Miss Eunice!"
"Yes, every time. You know we constantly ask the Lord 'to keep us each day without sin.' How can we utter such a prayer in faith if we don't believe that it can be granted?" ”

“ Miss Eunice and Miss Etta don't get paid for what they do. They don't work for a living."
"I think they do," said Mr. Robertson, who had listened quietly to the talk of the children. "I think that every noble, honorable man and woman works, and is glad to work, for a living. The old saying that 'the world owes us a living' is a very fallacious one. The world doesn't owe us anything, and God does not either. Indeed, he has said: 'If any man will not work, neither shall he eat.'"
"Everybody does not work—for money, I mean," said Alfred. "Some people are gentlemen and ladies." ”

“ Katie and Tessa were pleased, girl-like, with the addition to their family party, and, though the boys grumbled a little at first, being, as boys are apt to be, a little shy of girls' society, they soon became used to the change and glad to enjoy the evening occupations that were rendered possible by so large a number.
It had always been a source of great anxiety to the widow, lest her boys, deprived of a father's watchful authority, would, as they grew up, wander off at night, fall under bad influences, learn evil habits, and grow up worthless, dissipated men. ”

“ The young girl, who had drifted into the manufacturing town, as so many do, in search of work, had never been a favorite or attracted particular attention. She was a fair work-woman, obeyed rules, and went her way to the boarding-house when night came; but she made no friends either there or at the mill, and it would scarcely have been noticed had she disappeared altogether. Somehow she had floated into Sunday-school, and been placed in the class which afterward became Etta Mountjoy's, but here her apparent stolidity made her perhaps the least interesting of all the girls. ”

“ To many, nay, to most, life would not be one continuous communion service; the holy awe would of necessity fade away; the hymns and prayers be exchanged for the harsh wrangle and barter of a work-day world; temptation was awaiting many of those new church members in unexpected places, and the evil nature within, not yet wholly subdued by divine grace, would make the pathway of holiness a very narrow one, along which untrained feet would often stumble. ”

“ So Miss Eunice came to her rescue:—
"We might organize some kind of a society, of which the boys and younger girls could be members. It would be some trouble to keep it up, but it would be directly in the line of that service to which you pledged yourselves, girls, that bright first Sunday in September."
"Delightful!" said Etta, to whom every new thing always seemed so. "A boys' and girls' temperance society, with a pledge that they shall never in their lives taste anything that can intoxicate. Then they will grow up temperance boys and girls from the start." ”

“ Delicate little Katie should never again work for her living. When she left school she should be a lady, like Miss Eunice and Miss Etta at the great house, and idle all day long if she chose to do so.
"But I don't choose," laughed Katie. "Do you think an independent young lady, who has made her own living for more than a year, will ever consent to be dependent upon any one, even if he is her brother? Besides, who wants to be idle? I am sure Miss Eunice isn't idle; nor Miss Etta, now. They are both as busy as they can be all the time; and Mr. James, too. ”

“ James was by no means called upon to be so polite to a "new hand"; most employers would have told the child which way to go and then left her to shift for herself, or at best have sent a man or boy to show her the way. Perhaps he would have done so with some girls, but he saw that the child was timid and homesick, and knew that a few kind words would go a great way toward making her feel at home and happy, and would serve as an offset against the disagreeable first impressions of the rag-room, and the weariness of regular work undertaken for the first time. ”

“ Many a time the poor girl, quite unaccustomed to control herself, would almost break out into some furious response to an unkind word or implied taunt, and remember just in time that she was pledged to the Lord's service and must not disgrace his cause. A swift, silent prayer for help then would always bring the promised aid of the Holy Spirit, and so by degrees Bertie learned to conquer herself and to lead others to see that her repentance was sincere and her faith genuine. Katie's friendship was a great blessing to her at this time. ”

“ I never can work half as well in the morning when I have been reading stories at night. I hate the sight of the factory, and wish I was a princess, or a splendidly dressed young lady with oceans of gold and jewels, like those in the books. ”

“ Never in the world did a fifty-dollar bill buy half so much in reality as this one did in imagination; which, by the way, is a very pleasant way of spending money, since it does not at all diminish the amount, which may be all spent over and over again in a variety of ways. But strangely enough, while everything needed by the others, even to a new ribbon to tie round pussy's neck, was remembered, Katie's catalogue of articles to be bought contained nothing in the world for herself. ”

“ Eunice Mountjoy made a more entire consecration of herself than ever before to God's service, praying that there might be no hidden idols in her temple; that self and self-seeking might be forever cast out, even as our Lord cast out the money-changers and traffickers from the temple at Jerusalem; that God's will in all things might be hers, and that she might devote not a part only, but all her time, all her faculties, all her influence to his service in doing good to others, and thus "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." ”

“ My dear girls, we have in the weeks that have gone by carefully considered the subject of religion and God's claims upon every one of us for the consecration to him of our hearts and our lives. We have seen that the steps we are called upon to take are repentance, that is, forsaking sin in intention as well as being sorry for it; a steadfast, living faith in Christ Jesus as our Saviour, and a resolute determination to spend the rest of our lives in his service by keeping his commandments and doing his will. ”

“ No greater mistake can be made than for young people to suppose that the recommendation of their Sunday-school teachers, their pastor, or even their parents, is an assurance that they are really fit subjects for a confession of Christ. All these, it is true, are watching them, both in their actions and in the tempers which they thus exhibit, as those that must give an account for their souls; but only God can see the heart—only themselves can know whether they are sincere in their purpose to love and serve him.
Young girls are very easily influenced. ”

“ If you call idlers gentlemen and ladies, we do not agree as to terms; but if you mean, as I suppose you do, that some people, especially a large proportion of women and girls, do not formally receive a definite amount of money for a definite amount of work, that is true. Don't you think, though, that mothers and sisters and wives, who keep house, take care of little children, do all the family sewing, care for the sick, and attend to the many details of a woman's life, work?—yes, do a great deal of work for a very small amount of living? ”

“ Etta had never been placed in such a dilemma before, and she heartily wished either that her sister had not invited her class, or that the class had not accepted the invitation, and that the girls would never come again, and yet she hardly liked to advise them not to do so.
"I don't like that kind of a party at all," said Bertie Sanderson, when the group of younger girls were well out of hearing of the house. "She just got us there under false pretences, calling it fun and turning it into a sort of church. We get prayers enough, in all conscience, on Sundays." ”

“ Doctor Bolen looked at his companion in somewhat quizzical perplexity. Here was a patient dangerously ill with a contagious disorder, at the top of a house swarming with human beings. She must have care and close watching, and the only person within reach to give it was a girl whose gay light-heartedness and instability were well known in the town. Had she known what to do, she was too young and delicate for such a task. And should she take the infection—what then? Would the wealthy mill-owner thus expose his youngest child, and, as every one knew, his idol? ”

“ It made death seem very near, and she wondered if she were fit to die. But that thought did not trouble her much. Nothing, either in life or death, can really hurt those who love Jesus and trust in his protection. She asked him to make her ready to die when he chose, and then, being of a very hopeful, cheerful nature, began to think of other things.
How could Bertie have circulated those stories about her? And, what was more important, how could she set herself right in the eyes of the other girls, and especially in those of Miss Eunice and Miss Etta? ”

“ To the other girls also this talk about work and compensation was beneficial. Perhaps they might have felt a little jealous at Katie's apparent elevation above themselves,—even Christian girls have wrong feelings sometimes,—but if factory-work could really be done to the glory of God as much as teaching could, there was nothing degrading in their work, nothing aristocratic in Katie's. God had given her one kind of work to do, and them another—that was all. They could please him as well as she; and he would give to all alike a great deal more than they deserved. ”