14. CHAPTER XIV.
ACTIVE BENEVOLENCE, THE BEST REMEDY FOR AFFLICTION.
On Ainslie's communicating to Mr. Matthews the
circumstances which he had learnt from Franklin,
and bitterly lamenting his precipitate disclosure of
them to Lucy, that good man appeared anxious to
alleviate his unavailing regret and to bring forward
every palliation for what, at the worst, was no more
than an error in judgment. He could not permit his
young friend to consider himself responsible for the
consequences, since the stroke could not have been
averted and could scarcely have been made to descend
more gently upon the heart of the devoted girl.
A further disclosure was yet to take place, and
never in the whole course of his ministration among
the wounded spirits, that had required his care and
kindness, had this worthy pastor been more severely
tried than on this occasion. He meditated, communed
with his friends, sought for Divine assistance
in prayer, and when at last the returning health of
his tender charge rendered it not only advisable but
necessary that she should know the whole, he came
to the trial with fear and trembling.
What was his joy to find that she received the
disclosure which he had so much dreaded to make,
not with resignation merely, but with satisfaction.
It brought a balm to her wounded spirit, to know
that she had not been voluntarily abandoned—that
the man on whom she had placed her affections had
yielded to a stern necessity, a terrible fate, in quitting
her without even a last farewell. She approved
his conduct. She regarded him as devoted to his
country, herself as set apart for the holy cause of
humanity; and in accordance with this sentiment,
she resolved to pass the remainder of her life in
ministering to the distressed, and promoting the
happiness of her friends.
Nor did she delay the commencement of this
pious undertaking. Aided by her revered friend
the Pastor, she entered upon her schemes of active
benevolence with an alacrity which, while it surprised
those who were not intimately acquainted
with her character, and justified the exalted esteem
of her friends, served effectually to divert her mind
from harrowing recollections and useless regrets.
Among the earliest of her plans for ameliorating
the condition of the poor was the founding of a little
seminary for the education of female children. She
chose a pleasant spot near the Rectory, a quiet little
nook, bosomed among the wooded hills and commanding
a view of the village and a wide expanse
of soft meadow scenery; and there she caused to be
erected a neat little building, a specimen, one might
almost say, a model of Ionic architecture. Its chaste
white pillars and modest walls peeping through the
surrounding elms, were just visible from her own
window, and many were the tranquil and comparatively
happy moments which she spent, sitting by
that window and planning in her own mind the
internal arrangement and economy of the little establishment.
She had it divided into several apartments and
placed an intelligent and deserving young woman in
each, to superintend the different parts of education
which were to be taught. In one, the most useful
kinds of needlework, in another, the common
branches of instruction in schools, and in another
the pinciples of morality, and the plainest truths and
precepts of religion; while, over all these, there was
a sort of High School, to which a few only were
promoted who gave evidence of that degree of talent
and probity which would fit them for extended usefulness.
These, under the instruction of the preceptress
of the whole establishment, were to receive
a more finished education than the rest.
Into every part of the arrangement of these matters
Lucy entered with an interest which surprized
herself. She delighted in learning the natural bent
and disposition of the young pupils, and would spend
whole hours in conversing with them, listening with
a kind interest to their artless answers and opinions,
and often discovering, or supposing that she discovered
in them the elements of taste and fancy or
the germe of acute reasoning or strongly inventive
power.
But it was in developing their affections and moral
capabilities that she chiefly delighted. There was a
field of exertion in which the example of the patroness
was of infinite value to the instructers. Her
own education, her knowledge of human character
and of nature, her cultivated and refined moral taste,
and, above all, the healing and religious light, which
her admirable submission to the trying hand of Providence
had shed over the world and all its concerns,
as they appeared to her view,—all these things served
to fit her for this species of ministry to the minds
and hearts of these young persons.
In these pursuits it is hardly necessary to say that
she found a tranquillity and satisfaction which the
splendid awards of fortune and fame can never impart.
