The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons | Page 4

died prematurely of a broken heart.
For ten years, therefore, after my friend's death I gave up everything for the purpose of carrying on the work he left me, and beat wearily up and down the three kingdoms, holding meetings, organizing practical work, agitating for the greater legal protection of the young, afterwards embodied in two Acts--one for removing children from dens of infamy and one known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which have done much to educate the public sentiment of the country; but always making it my chief object to rouse educated women to face the facts about their own womanhood, and, above all, to rouse mothers to realize the perils of their own boys and to be determined to know enough to enable them to act as their guardians.
During those ten years of warfare, passing as I did from family to family, and always concerned with questions that touch upon the innermost shrine of our life, I necessarily became the recipient of many hidden sorrows. In fact, my fellow-creatures used me as a bottomless well into which they could empty their household skeletons; and I used often to reflect with sardonic satisfaction that I should never run dry like other old wells, but that death would come and fill me up with a good wholesome shovelful of earth, and I and my skeletons would lie quiet together. But in this way I gained a knowledge of what is going on under the surface of our life, whether we choose to ignore it or not, which possibly can only come to those who are set apart to be confessors of their kind; and the conclusion was forced upon me that this evil, in one form or another, is more or less everywhere--in our nurseries, in our public, and still more our private, schools, decorously seated on magisterial benches, fouling our places of business, and even sanctimoniously seated in our places of worship.
After the first two years of work among women I found that it was absolutely hopeless attacking the evil from one side only, and I had to nerve myself as best I could to address large mass meetings of men, always taking care clearly to define my position--that I had not come upon that platform to help them, but to ask them to help me in a battle that I had found too hard for me, and that I stood before them as a woman pleading for women. The first of these meetings I addressed at the instance of the late revered Bishop of Durham, Dr. Lightfoot, who took the chair, and inaugurated the White Cross Movement, which has since spread over the civilized world. And throughout this most difficult side of my work I had his priceless co-operation and approval; besides the wise counsel, guidance, and unfailing sympathy of one whom but to name is to awake the deepest springs of reverence, Dr. Wilkinson, then the incumbent of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, afterwards Bishop of Truro, and now Bishop of St. Andrews. But so great was the effort that it cost me, that I do not think I could have done this part of my work but for my two favorite mottoes--the one, that "I can't" is a lie in the lips that repeat, "I believe in the Holy Ghost"; the other, received from the lips of Bishop Selwyn, that "If as soldiers of the Cross we stick at anything, we are disgraced forever."
But lastly, and perhaps best of all, as giving weight to any suggestions that I may make, across the dismal mud swamp that I often trod with such an aching heart and faltering steps came to meet me God's best and highest, with outstretched hands of help and encouragement. It was the highly-cultivated and thoughtful women who, amidst the storm of obloquy that beat upon me from every quarter, first ranged themselves by my side, perceiving that the best way to avoid a danger is not to refuse to see it. Some were women already in the field in connection with Mrs. Butler's movement, to which our nation owes so much, some were roused by my words.
In all our large towns where I formed Associations for the Care of Friendless Girls I was in the habit of reporting my work to the clergy of my own church, whose sympathy and cooperation I shall ever gratefully acknowledge. Ultimately, the leading laity, as well as some Nonconformist ministers, joined with us; often these conferences were diocesan meetings--to which, however, Nonconformists were invited--with the Bishop of the diocese in the chair; and after my address free discussion took place, so that I had the advantage of hearing the opinions and judgments of many of our leading men in regard to this difficult problem, and getting at