Part 15 (1/2)

”In the winter of 1807-8, when the suspension of commerce by the embargo, rendered the situation of the poor more dest.i.tute than ever, Mrs. Graham adopted a plan best calculated in her view to detect the idle applicant for charity, and at the same time to furnish employment for the more worthy amongst the female poor. She purchased flax, and lent wheels where applicants had none. Such as were industrious took the work with thankfulness, and were paid for it; those who were beggars by profession, never kept their word to return for the flax or the wheel.

The flax thus spun was afterwards woven, bleached, and made into table-cloths and towels for family use.”[40]

[40] Mrs. Bethune.

When the Magdalen Society was established by some gentlemen, in 1811, a board of ladies was elected for the purpose of superintending the internal management of the house; and Mrs. Graham was chosen President.

This office she continued to hold till her death. The next year the trustees of the Lancasterian School solicited the services of several women to instruct the pupils in the catechism. Mrs. Graham cheerfully a.s.sisted in this task, instruction being given one afternoon in each week.

”In the spring of 1814 she was requested to unite with some ladies, in forming a Society for the Promotion of Industry amongst the poor. The Corporation of the city having returned a favorable answer to their pet.i.tion for a.s.sistance, and provided a house, a meeting of the Society was held, and Mrs. Graham once more was called to the chair. It was the last time she was to preside at the formation of a new society. Her articulation, once strong and clear, was now observed to have become more feeble. The ladies present listened to her with affectionate attention; her voice broke upon the ear as a pleasant sound that was pa.s.sing away. She consented to have her name inserted in the list of managers, to give what a.s.sistance her age would permit in forwarding so beneficent a work. Although it pleased G.o.d to make her cease from her labors, before the House of Industry was opened, yet the work was carried on by others, and prospered. Between four and five hundred women were employed and paid during the following winter. The Corporation declared in strong terms their approbation of the result, and enlarged their donation, with a view to promote the same undertaking for the succeeding winter.”

Mrs. Graham died on the twenty-seventh of July, 1814. Of no woman of the age may it be said with more propriety, as it was of Dorcas: ”This woman was full of good works and alms-deeds, which she did.” Yet few women are more humble than was Mrs. Graham, or think less of their benevolent deeds. Her daughter, Mrs. Bethune, writing of her decease, says that she departed in peace, not trusting in her wisdom or virtue, like the philosophers of Greece and Rome; not even, like Addison, calling on the profligate to see a good man die; but, like Howard, afraid that her good works might have a wrong place in the estimate of her hope, her chief glory was that of a ”sinner saved by grace.”

SARAH HOFFMAN.

Still to a stricken brother turn.

WHITTIER.

In the act of incorporation of the Widow's Society, established in the city of New York, in 1797, with the name of Mrs. Graham, is a.s.sociated that of Mrs. Sarah Hoffman. This lady was the daughter of David Ogden, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, before the elevation of the provinces into states. She was born at Newark, on the eighth of September, 1742; and married Nicholas Hoffman, in 1762. She early took delight in doing good, being thus prompted by deep religious principle. Cautious and discriminating, her charities were bestowed judiciously, and she was able to do much good without the largest means.

In her benevolent operations, however, she usually acted in an a.s.sociated capacity.

As already intimated, she was a member of the society formed ”for the relief of poor widows with small children.” That this inst.i.tution prospered under the control of such women as Mrs. Hoffman and Mrs.

Graham, may be inferred from their report made in April, 1803.

”Ninety-eight widows and two hundred and twenty-three children,” this doc.u.ment states, ”were brought through the severity of the winter with a considerable degree of comfort.”

Mrs. Hoffman, Mrs. Graham and their a.s.sociates, often perambulated the districts of poverty and disease, from morning till night, entering the huts of want and desolation, and carrying comfort and consolation to many a despairing heart. They clambered to the highest and meanest garrets, and descended to the lowest, darkest and dankest cellars, to administer to the wants of the dest.i.tute, the sick, and the dying. They took with them medicine as well as food; and were accustomed to administer Christian counsel or consolation, as the case required, to the infirm in body and the wretched in heart. They even taught many poor creatures, who seemed to doubt the existence of an overruling Providence, to pray to Him whose laws they had broken and thereby rendered themselves miserable.[41]

[41] Knapp's Female Biography.

In Mrs. Hoffman's character, to tenderness of feeling were added great firmness, strength of mind, and moral courage. She was often seen in the midst of contagion and suffering where the cheek of the warrior would blanch with fear. She exposed her own life, however, not like the warrior, to destroy, but to save; and hundreds _were_ saved by her humane efforts, combined with those of her co-workers. Her life beautifully exemplified the truth of what Crabbe says of woman:

----In extremes of cold and heat, Where wandering man may trace his kind; Wherever grief and want retreat, In woman they compa.s.sion find.

And if, as the poet Grainger a.s.serts,

The height of virtue is to serve mankind,

Mrs. Hoffman reached a point towards which many aspire, but above which few ascend.

HEROISM OF SCHOHARIE WOMEN.

Invaders! vain your battles' steel and fire.