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    to the © tfcerbam ^ if tbey sh ould ever be reduced to the necessity of living without a servant , the manual labour incident to the economy of a house would then be accompanied with little toil . The deceased was s itl very young when she removed once more from

    her mother ' s house for the purpose of going to Dudley in Worcestershire , to live with a beloved brother , who had just settled in that town , and whose family she superintended much to his advantage and satisfaction , and to her own credit , for many year * .

    It was on removing hither that th s inestimable young woman began that career of chanty and beneficence which was eminently congenial to her soul , and in which she never reia ? . ed even to the day of her death . At the time we are speaking of , the amiable i \ lr . Raikes had just promulgated his system of

    Sunday schools , than "which nothing could be more likely to captivate the imagination of a benevolent female and accordingly our young friend having resolved fhat a Sunday school should be established in the populous toun where she had just fixed her res dence , she

    entered-upon the scheme in conjunct on with her brother and wme other young " people , with as ardent a mind and with as unremitted exertions as were perhaps ever exhibited in the pursuit of a similar object . It might naturally be expected that such efforts would be crowned with the most abundant sue

    cess ; and the writer of this article very well remembers that for several years the Dudley Sunday schools were thought to be in a-more flourishing state and infinitely better managed than those ot any other town in the neighbourhood . The sedulous attention which our young

    friend paid to the conduct of these schools , occasioned her to be -almost idolized by the surrounding poor , and an opulent gentleman to whom she was an entire stranger , till she engaged in this labour of love , was so struck with the beneficence of her character

    as exemplified in this good work , that he added a codicil to his will for the express purpose of making her a bequest of five hundred pounds . Our friend ' s removal to Dudley was also the cause of her becoming acquainted with the family of Dr . Priestley , whose daughter had married a gentleman of the name of Finch , and who resided in that neighbourhood .

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    Mrs Priestley and her daughter , who had the best opportunity for observing the character of their new acquaintance , soon formed a warm attachment for her , which gradually ripened into a mutual and confidential intimacy , which was dissolved only by death . Th « peculiar attachment which so long sub Jsted between Mrs . Finch and the

    subj . cl of this memoir , was probably much heightened by the circumsfance of the latter having been seized with a very severe paralytic disease while at the house of her Friend , who attended upon her , day and night , for a long

    period , and hy her unrermtted attention * was the mea is of preserving her life . On her recovery , her plans of usefulness were ail resumed , and she has of-en been heard to say that she was indebted to Mrs Finch for more useful

    hints respecting the best means of serving the poor , and of economising her means or charity , than to any other indiv . duai When the subject of this memoir married , she went to reside in a part

    of the country where she was entirelyunknown , and where she could not hear of a single individual who was likely to co-operate with her in any of her former plans of active benevolence : as to the establish meat of a Sunday school , which would have been her

    highest delight , she could have no hoj > e of this , as the clergyman of ihe parish had : invei g hed publicly against such institutions , and some of the more opulent manufacturers of the neighbourhood had imbibed an idea trnt if a boy were taught to read and write he would be spoiled for a uoikmau to a certainty .

    In this situauon what could be done ? To live without endeavouring to benefit those around her , who were in want of help , was what she had not been accustomed to , neither could she reconcile it with the principles she entertained of the duties she owed to

    her fellow-creatures . At length , as there were many poor in her neighbourhood , and no person of the medical profession in the village , &be determined upon furnishing herself with an assortment of all the common drugs and pharmaceutical preparations , ana with the aid of a few of the beat books she

    could procure , soon qualified herself for administering relief in many of those cases which do not absolutely require the skill of a physician , Junt

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    Obituary . —Mrs . 5 » Parkcs * 69

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1814, page 69, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2436/page/69/