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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
« ui !«< / nretiou 5 , experience would have overwhelmed her ?* As it was * fcoe moment she was alone she lifted her apron to her eyes , abd 'burst into tears . Oh , how she yearned to tell Mrs . Moreton the feelings which her kindness had inspired in the breast of one who had known the bitterness of contempt , the horror of isolation !
Who may tell what beings placed and educated as Dorcas had been suffer from , inability of expression—that safety-valve of the feelings ? Nature has not restricted sensibility to the few ; it is , more or less , the endowment of all . Children are frequently great sufferers in consequence of adult indifference , imthinkingnees , or want of a present sense of the nature and condition of these little
beings * They , like servants , require to have more attention paid to . their feelings , more encouragement yielded for unfolding them . Many a sweet fountain of thought and emotion , ivhich would have relieved and have awakened feeling , lies inj uriously and unpro * fitably stagnant in bosoms often panting to give them forth . The
unsleeping eye of sympathy must watch these indications , and beetling xmly them , disregard every circumstance of age or condition in those they agitate . If the earth heaved , and cried , ' Here is gold , ' should we fail to dig it forth?—and how much more precious is the moral ore of the human breast !
That evening Dorcas drank tea with her benevolent mistress ; that evening she revealed her story—confessed all her faults to the , « genttest , the most lenient of human judges . Mrs . Moreton wept at the recital made with such sincerity , such contrition ; and when it was ended assured the penitent she had her forgiveness , nay , moTe , her confidence for the future , that all she asked of her was to ' sin no more . '
How felt Dorcas as she stood that night in her little chamber , in which > as in every other part of the house , order , cleanliness , and comfort reigned ? Almost as when a little child she hkd werptiatid owned a transgression , and received a heart-healing kiss
from the parent to whom she knelt . She sank down on her knees at her bedside , while all that was holy and happy came thronging to her thoughts , and she lifted her voice in prayer mingled with sobs . Soothed , though exhausted , she retired to rest , and the sleep of innocence , of , as she felt , innocence restored , came upon her .
When she awoke in the morning a new atmosphere seemed to em&tppesff the world . Again she felt self-respect ; nay , she felt it » sustaining power as she had never yet felt it : a superior being had \ acknowledged her as a fellow-creature—as a friend ; had taken her hand—had dried her eyes—had wept with her—had put confidence in her . New und happy purposes woke with spontaneous energy in her soul , arid the once-degraded Dorcas lived * ad moved a renewed , regenerated being .
uThtoogh a long , useful , and in many respects fortunate life , Dorcas applied to others the moral she hud drawn from her own aapfcrieatt ; end now , ialwr old age , may be heard to say , or say
Untitled Article
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1835, page 404, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2646/page/40/
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