Brave Men and Women Part 21

But contemplation only My heart could not satisfy: I longed for the very presence The stars did prophesy,

And eagerly looked for a token Of heaven descended to earth, A manifestation to tell me The Prince had come to his birth--

The Prince to rule the nations, The blessed Prince of Peace, Through the scepter of whose kingdom Confusion and war shall cease.

And G.o.d to me has been gracious, Though one of his children the least, For I have seen his token All glorious in the east.

Yea, G.o.d to me has been gracious, And shown me the way of love, A revelation of goodness As fair as heaven above."

The kings sat down together, Communed in the breaking of bread, And each the heart of the other As an open volume read.

They felt the new force within them Through fellowship increase: The one he called it beauty, The other named it peace.

All through the silent night-tide Their thoughts one burden bore: There was a joy eternal Their longing souls before.

But still they waited, waited, They hardly knew what for.

"What lack we yet, O Gaspar!"

At length asked Melchior.

"Three lights in yonder heaven Wait on the polar star.

Hast eyes to read the poem?

Dost see how calm they are?

_Three_ lights in yonder heaven Wait on the polar star; But we are _two_," said Gaspar.

"Not _two_, but _three_ we are,"

Belthazzar said, dismounting, Another king from far; "And we whom G.o.d hath chosen Follow a greater Star.

O, what are peace and beauty, Except they stir the soul And make the man a hero, To gain some happier goal?

O, what are peace and beauty That stop this side of G.o.d, Though infinite the distance Remaining to be trod?"

In haste, in haste they mounted, The kings in G.o.d's employ, And quickly peace and beauty Began to change to joy.

They left behind their kingdoms Whose lure was far too small, To keep them apart from the kingdom Of Him who is all in all.

They left behind their people, Of loving and loved a host, The first of the thronging Gentiles, To love the Redeemer most.

They left behind possessions, Their flocks in all their prime, In haste to greet the Shepherd Whose charge is the most sublime.

They pa.s.sed through hostile regions; For fear they halted not; And weariness and hunger Were less than things forgot.

So on and on they hastened Where they never before had trod, And the flaming Guide that led them, Was ever the Glory of G.o.d.

By night in yonder heavens, Within their hearts by day, As of old the blessed Shekinah Along the Red Sea way.

And they have troubled Herod And left Jerusalem, The joy-giving Star before them, The Star of Bethlehem.

And they have seen and worshiped The Everlasting Child, In whom sweet Truth and Mercy Were never unreconciled.

They have kissed the Beauty of Heaven, Incarnate on the earth, The Babe in the lap of Mary, Of whom He came to his birth.

Their gifts of love they have rendered Unto the new-born King, Their gold and myrrh and frankincense, The best that they could bring.

And vanished the Star forever, When they turned from the Child away?

Shone it not then in their bosoms, The light of Eternal Day?

They could not return to Herod-- Too precious for any swine, The pearls which they had gathered Out of the Sea Divine!

O Vision of the Redeemer, In which faith has struggled to sight!

They carried it back to their country, And published it day and night.

They carried it back to their country, The vision since Eden's fall, Which seen afar off has sweetened The wormwood and the gall.

And it has become the story Of every triumphant soul, That in seeking the Eternal Reaches a blessed goal.

XXVI.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

THE HEROINE OF THE CRIMEA.

"The care of the poor," said Hannah More, herself one of the most ill.u.s.trious women of her time, "is essentially the profession of women."

In her own person, Florence Nightingale has proved this; and not in one or two cases, but by a whole life pa.s.sed in devotion to the needs of the poor and humble, the sick and the distressed. Comparatively little was known of Miss Nightingale before the year 1854, when the needs of the English army in the Crimea called forth the heroism of thousands. Then it was that Florence Nightingale and other heroic women went out to the East, and personally succored the wounded, comforted the weak-hearted, and smoothed the pillows of the dying.

Miss Nightingale is every way a remarkable woman. The daughter of an Englishman, W. Sh.o.r.e Nightingale, of Embly Park, Hampshire, she was born in Florence, in the year 1823, and from this fair city she received her patronymic. From her earliest youth she was accustomed to visit the poor, and, as she advanced in years, she studied in the schools, hospitals, and reformatory inst.i.tutions of London, Edinburgh, and other princ.i.p.al cities of England, besides making herself familiar with similar places on the Continent. In 1851, "when all Europe," says a recent writer, "seemed to be keeping holiday in honor of the Great Exhibition, she took up her abode in an inst.i.tution at Kaiserwerth, on the Rhine, where Protestant sisters of mercy are trained for the business of nursing the sick, and other offices of charity. For three months she remained in daily and nightly attendance, acc.u.mulating the most valuable practical experience, and then returned home to patiently wait until an occasion should arise for its exercise. This occasion soon arose; for, after attending various hospitals in London, the cry of distress which, in 1854, arose from the distressed soldiery in Russia, enlisted her warmest sympathies. Lady Mary Forester, Mrs. Sidney Herbert, and other ladies, proposed to send nurses to the seat of war.

The government acceded to their request, and Miss Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Bracebridge, and thirty-seven others, all experienced nurses, went out to their a.s.sistance, and arrived at Constantinople on the 5th of November. The whole party were soon established in the hospital at Scutari, and there pursued their labor of love and benevolence. The good they did, and the wonders they accomplished, are too well known to need particular detail. "Every day," says one, writing from the military hospital, "brought some new combination of misery to be somehow unraveled by the power ruling in the sisters' town. Each day had its peculiar trial to one who has taken such a load of responsibility in an untried field, and with a staff of her own s.e.x, all new to it. She has frequently been known to stand twenty hours, on the arrival of fresh detachments of sick, apportioning quarters, distributing stores, directing the labors of her corps, a.s.sisting at the most painful operations, where her presence might soothe or support, and spending hours over men dying of cholera or fever. Indeed, the more awful to every sense any particular case might be, the more certainly might her slight form be seen bending over him, administering to his case by every means in her power, and seldom quitting his side until death had released him. And yet, probably, Miss Nightingale's personal devotion in the cause was, in her own estimation, the least onerous of her duties.

The difficulties thrown in her way by the formalities of _system_ and _routine_, and the prejudices of individuals, will scarcely be forgotten, or the daily contests by which she was compelled to wring from the authorities a scant allowance of the appliances needed in the daily offices of her hand, until the co-operation of Mr. Macdonald, the distributor of the _Times_ fund, enabled her to lay in stores, to inst.i.tute separate culinary and washing establishments, and, in short, to introduce comfort and order into the department over which she presided." And so, during the greater part of the momentous campaign, she did the work that she had set out to do, bravely and faithfully, and earnestly and well; and we may be sure that on her return to England she was welcomed gladly. The queen presented her with a costly diamond ornament, to be worn as a decoration, and accompanied it with an autograph letter, in which her great merits were fully, gracefully, and gratefully acknowledged. It was proposed to give Miss Nightingale a public reception; but, with true modesty, she shrunk from appearing in any other than her own character of nurse and soother, and at once pa.s.sed into retirement. But that retirement was not allowed to be unproductive. So soon as her health, which was at all times delicate, and had suffered considerably in the Crimea, had been somewhat restored, she set to work to render the fruits of her experience useful to the world. In 1859 she produced her "Hints on Nursing," one of the most useful and practical little books ever published. In it she showed how much might be done, even with small means, and in the midst of manifold difficulties and discouragements; and it is no small triumph to the advocates of female labor, in proper spheres, that Florence Nightingale and her friends have shown that, as a nurse and comforter on the field of battle, woman may work out her mission quietly and unostentatiously, without, at the same time, interfering with the occupations of the other s.e.x. In Florence Nightingale we have an example of a lady bred in the lap of luxury, and educated in the school of wealth and exclusiveness, breaking down the barriers of custom, and proving to the world that true usefulness belongs to no particular rank, age, or station, but is the privilege of all Eve's daughters, and that any employment sanctified by devotion and fervor and earnest desire to do good is essentially womanly and graceful, and fitting alike to the inheritors of wealth or poverty.

That the absence of feminine influence must tend to materialize, to sensualize, and to harden, must, we think, be admitted by all the thoughtful. Woman is inst.i.tuted by G.o.d the guardian of the heart as man is of the mind. How many husbands, sons, and brothers, driven and driving, through life in the absorbing excitement of a professional or mercantile career, can testify to the arresting, reposeful, humanizing atmosphere of a home where the wife, mother, or sister exerts her kindly sway; and it is as necessary to the immaterial interests of a nation, to the prevention of the legislative mind and executive hands being completely swallowed up in the actual, the present, the mechanical, the sensible, that some counteracting influence should be allowed and encouraged similar to that of woman in her home.

To show the influence for good of a.s.sociations of women for charitable ends, Mrs. Jameson, in "Sisters of Charity at Home and Abroad," has collected accounts from history and biography of many Romanist orders of sisters, besides vindicating and putting forward Miss Nightingale and her companions as examples. She would not for the world that the woman should aspire to be the man, and aim at a masculine independence for which she was never meant; and we thank the n.o.ble champion of Protestant sisterhoods for disclaiming connection with any who want her to take part in the public and prominent life of society, so to speak. It is co-operation that is insisted upon--the ministering influence of the woman with the business tact of the man. In prisons, hospitals, work-houses, and lunatic asylums the influence of well-trained women, to soften rigor, charm routine, beguile poverty, and tranquilize distraction is often wanted; not so much to talk as to think, feel, and do.

It may be said that there can not be the same need in a Protestant country as in Roman Catholic countries of communities of single women, where they are doubtless called for, if only in opposition to the immense bodies of the higher and lower clergy; but, besides the fact of there always being a greater number of women in a country in proportion to the number of men, our commerce requires many sailors, not to mention our army and navy, which in years past have swallowed up so many.

Surely, ministering women would be a blessing to the widows and orphans of our gallant soldiers and sailors. There are numbers of daughters in large families kept in conventual bondage by a father or brother or their own timidity. Daughters, sisters, widows, we appeal to you! Are there not some few among you with courage to lead where mult.i.tudes would follow--some to whom a kind Providence has given liberty of action? It is far from our intention to excite rebellion in families, or tempt away from the manifest calls of duty; but can not some one begin what others will continue? And we must not be indefinite: begin what? continue what?

A system which, in this Protestant land, would give to the poor outcast, the little criminal, the child of the State, a mother as well as a father; that would give to the wretched of all ages a sister as well as a brother.

Alluding to Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Jameson says: "No doubt but it will be through the patience, faith, and wisdom of men and women working together. In an undertaking so wholly new to our English customs, so much at variance with the usual education given to women in this country, we shall meet with perplexities, difficulties--even failures.

All the ladies who have gone to Scutari may not turn out heroines. There may be vain babblings and scribblings and indiscretions, such as may put weapons into adverse hands. The inferior and paid nurses may, some of them, have carried to Scutari bad habits, arising from imperfect training. Still, let us trust that a principle will be recognized in the country which will not be again lost sight of. It will be the true, the lasting glory of Florence Nightingale and her band of devoted a.s.sistants that they have broken through what Goethe calls a Chinese wall of prejudices--prejudices religious, social, professional--and established a precedent which will, indeed, multiply the good to all time. No doubt there are hundreds of women who would now gladly seize the privileges held out to them by such an example, and crowd to offer their services; but would they pay the price of such dear and high privileges? Would they fit themselves duly for the performance of such services, and earn by distasteful, and even painful studies, the necessary certificates for skill and capacity? Would they, like Miss Nightingale, go through a seven years' probation, to try at once the steadiness of their motives and the steadiness of their nerves? Such a trial is absolutely necessary; for hundreds of women will fall into the common error of mistaking an impulse for a vocation. But I do believe that there are also hundreds who are fitted, or would gladly, at any self-sacrifice, fit themselves for the work, if the means of doing so were allowed to them. At present, an English lady has no facilities whatever for obtaining the information or experience required; no such inst.i.tutions are open to her, and yet she is ridiculed for presenting herself without the competent knowledge! This seems hardly just."

Antic.i.p.ating objection, Mrs. Jameson says: