Heroines That Every Child Should Know: Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages
History
Heroines That Every Child Should Know: Tales for Young People of the World's Heroines of All Ages
Women heroes
"I had not been there above a week when Sister Dora found me a little
bell, as there was not one to my bed, and she said, 'Enoch, you must
ring this bell when you want sister.' This little bell did not have
much rest, for whenever I heard her step or the tinkle of her keys in
the hall I used to ring my bell, and she would call out, 'I'm coming,
Enoch,' which she did, and would say, 'What do you want?' I often used
to say, 'I don't know, Sister,' not really knowing what I did want.
She'd say, 'Do you want your pillows shaken up, or do you want moving
a little?' which she'd do, whatever it was, and say, 'Do you feel
quite cosey now?' 'Yes, Sister.' Then she would start to go into the
other ward, but very often before she could get through the door I'd
call her back and say my pillow wasn't quite right, or that my leg
wanted moving a little. She would come and do it, whatever it was, and
say, 'Will that do?' 'Yes, Sister.' Then she'd go about her work, but
at the very next sound of her step my bell would ring, and so often as
my bell rang Sister would come; and some of the other patients would
often remark that I should wear that little bell out or Sister, and
she'd say, 'Never mind, for I like to hear it, and it's never too
often.' And it rang so often that I've heard Sister say that she often
dreamt she heard my little bell and started up in a hurry to find it
was a dream."
Sister Dora said once to a friend, who was engaging a servant for the
hospital:
"Tell her this is not an ordinary house, or even a hospital. I want
her to understand that all who serve here, in whatever capacity, ought
to have one rule, _love for God_, and then, I need not say, love for
their work."
She spoke often and with intense earnestness, on the duty, the
necessity, of prayer. It was literally true that she never touched a
wound without raising her heart to God and entreating him to bless the
means employed. As years glided away, she became able almost to fulfil
the Apostle's command: "Pray without ceasing." And her prayers were
animated by the most intense faith--an absolutely unshaken conviction
of their efficacy. It may truly be said that those who pray become
increasingly more sure of the value of prayer. They find that,
whatever men may say about the reign of law and the order of nature,
earnest prayer does bring an answer, often in a marvellous manner. The
praying man or woman is never shaken in his or her trust in the
efficacy of prayer. She firmly held to the supernatural power, put
into the hands of men by means of the weapon of prayer; and the
practical faithlessness in this respect of the world at large was an
ever-increasing source of surprise and distress to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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