A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge
John Stuart Mill · en
are little known beyond the narrow boundary of her own family, on which
they continually rest, "like the dew of Hermon that descended upon the
mountains of Zion." It is not less so with her domestic trials--with her
perplexing domestic duties, as she meekly toils in "patient continuance"
amidst their innumerable detail, and ever returning round. Now while the
full disclosure and rewards must be reserved to the great day of final
account, it is a special duty, on proper occasions, to bring such
excellence to view. Without our care, this never will be done, since the
graces that most adorn, are the most retiring. By an affectionate
diligence in this service, a thousand pearls might be brought from the
recesses of domestic life, and added to the too scanty stock of
memorable worthies. At least, we ought not to make oblivion the penalty
of domestic virtue. On the other hand, the doing of proper justice to
real female merit, would most effectually rebuke that assurance of
coarse and fanatic women, who, in the insulted name of God, assume the
prerogative, and attempt the offices of the stronger sex--forgetting
that the immodesty which is offensive to all men, can never be an
offering pleasing to a God of purity and order. By presenting to mankind
examples of Christian women revolving in orderly beauty, and shining
with mild lustre in their appointed course, we not only preserve the
memory of those who rest from their labours, but we diffuse their
influence abroad. If we may but do justice to the subject of these
notices, she would be herself the only being likely to complain, for she
shrunk with instinctive sensibility from every such disclosure of her
retiring character.
Without repeating what has been said in the first chapter, we proceed to
fill up the narrative given therein, by additional notices, which some
one ought to furnish, and which a parent could not.