A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge
John Stuart Mill · en
To her refined and candid spirit, nothing was more detestable than
religious parade. As it is intimated in the former chapter, it sometimes
served to repel her from things and people that were good, but savoured
of religious cant. She was especially shocked with the numberless and
painful examples of female impropriety in this way, which our age has
disclosed. But in all the appropriate walks of Christian females, and in
every becoming expression of their feelings and influence, though
diffident of herself, she promptly took her part. Perhaps her most
cherished occupation in the service of others, was that of a
Sunday-school teacher. Here she rejoiced in the work of her hands. Here,
without indelicacy or pretension, she could use the word of God, in his
house, and on his day, to teach the little children, whom like her Lord,
she so much loved to take in her arms and bless. She had for this
service uncommon adaptation in the vivacity of her mind, in the charm of
her manner, and especially in the rich store of her Biblical knowledge.
She continued this relation after she became a wife, and a mother; and
the tenderness of a Christian mother's love seemed to be transferred to
the little commonwealth of the Sabbath-school.
We shall never forget the animation and delight with which she
communicated to us, two years before her decease, the account of a visit
which had been paid her very recently, by a highly respectable young
gentleman, then attached to a learned profession, the son of a
distinguished public man, who had been a member of her Sunday-school
class in Princeton, fifteen years before!
HER DEDICATION TO THE WORK OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.
It was not long after the first experience (as was hoped) of the grace
of God in her heart, that the relation was formed between herself and
the writer of these pages, which, by its consummation and close, became
in succession the crowning joy and the absorbing sorrow of his life.