But it was not the Articles of Faith I was thinking of,although there was a long list of them,to which we all bowed assent,as was the custom.It was the homecoming to the "house not made with hands,"the gladness of signifying that I belonged to God's spiritual family,and was being drawn closer to his heart,with whom none of us are held as "strangers and foreigners."I felt that I was taking up again the clue which had been put into my childish hand at baptism,and was being led on by it into the unfolding mysteries of life.Should I ever let it slip from me,and lose the way to the "many mansions"that now seemed so open and so near?I could not think so.It is well that we cannot foresee our falterings and failures.At least I could never forget that I had once felt my own and other lives bound together with the Eternal Life by an invisible thread.
The vague,fitful desire I had felt from my childhood to be something to the world I lived in,to give it something of the the inexpressible sweetness that often seemed pouring through me,I knew not whence,now began to shape itself into a definite outreach towards the Source of all spiritual life.To draw near to the One All-Beautiful Being,Christ,to know Him as our spirits may know The Spirit,to receive the breath of his infinitely loving Life into mine,that I might breathe out that fragrance again into the lives around me--this was the longing wish that,half hidden from myself,lay deep beneath all other desires of my soul.This was what religion grew to mean to me,what it is still growing to mean,more simply and more clearly as the years go on.
The heart must be very humble to which this heavenly approach is permitted.It knows that it has nothing in itself,nothing for others,which it has not received.The loving Voice of Him who gives his friends his errands to do whispers through them constantly,"Ye are not your own."There may be those who would think my narrative more entertaining,if I omitted these inner experiences,and related only lighter incidents.But one thing I was aware of,from the time I began to think and to wonder about my own life--that what I felt and thought was far more real to me than the things that happened.
Circumstances are only the keys that unlock for us the secret of ourselves;and I learned very early that though there is much to enjoy in this beautiful outside world,there is much more to love,to believe in,and to seek,in the invisible world out of which it all grows.What has best revealed our true selves to ourselves must be most helpful to others,and one can willingly sacrifice some natural reserves to such an end.Besides,if we tell our own story at all,we naturally wish to tell the truest part of it.
Work,study,and worship were interblended in our life.The church was really the home-centre to many,perhaps to most of us;and it was one of the mill regulations that everybody should go to church somewhere.There must have been an earnest group of ministers at Lowell,since nearly all the girls attended public worship from choice.
Our minister joined us in our social gatherings,often inviting us to his own house,visiting us at our work,accompanying us on our picnics down the river-bank,--a walk of a mile or so took us into charmingly picturesque scenery,and we always walked,--suggesting books for our reading,and assisting us in our studies.
The two magazines published by the mill-girls,the "Lowell Offering"and the "Operatives'Magazine,"originated with literary meetings in the vestry of two religious societies,the first in the Universalist Church,the second in the First Congregational,to which my sister and I belonged.
On account of our belonging there,our contributions were given to the "Operatives'Magazine,"the first periodical for which Iever wrote,issued by the literary society of which our minister took charge.He met us on regular evenings,read aloud our poems and sketches,and made such critical suggestions as he thought desirable.This magazine was edited by two young women,both of whom had been employed in the mills,although at that time the were teachers in the public schools--a change which was often made by mill-girls after a few months'residence at Lowell.Agreat many of them were district-school teachers at their homes in the summer,spending only the winters at their work.
The two magazines went on side by side for a year or two,and then were united in the "Lowell Offering"which had made the first experiment of the kind by publishing a trial number or two at irregular intervals.My sister had sent some verses of mine,on request,to be published in one of those specimen numbers.
But we were not acquainted with the editor of the "Offering,"and we knew only a few of its contributors.The Universalist Church,in the vestry of which they met,was in a distant part of the city.Socially,the place where we worshiped was the place where we naturally came together in other ways.The churches were all filled to overflowing,so that the grouping together of the girls by their denominational preferences was almost unavoidable.It was in some such way as this that two magazines were started instead of one.If the girls who enjoyed writing had not been so many and so scattered,they might have made the better arrange-ment of joining their forces from the beginning.
