Heroines That Every Child Should Know Part 28

When the bell at the head of her bed rang at night she rose at once, saying to herself, "The Master is come, and calleth for thee!" Indeed, she loved to think that she was ministering to her Lord in the person of His poor and sick.

Here is a letter from a former patient in the hospital, from which only a short extract can be made:

"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 G.o.d_, 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 G.o.d 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.

Since her death, in commemoration of her labours at Walsall, a very beautiful statue has been there erected to her, and on the pedestal are bas-reliefs representing incidents in her life there. One of these ill.u.s.trates a terrible explosion that took place in the Birchett's Iron Works, on Friday, October 15, 1875, whereby eleven men were so severely burnt that only two survived. All the others died after their admission into the hospital. It came about thus: The men were at work when water escaped from the "twyer" and fell upon the molten iron in the furnace and was at once resolved into steam that blew out the front of the furnace, and also the molten iron, which fell upon the men. Some suffered frightful agonies, but the shock to the nervous systems of others had stupefied them. The sight and the smell were terrible. Ladies who volunteered their help could not endure it, and were forced to withdraw, some not getting beyond the door of the ward.

But Sister Dora was with the patients incessantly till they died, giving them water, bandaging their wounds, or cutting away the sodden clothes that adhered to the burnt flesh. Some lingered on for ten days, but in all this time she never deserted the fetid atmosphere of the ward, never went to bed.

She had so much to do with burns that she became specially skilful in treating them. Children terribly burnt or scalded were constantly brought to the hospital; often men came scalded from a boiler, or by molten metal. She dressed their wounds herself, but, if possible, always sent the patients to be tended at home, where she would visit them and regularly dress their wounds, rather than have the wards tainted by the effluvium from the burns. Her treatment of burnt children merits quotation.

"If a large surface of the body was burnt, or if the child seemed beside itself with terror, she did not touch the wounds themselves, but only carefully excluded the air from them by means of cotton wool and blankets wrapped around the body. She put hot bottles and flannel to the feet, and, if necessary, ice to the head. Then she gave her attention to soothing and consoling the shocked nerves--a state which she considered to be often a more immediate source of danger to the life of the child than the actual injuries. She fed it with milk and brandy, unless it violently refused food, when she would let it alone until it came round, saying that force, or anything which involved even a slight further shock to the system, was worse than useless.

Sometimes, of course, the fatal sleep of exhaustion, from which there was no awakening, would follow; but more often than not food was successfully administered, and after a few hours, Sister Dora, having gained the child's confidence, could dress the wounds without fear of exciting the frantic terror which would have been the result of touching them at first."

Children Sister Dora dearly loved; her heart went out to them with infinite tenderness, and she was even known to sleep with a burnt baby on each arm. What that means only those know who have had experience of the sickening smell arising from burns.

Once a little girl of nine was brought into the hospital so badly burnt that it was obvious she had not many hours to live. Sister Dora sat by her bed talking to her of Jesus Christ and His love for little children, and of the blessed home into which he would receive them.

The child died peacefully, and her last words were: "Sister, when you come to heaven, I'll meet you at the gates with a bunch of flowers."

One of the most heroic of her many heroic acts was taking charge of the small-pox hospital when a second epidemic broke out.

Mr. S. Welsh says: "In the spring of 1875 there was a second visitation of the disease, and fears were entertained that the results would be as bad as during the former visitation. One morning Sister Dora came to me and said, 'Do you know, I have an idea that if some one could be got to go to the epidemic hospital in whom the people have confidence, they would send their friends to be nursed, the patients would be isolated, and the disease stamped out.'" This was because a prejudice was entertained against the new small-pox hospital, and those who had sick concealed the fact rather than send them to it. "I said," continues Mr. Welsh, "'I have long been of the opinion you have just expressed; but where are we to get a lady, in whom the people would have confidence, to undertake the duty?'

"Her prompt reply was, 'I will go.'

"I confess the sudden announcement of her determination rather took me by surprise, for I had no expectation of it, and not the least remote idea that she intended to go. 'But,' I said, 'who will take charge of the hospital if you go there?'

"'Oh,' she replied, 'I can get plenty of ladies to come there, but none will go to the epidemic. And', she added, by way of reconciling me to her view, 'it will only be for a short time.'

"'But what if you were to take the disease and die?' I inquired.

"'Then,' she added, in her cheery way, 'I shall have died in the path of duty, and, you know, I could not die better.'

"I knew it was no use pointing out at length the risk she ran, for where it was a case of saving others, _self_ with her was no consideration. I tried to dissuade her on other grounds.... A few days later I was in company with the doctor of the hospital, who was also medical officer of health, and who, as such, had charge of the epidemic hospital, near to which we were at the time. He said, 'Do you know where Sister Dora is?' 'At the hospital I suppose,' was my reply.

'No,' he rejoined, 'she is over there!' pointing to the epidemic hospital....

"The people as soon as they knew Sister Dora was in charge, had no misgiving about sending their relatives to be nursed, and the result was as she had predicted; the cases were brought in as soon as it was discovered that patients had the disease, and the epidemic was speedily stamped out."

She had, however, a hard time of it there, as she lacked a.s.sistants.

Two women were sent from the work-house, but they proved of little use. The porter, an old soldier, was attentive and kind in his way, but he always went out "on a spree" on Sat.u.r.day nights, and did not return till late on Sunday evening. When the work-house women failed her she was sometimes alone with her patients, and these occasionally in the delirium of small-pox.

It was not till the middle of August, 1875, that the last small-pox patient departed from the hospital, and she was able to return to her original work.

One of the bas-reliefs on her monument represents Sister Dora consoling the afflicted and the scene depicted refers to a dreadful colliery accident that occurred on March 14, 1872, at Pelsall, a village rather over three miles from Walsall, by which twenty-two men were entombed, and all perished. For several days hopes were entertained that some of the men would be got out alive; and blankets in which to wrap them, and restoratives, were provided, and Sister Dora was sent for to attend the men when brought to "bank." The following extract, from an article by a special correspondent in a newspaper, dated Dec 10, 1872, will give some idea of Sister Dora's connection with the event:

Out of doors the scene is weird and awful, and impresses the mind with a peculiar gloom; for the intensity of the darkness is heightened by the shades created by the artificial lights. Every object, the most minute, stands out in bold relief against the inky darkness which surrounds the landscape. On the crest of the mound or pit-bank, the policemen, like sentinels, are walking their rounds. The wind is howling and whistling through the trees which form a background to the pit-bank, and the rain is coming hissing down in sheets. In a hovel close to the pit shaft sit the bereaved and disconsolate mourners, hoping against hope, and watching for those who will never return. There, too, are the swarthy sons of toil who have just returned from their fruitless search in the mine for the dear missing ones, and are resting while their saturated clothes are drying.

But another form glides softly from that hovel; and amid the pelting rain, and over the rough pit-bank, and through miry clay--now ankle deep--takes her course to the dwellings of the mourners, for some, spent with watching, have been induced to return to their homes. As she plods her way amid pieces of timber, upturned wagons and fragments of broken machinery, which are scattered about in great confusion, a "wee, wee bairn"

creeps gently to her side, and grasping her hand and looking wistfully into her face, which is radiant with kindness and affection, says, "Oh, Sister, do see to my father when they bring him up the pit." Poor child! Never again would he know a father's love, or share a father's care. She smiled, and that smile seemed to lighten the child's load of grief, and her promise to see to his father appeared to impart consolation to his heavy, despairing heart.

On she glides, with a kind word or a sympathetic expression to all. One woman, after listening to her comforting words, burst into tears--the fountains of sorrow so long pent up seemed to have found vent. "Let her weep," said a relative of the unfortunate woman; "it is the first tear she has shed since the accident has occurred, and it will do her good to cry." But who is the good Samaritan? She is the sister who for seven years has had the management of the nursing department in the cottage hospital at Walsall.

This is written in too much of the "special correspondent" style to be pleasant; nevertheless it describes what actually took place.

Mr. Samuel Welsh says: "I remember one evening I was in the hospital when a poor man who had been dreadfully crushed in a pit was brought in. One of his legs was so fearfully injured that it was thought it would be necessary to amputate it. After examining the patient, the doctor came to me in the committee-room--one door of which opened into the pa.s.sage leading to the wards and another into the hall in the domestic portion of the building. After telling me about the patient who had just been brought in, he said, 'Do you know Sister Dora is very ill? So ill,' he continued, 'that I question if she will pull through this time.' I naturally inquired what she was suffering from, and in reply the doctor said, 'She will not take care of herself, and is suffering from blood-poison.' He left me, and I was just trying to solve the problem--'What shall be done? or how shall her place be supplied if she be taken from us by death?' when I saw a spectral-like figure gliding gently and almost noiselessly through the room from the domestic entrance to the door leading to the wards. The figure was rather indistinct, for it was nearly dark; and as I gazed at the receding form, I said, 'Sister, is it you?' 'Whist!' she said, and glided through the doorway into the wards. In a short time she returned, and I said to her, 'Sister, the doctor has just been telling me how ill you are--how is it you are here?' 'Ah!' replied, she 'it is true I am very ill; but I heard the surgeons talking about amputating that poor fellow's limb, and I wanted to see whether or not there was a possibility of saving it, and I believe there is; and, knowing that, I shall rest better.' So saying, she glided as noiselessly out of the room as when she entered.

"On her recovery--which was r.e.t.a.r.ded by her neglecting herself to attend to others--she called me one day to the hall-door of the hospital, and asked me if I thought it was going to rain. I told her I did not think it would rain for some hours. She then told me to go and order a cab to be ready at the hospital in half an hour. I tried to persuade her not to venture out so soon; but it was no use--she went; and many a time I wondered where she went to.

"About six months afterward I happened to be at a railway station, and saw a pointsman who had been in our hospital with an injured foot, but who, as his friends wished to have him at home, had left before his foot was cured. I inquired how his foot was. He replied that had it not been for Sister Dora he would have lost his foot, if not his life.

I said, 'How did she save your foot when you were not in the hospital, and she was ill at the time you left the hospital?' 'Well,' he replied, 'you know my foot was far from well when I left the hospital; there was no one at our house who could see to it properly, and it took bad ways, and one evening I was in awful pain. Oh, how I did wish for Sister Dora to come and dress it! I felt sure she could give me relief, but I had been told she was very ill, so I had no hope that my earnest desire would be realised; but while I was thinking and wis.h.i.+ng, the bedroom door was gently opened, and a figure just like Sister Dora glided so softly into the room that I could not hear her, but oh! she was so pale that I began to think it must be her spirit but when she folded the bedclothes from off my foot, I knew it was she. She dressed my foot, and from that hour it began to improve.'

"A few days after this interview with the pointsman I was talking to Sister Dora, and said: 'By the bye, Sister, I have found out where you went with the cab that day.' She replied with a merry twinkle in her eye, 'What a long time you have been finding it out!'"

Her old patients ever remembered her with grat.i.tude. A man called Ch.e.l.l, an engine-stoker, was twice in the hospital under her care, first with a dislocated ankle, severely cut; the second time with a leg crushed to pieces in a railway accident. It was amputated.

According to his own account he remembered nothing of the operation, except that Sister Dora was there, and that, "When I come to after the chloroform, she was on her knees by my side with her arm supporting my head, and she was repeating:

"'They climbed the steep ascent of heaven, Through peril, toil and pain: O G.o.d, to us may grace be given To follow in their train.'

And all through the pain and trouble that I had afterward, I never forgot Sister's voice saying those words." When she was in the small-pox hospital, avoided by most, this man never failed to stump away to it to see her and inquire how she was getting on.

There were, as she herself recognised, faults in the character of Sister Dora; and yet, without these faults, problematical as it may seem, it is doubtful whether she could have achieved all she did.

One who knew her long and intimately writes to me "A majestic character, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with sympathy, but, for lack of self-discipline, this sympathy was impulsive and gus.h.i.+ng. Her glorious nature, physical and mental, was marred by undisciplined impulse. Her nature found its congenial outlet in devoted works of mercy and love to her fellow creatures. How far she would have done the same under authority, I fear is a little doubtful."

Miss Twigg, who knew her well, writes me: "She was a lovable woman, so bright and winsome. She used to come into our rather dull and sad home (our mother died when we were quite children) after evening service. She would nurse one of us, big as we were then, and the others would gather round her, while she would tell us stories of her hospital life.... She was a _real_ woman."

There is one point in Sister Dora's life to which sufficient attention has not been paid by her biographers. It is one which the busy workers of the present day think of too little--namely, the writing of bright, helpful letters to any friend who is sick or in trouble. Somehow or other she always found time for that, wrote one who knew her well, and who contributes the following, written to a young girl who was at the time in a spinal hospital, and who was almost a stranger to her:

MY DEAR MISS J.--I was so glad to hear from you, though I fear it must be a trouble for you to write. I _do_ hope that you will really have benefited by the treatment and rest. I am so glad that the doctor is good to his "children." Such little attentions when you are sick help to alleviate wonderfully. I wish I could come and take a peep at you. Did Mrs. N. tell you that she had sent us five pounds for our seaside expedition? Was it not good of her? Oh! we shall have such a jolly time. To see all those poor creatures drink in the sea-breezes! We have had a very busy week of accidents and operations. It has been a regular storm.[A] My dear, it is in such times as you are now having that the voice of Jesus Christ can be best heard, "Come into a desert place awhile." Know you surely that it is G.o.d's visitation. Take home that thought, realise it: G.o.d _visiting you_. Elizabeth was astonished that the Mother of her Lord should visit her. We can have our Emmanuel. I can look back on my sicknesses as the best times of my life. Don't fret about the future. He carrieth our sicknesses and healeth our infirmities.

You know infirmity means weakness after sickness. Think of the cheering lines of our hymn: "His touch has still its ancient power." When I arose up from my sick bed they told me I should never be able to enter a hospital or do work again. I was fretting over this when a good friend came to me, and told me only to take a day's burden and not look forward, and it was such a help. I got up every day feeling sure I should have strength and grace for the day's trial. May it be said of you, dear, "They took knowledge of her that she had been with Jesus."

May He reveal Himself in all His beauty is the prayer of

Your sincere friend, SISTER DORA.

It does not truly represent Sister Dora to dwell on her outer life, and not look as well into that which is within, as it was the very mainspring of all her actions, as it, in fact, made her what she was.

The same writer to the _Guardian_ gives some sentences from other letters: "Take your cross day by day, dearie, and with Jesus Christ bearing the other end it will not be _too_ heavy." "If we could find Jesus, it must be on a mountain, not in the plains or smooth places."

"He went up into a mountain and taught them, saying," etc. "It is only on a mountain side that we shall see the cross. It was only after Zacchaeus had _climbed_ the tree he could see Jesus. I have been thinking much of this lately. It is not in the smooth places we shall see Jesus, it is in the rough, in the storm, or by the sick couch." "A Christian is one whose object is Christ." "I am rejoiced that you are enjoying Faber's hymns; they always _warm_ me up. Oh, my dear, is it not sad that we prefer to live in the shade when we might have the glorious suns.h.i.+ne?"

It was during the winter of 1876-77 that Sister Dora felt the first approach of the terrible disease that was to cause her death, and then it was rather by diminution of strength than by actual pain. She consulted a doctor in Birmingham, in whom she placed confidence, and he told her the plain truth, that her days in this world were numbered. She exacted from him a pledge of secrecy, and then went on with her work as. .h.i.therto.

"She was suddenly brought, as it were, face to face with death--distant, perhaps, but inevitable; she, who was full of such exuberant life and spirit that the very word 'death' seemed a contradiction when applied to her. Even her doctor, as he looked at her blooming appearance, and measured with his eye her finely made form, was almost inclined to believe the evidence of his outward senses against his sober judgment.... She could not endure pity. She, to whom everybody had learnt instinctively to turn for help and consolation, on whom others leant for support, must she now come down to ask of them sympathy and comfort? The pride of life was still surging up in her, that pride which had made her glory in her physical strength for its own sake, as well as for its manifold uses in the service of her Master. True, she had been long living two lives inseparably blended: the outward life of hard, unceasing toil; the inner, a constant communion with the unseen world, the existence of which she realised to an extent which not even those who saw the most of her could appreciate. To all the poor, ignorant beings whose souls she tried to reach by means of their maimed bodies, she was, indeed, the personification of all that they could conceive as lovable, holy and merciful in the Saviour. At the same time she judged her own self with strict impartiality. She knew her own faults, her unbending will--her pride and glory in her work seemed to her even a fault; and, in place of looking on herself as perfect she was bowed down with a sense of her own short-comings. At the same time--with death before her, she hungered for more work for her Master. His words were continually on her lips: 'I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work.'"