"The bliss in God's rich promise given, This child of faith and prayer Found not on earth, so fled to heaven,

To taste its fullness there.

*

*

*

Nor youth, nor wealth, nor love could save

His body from the tomb;

But Jesus triumphed o'er the grave,

And took his spirit home."

CHAPTER X.

INTRODUCTION OF SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.

Journey to Scotland.-Sunday-school Movement there.-Mr. and Mrs. Bethune's Labors in New York in 1802.-The Mother of Sabbath-schools in America.-Plans of Usefulness.

FOR a number of these years the health of Mrs. Bethune suffered greatly from several causes, which shattered her nervous system to a degree from which she did not recover until late in life. There is, consequently, little to record of active engagements during this period. In 1801, Mr. Bethune, hoping to get benefit for the invalid, took his wife and eldest child, Jessy, to Great Britain, that they might visit the place of his birth (Dingwall, Ross-shire, Scotland) and their surviving friends. They returned to New York in September, 1802. Their visit to Scotland was, in one particular, attended by a remarkable result.

"As early as 1797 a public movement was made in Edinburgh in favor of Sunday-schools in Scotland. A number of pious persons of various denominations had, for a few months, been in the habit of meeting to pray for the advancement of religion at home and abroad. The duty of accompanying their prayers with personal exertions naturally occurred to them, and led their minds to the education of poor children. They formed 'The Edinburgh Gratis Sab

bath-school Society,' to raise and conduct Sabbath evening schools in Edinburgh and its vicinity, in which schools the Christian doctrines common to the associated denominations only were to be taught, and the duties all to be performed, without pay, by the members of the society. This procedure became rapidly popular, and was imitated by other cities, and soon throughout Scotland." The circle in Edinburgh with whom this good work began was one to which Mr. and Mrs. Bethune would most likely be introduced, and a scheme so consonant to their dispositions must have arrested their attention. Hence we are not surprised to learn that, "in New York, the late Mr. Bethune, assisted by his lady and her mother, had, at their own expense, opened a school as early as 1802 [the year after their return from Scotland], and, shortly after, several more, in other parts of the city, and personally superintended them."*

The author deeply regrets that his searches have failed to discover any authentic records of these schools; but, from various consenting circumstances, is strongly inclined to believe that the Edinburgh movement had its origin farther back than the public society, the date of which is given by Mr. Green (1797), and that it arose in that pious circle of which Mrs. Baillie Walker, and, until her death, Lady Glenorchy, with other devoted Christians, were active

* See speech of Timothy R. Green, Esq., at the New York Sunday-school JUBILEE, in Sunday Journal of that date.

members, and to which Mrs. Graham, during her res idence in Edinburgh, belonged. The correspondence closely maintained between Mrs. Baillie Walker and Mrs. Graham was, as we have seen, the medium by which the reviving missionary spirit was transmitted from Scotland to this country; and we also know that Mrs. Graham was engaged personally in teaching a school for young women on Sabbath evenings as early as 1792-3. The synchronism was not accidental. However, be that as it may, we can not doubt that Mrs. Bethune's mind received its strong impulse toward Sabbath-schools during her visit to Scotland in 1801-2. The impulse was never lost; but ill health, the birth and care of children, and occupation in other enterprises (particularly the formation and establishment of the New York Orphan Asylum, 1806, etc.), prevented it from so fully occupying her mind until many years afterward, 1814, when increasing attention to Sunday-schools in England, accounts of which were communicated to Mr. and Mrs. Bethune by the godly Stephen Prust, of Bristol, England, roused Mr. and Mrs. Bethune to similar efforts. The Sabbath-schools of Scotland were combined in a National Union in 1816; the Female Sabbath-school Union of New York was formed through the efforts of Mrs. Bethune in the same year, though the immediate influence which operated in this latter case came rather from England, though the formation of the Sabbath Union by Mrs. Bethune was the ripe growth of seed sown and cultivated from the year 1802.

It would be inconsistent with the meek spirit of her whose life we are writing to claim for her the honors of a doubtful precedence; and certainly no one rejoiced more than she did in the several efforts to establish Sunday-schools in different parts of the country; but the facts and dates thus given show that Providence intended for Mrs. Bethune the distinction of being the mother of Sabbath-schools in America.

It should also be noted that, about this period, Mrs. Graham became anxious for the instruction of the children of the widows, pensioners of the Widows' Society, and, consulting with her daughter, devised a plan for teaching them, and others similarly situated, by the voluntary agency of young ladies; and, "on the 17th of February, 1804," Mrs. Graham writes (Life, p. 231), "twenty-nine young ladies met, with Mrs. (Sarah) Hoffman and myself, at Mr. (Ogden) Hoffman's, Wall Street; and, having separated themselves in pairs, devoted themselves" to a work not a little resembling the Industrial and similar schools of the present day, except that all the teaching was supplied gratuitously. There were, at this time, no public schools, free-schools, or Sabbath-schools; and it is easy to see how, from the experience she must have had in those week-day schools, Mrs. Bethune's conviction of the usefulness of schools on the Sabbath was greatly strengthened, although her homecares as a young mother, increased by her delicate health, did not permit her to engage as entirely as her inclination would otherwise have led her to do.