dark and wretched time. The reaction on her character, however, was not
all evil; suffering in the innocent has its compensations. It deepened
her sympathy and pity for others. It made her the fierce champion of
little children, and the refuge of the weak and oppressed. It prepared
her also for the task of combating the trade in spirits on the West
Coast, and for dealing with the drunken tribes amongst whom she came to
dwell. Her experience then was, indeed, the beginning of her training
for the work she had to accomplish in the future....

The father died, and the strain was removed, and Mary became the chief
support of the home. Those who knew her then state that her life was
one long act of self-denial; all her own inclinations and interests
were surrendered for the sake of the family, and she was content with
bare necessaries so long as they were provided for.




IV. TAMING THE ROUGHS

In her church work she continued to find the little distraction from
toil which gave life its savour. She began to attend the Sabbath
Morning Fellowship and week-night prayer meetings. She also taught a
class of "lovable lassies" in the Sabbath School--"I had the impudence
of ignorance then in special degree surely" was her mature comment on
this--and became a distributor of the _Monthly Visitor_. Despite the
weary hours in the factory, and a long walk to and from the church, she
was never absent from any of the services or meetings. "We would as
soon have thought of going to the moon as of being absent from a
service," she wrote shortly before she died. "And we throve very well