V. SELF-CULTURE

For fourteen years, and these the freshest and fairest years of her
life, she toiled in the factory for ten hours each full day, while she
also gave faithful service in the mission. And yet she continued to
find time for the sedulous culture of her mind. She was always
borrowing books and extracting what was best in them. Not all were
profitable. One was _The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul_ by
Philip Doddridge, a volume much pondered then in Scottish homes. A
friend who noticed that she was somewhat cast down said to her, "Why,
Mary, what's the matter? You look very glum." "I canna do it," she
replied. "Canna do what?" "I canna meditate, and Doddridge says it is
necessary for the soul. If I try to meditate my mind just goes a'
roads." "Well, never mind meditation," her friend said. "Go and work,
for that's what God means us to do," and she followed his advice. Of
her introduction to the fields of higher literature we have one
reminiscence. Her spirit was so eager, she read so much and so quickly,
that a friend sought to test her by lending her _Sartor Resartus_. She
carried it home, and when next he met her he asked quizzically how she
had got on with Carlyle. "It is grand!" she replied. "I sat up reading
it, and was so interested that I did not know what the time was, until
I heard the factory bells calling me to work in the morning!"

There was no restraining her after that. She broadened and deepened in
thought and outlook, and gradually acquired the art of expressing
herself, both in speech and writing, in language that was deft, lucid,
and vigorous, Her style was formed insensibly from her constant reading
of the Bible, and had then a grave dignity and balance unlike the more
picturesque, if looser, touch of later years. The papers that were read