Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/121

Rh of simple obedience to the voice of God. I had returned from England, whither I went on account of my health, vhich had obliged me to give up the school which I had kept for several years, and I now lived in a boarding-house, without any determined occupation, employing myself in the study of various branches of natural history, to which I had always been attached, but yet some way depressed by the inactivity of my life. I longed for some nobler purpose for which to labour, something which would fill the vacuum which I felt in my soul.

“One day when returning from church I saw two gentlemen talking together, and heard one of them say, ‘I wish that somebody would see to the gaol, for the state of things there is dreadful!’ In a moment it flashed upon me, ‘there was a something for me to do!’ And I did it. I found many unfortunate lunatics confined in the prison, together with criminals, and treated in the same manner, besides a deal of mismanagement, and many faults in the institution which I need not now mention. I wrote an account of this, and drew up a plan for its amendment, which I transmitted to the States' government. This drew attention to the subject, and a measure was passed by Government for the improvement of the prison, and the erection of an asylum for the reception of lunatics, where they could receive such attention as they required. That was the beginning. Thus I saw the path marked out for me and it, and that which I have done in it have, as it were, been done of themselves.” Washington lay behind me, with its political quarrels, its bitter strife of State against State, man with man, its intricate relationships and unsatisfactory prospects, its excited, chaotic state. And here was a small human life, which by an act of simple obedience, had gone forth from its privacy, from its darkness, extending itself into a great active principle, fraught with blessing for neglected beings throughout every State of the Union, like that little