Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/553

514 to that call, and went to that country, established schools, and gradually pushed her way up the Mississippi. At the close of the Mexican War, through officers and soldiers returning home, she learned a great deal of the condition in Mexico. Her sympathies became so aroused, that she tried to awaken an interest among the people by writing articles on the subject, but gaining no response, she determined to go herself to Mexico and see if she could not do something to help these poor ignorant people. She opened a school for Mexican girls at Brownsville, Texas, on the American side of the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras, Mexico, there being a large Mexican population in this town. As she was successful she found opportunities for sending hundreds of Bibles and tracts into Mexico through her scholars and their friends. When the Civil War came, she was driven out of her home as she was not in sympathy with the people about her; thus she found shelter in Matamoras, and commenced her direct missionary labors for the Mexican people. Her work took her later to Monterey, one of the largest Catholic cities, and there she established a Protestant mission. As a result of her work, Protestant schools and churches were built, ultimately assuming such proportions that they required regularly ordained ministers. Her health failing in 1872, she returned home and died in 1888.

She is most affectionately remembered for her work in China. Miss Fay was a native of Essex County, Virginia, but entered the missionary field from Albany, New York, sailing for China, November 8, 1850, the first single woman sent there by the missionary society. She was a remarkable woman, with a most sympathetic heart and well-trained mind, and had a peculiar fitness for the work in that country. She established in her own house in Shanghai a boarding school for boys, and from this she educated teachers and preachers to carry on the work. She taught in the school, attended to all the domestic course, provided the clothing, managed the finances, and at the same time devoted much of her time to the study of the Chinese language. At the close of her twenty-fifth year, she passed this school over to the Episcopal Board. Her efforts developed from this very small beginning into the Doane Hall and Theological School, with president, professors, ten Chinese teachers, and some of her pupils in the Christian ministry. She was always known as "Lady Fay" to her pupils, who were impressed by the purity and simplicity of her Christian life and devotion to their interests After twenty-eight years of hard work, her health failed, and she died October 5, 1878.

Born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, May 20, 1811, and died June 21, 1877. Her mother was the niece of James Madison, the fourth president of the United States. She received her education from private tutors. She was a disciple of Bishop Meade of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who greatly influenced her in her religious life. The death of her parents breaking up her home when but twenty years of age, she went to Stanton, Pennsylvania to live. Wearying of