‘Es sind die, so viel erlitten Trübsal, Schmerzen, Angst, und Noth,
Im Gebet auch oft gestritten
Mit dem hochgelobten Gott.’
Theodor Schenk.
Dorothea Beale—largely owing to her sensitive nature and high ideals—had had her full share of the sufferings and disappointments of youth. And when she had gained the experience and habits of more mature years, when she had schooled herself to bear, when her position was assured, when she was free to associate largely with those most sympathetic to her, her zeal for the best ever caused a pressing sense of effort and strain. Certain commonplace troubles she had not known, as, for example, the want of money—a need which in fact she never experienced, and never really understood in others. And on the whole her health had been good. She regarded it as one of her first duties to consider this, and except for the fact that she had an inherent indifference to the character of the food she ate, the duty was not neglected. But in 1878 she was called upon to go through a period of weakness and anxiety which limited her powers for the time. In spite of her great self-control she was obliged to relax a little, to take more rest, while the effort to preserve that self-control made her seem, to[180] some who knew nothing of it, hard and unsympathetic. Very little indeed did she say of what she went through at this time, because she thought it best for others that she should be reserved and silent on the subject. The College and Miss Beale seemed to have a stability which could not be touched or changed, and she knew the value of this characteristic to her work. Probably no one in the College, and hardly any one outside it, perhaps none except her sisters and Miss Clarke, knew how near she was at this time to an absolute breakdown. The diary, still persistently kept, continued to be little more than a record of struggle against particular faults; yet here, from an occasional word and expression, the weariness and anxiety of the time may be gauged.
The year opened for Miss Beale with a special renewal of effort. Canon Body’s addresses at a Retreat she attended in Warrington Crescent in the first days of January were full of inspiration to her. This meant actively fresh effort, keener self-scrutiny, more watchfulness. ‘I remember,’ she wrote on January 24, the opening day of College, ‘I remember with grief the many neglects of the past. Forsake me not, neither reward me after my deserts.’
The next few weeks show a pathetic struggle against a growing sense of weakness. At first she blamed herself if duty was neglected, then as she knew herself to be ill, still felt that more might have been done, refusing to take sickness as an excuse. There are many living who were at College at this period, and to them the picture of this effort and suffering going on in the background of all that then seemed unfailingly vital and positive must have a double interest,—increasing tenderness for the memory of her who for their sakes was bearing a daily burden of pain, encouraging to fresh zeal by showing what a brave[181] spirit may do even in weakness and depression. A few extracts to show this follow:—
‘Jan. 26. Nothing of real work done since school, and but little in the morning.
” 31. Inattentive. Spoke unkindly without cause. Irritable.
Feb. 3. Did not do best for literature class. Felt feeble and did not try as I ought.
” 9. [There] ought to be more industry in writing for Saturday lectures. The night cometh.
” 11. I grieve for the stupid lesson I gave Division III., because not well prepared.
” 14. Still great waste of time. How much have I to learn in this little time of life left to me.
” 15. Too much depressed, feeling I can’t. Perhaps more variety and exercise wanted. Certainly more trust and energy.
” 16. More than one hour wasted in idle thoughts, 5-6 a.m., and yet I have work for others which I ought to have thought of, and lessons. I deserve to be left without help. Evening. Not much matter or order in lessons. Tired and discontented with self. Neglect of books. More trust and energy wanted.
” 26. I have idled away precious time, neglected individual work. Because my own will is weak, I could not strengthen [another].
” 27. In bed all day. There are duties still undone, though I see death near.
” 28. Not in College. Much time wasted and [I was] disobedient to the voice of duty.
March 1. Still great waste of energy in idle thoughts. Talk of zeal but no religious work done to-day, though there are so many individuals I am ever putting off.
” 2. Omitted teachers’ class, which with less of idle thoughts I might have done.
” 5. Too exhausted to do much. Give me true contrition for the past.
” 6. Time not well used in afternoon. Letter to Miss Clarke.
” 14. Was ill last night. Almost no individual work.
” 15. A little more work for my children to-day. I thank Thee for some help. May I consecrate time and energies to Thee.[182]
” 17. Have not prayed well for to-morrow—was tired, but did waste some time. Not attentive enough at Church.... Surely to-day’s negligence might humble me!
” 18. Rose thirty-five minutes late through carelessness.
” 19. Back to College. Shall I patiently resign my work as soon as He bids?
” 20. Evening examination shortened because delayed. It was not necessary, though I am idle. Ordered away. Thy will be done.
” 21. Sent to Hyde. Forty-seven. (This was her birthday.) For the grievous neglect of past time enter not into judgment. Sanctify the future!
” 22. Make me ever more constant to resign to Thee my will.
” 23. More ill, so tried to be idle, but did what thought I could. Vain thoughts of self-pity.
” 24. No Church. Have wasted time. Great inattention at prayer.
” 25. Talking, and therefore late, at least half an hour. Miss Belcher came.
” 27. George came. Was ill most of afternoon. Did nothing.
” 28. I thank Thee for hopes of more work. Make me more restful and faithful. Power of prayer fails. Grant me the spirit of holy fear.
April 2. Back at Cheltenham.
” 3. I ought to have specially husbanded strength.
” 5. Tried, but not successfully, with my Confirmation children. Feeling too ill to do well. Thy will be done.
” 7. Holy Eucharist. Ill at night. The Lord thy refuge, and underneath the everlasting arms.
” 8. Better class. Was helped.
” 13. Not punctual because sleepless. Read Mr. Hinton’s Life and was helped by it. Confirmation at Christchurch. Summary [of the term]. Time wasted, idle prayer, boasting. Intercessions [neglected] because too selfish.
” 16. Came to Hyde [for the holidays].’
So ended a term of great anxiety. One medical opinion, doubtless referred to in her diary of March 20,[183] was of such a nature, that Miss Beale thought she must resign her work at once. At Hyde her sisters persuaded her to rest and to see another doctor, who took a more hopeful view, which was wholly justified by her gradual return to health.
Among the few who knew of this sorrow was the old pupil and friend, Miss Margaret Clarke. To her Miss Beale wrote from Hyde before she had received the second medical opinion, and the reply shows, far more than the diary can tell us, how deep was the gloom which hung over her way at this time. It might well have been written three years later, when Miss Beale was called upon to undergo greater suffering than any bodily pain alone can give, and suggests to those who read it now, that the darkness of that later time was shadowing her spirit even as early as this. The interest of it is the greater because it shows another who like Dorothea Beale, while faithful to her work, unsparing in care and thought for her children, had been called upon personally to know spiritual anguish. Such suffering, such loss, such deeper realisation of Divine love as are read in this letter are surely the portion of those who, having given much and helped many, are called to some further work of sympathy, needing perhaps ‘heart’s blood.’
‘My very dear Friend,—Your letter touches me so nearly, and calls out such true sympathy, that I cannot help yielding myself to the impulse to answer you, as one who, by her own experience, knows the pain and suffering you are now passing through. Last year at this time I was in it, and possibly just where you are now, where my complete faith in all that was most dear to me was tested; yes, tested and sifted, till all human longings and cravings, even those the most lawful, were laid low; God Himself seemed to draw near, and strip the soul of all it prized, and was proud of, asking one thing after another of it, and last of all the heart, whole and unshared, until, when Good Friday came, it could sympathise with the Crucified, as it[184] had never done before. Not that all that had not been done before as I believed, but this was in a way deeper, more searching than the soul had yet realised. I do not know if I am making myself clear to you, for it is difficult to put it into words. It was the unlearning human wisdom, and the getting ready to be “a little child,” to learn Divine Wisdom, in the school of the Kingdom of the Incarnate Word.
‘And then, when all was yielded, at least in will, then came a desolation time, which none but those who have passed through it can know—a living death, as it were; the soul having just power to cling to the Invisible Cross, and say the Creed, as a witness perhaps more to itself, that faith was alive, than to God as an act of faith in Him. I never slept, (I was for) whole nights awake, (the) brain always at work trying to solve the difficult problems of God’s wisdom, and circumstances in my own life, and to find out what was right, what was His Will. At last I was given a simple faith blindly to give myself to God for whatever He wished for me. To let go reasonings and what I thought, etc., and say just as a little child “Our Father” with intention for what He willed. I did not know what it might be, but He knew, and I would trust Him, and then I went on to (think of) that seventeenth chapter of St. John, and claimed my share in the benefits of that prayer, in the answer that is ever coming to each separate member of Christ’s Body all along the years since it was prayed.
‘And so, gradually, the passage was made into a nearer region, a nearer relationship to God, if I may so express myself. But I must not go on writing in this way. I can only tell you that what was then only a trembling venture of Faith has become a substantial reality in the life of the soul; the whole being, body, soul and spirit being penetrated by it, and the whole of life transformed by the “sunshine” which makes itself felt, even through stray clouds, which must come sometimes, and there is rest and peace in the soul—divine peace.
‘Forgive me, dear Miss Beale, for writing in a way I scarcely ever do to any one.
‘I know how impossible it will be for you to rest, but do try to do so, as long as you can.’
After the Easter holidays Miss Beale was much better in health, and though her work through the summer was carried on with a good deal of strain and weariness, she was able to do it as fully as usual. The summer holidays[185] were spent partly at Hyde Court with her mother, and partly at Cheltenham, and by the end of them she was much rested and again able to take the walks she enjoyed. The opening day of the autumn term was September 17. ‘Help me not to disgrace my profession!’ she exclaimed in her diary of that day.
Two years after this date Hyde Court ceased to be the regular holiday home, for in November 1881 Mrs. Beale died. In one of her later letters to her ‘Principal’ daughter she had written: ‘I hunger to see you, my darling. You have been so good to me always, your reward will come.’ Such words of praise are dear indeed when the lips that spoke them are cold. They were treasured by Miss Beale. But in this bereavement, as in all times when made conscious of the shadow of death, specially of her own, she tried to face the mystery with clear-sighted gaze, to realise sincerely the impression it was meant to produce. She would not let expressions of comfort and hope, which she welcomed and accepted to the full, or any brightness brought by the kindness of the living, hide for her the penitential aspect of death.
The following fragmentary thoughts seem to come from the very chamber of death, and were written on the day of the month which was to be the date of her own death, twenty-five years later:—
‘November 9, 1881.
‘At first death seemed, as I looked at that pale face, simply terrible—how could I die? This morning I went again and touched the cold hand, and gazed into the face, so calm and wax-like. She who had rejoiced over my birth fifty years ago was now perhaps watching me. Does the spirit linger round its earthly tabernacle for a while? The memory of old times came back—not only the love and unselfishness, but the harshness too, the faults, the sins, I find in myself—surely she feels it now as the light shines on her. Does she not see herself more as God sees her? For every sinful word we shall give account.[186] Surely this sorrow is a purifying fire, and the words are true, if we would judge ourselves here we shall not be judged.
‘Here, where we have partaken together of His Body and Blood, I kneel near that empty tabernacle—but a spiritual Presence is with us—purifying us both and drawing us nearer to Him in Whom living and dead are one.
‘Bless and purify our spirits, O Lord, with the dew of Thy grace, make us gentler and holier. Through the veil we seem to see Thee nearer. Longing, praying that we may not, as the rich man, have to feel the burning shame for our unloving spirit, now that we see His love, His tender, searching eye.
‘It becomes to me a sacred chapel, I can scarcely bear to part. The room is fragrant with the gifts of tender flowers from loving friends, and there is a peace here abiding in the sense of God’s continued, loving, healing discipline. “I change not!”’
During these years outside interests multiplied. New friendships were formed; some old ones were strengthened. The College Magazine, the first definite link forged with old pupils, was begun in 1880. Miss Beale made more acquaintances outside the College. In London she met many who shared her educational interests. In Cheltenham she attended, and often read and spoke at, a small literary gathering called the Society of Friends, which met from time to time at different houses. The diary becomes full of reference to Mrs. Middleton and Mrs. Owen. Through Mrs. Middleton she came to know Mr. Wilkinson’s[48] great evangelistic work in his fashionable London parish. She often went to hear him preach, read his books, and showed them to others. Mrs. Owen introduced her to the Life and philosophy of James Hinton, which made a very deep impression. At Mr. Owen’s house she met many earnest social workers and thinkers. Among these was Miss Ellice Hopkins, whose devoted work revived in tenfold force[187] her early pity for those who need to be ‘found.’ The increasing vigour of the College life and work was ever bringing in new ideas. Men who were making their mark as thinkers and teachers of their own special subjects often came to lecture. Among the most enthralled listeners to the eloquence of Professor William Knight, to the marvellous fairy-tales of science told by Professor Barrett, was the Lady Principal herself. Teachers and educationists of widely different views came to see the work of the school, often to find that the successful head-mistress who was able to show them so much was willing and eager to learn from them, and to see matters from their standpoint. Meanwhile she was reading as widely and eagerly as ever.
It was a time when long-accepted opinions were unsettled for many, by new scientific theories, or by a greater sensitiveness to the mystery of pain and the apparent indifference of a part of the so-called religious world in presence of the deepest wrongs and suffering. Dorothea Beale had to take her part in the special difficulties of her own day. The battle has been shifted to another ground for this generation, which scarcely knows what resistance was made, what suffering was endured by some heroic souls in the last, and at what a price a larger spiritual consciousness was bought.
The contact with so many minds, the widening circle of acquaintance with workers of different views and methods, and especially the appeal for aid in religious perplexity constantly made by those who came under her influence, doubtless helped to precipitate that sorrow, which, though in its acutest phase of short duration, was the sharpest trial Miss Beale was ever called upon to experience; one on which she never ceased to look back with horror. She who had said that she ‘could truly take[188] to herself the words of Faber,’[49] who had been from earliest childhood conscious of a protecting Presence, and had even then ‘found prayer a joy,’ now in late middle life felt herself, as it were, cast out. At an age when the inexperienced questionings of youth were over, when she hoped to find faith and hope strengthened by knowledge, it seemed for a moment as if they had died down altogether.
‘Nel mezzo cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita.’
To write of it is to turn a page of soul-history so intimate, and for a moment so painful, that it may well be thought it should be passed over in silence. But to omit it would not be wholly faithful to the memory of one who wished certainly that this story of her inner life should be known to all who could be helped by it. To tell it, moreover, is to use her own words, for she wrote of it herself, more than once or twice. She felt, when she looked back on it afterwards, that she was obliged to go through this time of suffering in order that she might be better fitted to do the work given her, in order that others who had lost faith and hope might be helped to regain them, by knowing how she herself had passed from destruction and despair to hope and rebuilding.
The diary of this whole period is more than ever indicative of inward strife and unrest from which she would not by her own will escape to any comfort other than the highest. Among the entries, which are for the most part self-analytical and depressed, it is curious to find this: ‘Letter from —— Some vanity perhaps in the refusal.’
[189]
It was an offer of marriage from an old friend.
Once or twice there is a hint of coming sorrow before she was conscious what its nature would be. Once, when marking the anniversary of a friend’s death, she noted herself as ‘perplexed with the Incomprehensible.’ On June 27, 1881, a year before the darkness closed in, she wrote: ‘A great dread of coming sorrow, as of a calvary before me. If some bitter cup is to be poured out, Thy will be done. Only forsake me not! Salvator Mundi!’
The new year (of 1882) opened as usual with renewed self-dedication; but she mentions that she came back to Cheltenham on January 14, after the annual Retreat, ‘very broken.’ Though a persistent effort to keep up her religious rule was maintained, the clear shining of faith was much clouded. One who went to her for help at that time writes of it thus:—
‘I went to her in sore trouble at the beginning of 1882, in one of the overwhelming griefs of extreme youth, when the whole aspect of life has suddenly changed from a lovely rose-garden ... to a hideous waste. The very things which made it lovely seemed to be shining and horrible shams, with undreamed-of treachery and horror lurking behind everything. It was the culminating disillusionment to turn to her who had been such a tower of patient strength all through school-life, and find nothing, no help, no comfort, no explanation, no hope to give! Yet while there were many at that time whom I could not endure to see, or do with because of the feeling of betrayal all round, there was never that with her. It never dawned on my mind for a moment that she was herself in the horrible mire, but I understood, I suppose, in my heart. I felt sorry for her and loved her better than ever before, and I never understood till now the reason of the tender intimacy of that time, which lay under the apparent disappointment of finding no help or comfort where I had made sure of it.’
This powerlessness to help those who turned to her in their spiritual need made more poignant the sense of[190] loss to one who loved to give freely as a mother to her children. ‘Then others came,’ she wrote afterwards of this time, ‘and one felt like the starving mother who saw the babe at her empty breast. I had no simple truths, no milk of the word to give them that they might grow thereby.’
A letter to a friend mentions books which had a destructive effect as read at this time. It was not Miss Beale’s habit deliberately to read a book which was likely to disturb or weaken faith. To an old pupil who once wrote to her of Strauss’s book, The Old Faith and the New, she had replied:—
‘September 1873.
‘I feel sorry you have read Strauss, but, of course, if you felt it your duty to do so, you were right. Still, I do not think one is bound to read everything, any more than one is to listen to all that can be said against all one’s friends. I mean a person might be ever so good, yet if we were constantly to listen to............