422 THE MOTHER'S JOY. CHAP. XVI. [CHAP with the white hue of his cheeks. His gentleness and patience were indicated in his every look. I asked him what made him so comfortable, and in whom he trusted: he replied quietly, but with evident emotion, 'My Saviour.' 'What did He do for you?' I asked. 'Died for me,' was his answer. 'Why did He die for you?' I continued; and he answered, 'For my sins, that I may go to heaven.' All this was said with a simplicity of manner which it was a profitable lesson to witness, and showed what a gracious compensation God had given him for the defects in his bodily powers and mental abilities, and the illness that was now wasting his feeble constitution." And if this change was a source of joy to those who witnessed the gradual development of dormant power, the effect upon the parent was more wonderful still. Mr. Sydney said, in his lecture at St. Martin's Hall, "I feel it right to repeat, that there are many who are capable of little more than physical improvement and comfort; but there are also many in whom a change has taken place which astonishes all who have seen it. A mother comes in and asks to see her child. The child is brought; she looks earnestly, and asserts, with emphasis, 'This is not my child.' She looks again, and bursts into tears. This was the case at Highgate; and this was one of the first rewards of the founder, who has devoted himself with a spirit of benevolence only equalled by the talent he has shown for his undertaking from the earliest moment he conceived the great idea." The work was one which bore the inspection of observers whose philanthropy was under the control of a philosophical spirit, as satisfactorily as that of men whose sympathies, being in close alliance with an evangelical faith, might be supposed prompt to recognize the indications of moral and religious impression upon minds which had been regarded as utterly insusceptible of any ideas. On July 26th, 1860, for example, Dr. Reed notes a visit paid by XVI.] CHAP. XVI. PROPOSED TAX UPON TALENT. 423 Lord Stanley, on whose simple but sincere acknowledgment that the Asylum at Earlswood "deserved the utmost support," he makes the natural and just comment, "And, when he says that, I believe he means what he says, as on all subjects on which he speaks." Good men have different temperaments, and it was one of Dr. Reed's faculties to discern them clearly. He well understood the mind with which he was dealing, when he showed to the Prince Consort the petition of a poor mother, who said of her idiot child, "She laughs when the sun shines." "It is beautiful!" said the Prince; "so do we laugh when the sun shines." "May the sun shine ever," adds Dr. Reed, "on Earlswood and on Windsor!" This knowledge of human nature was never more triumphantly shown than in touching the spring of benevolence in individual minds. "Wrote," he says, to Mr.. I told him, if I were Mr. Gladstone, I would put a tax upon talent, levied by this rule: he who has most shall pay it to him who has least, the Idiot. He sent me a cheque, and said he would tell the Chancellor." Notwithstanding the infirmities of age, aggravated beyond a doubt by incessant application to so many things, Dr. Reed was still found, when the weather permitted, at his favourite employ. The weekly round of engagements may be judged of by the following entries in one page of his diary in 1860 "July 30. Earlswood. 31. Royal-Putney. Aug. 1. Idiot-office. 2. Fatherless-office. 4. Royal-Poultry." 424 THE FAREWELL. CHAP. XVI, CHAP The same habit was carried into 1861, though with many intermissions. In that year, from failing health and a desire to concentrate all his remaining power on the Hospital for Incurables, he had tendered his resignation as Secretary of the Asylum for Idiots; but he was prevailed on to withdraw it, on the understanding that he should be relieved from the more onerous duties at the London Office. But he attended, to the last, the elections and the anniversary festivals. Thus, with busy hand, untiring zeal, and holy act, he laboured on to the end of life. When he became conscious that it was drawing very near, Dr. Down, was one of those of whom he spoke with special interest, also of his friends Mr. Dobinson and Mr. Mann; while, to his faithful colleague, Dr. Conolly, he sent a token of his loving remembrance, saying, "I hope he will be preserved to guide the charity." Some of his latest references were to the institution, its officers, and inmates. "My love," he said, "to them all. Thank them for their letters. Tell them to remember me, and to take care of their sun-dial."* After a pause, he added, "I have always had their souls in view. Who was it once asked me if idiots had any souls?" On being reminded that one of the inmates had said, during a fatal illness, "If I get better, I shall clean the boots again; if I die, God will give me something better to do for him;" he said,-and his dull eye "beamed keen again" for the minute as he said it,"Yes, and I remember that little fellow at Highgate who said, 'I love God.'-Nothing that loves Him shall perish. No, they shall not die. I shall meet them soon in heaven. Amen!" * A gift of Dr. Reed, erected in front of Earlswood. |