"Good times and bad times and all times pass over." BEWICK'S VIGNETTES.
Bishop Gilbert's family circle was fast diminishing. His eldest son and four daughters were married. The _sisterhood_ was broken up. Numerous home duties at Chichester and in London, together with the care of parents whose health was beginning to fail, engrossed the time and thought of the daughters at home. Bessie still received sympathy and assistance, but she lived a very independent life, and relied more and more upon the services of a confidential maid, who wrote her letters, made the entries in diary, note-book, and journal, from which we have taken extracts, and accompanied her wherever she went.
Her entire absorption in the work of the Institution could not fail to become a source of isolation; and it began to cause anxiety to parents and friends. They knew her delicacy and the need in which she stood of constant watchful care, and they followed her with apprehension as she sailed out into the ocean of labour and endeavour.
Some remonstrances from old and dear friends reached her, and the faithful Fraülein D. wrote as follows:
Don't you allow that one great interest to absorb all others.... Remember that our very virtues can become snares of sin to us if we do not watch ourselves, our purest actions may lead us wrong. One great difficulty we have to deal with, in this our so complex state of trial, is to keep within us an even balance of things. Do the one thing, but do not leave the others undone, and above all seek, in all we do, not our own but the glory of God.... Don't you show a little want of faith and trust in your own eagerness and over-anxiety about your Institution, which, though most laudable in itself, may become a snare to you if it makes you neglect duties quite as, if not more, sacred?
Bessie preserved this letter, and in her humility she would lay it deeply to heart; but she knew that the Institution was not a work in which she sought her own glory. She was labouring for the blind, who depended upon her, and whom she could not forsake. She had "put her hand to the plough," and could not draw back.
In a very different tone we find a few words from her father, written after Miss Law had paid Bessie a visit in Queen Anne Street.