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JEANETON; OR, BENEVOLENCE IN

HUMBLE LIFE.

I LATELY passed some days in an interesting town in the north of France; and one morning as I walked about the streets in an observant mood, my attention was particularly drawn to a very stout person, apparently about sixty years of age, who was cutting up wood for fuel.

The dress of this individual differed in no particular from that of the ordinary Norman peasants. A pair of coarse blue trowsers, a waistcoat of the same material with a grey worsted jacket over it, a white cotton night cap on the top, and a pair of heavy wooden shoes at the base of the figure, composed the entire dress; a cross-cutting saw, a mallet, and some wedges were the implements this person used.

There is no common labour more severe than that of splitting and cutting up timber for fuel, which is usually done by task work, and lazy people do not undertake it; it will give the best workman enough to do to finish what is called "a cord" in the course of a summer's day and half, and for this the fixed price is only twenty pence. The labourer whom I had been regarding, seemed determined to finish the job in hand as quickly as possible, and used the saw and the other tools with great dexterity, while a fine little boy tramped about in his sabots, or wooden shoes, playing with the broken logs, and peering now and then with playful and affectionate looks into the face of the elder individual, whom he called papa, while his father, as I concluded him to be, occasionally fondled him, though his tones of voice were rather gruff, and therefore unlikely, as mere musical sounds, to please the quick and sensitive ears of a child.

But the accents of true affection are always sweet to those to whom they are addressed, and are as intelligible in the years of infancy as in the more advanced periods of life when the voice of genuine love penetrates to the heart, and has its echoing vibrations there. The woodcutter to whom I have thus introduced the reader, is a woman. She had been deserted by her parents in infancy, and reared in an hospital for foundlings, from which, when she was twelve years old, a charitable gentleman took her to work in his garden.

Jeaneton, even at that age, was active, laborious, and grateful; and as she grew up, she manifested an independent spirit, which caused her to make every return within her power for the food and clothes with which her kind master supplied her. She soon became strong and careful enough to weed in a garden; to drive cows from their byre or shed, to the pasture fields, and to herd them while grazing; to put hay into their cribs in winter; and to do many of those things about a country house, which a steady child can well as a grown-up person.

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It happened one day when she was weeding a flower bed, that her petticoats appeared to the gardener to be very much in her way as she moved from alley to alley between the delicate flower stems, over which they sometimes brushed too roughly. The gardener grumbled at Jeaneton's awkwardness, and wished for a boy in her stead. She half jokingly expressed her willingness to dress as a boy. The result was, that a cast-off pair of trowsers were prepared for her. These she willingly put on, and another circumstance of a very peculiar nature led to her adoption afterwards of man's apparel in every particular.

From her childhood, Jeaneton has frequently walked in her sleep; and, as she became a woman, her kind friends, deeming that she would be less likely to meet with accident or insult in man's clothes, while rambling about when asleep, encouraged her to assume the dress which she still wears; and that which commenced in convenience has continued as her habit from choice. The peculiarity of dress, however, in which Jeaneton indulges, has obtained for her the nickname of Culottes, which in the French language signifies that part of the male attire by which she is distinguished. When not actually at work, she wears a man's blouse (which resembles a smock frock) over her waistcoat; and so much does she resemble a man, that no stranger to her character would for a moment suppose that she is a female. All her usual occupations are those of a man; besides cutting up wood, she threshes corn, and breaks stones for the repairing of roads.

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I should not have noticed these peculiarities, but for other circumstances in

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the character of this woman. These I shall proceed to describe.

Having in her early life experienced the misery of being alone in the world, without father or mother, without hearing a friendly word, or awakening a compassionate thought in the crowd about her, until she was saved from destitution by the compassion of M. St. S she felt a strong degree of sympathy for those similarly circumstanced with herself when in her childhood; and has proved this by frequently taking under her protection, from the Foundling Hospital, some of those young unfortunates, who at a certain age are turned adrift upon the world with no greater capital than five francs in their pockets Many of these children she has contrived to keep in her own lodgings, until, in some way or other, she has placed them in situations to maintain themselves.

She has never forgotten that she herself was supported by the hand of charity until her age and strength_rendered her independent. The Lord was pleased to give her the power of supporting herself; and while she blessed the Author and Giver of all good things for the health she enjoyed, and the extraordinary vigour of her frame, she felt a proper desire to be independent of all charitable aid, and cheerfully earned her bread in the condition of life in which it pleased God to place her.

It is asserted that in one way or another, she has been the instrument of providing for one hundred and eighteen poor children within the period of thirtysix years.

Besides applying all that she could spare from her hard earnings to her benevolent purposes, she begs for the children of the poor, and she importunes tradesmen, in whose means and dispositions she has confidence, to take the objects of her protection, when of sufficient age and ability, as apprentices to their respective trades without a fee. She will take no denial, and succeeds to a surprising extent. Her heart is in her work, and this is the true secret of her success. It is certain, however, that by many she is considered unreasonable and troublesome, nay with some she may bear the reputation of a hypocrite or impostor; yet, through evil report and good report, experiencing angry rebuffs in her missions of mercy,

Jeaneton has persevered in her good work, without intermission, from the day on which she commenced her labours of love; and this perseverance through so many trying obstacles, is not the least of her good qualities.

She has often met with extreme ingratitude from those whom she has served: some of them have passed her in the streets without notice, from that false shame which has made them unwilling to recognize in Jeaneton Culottes, their nurse, their benefactress, and their more than mother.

Those whom the ingratitude of the world has touched, whom friends have deserted in their adversity, can understand the difficulty of a patient continuance in well doing to persons who may prove unworthy of kindness, and ungrateful for benefits; they can estimate the excellence of Jeaneton's disposition in this respect, and the strength of her resolution in pursuing a steady course of active charity, notwithstanding all the disappointments and trials of temper to which she has subjected herself by her patient and untiring zeal, under the influence of the holy principle of love which has abided in her heart, and led her to seek the benefit of those who are more destitute than herself. Hers, to all appearance, is the charity which suffereth long and is kind, is not easily provoked, which beareth all things, believeth all things, and endureth all things!

She has encountered the ridicule of fools, the ungracious denials of the harsh and niggardly, when she asked them to assist in clothing one of her little ones, or to enlarge her means of usefulness in any other point; and, far heavier than all, the unkindness of some of those for whom her own heart has melted with pity; for though that heart is encased in such a rude and unpolished frame, its sensibility is extreme; a child's look of woe affects it in a moment, and sets in motion all its finer movements.

Of this a proof occurred, within the last twelve months, on the discharging from the Orphan Asylum at of some children who had reached the age when they must shift for themselves.

The sobs and tears of three of them testified the unwillingness with which they left their first asylum, and the friendly faces with which they had been

familiarized. Jeaneton was present on the occasion, and affected by the sorrow which she witnessed, undertook to provide for the whole three: they were all boys. One of them she soon consigned to the hands of a person who has public gardens, insisting upon his compliance as a matter of course, and the other two she also placed in suitable situations. The little boy with whom I had seen her, and who called her "Papa," was the child of a poor widow. Jeaneton had undertaken to clothe and support him under her own humble roof.

Truly, Jeaneton seems to have felt the power of that principle which leads the followers of Jesus to give, for his sake, meat to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, and clothes to the naked.

Yet some of my readers may say, Well, all this is very good in Jeaneton, no doubt; but I do not see, as she has no child of her own, why she could not serve God and be a good Christian, without taking trouble upon herself.

Now, my good man, or my good woman, I assure you that if you had not of yourself made these objections, I would have touched upon them of my own accord. As you have, however, started them, I expect that you will attend to what I am about to add to this little story, as it will apply to these remarks of yours in a general way. It is true that charity should begin at home, and if Jeaneton had any children of her own, or those of relations claiming her care and good offices, her first duty would have been to help them; and in such cases it would have been by no means praiseworthy in her to bestow her love upon strangers in preference to those of her own family and kindred; for "if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." But I am sure that countless numbers, under the pretext that charity should begin at home, not only put a lock and key upon their door to prevent any portion of this Divine principle from leaving their own house, (supposing charity to have any form of existence there,) but prevent it from expanding, as it ought to do, even there.

If charity had a resting place under the family roof, it could not be confined to it; like a stream of water between its bank, it would ooze out here and there;

for if real, it cannot be restricted to place, nor to particular seasons, nor to any precise degree of measure, under the plea that charity should begin at home. The extravagant enjoyments of life are called mere necessaries, as fashion or vanity may pronounce, and nothing is left for the purposes of charity, which ends, where it began, at home.

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Jeaneton had no child: no particular individuals had any claims upon her the whole family of mankind equally belonged to her, and her disposition embraced them all; though in loneliness and poverty, she resolved to serve as many as she could. I cannot judge of the inward springs of her conduct. He to whom alone the secrets of the heart are open, can see its workings; but I am willing to suppose that her reasons for the self-privation, active zeal, and perseverance of charity, she has practised for so many years, have proceeded from a good motive; and that gratitude for the mercies which she has herself experienced at the hands of God, has influenced her conduct. I have no grounds for supposing that she takes merit to herself for what God, from whom all holy desires proceed, has put into her heart; or that she deceives herself into the notion, that she is laying up treasures in heaven in the way of reward as of debt, instead of looking to the recompence as of grace. If she believes that by her good deeds, she is of herself earning a place in heaven, this proud feeling of her own ability, this mixing up of her own works with the perfect work of redemption wrought by Jesus, (when he offered up himself a full and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world,) would render all her doings nothing worth in the sight of Heaven; for, instead of the conviction that in herself "dwelleth no good thing;" and that eternal life is the free and undeserved gift of God through our Saviour; and that he who paid the purchase of our souls has a right to our best services; she would be claiming a reward for her deeds, as if they were a kind of purchase money in themselves. It is certainly no easy matter to make people see their obligation to be charitable, when they are in poor and lowly circumstances. They are apt to think that the whole responsibility in this particular of charity, rests with the rich, whom they are quite ready enough

to blame for any deficiency in this respect. The injunction of St. Paul to Timothy, "Charge them who are rich in this world, that they be ready to give, and glad to distribute," is of plain application to the wealthy; but the instruction to the poor gladly to give of their little, does not always seem to them easy of fulfilment and applicable to their condition. Yet there is not a situation of life in which charity may not in some degree be exercised.

with the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law hates the mother-inlaw; the step-mother ill treats the child of her husband, because it is not her own, or the orphan relative, whom another's charity may have introduced to her home; nay, the first commandment of promise is often most shamefully and uncharitably disobeyed by the poor, upon the plea that they cannot afford support to the authors of their being, unless the parish pays them for so doing; and by those in better circumstances, because they possess not the spirit of love, are without natural affection, and are influenced by the selfishness or the vanity of a proud and corrupt nature.

Jeaneton may be considered a very poor woman, though she has no children of her own to maintain; yet if she had, the same spirit of love which has hitherto excited her to the performance of good deeds, would probably prompt her to give, not clothes nor food, (for The conduct of Jeaneton is a sinthese she could not spare, in the case gular and striking instance of the power supposed, from those of her own house- of Christian love acting upon one whom, hold,) but time, and kind turns, in a thou-on first consideration, most persons would sand ways. consider to be neither in a condition to be charitable, nor under any obligation to be so.

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One poor person, for instance, may assist another in a charitable way, and while he or she may truly say, "Silver and gold have I none,' may, in a simple and practical sense, add, "Such as I have give I thee." One neighbour may sit by the bedside of another, when in sickness or sorrow; and though he may only have it in his power to give a cup of cold water to the sufferer, yet if he give that in the name of a disciple, verily he shall in no wise lose his reward.

If he devote himself, according to his means and opportunities, to the service of others, from a grateful sense of what the Saviour has done for himself, that person will have a blessing, because, whatsoever he does in word or deed, he does in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Col. iii. 17. There are, indeed, but few who cannot in some way assist others more helpless than themselves; or who have not, in some measure, the power to do good and to distribute; and though their offerings, like the widow's mite, may be the merest trifle in themselves, yet with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

The temper of charity has numberless ways of appearing, even in the humblest cottage. It is the will to be charitable that is generally wanting; the spirit of dissension is far more frequently seen than that of love. Those even of the same household bite and devour one another the mother-in-law disputes

If thousands in the higher ranks of life, under the impulse of the heavenborn spirit of charity, employ as they ought the means which God has put into their hands, as faithful stewards of his bounty, tens of thousands minister only to their own idle and capricious wants; or they give, because their gifts cost them no real sacrifice : they may not have to retrench a single luxury, economize in one article of dress or furniture, or deny themselves any bauble in consequence, or anything ministering to their pride or pleasure. They give of their abundance because ostentation, or shame, or worldly interest would render it more difficult for them to refuse, and not for the single purpose of glorifying their Father which is in heaven.

To conclude this sketch-How little are persons of any class of life disposed to suffer inconvenience or disquietude for the sake of others! How few like Jeaneton will lead a self-denying and laborious life for the benefit of others! How very few will gratuitously undergo, and fewer still will persevere in repeating, the often thankless task of rearing and educating wayward children in the midst of a perverse and crooked generation, ever ready to oppose or ridicule those works of mercy which they neither desire to imitate nor wish to behold.

MODERN SUPERSTITION.-THE MOR

MONITES.-No. III.

We now conclude our quotations relating to a system of deception, so gross that its success may well excite surprise as well as lamentation. The origin of the work of Mr. Spaulding, says the writer referred to in former numbers, and which unquestionably forms the entire groundwork of the book of Mormon, is thus described by Mrs. Davidson, formerly the wife of Mr. Spaulding. This statement of Mrs. Davidson was published some time last winter in the "Boston Recorder," to the editors of which it was sent by the Rev. John Storms, the Congregational minister in Hollistown, accompanied with a certificate from two highly respectable clergymen, the Rev. Mr. Austin and the Rev. A. Ely, D.D., residing in Monson, Mass., the present place of residence of Mrs. Davidson, stating that Mrs. Davidson, the narrator of the following history, was formerly the wife of Rev. Solomon Spaulding, and that since his decease she had been married to a second husband by the name of Davidson, and that she was a woman of irreproachable character, and a humble Christian, and that her testimony was worthy of implicit confidence.

"As the book of Mormon,' or 'golden Bible,' has excited much attention, and has been put by a certain new sect in the place of the sacred Scriptures, I deem it a duty which I owe to the public, to state what I know touching its origin. That its claims to a Divine origin are wholly unfounded, needs no proof to a mind unperverted by the grossest delusions. That any sane person should rank it higher than any other merely human composition, is a matter of the greatest astonishment; yet it is received as Divine by some who dwell in enlightened New England, and even by those who have sustained the character of devoted Christians. Learning recently that Mormonism had found its way into a church in Massachusetts, and has impregnated some with its gross delusions, so that excommunication has been necessary, I am determined to delay no longer in doing what I can to strip the mask from this mother of sin, and to lay open this pit of abominations.

"Rev. Solomon Spaulding, to whom I was united in marriage in early life,

was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and was distinguished for a lively imagination and a great fondness for history. At the time of our marriage, he resided in Cherry Valley, New York. From this place, we removed to New Salem, Ashtabula county, Ohio, sometimes called Conneaut, as it is situated on Conneaut Creek. Shortly after our removal to this place, his health sunk, and he was laid aside from active labours. In the town of New Salem, there are numerous mounds and forts, supposed by many to be the dilapidated dwellings and fortifications of a race now extinct. These ancient relics arrest the attention of the new settlers, and become objects of research for the curious. Numerous implements were found, and other articles evincing great skill in the arts. Mr. Spaulding being an educated man, and passionately fond of history, took a lively interest in these developments of antiquity; and in order to beguile the hours of retirement, and furnish employment for his lively imagination, he conceived the idea of giving an historical sketch of this long lost race. Their extreme antiquity of course would lead him to write in the most ancient style, and as the Old Testament is the most ancient book in the world, he imitated its style as nearly as possible. His sole object in writing this historical romance was to amuse himself and his neighbours. This was about the year 1812. Hull's surrender at Detroit occurred near the same time, and I recollect the date well from that circumstance. As he progressed in his narrative, the neighbours would come in from time to time to hear portions read, and a great interest in the work was excited amongst them. It claimed to have been written by one of the lost nation, and to have been recovered from the earth, and assumed the title of Manuscript Found.' The neighbours would often inquire how Mr. Spaulding progressed in deciphering the manuscript; and when he had a sufficient portion prepared, he would inform them, and they would assemble to hear it read. He was enabled from his acquaintance with the classics and ancient history, to introduce many singular names, which were particularly noticed by the people, and could be easily recognized by them. Mr. Solomon Spaulding had a brother, Mr. John Spaulding,

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