So ended the visit to England. How unlike most visits there! It is not often that two years are spent abroad chiefly in confinement with the sick and devotion to the dying. We wonder not that Mary Pickard thought that such employment was her "destiny." More appropriate does the word seem than the common term, "mission"; for that expresses too much of design and consciousness to be associated with her. She projected no large plans, or distant enterprises. She simply held herself ready for the work to which she might be summoned, abroad as well as at home, and with an ambition as easily satisfied at home as abroad. All her ministrations might seem to have been accidental, if any thing were accidental;--the occasions sought her, more than they were sought by her. Yet in some way or other the occasions were sure to appear, and equally sure to be used. Nor were her charities merely those of the hand, or of time and toil alone. There was benevolence, as well as diligence. No one knew, no one will ever know, the amount of her direct gifts at Osmotherly. But we know, from various sources, that they were free and large. And by no means were they restricted to her kindred. There is reason to believe that the whole village shared her bounty; in moderate measure, of necessity, but in decided liberality. From the nature and power of the disorder, a general panic prevailed, aggravated by ignorance and superstition, and followed by improvidence and want. We have seen the statement, that a large proportion of the inhabitants either perished or became helpless and a burden. And when the sufferings of her own connections ceased, by death or recovery, Mary went out to do what she could among the diseased and destitute generally. She toiled till the alarm abated, and aimed particularly to remove from the minds and dwellings of the people those fruitful feeders, if not sources, of the calamity,--superstition and uncleanness. Is it too much to believe, that Osmotherly will always feel the blessing of that Providence which sent there the "good lady"?
It was a beautiful termination of her whole experience among that people,--whose very dialect differed so much from hers, that they could scarcely understand her words, but easily read her actions,--that, when she recovered her own strength sufficiently to take a final leave of them, the whole village came out in a body, young and old, and escorted her on her way.