Excerpt from Pioneering in Tibet

I Was born in Egremont, Cheshire, and am the second child in a family of five sons and five daughters. My governesses and nurses say that I was a most troublesome child, and very full of mischief. When about seven years of age, the doctor discovered that I had valvular disease of the heart. Two years later I had an attack of acute bronchitis, when my life was despaired of, and this further affected my heart. Then the doctors advised that I should not be troubled with study, as they did not expect me to live to grow up. So for some years I did much as I liked, until in 1869, when at the age of thirteen, I was converted at a small Congregational chapel in Kingston-on-Thames. I had been in the habit of going to church or chapel, but the only part of the sermon to which I listened was that addressed to sinners, which 1 mentally called my part.

One Sunday, when kneeling down as others did at the close of the service, a voice seemed to say to me. "If that is your part of the sermon, it is your men choice, because Christ died for you." I there and then "accepted Him as my Saviour: and on reaching home, 1 took the Bible to my room and decided to follow whatever God should teach me through His Word. Soon I found that I could no longer take rides on horseback with my father on the Lord's Day, and this naturally annoyed him.

At the age of sixteen I went to school at Clarence House, Richmond, where I heard an address on Missionary work given by a son of Dr. Moffat, At that time he seemed to think that women were more of a hindrance than a help to Missionary work in Africa. I was longing to be a Missionary, and felt then, for the only lime in my life, sorry that I was a girl. At a meeting held by Lord Radsiock, Miss Enisley (soon after the wife of Dr. Barnardo) placed her hand upon my head and asked me. "When are you going to work for Jesus?" I said, "Now, " and the next day I remember walking through the back streets of Richmond to find some poor person to give ten shillings to, but finding no one, I came home quite disappointed.

We had been very intimate with the Enisley family, and the life and work of Miss Enisley made a deep impression upon me.

At about eighteen 1 went to a school in Berlin, but after a few months my mother was obliged to fetch me home, as I was again taken ill, suffering from my heart. My parents were then staying at Brighton, and there I began to work for Jesus. I found a poor girl who was dying consumption, and visited her almost everyday. Then I heard of another young girl suffering from cancer, and also visited her. When we moved to London, I began to work in a Sunday-school, and also took a district which had not hitherto been visited. A good part of the day I spent in studying art, being very fond of painting, and for a time I pursued art studies in Italy. Before going to Germany I gave up theatres, because I could not be happy in any gathering where my Lord was not found. And later on, when in London, I gave up going to dances, having ceased to find any pleasures apart from Jesus.

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