tious but perhaps stony Madam Dix for the loft over
the stable for this purpose. "My dear grandmother," she begins, "Had I
the saint-like eloquence of our minister, I would employ it in
explaining all the motives, and dwelling on the good, the good to the
poor, the miserable, the idle, the ignorant, which would follow your
giving me permission to use the barn chamber for a school-room for
charitable and religious purposes."

The minister with saint-like eloquence was Dr. Channing. The letter is
valuable as showing the source of the flame that had fired her
philanthropic soul. For the finer culture of the heart she had passed
from the hands of Madam Dix to those of Dr. Channing. The request for
the room was granted and Mr. Tiffany tells us that "The little
barn-school proved the nucleus out of which years later was developed
the beneficent work of the Warren Street Chapel, from which as a
centre spread far and wide a new ideal of dealing with childhood.
There first was interest excited in the mind of Rev. Charles Barnard,
a man of positive spiritual genius in charming and uplifting the
children of the poor and debased."

Letters from Miss Dix at this period show that she had a sensitive
nature, easily wrought upon, now inflamed to action and now melted to
tears. "You say that I weep easily. I was early taught to sorrow, to
shed tears, and now, when sudden joy lights up or unexpected sorrow
strikes my heart, I find it difficult to repress the full and swelling
tide of feeling." She is reading a book of poems and weeping over
it,--"paying my watery tribute to the genius" of the poet. She longs
for similar talents that she "might revel in the luxury of those
mental visions that must hourly entrance a spirit that partakes less
of earth than heaven." It will be remembered that her father was
religious even to folly. Here was his child, only by judicious
training, the stream was turned into channels of wise beneficence.

With the management of two schools, the supervision of the household,
the care of two younger brothers, and ministries to her grandmother
already advanced in years, Miss Dix was sufficiently occupied, but she
found time to prepare a text-book upon "Common Things," gathering the
material as she wrote. This, her first attempt at book-making, issued
in 1824, was kept in print forty-five years, and went to its sixtieth
edition in 1869. It was followed the next year by "Hymns for Children"
selected and altered,