he village of Stillorgan, which adjoined the grounds of
Redesdale, and in teaching in the village school. The poor of Dublin
also were not forgotten, and especially at Christmas time Mary shared
with her mother in the distribution of gifts among the deserving poor in
the city, and in the entertainment of many of them in the servants' hall
of the palace.

It is not known, perhaps she could not herself tell, exactly at what
period the light of the Gospel first dawned upon her heart, but a
subsequent time at which her spiritual life was much deepened and
intensified was very marked. In 1849 the health of her brother broke
down, and he was ordered by the physicians to spend the winter on the
Continent. Mary accompanied him. They went first to Nice, but the
climate disagreeing with them, they passed on to Florence and Pisa, and
subsequently spent some time among the Waldensian valleys. This tour was
in many ways a preparation for Mary's future life. She took lessons in
painting, which was to be the chief recreation of her later years; she
attained some proficiency in Italian, which led her a few years
afterwards to engage in mission work among the poor Italians in Dublin;
and her visit to the Waldensian valleys gave her her first insight into
evangelical work abroad. But most important of all, she became
acquainted with M. Meille, a young Waldensian pastor, and his wife,
through her intercourse with whom her religious convictions became
intensified and her spiritual horizon widened. When she returned to
Dublin the great Irish famine was still continuing. The distribution of
food and other efforts to relieve the distress were occupying the
attention of all philanthropic persons. Mrs. Whately had become actively
engaged in this work, and she and her daughters henceforward took a more
prominent part in aggressive Christian work than they had hitherto done.
Famine relief paved the way for greatly extended effort to spread Gospel
knowledge among the Roman Catholic population. Industrial and Bible
schools, refuges, and other Christian institutions sprang up in various
parts of the country. Protestant missions to Roman Catholics were
greatly extended. In this work Mary Whately found opportunity for the
expression of her deepened spiritual experience. She taught in the
adult classes at the Townsend Street Mission Hall joined her sisters and
other ladies in founding a ragged school for boys--the first in
Ireland--and afterwards in in