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A MAD COUNTESS

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 16.

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A MAD COUNTESS.

Not many years ago there lived in Holstein, in the northland of Europe, a young girl of aristocratic family, who became an intimate friend of the princesses of Denmark. One of these princesses became Empress of Russia; another is the Princess of Wales.
The court of Denmark has been remarkable for its simplicity and genuineness, and our young friend, the Countess Schimmelmann, was stimulated to a noble life by the lovely daughters of the Danish king. As she grew older, she determined when she should come into her inheritance to consecrate herself to the service of the needy.
After having been maid of honor to the Empress Augusta, of Germany, she resigned her position and went back to her own Baltic shores. As in all sea-coast countries, there on the Baltic the fishermen were poor. Perhaps no other class of men undergo greater dangers and hardships for less return than do the toilers of the sea. To these fishermen of the cold northern shores the countess determined to devote her life.
She began to patrol the stormy coasts of the Baltic in her yacht, and soon she came to know almost every fisherman's family for many miles along the coast, and whenever she found them in need of food she fed them. If salt or nets were wanting, these she supplied. She carried medicines where no doctor could ever visit. She founded sailors' homes and temperance lodges, and wherever a brutal man was the terror of his village or community, she labored with him to make him a respectable citizen.
In this way she redeemed many a soul and saved many a home from destitution and destruction. Never, in all her experiences of court life, had the young countess been so happy as when carrying relief to the sick in body or in soul in the teeth of a gale at sea.
But one day she was arrested and hurried to a madhouse. The charge brought by her relatives was that she was using up her private fortune on poor, undeserving wretches, and neglecting her social duties. When had a Schimmelmann been guilty of helping his fellow men at his own great cost? The countess must be mad.
She was imprisoned in an asylum for some time, and it was universally believed that her detention was a necessity.
At last the authorities discovered that the countess' estate was being mismanaged. An investigation was made, the wronged woman was examined, doctors pronounced her sane, and she was speedily restored to her estate and to the world. Not long ago she visited England, and the Princess of Wales, her old friend, brought confusion upon the Danish lady's enemies by giving her a formal reception, the greatest honor that can be granted to social aspirants, and a public endorsement of the countess and her noble work.
What a romance, what a victory, such a life portrays! The court, the fisherman's hut, the narrow cell, each played its part in the formation of a rare and beautiful character, that became a blessing to the world.
The "madness," which finds expression in deeds of beneficence and love, which ennobles and enriches every life it touches, is so truly a "divine madness" that the best and sanest of us might well covet and strive for it.—Youth's Companion.