Woman of the Century/Sarah Katherine Paine Taylor

TAYLOR, Mrs. Sarah Katherine Paine, evangelist and temperance worker, born in Danielsonville, Conn., 19th November, 1847. Her father was Reuben Paine. Her mother's maiden name was Susan A. Parkhurst. Her father died when she was thirteen years of age, leaving a widow and three children. Sarah attended but two terms of school after the death of her father and then was obliged to leave home to do housework for two years, after which she entered a shoeshop. Not satisfied with that work, she studied evenings and fitted herself for a teacher. SARAH KATHERINE PAINE TAYLOR. When eighteen years of age, she felt called to gospel work and began to hold children's meetings, to write for religious papers and to talk to assemblies in schoolhouses, kitchens, halls and churches. In 1868 she went to work in the office of the "Christian," in Boston, Mass., where for the first time she met Austin W. Taylor, a young minister from Byron, Me., who afterwards went south to teach the Freedmen. In January, 1869, Miss Paine went to Sea brook. N. H., and gave herself wholly to gospel work, holding meetings evenings, and during each day visiting from house to house, reading the Bible and praying with the families. Many were converted. A church was organized and a church edifice was built. In April she went to Belmont, N. H., and held a protracted meeting in the Christian Church. More than one-hundred-fifty professed conversion. That summer she held meetings in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, seeing many converted. In August Mr. Taylor returned from the South, and on 3rd September, 1869, they were married. For several years they held meetings together in the New England States, often in summer using a large tent for a church. In 1875-76 Mrs. Taylor taught school in Atlantic City, N. J., preaching Sundays and having charge of a Sunday-school of about two-hundred members. From 1877 to 1887 her home was in Harrison, Me., from where she and her husband went out to labor. Mr. Taylor was pastor of a church in Kennebunk, Me., for two years, Mrs. Taylor assisting him by preaching half the time. She spent the years 1881-82 in Boston, editing the "Little Christian," a child's paper. While there, she became deeply interested in homeless children, and when she returned to Maine in the spring of 1883, she took six little ones with her, for whom she obtained good homes. That work was continued for many years, and more than forty children are indebted to her for homes in Christian families. Some of those little ones she kept with her for years, and one she adopted. That work was done almost entirely at her own expense. Although much of the time in delicate health and doing her own housework, she has always made it a rule to spend a short time each day in study, which included the sciences, Latin, Greek, Spanish, French and German. In 1889 Mr. Taylor accepted the pastorate of a church in Bridgeton. Me., and there they have since resided. Mrs. Taylor is engaged in preaching, lecturing, writing, holding children's meetings, organizing Sunday-schools and doing missionary work. As an example of a self-educated woman succeeding under adverse circumstances, Mrs. Taylor stands in the foremost rank.