She also built a manufactory for the employment of the poor, where the education of children was strictly attended to:  even the porters’ lodges on each side of her gate were occupied as schools for the neighboring poor.  Her pleasure-grounds were thrown open for the accommodation of the numbers who usually come from a distance to attend a communion-season in Scotland.  In a year of scarcity the same grounds were planted with potatoes for the supply of the poor.  She distributed with great judgment various sums of money in aid of families who were poor, yet deserving.  She never encouraged idleness or pride, and often remarked that it was better to assist people to do well in the sphere which Providence had assigned them, than to attempt to raise them beyond it.  There was so much wisdom in the active application of her charities, as to render them both efficient and extensive.  She seldom was seen in these works of beneficence; her object was to do good:  the gratitude of those on whom she bestowed benefits was no part of her motive, or even of her calculation.  What she did she did unto God, and in obedience to his commands; her faith and hope were in God.

She contributed largely to the public institutions established at Edinburgh in her day.  Of one or two of the most useful she was the first to suggest the idea, always accompanying her recommendation with a handsome donation to encourage the work.

The venerable Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and Piety shared largely her patronage; and at her death she bequeathed them five thousand pounds.

She indulged the hope of seeing a union of exertion, among all Christian denominations, for sending the gospel to the heathen.  How delighted would she have been with the missionary societies of London and elsewhere, had her life been spared to behold their extensive operations.

She sold her estate of Barnton that she might apply the money to a more disinterested object than her personal accommodation, and that her fortune might be expended with her life, “I recollect here,” said Saurin in one of his sermons, “an epitaph said to be engraven on the tomb of Atolus of Rheims:  He exported his fortune before him into heaven by his charities—­he Has gone thither to enjoy it.”

This might be truly said of Lady Glenorchy.  In her manner she discovered great dignity of character tempered with the meekness and benevolence of the gospel.  Her family was arranged with much economy, and a strict regard to moral and religious habits.  She usually supported some promising and pious young minister as her chaplain, which served him as an introduction to respectability in the church.  With very few exceptions, all those who entered her family as servants were in process of time brought under religious impressions.  So far it pleased the Lord to honor her pious endeavors to render her family one of the dwellings of the God of Jacob.