mind and be sober.' This appears to me your present business-to give all diligence to your present duties; and I cannot help believing, if this be the case, that the day will come when you will be brought into much usefulness."

To each of her sons at school she gave "Rules for a Boy at Boarding School," from which the following extracts are made:

"Be regular; strict in attending to religious duties; and do not allow other boys around thee to prevent thy having some portion of time for reading, at least a text of Scripture, meditation, prayer, and if it appears to be a duty, flinch not from bowing the knee before them as a mark of thy allegiance to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Strongly as I advise thy faithfully maintaining thy principles and doing thy duty, I would have thee very careful of either judging or reproving others; for it takes a long time to get the beam out of our own eye, before we can see clearly to take the mote out of our brother's eye. There is for one young in years much greater safety in preaching to others by example than in word. Maintain truth and strict integrity upon all points. Be not double-minded in any degree; but faithfully maintain, not only the upright principles on religious grounds, but also the brightest honor. I like to see it in small things and in great, for it marks the upright man."

CHAPTER IV.

NEWGATE.

We now approach the work of Christian benevolence, which gave the name of Elizabeth Fry to fame. The first accounts of this enterprise take us back to the year 1813.

"Mildred's Court, Second Month, 15th.-My fear for myself the last few days is, lest I should be exalted by the evident unity of my dear friends whom I greatly value; and also my natural health and spirits being good; and being engaged in some laudable pursuits, more particularly seeing after the prisoners in Newgate. Oh how deeply, how very deeply, I fear the temptation of ever being exalted, or selfconceited! I cannot preserve myself from this temptation any more than being unduly cast down or crushed by others. Be pleased, O Lord! to preserve me; for the deep inward prayer of my heart is that I may ever walk humbly before Thee, and also before all mankind. Let me never, in any way, take that glory to myseif which alone belongs unto Thee, if in Thy mercy Thou shouldst ever enable one so unworthy either to do good or to communicate.

"16th. Yesterday we were some hours at Newgate with the poor female felons, attending to their outward necessities. We had been twice previously. Before we went away dear Anna Buxton offered a few words in supplication, and, very unexpectedly to myself, I did also. I heard weeping and I thought they appeared much tendered: a

very solemn quiet was observed: it was a striking scene, the poor people on their knees around, in their deplorable condition."

"Thus simply and incidentally," observe her daughters, from whose account I shall now make some extracts, "is recorded Elizabeth Fry's first entrance upon the scene of her future labors, evidently without any idea of the im portance of its ultimate results.

["From early youth her spirit had often been attracted, in painful sympathy, toward those who, by yielding themselves to the bondage of sin, had become the victims of human justice. Before she was fifteen years of age, the House of Correction at Norwich excited her feelings of deep interest, and by repeated and earnest persuasion she induced her father to allow her to visit it. She referred, many years afterwards, to the impressions which had then been received, and mentioned to a dear and venerable father in the truth amongst us, that it had laid the foundation for her engagements in prison."-S. Corder.]

"In January of this year, four members of the Society of Friends, all well known to Elizabeth Fry, had visited some persons in Newgate who were about to be executed. Although no mention is made of the circumstance in the journal, it has always been understood that the representations of these Friends, particularly those of William Foster, one of the number, first induced her personally to in spect the state of the women, with the view of alleviating their sufferings occasioned by the inclemency of the season.

"At that time all the female prisoners in Newgate were confined in that part now known as the untried side. The larger portion of the Quadrangle was then used as a state prison. The partition wall was not of sufficient height to prevent the state prisoners from overlooking the narrow

yard and the windows of the two wards and two cells of which the women's division consisted. These four rooms comprised about one hundred and ninety superficial yards, into which, at the time of these visits, nearly three hundred women, with their numerous children, were crowded: tried and untried, misdemeanants and felons, without classification, without emp.oyment, and with no other superintendence than that given by a man and his son who had charge of them by night and by day. In the same rooms, in rags and dirt, destitute of sufficient clothing, (for which there was no provision,) sleeping without bedding, on the floor, the boards of which were in part raised to supply a sort of pillow, they lived, cooked and washed.

"With the proceeds of their clamorous begging, when any stranger appeared amongst them, the prisoners purchased liquors from a regular tap in the prison. Spirits were openly drunk, and the ear was assailed by the most terrible language. Beyond that which was necessary for safe custody, there was little restraint over their communication with the world without.

"Although military sentinels were posted on the leads of the prison, such was the lawlessness prevailing, that Mr. Newman, the governor, entered this portion of it with reluctancy. Fearful that their watches would be spo1 from their sides, he advised the ladies (though wi. avail) to leave them in his house.

"Into this scene Elizabeth Fry entered, accompanied only by Anna Buxton. The sorrowful and neglected condition of these depraved women and their miserable children, dweiling in such a vortex of corruption, deeply sank into her heart, although at this time nothing more was done than to supply the most destitute with clothes. She carried back to her home and into the midst of other avocation and interests a lively remembrance of all that she had witnessed at Newgate, which within four years induced that systematic effort for ameliorating the condition of these poor outcasts, so

signally blessed by Him who said 'That joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.'

"Not only did a considerable space of time elapse, after Elizabeth Fry's first visits to Newgate, before she renewed them, but in the interim many events occurred of deep import to herself. He who sits as a Refiner and a Purifier of silver,' saw fit to exercise her in the school of affliction before raising her up for the remarkable work which she had to do. Long and distressing indisposition, the death of her brother John Gurney, that of her paternal friend Joseph Gurney Bevan, the loss of a most tenderly beloved child, considerable decrease of property, separation for a time from all her elder children, were among the means used by Him who cannot err to teach her the utter instability of every human possession, to draw her heart more entirely to Himself, and to prepare her for His service."

I again quote from Mrs. Corder's volume at a later date, -page 233.

"Three years had now elapsed since Elizabeth Fry had first visited Newgate; but her spirit had from time to time been led into deep and solemn feeling on account of the degraded inmates of that prison; and a conviction became gradually impressed on her mind that she was required by Him to whose service she had been enabled to dedicate herself as an unquenched coal on His sacred altar, to labor, as He might see meet to open the way and to direct her steps, for the moral reformation and above all for the spiritual conversion and help of the most depraved and miserable of her sex. Nothing but the constraining love of Christ could have induced this tender and delicate woman thus to surrender domestic comfort and personal ease, and even to risk her own reputation, to follow what she believed to be the call of her Divine Master, leading her into labors most ardu