Women -- Biography; Women -- Social and moral questions
We ought to provide suitable employment for
them, and thus restore them to society, and prevent their children from
sharing their poverty and learning their crimes.
_FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS._
Death frequently entered the family of Mrs. Fry, and “sorrow upon
sorrow” often formed the burden of her wounded spirit. Her sister,
Elizabeth Gurney, died rejoicing that the hour of her deliverance had
arrived, and that she was about to lay down her frail tabernacle, and
appear in the presence of her God and Saviour. Her little grandson,
Gurney Reynolds, was an especial object of interest to her. He left her
not more unwell than usual. News came that he was worse, and three days
afterwards he breathed away his patient spirit, as he lay upon the sofa
in his mother’s room. The lovely little Juliana, the second daughter of
her son William, one of the sweetest blossoms that ever gladdened
parents’ hearts, was cut off after thirty hours’ illness. But the storm
had not blown over; again the thunder-clouds rolled up. Her son,
William Storrs Fry, the beloved and honoured head of that happy home,
was himself laid low. On the day of the funeral of his little Juliana,
he exclaimed, “I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.” His
last words were, “God is so good!” Emma followed her father, whom her
young heart had loved and desired to obey, just one week after his
departure, and eighteen days from the death of her sister. One grave
contains all that is mortal of the father and his daughters. Mrs. Fry
felt these blows acutely, but He who sent them bestowed His Holy
Spirit; and so her faith proved stronger than her anguish. When the
lips turn pale, and cold damps gather upon the brow; when the loved one
is laid in the shroud; when the screws go into the coffin, and the
mould rattles hollow on its lid,—faith can rise above things below,
and see the ransomed spirit, singing and shining, before the throne.
_RELATIVE DUTIES._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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