remaining years of her life.” The strict principles and the not less strict discipline of the Society of Friends, rendered her course of action at that juncture very doubtful. Occupying the prominent positions she had before the nation—indeed before the world, for Mrs. Fry’s name was a household word—it seemed impossible to her upright spirit to face the usual Meeting on First Day. Her sensitive spirit winced acutely at the reproach which might perchance be cast upon the name of religion; but after a prayerful pause she and her husband went, accompanied by their children—at least such of them as were then at home. She occupied her usual place at the Meeting, but the big tears rolling down her face in quick succession, testified to the sorrow and anguish which then became her lot. Yet before the session ended she rose, calmed herself, and spoke, most thrillingly, from the words, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” while the listeners manifested their sympathy by tears and words of sorrow. In November of that sad year she wrote the following letter to one of her children, in reference to the trial:—
“I do not like to pour out my sorrows too heavily upon thee, nor do I like to keep thee in the dark as to our real state. This is, I consider, one of the deepest trials to which we are liable; its perplexities are so great and numerous, its mortifications and humiliations so abounding, and its sorrows so deep. None can tell, but those who have passed through it, the anguish of heart at times felt; but, thanks be to God, this extreme state of distress has not been very frequent, nor its continuance very long. I frequently find my mind in degree sheathed against the deep sorrows, and am enabled not to
