Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/6

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INTRODUCTION.

which give steadfast adherence to duty. She believed in all, and despaired of none. In everyone, no matter how debased, she saw the spark of Divinity, which, however overlaid with sin, vice, or ignorance, is never wholly extinct; and, working on that little element of good, she reclaimed hundreds who had been till then looked upon as hopeless and lost. Few have trodden in her steps, probably because her work was so arduous—probably, also, because to many it would be too repulsive. Thus it comes to pass that she occupies to-day a niche in the temple of Fame unique among prison-reformers of her own sex.

E. R. Pitman.