ART. II.—Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, with extracts from her Journal and Letters. Edited by two of her daughters. In two volumes. Vol. I. Philadelphia: J. W. Moore. 1847. pp. 525.

THIS name needs no introduction to our readers. Every one has heard of the Quaker philanthropist who devoted herself with great success to the improvement of the condition of English prisons. This is about the sum of Mrs. Fry's general reputation. But her biography unfolds a character of which her public enterprises give but a faint idea. The history of her spiritual life, of which her benevolent actions were only the symbols, appears to us the far more instructive and interesting portion of her memoir. We confess we rise from the first volumethe only one yet reprinted, and comprising the first forty-five years of her life-with more affecting associations of the homescenes of Earlham, St. Mildred's Court, and Plashet, the exercises of soul at "Meetings," death-beds, and domestic trials, than of the Lord Mayor's Mansion House, the attentions of princes, peers and parliaments, and the not less flattering honours of the crowds of visiters drawn by her strange celebrity to Newgate itself.

Mrs. Fry was one of the twelve children of John Gurney, of the county of Norfolk, England. Her father was the fourth generation of the Gurney family that had followed the doctrines of George Fox, and through her mother she descended from the celebrated Robert Barclay, author of the Apology for the Quakers; but there was little more than the name of the plain sect in the family at the time of her birth (1780) and throughout her girlhood. The seven daughters danced and sang, and mingled in the gaieties of the world, even to the theatre, and we read of Elizabeth's red riding-habit, and her purple boots laced with scarlet, and even of her own cheeks being "painted a little." Earlham, near Norwich, became the family-seat in her infancy— the residence of her eminent brother Joseph John Gurney at the of his recent decease-and was the centre of a wealthy circle and a large hospitality. Her mother, who was careful to instruct the little ones in the scriptures, died when Elizabeth was twelve years old, and she describes herself in childhood as nervously timid, reserved, and obstinate, disinclined to learning, and

"having a poor, not to say a low opinion of myself." Her natural affections were painfully ardent, and her childish terror of the entrance of death into the family made her often weep, and wish "that two large walls might crush us all together, that we might die at once, and thus avoid the misery of each other's death." From such elements as these came the humble believer, the courageous reformer, the influential leader, the public preacher, the plain "Friend."

A Roman Catholic gentleman was the first means of persuading the gay and thoughtless-if not sceptical-household of Earlham to hear and read the scriptures, and religious books. Elizabeth was induced by her uncle to attend more faithfully than was the habit of the family, the worship of the society to which they belonged by birth; and before she was seventeen her mind began to grope after something better than the world and natural religion. The memoir is composed in great part, of extracts from a religious journal by her hand, the earlier portion of which she destroyed, but which was preserved from the beginning of 1797. The entries of that year begin to show the influence of the bible and the meeting. She has become thoughtful; discerns the unfavourable influence of worldly company and fashionable amusements on her mind; quarrels with herself for her weakness in being so easily led off by every vanity, when she knows that she must possess some more solid ground of happiness.

"I am seventeen to-day. Am I a happier or a better creature than I was this time twelvemonth? I know I am happier; I think I am better. I hope I shall be much better this day year than I am now. I hope to be quite an altered person, to have more knowledge, to have my mind in greater order; and my heart too, that wants to be put in order as much, if not more, than any part of me, it is in such a fly-away state."

The journal of the next few months shows the poor child working her way through unsatisfactory efforts to make herself better, whilst now and then there seems to break in a gleam of the true light, which is at length to bring her to Christ.

"I have seen several things in myself and others, I never before remarked; but I have not tried to improve myself, I have given way to my passions, and let them have command over me. I have known my faults, and not corrected them, and now I am determined I will once more try, with redoubled ardour, to overcome my wicked inclinations; I must not flirt; I must not ever be out of temper with the children; I must not contradict without a cause; I must not mump when my sisters are liked and I am not; I must not allow myself to be angry; I must not

exaggerate, which I am inclined to do. I must not give way to luxury; I must not be idle in mind; I must try to give way to every good feeling, and overcome every bad; I will see what I can do. If I had but perseverance, I could do all that I wish; I will try. I have lately been too satirical, so as to hurt sometimes; remember, it is always a fault to hurt others."

"I do not know if I shall not soon be rather religious, because I have thought lately, what a support it is through life; it seems so delightful to depend upon a superior power, for all that is good; it is at least always having the bosom of a friend open to us, (in imagination) to rest all our cares and sorrows upon; and what must be our feelings to imagine that friend perfect, and guiding all and every thing, as it should be guided. I think any body who had real faith, could never be unhappy; it appears the only certain source of support and comfort in this life, and what is best of all, it draws to virtue, and if the idea be ever so ill founded, that leads to that great object, why should we shun it? Religion has been misused and corrupted, that is no reason why religion itself is not good. I fear being religious, in case I should be enthusiastic.

"A thought passed my mind, that if I had some religion, I should be superior to what I am, it would be a bias to better actions; I think I am, by degrees, losing many excellent qualities. I am more cross, more proud, more vain, more extravagant. I lay it to my great love of gaiety and the world. I feel, I know I am failing. I do believe if I had a little true religion, I should have a greater support than I have now; in virtue my mind wants a stimulus; never, no never, did mind want one more: but I have the greatest fear of religion, because I never saw a person religious who was not enthusiastic."

"I must die! I shall die! wonderful, death is beyond comprehension. To leave life, and all its interests, and be almost forgotten by those we love. What a comfort must a real faith in religion be, in the hour of death; to have a firm belief of entering into everlasting joy. I have a notion of such a thing, but I am sorry to say, I have no real faith in any sort of religion; it must be a comfort and support in affliction, and I know enough of life to see how great a stimulus is wanted, to support through the evils that are inflicted, and to keep in the path of virtue. If religion be a support, why not get it?

"I think it almost impossible to keep strictly to principle, without religion; I don't feel any real religion; I should think those feelings impossible to obtain, for even if I thought all the Bible was true, I do not think I could make myself feel it: I think I never saw any person who appeared so totally destitute of it. I fear I am, by degrees, falling away from the path of virtue and truth."

In February, 1798, William Savery,; an American Friend, preached at the Norwich meeting. Elizabeth was commonly restless at such times, but Savery fixed her attention; she wept and was agitated under his discourse, and confessed that she felt that day there is a God and that she had experienced devotional feelings under that conviction. She went to dine with her uncle that she might meet the preacher there. His conversation (in her own description) "was like a refreshing shower falling upon earth that had been dried up for ages." She attended meeting again in the afternoon, and astonished her sisters

by weeping in the carriage as they drove home. The great effect of Savery's discourses and conversation appears to have been to deepen her conviction of the folly of worldliness and increase her desire for religion. If the good man had but pointed her to Christ at that favourable juncture, the burden would, probably, have fallen from her soul far sooner than it did. But it was well for her to be so thoroughly aroused that she could find no rest till she was drawn to Him who was lifted up.

Just at this time she visited London, and moved in the circles of Mrs. Opie, Mrs. Inchbald, Dr. Wolcot, and Sir George Staunton. When she first felt the effects of Savery's sermon, she was frightened "that a plain Quaker should have made so deep an impression upon me," and she had no scruples about telling him that her "principles were not Friendly." This was soon apparent in London. One evening at Drury Lane, the next at Covent Garden, the third at a dance, then the theatre again, then a lesson in dancing. Yet she found no pleasure in this course. "All the play-houses and gaiety in the world" could not excite her so much as the hearing William Savery preach. That she consented at all, in the awakened state of her mind, shows how much the customs of a certain style of living may make one unconscious of-perhaps less susceptible of—the injurious tendency of what are commonly regarded as the strongest proofs of utter thoughtlessness. It was after such a week that she heard Savery again on the pleasures of religion and the spirit of prayer, and found more delight than in the whole round of worldliness, and "felt to pray with him." But still her highest expectation of attaining religion reached no higher than the gaining of an humble, devotional spirit. After Savery's sermon in London, she calls on Mrs. Siddons, attends the opera and a rout, and has "a pleasant merry day with Peter Pindar." We read nothing of repentance for sin, or seeking of pardon; of no cross, but that of self denial; of no Christ at all. Yet thirty years afterwards Mrs. Fry referred to this visit, and pronounced it to be the turning point of her life. She had made a full experiment of the world and found it vanity; she now renounced public amusements, from conscientious motives, and became more thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of spiritual religion," although the glad tidings of the gospel of Christ were little, very little, if at all understood by me." "Can any one doubt," she asks in 1828,

"that it was this Spirit which manifested to me the evil in my own heart, as well as that which I perceived around me, leading me to abhor it, and to hunger and thirst after Himself and His righteousness, and that salvation which cometh by Christ ?" We ought to add that Savery tried, though in too indefinite and general a way, to set her on this track, and in a most appropriate letter directed her to resort to the Divine power to create her anew in Christ Jesus, and to free her from the law of sin and death, through the law of the Spirit of life in Him.

In the course of a year she found herself in "so great a liking for plain Friends," that she felt it necessary to guard against her affection for them exerting a bias on her judgment of truth. A little afterwards, she privately writes, "I really think I shall turn plain Friend." Her early disposition towards benevolent actions now showed itself in her attendance upon "poor Bob," a dying family-servant, to whom she would read a chapter "in the Testament," sometimes "the one upon death," by which title her comparative want of familiarity with the scriptures made her designate the 15th chapter of first Corinthians. She also read the Bible every Sunday evening to "Billy," and talked of having several poor children along with him to read the New Testament and religious books for an hour. She begins to think of the advantages of a plainer style of dress and speech to protect her from some of the allurements of the world, calls herself "a Quaker at heart," questions the propriety of witnessing a military review, or going to hear a marine band. She confesses her love of dancing and music, but argues against the indulgence on the ground that "the more the pleasures of life are given up, the less we love the world." On a visit to relatives at Colebrook Dale, the house of the wealthy philanthropist, Richard Reynolds, she was surrounded by a society of excellent people of the straitest sect, and her new principles received fresh confirmation. A female teacher, who knew her religious state and her benevolent dispositions, uttered two predictions concerning her; one, that she should renounce the world, and devote herself to God and attain a glorious immortality; the other, that she should become a light to the blind, speech to the dumb, and feet to the lame. "She seems as if she thought I was to be a minister of Christ. Can I ever be one? If I am obedient, I believe I shall." Indeed she had an early presentiment that she was destined to