Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/158

 circumstances can make this other than a shameful deviation from all honest and right principles. My belief is, that such habits begun in youth, end mostly in great incorrectness in future life, if not in gross sin; and that no excuse can be pleaded for such actions, for sin is equally sin, whether committed by the school-boy or those of mature years, which is too apt to be forgotten, and that punishment will follow.”

In a letter to her eldest son she begs him to try to be a learned man, not to neglect the modern languages, but so to improve his time at school that he may become in manhood a power for good; and then, by various thoughtful kindnesses manifests her unwearying care for his welfare.

She gratefully acknowledges, in another communication to a sister, the assistance which that sister rendered in educating some of the elder girls, for a time, so enabling Mrs. Fry herself to be set free for the multitude of other duties awaiting her.

As years rolled by, an acute cause of sorrow to her was the marriage of one, then another of her numerous family out of the Society. They mostly married into families connected with the Church of England; but as the Society of Friends disunite from membership all who marry out of it, and as parents are blamed for permitting such unions, her sorrow was somewhat heavy. She even anticipated being cut off from the privilege of ministry in the Society; but to the credit of that Society, it does not appear that it silenced her in return for the forsaking, by her children, of “the old paths.” Whether Quakerism was too old-fashioned and strict for the young people, or the attractions of families other than Friends more powerful, we cannot say. However, it seems