Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/165

 journal, on June 10th, 1829, Mrs. Fry said: “We are now nearly settled in this, our new abode; and I may say, although the house and garden are small, yet it is pleasant and convenient and I am fully satisfied, and, I hope, thankful for such a home. I have at times been favoured to feel great peace, and I may say joy in the Lord—a sort of seal to the important step taken; though at others the extreme disorder into which our things have been brought by all these changes, the pain of leaving Plashet—the difficulty of making new arrangements, has harassed and tried me. But I trust it will please a kind Providence to bless my endeavour to have and to keep my house in order. Place is a matter of small importance, if that peace which the world cannot give be our portion Although a large garden is not now my allotment, I feel pleasure in having even a small one; and my acute relish for the beautiful in nature and art is on a clear day almost constantly gratified by a view of Greenwich Hospital and Park, and other parts of Kent; the shipping on the river, as well as the cattle feeding in the meadows. So that in small things as well as great, spirituralspiritual [sic] and temporal, I have yet reason to bless and magnify the name of my Lord.”

Two of her nieces accompanied her, in 1834, upon a mission to the Friends’ Meetings in Dorset and Hants; and recalling this journey some time later, one of them said, speaking of her aunt’s peculiar mission of ministering to the tried and afflicted: “There was no weakness or trouble of mind or body, which might not safely be unveiled to her. Whatever various or opposite views, feelings, or wishes might be confided to her, all came out again tinged with her own loving, hopeful spirit. Bitterness of every kind died when entrusted to her;