Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/5



Mrs. Fry considered that she was called to perform a peculiar work. The days of "Woman's Mission" had not dawned then, and the vagaries, mild or otherwise, of later times had never been heard of. Any woman who moved very perceptibly out of the ordinary ways of life laid herself open to misconstruction, accusation of Phariseeism, and to more or less contempt; but the bent of Elizabeth Fry's mind lay in the direction of prison-reform, and from the day that she first visited a Bridewell down to that when she last, in trembling tones, exhorted her fellow-workers to persevere in the good work to which they had set their hands, she never for one moment lost sight of her ideal, nor swerved from her purpose. She brought to her work a heart full of piety, the "charity that never faileth" and the perseverance and principle