and painful, sacrificing personal ease and domestic comfort, for the
sake of rescuing from destruction those who were sunk in vice and in
wretchedness. But she was following the example of Him who came to seek
and to save the lost. Her labour was not in vain in the Lord, for she
succeeded not only in greatly lessening the sum of human misery, but was
enabled to bring many to the knowledge and the love of the Saviour.

[Illustration:(From the picture by J. Barrett.) MRS FRY ADDRESSES THE
FEMALE PRISONERS IN NEWGATE [Engraved by Barlow.]]

In the years of preparation for her work, she made herself acquainted
with what had been done by others. At the suggestion of her
brother-in-law, the late Samuel Hoare, she accompanied him to Coldbath
Fields House of Correction, the neglected state of which much shocked
him. She had also visited different prisons with another brother-in-law,
the late Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, at that time occupied, with other
philanthropists, in forming a Society for reformation of juvenile
criminals. The interest was thus kept alive in her mind about the women
in Newgate, whom she again went to see about the end of 1816. On this
her second visit she asked permission to be left alone among the women
for some hours. As they flocked round her, she spoke to those who were
mothers, of the miserable state of their children, dirty and almost
naked, pining for want of proper food, air, and exercise. She said she
would like to get a school for the children, to which they gladly
assented. Then, after talking kindly to many of the women, she read to
them aloud the parable of the Lord of the vineyard, in the 20th chapter
of Matthew, making a few simple comments about Christ coming, and being
ready to save sinners even at the eleventh hour, so wonderful was His
pity and mercy. A few of the listeners asked who Jesus Christ was, so
ignorant they were; others feared that their time of salvation