Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/324

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MRS. FRY AT NEWGATE PRISON.
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months is to be their home, and about to become exiles from their native land, they often pour forth the most fervent feeling to those who sought them out in their low estate, and followed them to the last moment with offices of mercy, in the name of a common Saviour.

Most gratifying was it to the persevering originator of this effort, to find that its good results were not confined to the walls of the prison. Superintendents and physicians, on board the convict-ships, gave testimony to the marked improvement in the behavior of the women from Newgate. On their arrival at the place of their destination, the lady of the Governor, who had several of them in her family as servants, asserts that "their conduct was so uniformly correct as to merit her approbation; a circumstance so uncommon, that she felt it her duty to acquaint Mrs. Fry with the happy change.

One, who had been four years in the penal colony at New South Wales, writes, "It was inside of the walls of Newgate that the rays of divine truth shone into my dark mind, and may the Holy Spirit shine more and more into my understanding, that I may be enabled so to walk as one whose heart is set to seek a city whose builder and maker is God. I hope the world will see that your labor in Newgate has not been in vain in the Lord."

Another, who had occasionally been employed as a teacher among her fellow-prisoners, writes to Mrs.