Page:Women worth emulating (1877) Internet Archive.djvu/102

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WOMEN WORTH EMULATING.

in the experience of Mrs. Opie. She had been intimate from her youth with the family at Earlham Hall. Elizabeth Fry, and one of her sistdrs, Priscilla Gurney—who seems to have been by all testimonies a trae embodiment of spiritual and mental excellence—commended spiritual religion to her conscience. Correspondence with them brought serious subjects prominently before the mind of Mrs. Opie, and the ministrations and letters of Joseph John Gurney, led her to deep reflection on religion. She left the Presbyterian (or Unitarian?) connection into which she had been born, and after due—indeed long deliberation—united with the Society of Friends.

The name of the section of the Church of Christ with which she united, is very secondary to the fact that she became a devout Christian; and that one of the first efforts of her awakened soul was to lead her beloved father, as Apollos of old was led, into the way of truth more perfectly. A prayer that she wrote down on this subject is so beautiful that I recommend it to my young readers:—

"O Thou, 'the God that hearest prayer,' and, even amidst innumerable choirs of angels for ever glorifying Thee and hymning Thy praise, canst hearken to the softest breathings of a supplicating and wretched heart; deign. Lord, to let the prayers of a child for a beloved parent come up before Thee. In grateful return for that life he gave me here, and which, under Thy good providence, he has tenderly watched