Excellent Women - Various

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large fortune in his well-managed iron-works, spent his money and time in seeking the moral good of the working people. At Colebrook Dale also she spent some days with an elderly cousin, Priscilla Hannah Gurney, cousin to the Earlham Gurneys by both father and mother, her father being Joseph Gurney and her mother Christiana Barclay. Being left by her father alone for some days with this cousin, the influence of the visit was very powerful on her. "She was exactly the person to attract the young; she possessed singular beauty, and elegance of manner. She was of the old school; her costume partook of this, and her long retention of the black hood gave much character to her appearance. She had early renounced the world and its fascinations; left Bath, where her mother and sister Christiana Gurney resided; became eventually a minister among Friends; and found a congenial retreat for many years at Colebrook Dale."

      The travelling party went on to make a tour in Wales and to attend the gathering of Friends at the Welsh half-yearly meeting. Most of the Colebrook Dale Friends were present, and further converse with Priscilla Gurney induced her niece to resolve openly to conform to Quaker customs, though at what precise time she became professedly a Friend we are not told. As to the costume, she was very slow in adopting it—not till some time after returning to Norwich.

      In this early Welsh journey a singular prediction was given in an address by an aged Friend, Deborah Darby, who said of her that "she would be a light to the blind, speech to the dumb, and feet to the lame." "Can it be? She seems as if she thought I was to be a minister of Christ. Can I ever be one?" asks Elizabeth Gurney in her Journal.

      V.

      THE LAST YEAR AT HOME

      The early months of 1799 were passed in Norwich, where she engaged in works which she believed to be right and useful. She visited the poor, doing what she could to relieve distress, yet cautious lest she should appear to do too much, telling her friends that in such charity she was only agent for her father, who approved of her thus helping others. She held what are now called "mothers' meetings," reading and talking to a little group of people about fifteen in number. Her "Sunday School" had also gradually increased, till there were sometimes seventy poor children receiving instruction from her. Cutting out and preparing clothes for the poor, and occasional visits to hospitals, and once to Bedlam to see a poor woman, were among the occupations of the winter months. She had not yet, however, made any decisive change in her social habits, for she occasionally accompanied her sisters to balls and other entertainments, yet finding less and less satisfaction in what she in calmer moments disapproved.

      The doubtful, wavering condition of mind led her to think more seriously of openly avowing her religious principles.

      In the autumn her father travelled to the north of England, taking with him his son Samuel and his daughters Priscilla and Elizabeth. He was going to visit an estate belonging to him; also to attend the general meeting at the Friends' School at Ackworth, after which they were going to Scotland. All this expedition Elizabeth much enjoyed. At Ackworth she took part in the examination of the scholars, and had pleasant conversation with the headmaster Doctor Binns, and with Friends assembled on the occasion. At York they saw the wonderful Minster; at Darlington, found themselves in a living colony of Friends; and Elizabeth was gratified by receiving a note and a book of grammar from the famous Lindley Murray, whom she had met and taken tea with at York. Durham, Newcastle, Alnwick Castle, and Edinburgh, were successively visited, and afforded abundant materials for entries in her Journal, and for agreeable recollections after returning home.

      VI.

      MARRIAGE, AND SETTLEMENT IN LONDON

      On August 19, 1800, Elizabeth Gurney was married, at the Friends' Meeting House, Norwich, to Joseph Fry, youngest son of William Storrs Fry, of London. He had been to Earlham, and made an offer of marriage, during the preceding year, but nothing had then been settled, Elizabeth Gurney being afraid that any change at that time might interfere with her spiritual welfare and her newly-formed plans of active usefulness. But after some correspondence, when the proposal was renewed, she felt it right to give her consent. It was the custom more generally prevailing than now for the junior partner to reside in the house of business, and in accordance with this, Joseph and Elizabeth Fry prepared to establish themselves in Mildred's Court in the City, a large, commodious and quiet house, since pulled down in consequence of alterations in London. The parents of her husband occupied a country-house at Plashet, Essex. The Fry family, like that of the Gurneys, had long been members of the Society of Friends; but unlike her own parents, they had adhered strictly to the tenets and the habits of Quakers. She thus came to be surrounded by a large circle of new connexions, different from her own early associates at Norwich.

      During the fortnight occupied by the Yearly Meeting, Mildred's Court was an open house for the entertainment of Friends from all parts of the kingdom, who would come in to midday dinner, whether formally invited or not. On one occasion, when an American Friend, George Dilwyn, was a guest, she commenced regular family worship, with the approval of her husband, this now recognised duty not having been previously the practice in the house.

      Occasionally she got rest in staying at Plashet, but her life was a busy one, and hardly favourable to spiritual advancement. At Plashet, on the 9th of seventh month (July) she wrote: "We live at home in a continual bustle; engagement follows engagement so rapidly, day after day, week after week, owing principally to the number of near connexions, that we appear to live for others rather than ourselves. Our plan of sleeping out so often I by no means like, and yet it appears impossible to prevent it; to spend one's life in visiting and being visited seems sad."

      It is evident that the circumstances under which she began her married life were too fatiguing for her, and to these were added the usual domestic troubles at times with servants. All this told upon her, then approaching her first confinement, depressing not merely her bodily powers and natural energy, but in some degree her spiritual liveliness. But she must attend to present duty, and when her first child, a girl, was born, she was absorbed in the anxieties, pleasures and responsibilities of a mother.

      From the feeble state of her health, she was some time in regaining strength enough to attend Meeting, or to resume her usual activity. She was confined to her room when she heard the great tumult of joy, at the thanksgiving and the illuminations, for restoration of Peace in 1801, on the 10th of October; and the noise of the mob in the streets disturbed her even in this quiet house. A fortnight later the parents went to Norfolk, taking with them their little treasure, a lovely infant, which gave great delight to the relatives there. The child was vaccinated by Dr. Simms on their return to London, and the doctor's advice was taken about the health of the mother, who then was in a state of much bodily weakness, with a troublesome cough. These trials caused interruption in the Journal for some weeks; but she and the child gradually got better; and at the Yearly Meeting of 1802, she was able to attend almost all the meetings, and to receive the customary crowd of visitors at her house; among them her much-loved uncle, Joseph Gurney, whose presence was of much service to her.

      VII.

      FAMILY CARES AND TRIALS

      In the autumn her husband took her a journey into the north of England, going by Warwick, Stratford-upon-Avon, Chester, Liverpool, and the Lakes, some of the excursions at which she went on horseback. She was even able to climb Skiddaw, so that her health had been much restored by the expedition. They were glad to get back to their comfortable home, mother and child both better for the trip. Soon after their return, her brother Samuel came to reside at Mildred's Court, to learn details of the banking business, and it was to both a great pleasure to be near one another. A second girl was born in March, 1803; and altogether she had in future years a very large family, eleven sons and daughters; regarding which it is sufficient to say that the succession of illnesses caused so much nervousness and debility, that we can only the more marvel at the indomitable spirit with which she afterwards undertook the labours of charity and beneficence which have made her name so famous. There were also, besides her personal illnesses, many events of trial and of bereavement, as must necessarily happen where there are numerous relatives. Writing at Earlham on the 20th of August, 1808, she says, "I have been married eight years yesterday. Various trials of faith and patience have been permitted me; my course has been very different from what I expected; and instead of being, as I had hoped, a useful instrument in the Church militant, here I am, a careworn wife

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