Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/152

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ELIZABETH FRY.

driven. She had most tender affections, a good understanding for her years, and a remarkably staid and solid mind. Her love was very strong, and her little attentions great to those she loved, and remarkable in her kindness to servants, poor people, and all animals; she had much feeling for them; but what was more, the bent of her mind was remarkably toward serious things. It was a subject she loved to dwell upon: she would often talk of ‘Almighty God,’ and almost everything that had connection with Him. On Third Day, after some suffering of body from great sickness, she appeared wonderfully relieved . . . and began by telling me how many hymns and stories she knew, with her countenance greatly animated, a flush on her cheeks, her eyes very bright, and a smile of inexpressible content, almost joy. I think she first said, with a powerful voice,—

How glorious is our Heavenly King,
Who reigns above the sky;

and then expressed how beautiful it was, and how the little children that die stand before Him; but she did not remember all the words of the hymn, nor could I help her. She then mentioned other hymns, and many sweet things . . . her heart appeared inexpressibly to overflow with love. Afterwards she told me one or two droll stories, and made clear and bright comments as she went along; then stopped a little while, and said in the fulness of her heart, and the joy of a little innocent child . . . ‘Mamma, I love everybody better than myself, and I love thee better than anybody, and I love Almighty much better than thee, and I hope thee loves Almighty much better than me.’ . . . I appeared to satisfy her that it was so. This was on Third Day