Elizabeth Fry | Page 6

forcibly and calmly than any utterance of a
biographer can do. She wrote:--
Here ended this important and interesting visit to London, where I
learned much, and had much to digest. I saw and entered many scenes
of gaiety, many of our first public places, attended balls and other
places of amusement. I saw many interesting characters in the world,
some of considerable eminence in that day. I was also cast among the
great variety of persons of different descriptions. I had the high
advantage of attending several most interesting meetings of William
Savery, and having at times his company and that of a few other friends.
It was like the casting die of my life, however. I believe it was in the
ordering of Providence for me, and that the lessons then learnt are to
this day valuable to me. I consider one of the important results was the
conviction of those things being wrong, from seeing them and feeling
their effects. I wholly gave up, on my own ground, attending all public
places of amusement. I saw they tended to promote evil; therefore, even
if I could attend them without being hurt myself, I felt in entering them
I lent my aid to promote that which I was sure, from what I saw, hurt
others, led them from the paths of rectitude, and brought them into
much sin. I felt the vanity and folly of what are called the pleasures of
this life, of which the tendency is not to satisfy, but eventually to
enervate and injure the mind. Those only are real pleasures which are
of an innocent nature, and are used as recreations, subjected to the
Cross of Christ. I was in my judgment much confirmed in the infinite
importance of religion as the only real stay, guide, help, comfort in this
life, and the only means of having a hope of partaking of a better. My
understanding was increasingly opened to receive its truths, although
the glad tidings of the Gospel were very little, if at all, understood by
me. I was like the blind man, although I could hardly be said to have
attained the state of seeing men as trees. I obtained in this expedition a
valuable knowledge of human nature from the variety I met with; this, I

think, was useful to me, though some were very dangerous associates
for so young a person, and the way in which I was protected among
them is in my remembrance very striking, and leads me to acknowledge
that at this most critical period of my life the tender mercy of my God
was marvelously displayed towards me, and that His
all-powerful--though to me then almost unseen and unknown--hand
held me up and protected me.
Self-abnegation and austerity were now to take the place of pleasant
frivolities and fashionable amusements. Her conviction was that her
mind required the ties and bonds of Quakerism to fit it for immortality.
Not that she, in any way, trusted in her own righteousness; for she
gives it as her opinion that, while principles of one's own making are
useless in the elevation and refinement of character, true religion, on
the contrary, does exalt and purify the character. Still the struggle was
not over. Long and bitter as it had been, it became still more bitter; and
the nightly recurrence of a dream at this period will serve to show how
agitated was her mental and spiritual nature. Just emancipated from
sceptical principles, accustomed to independent research, and deciding
to study the New Testament rather than good books, when on the
border-land of indecision and gloomy doubt, yet not wholly convinced
or comforted, her sleeping hours reflected the bitter, restless doubt of
her waking thoughts. A curious dream followed her almost nightly, and
filled her with terror. She imagined herself to be in danger of being
washed away by the sea, and as the waves approached her, she
experienced all the horror of being drowned. But after she came to the
deciding point, or, as she expressed it, "felt that she had really and truly
got real faith," she was lifted up in her dream above the waves. Secure
upon a rock, above their reach, she watched the water as it tossed and
roared, but powerless to hurt her. The dream no more recurred; the
struggle was ended, and thankful calm became her portion. She
accepted this dream as a lesson that she should not be drowned in the
ocean of this world, but should mount above its influence, and remain a
faithful and steady servant of God.
Elizabeth's mind turned towards the strict practices of the Friends, as
being those most likely to be helpful to her newly-adopted life. A visit

paid to some members of the Society at Colebrook Dale,