Grace Darling | Page 3

to do their brave deeds so silently that the
world does not even hear their names. But to a few it happens that duty
calls them to their work in the face of the crowd, and this may be
providentially ordered that those who look on may be thus taught the
hopeful and inspiring lessons of a good woman's life.
Illustrations of women whose work has been heroic, are not wanting.
It is not very long ago since the world rang with the name of
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. She was an educated and accomplished
young lady, the daughter of a wealthy man, who might have been
content to live the quiet life of luxury to which she was born. But God
had given to her a tender heart, which would not permit her to look on
suffering without longing to alleviate it; and when she was twenty-one
years old, she began to take an interest in the condition of hospitals.
After a time she went into the Protestant Deaconesses Institution at
Kaiserswerth, that she might be trained as a nurse. At the end of ten
years of preparation, she entered upon her life-work. War was declared
with Russia; and when the battle of the Alma had been fought, the
wounded crowded the hospitals. But the condition of these places was
so terrible, the men died of disease so rapidly, that the death-rate was
greater than if they had fallen in fight. In this appalling crisis, Miss
Nightingale offered her services. These were thankfully accepted; and a
week afterward, the lady and her nurses left England for Scutari. What
she did there has since become matter for history. On one occasion, she
was on her feet for twenty hours at a stretch, until all the poor fellows
who had been brought in were comfortably accommodated. None can
tell how many lives she was the means of saving.
"Neglected, dying in despair, They lay till woman came To soothe
them with her gentle care, And feed life's flickering flame.

"When wounded sore on fever's rack, Or cast away as slain, she called
their fluttering spirits back, And gave them strength again.
"'Twas grief to miss the passing face That suffering could dispel; But
joy to turn and kiss the place On which her shadow fell."
Nor was her work confined to nursing only. Her example has done very
much; and her literary productions have given light and teaching to
those who wished to follow it. Who does not know the good that her
"Notes on Hospitals" has done? And her little book, "Notes on
Nursing," is invaluable to all who are called upon to spend an hour in
the sick room. Florence Nightingale has answered the question, What is
woman's work? by doing what she could.
She was one example, and ELIZABETH FRY was another. Passing her
childhood in the quiet home of her father, she was yet, as a child,
laying the foundation of her future excellent career. When only
eighteen years of age, she gained her father's consent to her establishing
in his house a school, to which about eighty poor children came, and
where they were taught good lessons, which were the seeds of useful
fruit in after years. At twenty years of age, she married Joseph Fry, Esq.,
of Upton, Essex. He was then engaged in business in London. She had
eight children, and must have had her hands almost full of domestic
cares and duties. But she had eyes for the troubles and needs of the
inhabitants who lived and loved, sinned and suffered outside of the
sheltered resting-places in her own home, and she became aware of the
pitiable condition of the female prisoners in Newgate, and resolved to
visit them. It was considered to be a very dangerous experiment; but
her woman's heart was strong, for she had faith in God, and in the
power of human love; and otherwise unprotected, she went alone into
that part of the prison, where a hundred and fifty of the worst of her
own sex were confined. The women were surprised into attention and
respect by her dignity and gentleness of manner. She read to them some
portion of "the old old story," and spoke to them with such earnest love,
that their hearts were melted within them. Many of them heard, for the
first time, of the divine compassion of Him who came to seek and to
save that which was lost; and as they listened, tears stole into eyes that

were strangely unused to shed them; and from some of the poor
wanderers a cry went up to the merciful Father, and was the first prayer
in the sinful, sorrowful life. In 1816, she became a systematic visitor of
the prison. About that time, the "Society for the Improvement