Grace Darling | Page 3

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 of Prison Discipline" was instituted, and she worked in connection with it. She established a school inside of the prison walls--found work for the idle hands of the women, and succeeded in forming a Committee of Ladies who were willing to help in the reformation of the female prisoners. It soon became evident that the labour was not in vain. A marked difference