THE EARNEST PHILANTHROPIST. thembehind. " The filth, the closeness of the room, the ferocious manners, and the abandoned wicked- ness which everything bespoke," inexpressibly shocked Mrs. Fry ; but with deepest compassion she viewed those unfortunate beings, the light of whose lives had set in a sea of darkness, perhaps never to rise again. Nearly three years elapsed before she could renew her visit ; and her path, in the interim, was marked by the " footprints of angels," as some poet touchingly calls graves. Long and serious illness, too, the loss of property, separation for a time from all her elder children ; such were the trials with which she was tested by Him who " sits as a Refiner and Purifier of Silver." But at Christmas, 1816, she returned to the scene where her labours were so imperatively demanded. In the physical condition of the prison some im- provement had been made by the Gaol Committee, appointed by the city authorities, whose attention had been called to the subject by some humane in- fluential persons. Some more rooms had been added to the circumscribed space, two gratings had been erected to prevent close communication between prisoners and their visitors ; and mats had been provided for the women to sleep on. The miserable creatures were, however, still the same fierce, idle, profligate wretches they had been. On her second visit, to the utter dismay of Mr. Newman, Mrs. Fry requested to be admitted to the 25
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