Turnabout - Elizabeth Fry

1780–1845

In the late 1600s, Quakers were seen as a dangerous sect in England. Their anti-Establishment ways aroused the ire of—well, the Establishment. They were arrested, imprisoned, humiliated, and even tortured. But only a century later, Quakers—officially “the Religious Society of Friends”—were among the leaders of British society.

Take Elizabeth Gurney, for instance. Her father was a respected businessman, a banker. Her mother came from another famous banking clan, the Barclays. The family faithfully attended Quaker meetings, though their clothing was spiffier than that of most of the other parishioners. Elizabeth was educated at home by her mother, who also brought her along on charitable visits to help the poor.

When Elizabeth was twelve, her mother died. In the following years, Elizabeth continued to attend religious services but lacked enthusiasm for it, finding any excuse she could to play hooky. Her family’s resources allowed her to sample the finest entertainment (and fashion) of the culture. But at one Sunday meeting when she was seventeen, wearing purple boots and scarlet laces, Elizabeth’s heart was changed forever by a visiting speaker from America. “I have had a faint light spread over my mind,” she wrote in her journal. “It has caused me to feel a little religion. My imagination has been worked upon.”

This young woman had been struggling with faith for some time. Yet this speaker’s message struck a chord with her. “In short, what he said and what I felt, was like a refreshing shower, falling upon earth, that had been dried up for ages. It has not made me unhappy: I have felt ever since humble. . . . I hope to be truly virtuous.”

Over the following years, this self-aware teenager got married (to a banker named Joseph Fry) and started a family. She adopted a plainer lifestyle and got involved in Quaker leadership. Eventually she became famous for her charitable work, especially in women’s prisons. More than anyone else, Elizabeth Gurney Fry was responsible for improving the deplorable conditions of British penitentiaries. The fashionable teen became a Christlike servant.

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.

1 John 2:15