Elizabeth Fry
1780-1845 19th century Feast day: October 12
Dignity restored to the forgotten, and the conviction that no one is beyond recovery.
Who was Elizabeth Fry?
An English Quaker and mother of eleven, she discovered in 1813 the hell of Newgate prison in London, where women and children were crowded together in filth. She returned there tirelessly, founded a school and a workshop, won reforms and carried her cause before Parliament and the courts of Europe. She held that no one is beyond hope and that gentleness raises more surely than fear.
In their own words
Since my heart was touched at seventeen, I believe I never have awakened from sleep, in sickness or in health, by day or by night, without my first waking thought being how best I might serve my Lord.
Charity to the soul is the soul of charity.
Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal.