Solomon says: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." Elizabeth Fry's life was a living proof of the honors that a persistent, steady, self-denying course of doing good invariably wins in the long run.
Indefatigable workers wear out, while drones rust out. As the years are counted, of so many days, months, and weeks, many workers of this class die prematurely; but a wiser philosophy teaches that "He liveth long who liveth well." Into her years of life, long, eventful, and busy, Elizabeth Fry had crowded the work of many ordinary women; it was little wonder, therefore, that at a time when most people would have settled down to enjoy the relaxations and comforts of a "green old age," she had begun to set her house in order, _to die_. Her energies had been fairly worn out in the service of humanity, and from the time that she made the resolution to serve God, when moved by William Savery's pleadings, right onward through forty-eight years of sunshine and shadow, vicissitudes and labors, she had never swerved from her simple, earnest purpose. The propelling motive to that long course of Christian usefulness may be found in a few words uttered by her shortly before her death: "Since my heart was touched at seventeen years old, I believe I have never 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.'" That unchanged desire ultimately became the master-passion of her life.
Honors clustered thickly about her declining days. She was the welcomed guest of royalty and nobility; on the Continent, as well as in far-away English colonies, her name was pronounced only with respectful love. Her eldest son was appointed to the magistracy of the county; her relatives and associates were foremost in every enterprise intended to benefit mankind; while both in Parliament and out of it, her recommendations were respectfully adopted. Had her years been counted on the patriarchal scale, instead of by their own shortened number, she could have reaped no higher honors; for titles were in her ears but empty sounds, and wealth only meant increased responsibility. Not many nobler souls walked this earth, either in Quaker garb or out of it.