My much-loved friends, amidst many sorrows that have been permitted for me to pass through, and much bodily suffering, I still feel a deep and lively interest in the cause of poor prisoners; and earnest is my prayer that the God of all grace may be very near to help you to be steadfast in the important Christian work of seeking to win the poor wanderers to return, repent and live; that they may know Christ to be their Saviour, Redeemer and hope of glory. May the Holy Spirit direct your steps, strengthen your hearts, and enable you and me to glorify our Holy Head in doing and suffering even unto the end; and when the end comes, through a Saviour's love and merits, may we be received into glory and everlasting rest and peace.
In the spring of 1845 she paid a last visit to Earlham Hall. She had, with the tenacity of desire peculiar to invalids, longed intensely to behold again the scenes amid which her youth was spent, and to welcome once more those familiar faces yet left in the old home. While there she was several times drawn to the meeting at Norwich, and even spoke on different occasions with her wonted fire and persuasiveness. It seemed as if her powerful memory was revived, seeing that the stores of Scripture which she had made hers were now drawn upon with singular aptness and felicity. After paying one or two farewell visits to North Repps and Runcton she returned once more to Upton Lane. Once settled there, she received many marks of sympathy from the excellent of all denominations, as well as from the noble and rich. The Duchess of Sutherland and her daughters, the Chevalier de Bunsen, and others who had heard of or known her, called upon her with every token of respectful affection; while, on her part, she spoke and acted as if in the very light of Eternity. So anxious, indeed, was she still to do what she conceived to be her Master's work, that she made prodigious efforts to attend meetings connected with the Society of Friends and with her own special prison work. Thus she was present at two of the yearly meetings for Friends in London in May, and on June 3d attended the annual meeting at the British Ladies' Society. This meeting was removed from the usual place at Westminster to the Friends' meeting-house at Plaistow, in deference to Mrs. Fry's infirm health and visibly-declining strength. In a report issued by this society, some four or five weeks after Mrs. Fry's death, the committee paid a fitting tribute to her labors with them, and the sacred preëminence she had won in the course of those labors. In the memorial they referred to this meeting in the following terms:—
Contrary to usual custom, the place of meeting fixed on was not in London, but at Plaistow, in Essex, and the large number of friends who gathered around her on that occasion, proved how gladly they came to her when she could no longer, with ease, be conveyed to them. The enfeebled state of her bodily frame seemed to have left the powers of her mind unshackled, and she took, though in a sitting posture, almost her usual part in repeatedly addressing the meeting. She urged, with increased pathos and affection, the objects of philanthropy and Christian benevolence with which her life had been identified. After the meeting, and at her own desire, several members of the committee, and other friends, assembled at her house. They were welcomed by her with the greatest benignity and kindness, and in her intercourse with them, strong were the indications of the heavenly teaching through which her subdued and sanctified spirit had been called to pass. Her affectionate salutation in parting, unconsciously closed, in regard to most of them, the intercourse which they delighted to hold with her, but which can be no more renewed on this side of the eternal world.
At this time Mrs. Fry found intense satisfaction in learning that the London prisons—Newgate, Bridewell, Millbank, Giltspur Street, Compter, Whitecross Street, Tothill Fields, and Coldbath Fields—were all in more or less excellent order, and regularly visited by the ladies who had been her coadjutors, and were to be her successors.
A few weeks later she was taken to Ramsgate, in the hope that the sea-air would restore her strength for a little time; and while there her old interest in the Coastguard Libraries returned, fresh and lively as ever. It was, indeed, a proof of the ruling passion being strong in almost dying circumstances. She attended meeting whenever possible, obtained a grant of Bibles and Testaments from the Bible Society, arranged, sorted, and distributed them among the sailors in the harbor, with the help of her grandchildren, and manifested, by her daily deportment, how fully she had learned the hard lesson of submission and patience in suffering.
A few days before the end, pressure of the brain became apparent; severe pain, succeeded by torpor and loss of power, and, after a short time, utter unconsciousness, proved that the sands of life had nearly run down. A few hours of spasmodic suffering followed, very trying to those who watched by; but suddenly, about four on the morning of October 13th, 1845, the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the spirit returned to God who gave it.
In a quiet grave at Barking, by the side of the little child whom she had loved and lost, years before, rest Elizabeth Fry's mortal remains. "God buries His workers, but carries on His work." The peculiar work which made her name and life so famous has grown and ripened right up to the present hour. In this, "her name liveth for evermore."