MARGARET PRIOR.
——If a soul thou wouldst redeem,
And lead a lost one back to God; Wouldst thou a guardian angel seem
To one who long in guilt hath trod; Go kindly to him—take his hand,
With gentlest words, within thine own, And by his side a brother stand,
Till all the demon thou dethrone.
Mrs. C. M. Sawyer.
The subject of this notice was a native of Fredericksburg, Virginia. She was born in 1773. Her maiden name was Barrett. She was married to William Allen, a merchant of Baltimore, at the age of sixteen; resided in that city for several years, and became the mother of seven children. All but one of them died in infancy. Her husband was lost at sea, in 1808, when her only surviving child was about eighteen months old.
Soon after becoming a widow she removed to the city of New York. There, in 1814, she was united in marriage with William Prior, a benevolent and public-spirited member of the Society of Friends. She was herself at that time in communion with the Baptists, she having united with them before the death of her first husband. In 1819 she joined the Methodists, with whom she remained in church-fellowship the residue of her life.
When the New York Orphan Asylum was instituted, she was appointed one of the managers and was, thenceforward, incessantly engaged in benevolent operations. We first find her in the more conspicuous "walks of usefulness," in the severe winter of 1818 and '19. There being, at that time, no public fund for meeting the wants of the poor, she made arrangements with her nearest neighbor—herself a kind-hearted, humane woman—to prepare soup three times a week for the destitute in the ninth ward. She had previously visited that part of the city and made herself acquainted with many suffering individuals. All who applied for soup, if not known, she accompanied to their homes, and presented them with tickets entitling them to further supplies, if found to be true objects of charity. Many, it is thought, were saved from starvation by her humane exertions. "These, and similar deeds of mercy, tended to enlarge her heart: while she watered others, she was watered also herself, and felt continually the truth of the assertion, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"[77]
Notwithstanding her arduous, public duties, Mrs. Prior managed her household affairs with care, neatness and regularity. It has been appropriately said of her that she had "a place for every thing and every thing in its place." The time that some spend in fashionable and heartless calls, she devoted to industry and humanity. By rising early, working late, observing the strictest rules of economy, and subjecting herself, at times, to self-denial, she was able to visit the suffering, and to make daily appropriations from her own table for their relief.
Numerous instances of her self-denial have been related, and one of them we will repeat. She usually obtained assistance to do her washing, and limited herself to a dollar a week to meet that expense. Sometimes the amount she wished to devote to some particular object fell short, and in such instances she would do the washing herself, and thereby save the dollar. She felt, in such cases, as has been remarked, that "the personal effort was made a blessing to herself of greater value than the sum saved."
In the year 1822, Mrs. Prior visited the families on Bowery hill, where she had resided the three previous years; thoroughly acquainted herself with their moral condition and necessities; established a school for poor children; commenced her long-continued weekly visits for conversation and prayer with the pupils, and secured the sympathies and pecuniary assistance of several Christians to aid in supporting the school from year to year. She herself contributed one hundred dollars annually for its maintenance.