On the fourteenth of September, 1829, this good woman again became a widow. Previous to this date she had lost her seventh child, and an adopted one. She had also taken a second motherless child into her family. About the year her second husband died, Bowery hill was dug away, and she changed her residence.
When, in the early part of 1833, the Moral Reform society was organized, she became a prominent member of its board of managers, and, four years afterwards, commenced, under its patronage, her memorable labors as a city missionary. These she continued till 1842, in which year, on the seventh of April, her earthly work was finished.
Two or three incidents connected with her labors as a missionary, will show, in part, at least, the character of her work and the philanthropic spirit by which she was ever actuated.
As she was once passing through the streets, she was accosted by a lady who inquired her name, and wished to know if she did not belong to the society which had opened a register of direction for the accommodation of respectable females. Ascertaining that she was not mistaken in the person, the stranger told Mrs. Prior that two female acquaintances of hers were out of work, had become reduced to want, and were so wretched as to threaten to drown themselves, unless they soon found a situation. They had been working for houses connected with the southern trade which had failed, and thus thrown them out of employment. Learning their residence, Mrs. Prior visited them immediately; told them of the enormity of the crime they had threatened to commit; that she would try to secure work for them, and that it was their duty to seek the grace of God to sustain them in such trying seasons. The next day she found situations for them in pious families, and thus, while she probably saved them from committing suicide, she was, perhaps, the instrument, in the hands of God, of saving them from infamy and eternal ruin.
Passing through the suburbs of the city one day, her attention was arrested by the chime of youthful voices. Seeing that the music proceeded from some little beggar-girls, who were sitting in the sun beside the fence and singing a Sabbath school hymn, she inquired of them what they were doing, when the following dialogue occurred: "We were cold, ma'am, and are getting warm in the sun." "Where do you live?" "In Twentieth street, ma'am." "Why have you come so far away from your homes?" "To get some food and some things to make a fire." "Why were you singing?" "To praise God: we go to the Sunday school, and our teacher says if we are good children God will never let us want." Pleased with the modest and artless answers to her questions, the good woman took them across the street, procured each of them a loaf of bread, gave them some pious counsel, and left them with smiles on their faces and gratitude in their hearts.
Mrs. Prior frequently visited the city prison, and on occasion[78] went to Sing Sing. She made a record of her visit to the latter place, from which we make an extract: "In visiting the female convicts at their cells on Sabbath morning, after Sabbath school, which, under the customary regulations, we were permitted to do, we found nearly all employed in reading their Bibles. We conversed with them respecting the welfare of their souls, and as we knelt with them at the throne of grace, they on one side of the grated door and we on the other, we felt that He who healed a Mary Magdalene, is still the same compassionate Saviour, and our faith, we trust, apprehended him as the atoning sacrifice, who bore our sins in his own body on the tree, and opened a way for the salvation of even the chief of sinners."
Being on an errand of mercy in G—— street one day, she stepped into a house of infamy to leave a certain tract. As soon as she had entered and made known her mission, the door was closed and locked by one of the female inmates, who told her that she was their prisoner. "For a moment," writes Mrs. Prior, in her journal, "my heart was tremulous; I said nothing till the risings of fear were quelled, and then replied pleasantly, 'Well, if I'm a prisoner, I shall pray here, and would sing praises to God if I were not so hoarse. Yes, bless the Lord! his presence can make me happy here or any where, and you can have no power to harm me unless he gives it. This is a dreadful place, to be sure, but it is not so bad as hell; for there, there is no hope. The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever! What a mercy that we are not all there! what compassion in the blessed Jesus that he spares us, when our sins are every day so great.' I talked to them in this manner till they were glad to open the door as a signal for my release."
Such were the doings, such was the character, of Margaret Prior. We see her organizing week-day and Sabbath schools, industrial associations and temperance societies; establishing soup houses and orphan asylums; visiting the sick, the poor, the idle, the culprit, the outcast; pointing the dying to a risen Saviour, leading the destitute by the hand to the place of relief, the idle to houses of industry, and warning the outlaw and the corrupt of the certain and terrible doom that would attend persistency in their downward course. With the sweetness, gentleness, simplicity, and delicacy, so becoming in woman under all circumstances, were blended in her character, energy that was unconquerable, courage that danger could not blench, and firmness that human power could not bend. The contemplation of such a character is superficial, if it does not prompt benevolent feelings, re-affirm virtuous resolutions, and revive and strengthen drooping piety.