THE Lord’s wonderful ways in His sovereign grace are clearly revealed in Miss Caroline Fry’s conversion and in the devoted life she led to her Redeemer. She was born at Tunbridge Wells in December, 1787, being one of seven daughters in a family of ten children. Her parents seem to have been in comfortable circumstances, and she was given a liberal education. But God was not known in the home. There was, it is true, conformity to the externals of religion—regular church-going, Bible reading on the Sabbath, and the perusal of the “Moderate” sermons of Dr Blair, and after this religion was laid aside until next Sabbath. The father had unbounded pride in his young daughter, and he had an edition of a “History of England in Verse” by her published while she was only 14. At the age of 18 she left school “with some increased knowledge of the world and a stirring desire to be better acquainted with it.” Her school days in London had created desires of vanity and ambition that set on fire the natural cravings of her heart. She wanted to see life—to be—to do—though she knew not what. The sight of carriages filled with gaily-dressed ball-goers made her thirst for the “gaiety, the dress, the splendid equipage, the expected pleasure.” She grew wearied of the quiet home life. The God of Pleasure was making his appeal to her, and she fell an easy victim to his allurements. For a time God granted her heart’s desire to her, and she heartily drank out of the world’s fountain of pleasure. She was not without head knowledge of evangelical doctrine. But she was more concerned to get an intellectual treat than get what would appeal to her heart and conscience. She had given herself, however, to the world, and it deadened her heart. She no longer read her Bible nor prayed. She went occasionally to church, but it was only to pass the time. It was while in this state of mind that she heard that eminent servant of God, the Rev. Richard Cecil, but her feelings were only those of absolute offence and disgust. Trashy novels became her mental nourishment, and it is no wonder that, in after years, looking back on the three years spent in London, she had to say that it was “a sad, sad chapter.” Through the influence of an aged gentleman of literary repute, who made a mock of religion, she became a victim to atheistic views. This emissary of the devil poured into her mind his Satanic poison, and, sad to say, she revelled in her deceiver’s profane wit. But with all her profession of atheism the thought that there might be a God troubled her, and she hated the very mention of His name, except when it was used in jest. Several of her brothers and sisters were at this time believers, and, much against her will, she was brought face to face with religion. She occasionally read controversial theological works as a whet to her keen and questioning intellect. The effect of one of these books—Tomline’s “Refutation of Calvinism”—had the very opposite effect the author intended, for she rose from its perusal firmly convinced that if there was anything in Christianity the Calvinists had the best of it. Her brother, the Rev. Robert Fry, whom she devotedly loved and highly respected, looked upon his sister as the most hopeless in the family. After her three years in London she found another home in Lincolnshire with a clergyman’s family. But though a clergyman’s home she had to bear testimony that “everything was against the probability of her receiving religious impressions.” She describes herself at this date as “restless, unsatisfied, unhappy, weary and disgusted with the present, and hopeless of the future, without a single sorrow, but the absence of all joy.”
About this time she became devotedly attached to a clergyman’s daughter in a neighbouring parish. The affection was mutual. They corresponded daily. Though not a Christian, in the true sense of the term, Fanny, her friend, was sentimentally religious. “She had no knowledge of true religion at all,” said Miss Fry, “and never pretended to have, and despised the Gospel of Christ to the full as much as I did. But she had a religion—a sentimental desire for a better world such as comes simply of disappointment in this.” Fanny read her Bible and was very devout in her way, and Caroline never confided to her friend her atheistic views. At length Fanny thought it her duty to write her friend, pointing out her lack of “religion.” The letter contained no mention of Christ, made no reference to the Spirit, and might have been written by a Socinian or Deist. But it stirred up feelings of hot resentment in the heart of the recipient. Two letters were written in reply, indignant and contemptuous, but no one was found to carry them to Fanny, who was some miles off. Caroline was indignant against her friend for what she had written, but her hatred to the Holy One was deeper still. She then passed through a tremendous struggle. For three days the conflict raged, in which a frail human heart was measuring its strength with the Almighty, only to be completely and forever subdued. This is her own account of the struggle and the outcome: “But from that third day all was changed: I read, I prayed, I praised, I rejoiced with joy unspeakable . . . The banner of Jesus waved over the subdued and prostrate spirit of the infidel despiser of His Word, the conscious hater of His most precious name . . . ‘Lord save me or I perish!’ has been, and is, from first to last the sum of my religion, dated from that most wondrous night, the first on which I knelt before the Cross; on which I prayed; on which I rested and slept in Jesus.” So overwhelming had the struggle been that her health gave way, and she came to the conclusion that her conversion was God’s merciful provision to prepare her for her departure. Her conversion brought joy to her brother and three sisters who were “in Christ before her.” Her friend, Fanny, however, laughed the whole thing to scorn, and died as she lived, ignorant of Christ, without hope and without God.
At the age of 44 Caroline was married and became Mrs Wilson. She had a happy married life. In 1846 she passed over the River, and in anticipation of its crossing she said: “Never, never, can it be sad to me to stand still and watch for the parting of the waters of Jordan to let me pass. From my lips no cry can come for a little more time to suffer and to sin, to wait and long for Him whom my soul desires. To-night, to-morrow, if it be His pleasure.”
Mrs Wilson wrote a number of books, but the best known is “Christ our Example,” one of the chapters of which we are printing in the Magazine. Of it the pious Duchess of Gordon wrote: “Have you ever seen ‘Christ our Example’ by Caroline Fry? It is one of the most useful books I have ever read, and so practical” (Dr Moody Stuart’s “Memoir of the Duchess of Gordon.”) The book is published by Messrs Thynne and Jarvis, Whitefriar’s Street, Fleet Street, London, E.C. 4, at two shillings.
C. H. Spurgeon’s Advice to Preachers.
Let me hint to you that it is cruel to make your hearers hope that you are about to close, and then go on again. I have suffered this wrong from brethren at the prayer meeting. I have felt sure that the friend meant to pull up, and he has gone on again, without apology or reason. I am sure it must be dreadful when a preacher says, “To conclude,” and then “finally,” and then “lastly,” and then “finally and lastly.” A certain divine, who is still in the body, is never very lively, but he has great gifts of holding on. When you think he has done, he issues a supplement, which is almost always headed, “Another blessed thought!” His hearers are apt to have thoughts which are not ” blessed”; and would often agree with the American who said, “Oh, that the man would quit!” “One word more,” said a speaker, “and I am done.” And the reporters found, when the word was written down, that it contained fifteen hundred syllables. The famous word of Aristophanes was outdone. That same speaker often says “a single remark,” and then talks for fifteen minutes.