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.

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.