Harriet Ware (1799–1847) was born in Paxton, Massachusetts. She was a school teacher in Maine and Rhode Island. She had a selfless, passionate love of orphans and began a school for destitute children on India Point in Providence, Rhode Island. Although people had advised her to give up, she was determined to do the impossible. Francis Wayland helped her to found the Providence Children’s Friend Society, a place for suffering children that needed help and provision. This edition contains letters of Harriet Ware with explanatory remarks by Francis Wayland.

“How was it that a young woman, almost wholly unknown, and wholly destitute of means, should have been enabled to accomplish so great an amount of good? I think the answer is obvious. She acted on principles peculiar to the gospel of Christ. She was, in the first place, sincerely and earnestly desirous to do good; and, to accomplish this purpose, was willing to make any personal sacrifice. In the next place, she puts this desire into practice, by engaging in the first benevolent labor that was placed before her. She did not wait until something precisely in harmony with her intellectual tastes or social affections should present itself, but undertook the first work that her Master placed before her.”—Francis Wayland.