The Christian faith of Josephine Butler led her into a sustained struggle on moral issues in the public arena. By the end of her life in 1906 she had helped achieve a sea change in legal protection for vulnerable young people and women, demonstrating the transforming power of consistent campaigning.
Josephine keenly felt the dilemma of how a good God could allow the depth of suffering that she saw outside her own privileged class. The dilemma turned into a crisis when her beloved daughter, Eva, fell from a banister at the top of the hall stairs on to the stone floor. She died shortly afterwards.
Trust in his unfailing love
A devastated Josephine went through a long drought of the soul. She recorded that she eventually came, by degrees and by the mercy of God, into a ‘firmer trust in his unfailing love’.
