which I was sure, from what I saw, hurt others, led them from the paths of rectitude, and brought them into much sin. I felt the vanity and folly of what are called the pleasures of this life, of which the tendency is not to satisfy, but eventually to enervate and injure the mind. Those only are real pleasures which are of an innocent nature, and are used as recreations, subjected to the Cross of Christ. I was in my judgment much confirmed in the infinite importance of religion as the only real stay, guide, help, comfort in this life, and the only means of our having a hope of partaking of a better. My understanding was increasingly opened to receive its truths, although the glad tidings of the Gospel were very little, if at all, understood by me. I was like the blind man, although I could hardly be said to have attained the state of seeing men as trees. I obtained in this expedition a valuable knowledge of human nature from the variety I met with, this, I think, was useful to me, though some were very dangerous associates for so young a person, and the way in which I was protected among them is in my remembrance very striking, and leads me to acknowledge that at this most critical period of my life the tender mercy of my God was marvellously displayed towards me, and that His all-powerful—though to me then almost unseen and unknown—hand held me up and protected me.
Self-abnegation and austerity were now to take the place of pleasant frivolities and fashionable amusements. Her conviction was that her mind required the ties and bonds of Quakerism to fit it for immortality. Not that she, in any way, trusted in her own righteousness; for she gives it as her opinion that, while principles of one's own making are useless in the elevation and refinement of character, true religion, on the contrary, does exalt and purify the character. Still the struggle was not over. Long and bitter as it had been, it became still more bitter; and the nightly recurrence of a dream at this period will serve to show how agitated was her mental and spiritual nature. Just emancipated from sceptical principles, accustomed to independent research, and deciding to study the New Testament rather than good books,
