Feb. 9th, 1807. “To-day I am twenty; let me endeavour to describe with sincerity what twenty years have effected upon me; how difficult self-love and blindness make answering the questions, What am I? How far am I advanced in the great end of being, the making such use of my time here, that it may bear fruit when time with me is over? When I look upon myself with the greatest seriousness, how ill do I think of myself! I see myself endowed with powers, which I often, (I hope, with a pure and unfeigned heart,) wish may be applied aright. But in my mind, what strong ‘bulls of Bashan’ compass me about! What I fear most, and that which sometimes comes upon me most awfully, is, that my will is not properly brought into subjection. * * * Often when clothed with something of heavenly love, do I feel that I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than dwell in king’s palaces, but I fear the general tendency of my pursuits would make
me more fit for the latter than the former. What I want and do most sincerely wish for, is, that I may be truly humble, and that where pride now reigns, humility may prevail; and where ambition, contentment.”
In 1808, the death of a favourite first cousin appears to have been the means of greatly deepening her serious impressions, and of increasing the desire to “relieve herself,” as she expresses it, “from the miserable state of inconsistency in which a gay Friend is situated.” A short time subsequent to this period, she writes:—
May, 1808. “With my father and mother I left the Grove this morning, with a mind much softened, though not afflicted by parting with those I love, earnestly wishing that what I was going to attend,—the Yearly Meeting, might stamp more deeply the impressions I had received. We reached Epping that night. I felt very serious; Love seemed to have smitten me, and under that banner, I earnestly hoped that I might be enabled to partake of whatever might be set before me in the banqueting house. I saw that it would be right for me to say thee, and thou, to everybody, and I begged that I might be so kept in love as to be
enabled to do it,—that love might draw me, not fear terrify me.”
“How deeply I felt to enjoy First-day, and was strengthened at meeting. For the first time, to-day I called the days of the week numerically, on principle, it cost me at first a blush. This day has afforded me deeper and sweeter feelings than any I have yet passed; surprise and ridicule I have felt to be useful!”
“Left Bury Hill early: I can look back to the time I have spent here as the happiest in my life; and I have earnestly wished that my example and influence in future life, may be useful to those whom, never before my mind was so altered, did I love with so sweet or so great an affection.”
After alluding to some further change, she writes; “I felt increasingly the weight of advocating the cause I have engaged in; oh! may no word or action of mine, stain the character I am assuming, and may no self-exaltation be the consequence: the mind, I feel, must be kept deep indeed, to avoid the rocks that do every where surround.”
6th Month, 1808. “Went to meeting—thought that by observing the commandment, and confessing
Christ before men, we should only be showing the beautiful effect of obedience, in the fruit of the Spirit it produces,—that it does not consist in speech, dress, or behaviour, but that by being obedient in these and all things, to the law written in our hearts; we should be overshadowed by that sweetness and quietness of spirit, the fruits of which would prove whose government we are under.”