In 1820, she first spoke as a minister, in reference to which she writes: 3rd Month, 1820, “Had felt for some time, and particularly lately, a warm concern for the interest of our family, which to my humiliation, surprise, and consolation, I was strengthened to express to them in a private opportunity, before I left Sunderland. On our ride home, I felt the candle of the Lord shine round about me, in a manner I had not done for years, accompanied with much tenderness and some foreboding fears. I felt I had put my hand to the plough, and I must not turn back, but I remembered the days that were past, and I knew something of the power of Him in whom I had believed; though fear often compassed me about, and too much imagination.”
1820. “My heart has burned as an oven, internal and external supplication has not been wanting to ease it; may I endure the burnings as I ought.” Speaking of attending the Yearly
Meeting soon after, she says: “I saw many dangerous enemies of my own heart near me, yet was there mercifully preserved a germ of truth, in which met the hearts of the faithful, and which was an encouragement to me; I afterwards spoke twice in the Yearly Meeting, and the composure at the moment, and after a time the peace that ensued, seemed to assure me that I had not run without being sent. The remembrance of former days came strongly before me, and in thus again publicly manifesting the intent of my heart, I felt the comfort of being no stranger to that Hand, which, as it once fed me with milk, seemed to me now after a long night season, feeding me with meat.”
After her return home, she writes: “Opened my mouth in Darlington meeting, on First-day afternoon. A mountain in prospect! The meetings now became very interesting to me, and as the reward of what I was induced to believe was faithfulness, often greatly refreshing.”
In the course of this year, she lost her eldest son, a child of great promise, and the suffering attendant upon this deep sorrow, in addition to
close mental baptism, at times greatly prostrated her physical powers.
11th Month 4th, 1820, we find the following-memorandum: “‘Oh how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men.’ In looking back to the last two or three months, I feel I may adopt this language: in them I have known the greatest portion of suffering that it has yet been my lot to taste.”
3rd Month, 1822. She writes, “In the afternoon meeting, a subject seemed so clear before me, that I ventured to speak; but oh! the evil of my heart, the consciousness of having, or supposing I had, chosen my words well, was like the fly in the ointment of the apothecary, the baneful effects of which, I felt many days after. The more I see of my own mind, the more may the breathing of my soul be,—‘If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.’ Sometimes to believe that it is His will, is sweet to me, but we must maintain the fight, for though the victory is His, the fall is ours.”
“The constant and deep consideration for
others in the most minute actions of life, how I love it, and feel myself ‘as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke.’”