"I will tell you, Maam. That first day I left Mamma when I was on board the steamboat, and feeling as badly as I could feel a kind, kind gentleman I don't know who he was came to me, and spoke to me, and took care of me the whole day. Oh, if I could see him again! He talked to me a great deal he wanted me to be a Christian he wanted me to make up my mind to begin that day to be one and Maam, I did. I did resolve with my whole heart, and I thought I should be different from that time from what I had ever been before. But I think I have never been so bad in my life as I have been since then. Instead of feeling right, I have felt wrong all the time, almost and I can't help it. I have been passionate and cross, and bad feelings keep coming; and I know it's wrong, and it makes me miserable. And yet, oh! Maam, I haven't changed my mind a bit I think just the same as I did that day; I want to be a Christian more than anything else in the world, but I am not and what shall I do?"
Her face sank in her hands again.
"And this is your great trouble?" said her friend.
"Yes."
"Do you remember who said, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'?"
Ellen looked up inquiringly.
"You are grieved to find yourself so unlike what you would be. You wish to be a child of the dear Saviour, and to have your heart filled with his love, and to do what will please him. Do you? Have you gone to him day by day, and night by night, and told him so? have you begged him to give you strength to get the better of your wrong feelings, and asked him to change you, and make you his child?"
"At first I did, Maam," said Ellen, in a low voice.
"Not lately!"
"No, Maam;" in a lower tone still, and looking down.