"No, Sir. It brought a rapid succession of strange and very painful emotions. I could neither banish nor repress them. I knew not what to do. I remained in my own room, for I was too excited to mix with the family. I spent a lonely and very unhappy day."
"Did you not attempt to pray for mercy to pardon the act of deception you had committed?"
"The idea occurred to me more than once. I had heard a Friend, some weeks before at a public meeting, discourse about the publican in the temple. His simple prayer came very vividly to my recollection; but my spirit was too haughty to adopt it. My convictions of conscious guilt had merely disturbed my quietude. They had not gone deep enough to awaken any alarm for my soul's safety. They inflicted torture, but excited no genuine penitence and contrition. I felt bewildered and unhappy. I knew not what to do."
"Did you long remain in this bewildered and unhappy state?"
"For several months, I was a living martyr to mental disquietude and restlessness."
"Did you search the Scriptures to see if you could find anything in them to minister relief to your disconsolate heart?"
"Such an idea never struck me. If it had been suggested to me, I think I should have scorned it as a fanatical idea. I had always looked upon the Bible as a compilation of strange writings, without unity, order, or authority. I had no more notion of deriving relief from them, than from reading any other book of history or ecclesiastic ceremonies."
"A melancholy proof, Madam, of the great defect in your religious training!"
"That I now feel and deplore. The Bible I now revere as the inaudible voice of the Lord speaking to the conscience and the heart."