w of the sins of the worldly
circle in which she moved. She began to realise the sentiment of her
ancestor, the good Lord Brodie:--"God can make use of poison to expel
poison: in London I saw much vanity, lightness, and wantonness." His
aspiration was also soon echoed from her own heart--"Oh, that the seeing
of it in others may cure and mortify the seeds of it in myself!" She
could not help observing the shameless vice that passed unrebuked, by
many hardly noticed. The observation gave a shock to her sensitive soul.
Her distress was great, and in her distress she turned to the right
quarter. She sought solace in the Bible. That hitherto neglected Book
enchained her attention, and she became a most diligent searcher into
its hidden truths. Some of the gay friends of the society in which she
moved found her occupied in this Bible reading. It supplied them with a
new amusement, telling how the attractive marchioness had become a
"Methodist." Hers was not the nature to be turned aside from its purpose
by a taunt. "If for so little I am to be called a Methodist, let me have
something more worthy of the name." Such was her reflection, and her
Bible reading was continued with renewed earnestness.

In the course of that reading the work of the Holy Spirit was impressed
upon her attention. The promise met her eyes, "If ye, being evil, know
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your
Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" "From that
time," she records, "I began to pray for the Holy Spirit." To the end of
her life she increasingly realised and brought others to realise the
paramount importance of the personal work of the Holy Spirit. Lady
Huntly could not now join in the pursuits of the world as she had
formerly done. Her husband did not fully sympathise with the change in
her views, but he saw enough of the sinful emptiness of mere gaiety to
make him refrain from insisting upon her taking part in its pursuits.
More than this, he gave every facility to her for carrying out her
wishes, even when he could not understand the spirit which was
their motive.

When in Geneva, after her Bible reading had begun, she found a very
helpful friend in Madame Vernet. "If any one is to be called my
spiritual mother," she said, "it is Madame Vernet of Geneva." That good
Christian unfolded to her plainly the plan of salvation, showing her
first her lost condition, and then the way of redemption by Jesus