e of the poor,
and would abundantly be restored, and amply rewarded to the families of
those who gave it.

In the time of my greatest trials, some years after my husband's death
(for they began three years before my widowhood, and lasted four years
after) my footman came one day to tell me, (I was then in the country)
that there was in the road a poor soldier dying. I had him brought in,
and ordering a separate place to be made ready for him, I kept above a
fortnight. His malady was a flux, which he had taken in the army. It
was so nauseous, that though the domestics were charitably inclined,
nobody could bear to come near him. I went myself to take away his
vessels. But I never did anything of the kind which was so hard. I
frequently made efforts for a full quarter of an hour at a time. It
seemed as if my very heart was going to come up; yet I never desisted.
I sometimes kept the poor people at my house to dress their putrid
sores; but never met with anything so terrible as this. The poor man,
after I had made him receive the sacrament, died.

What gave me now no small concern was the tenderness I had for my
children, especially my younger son, whom I had strong reasons for
loving. I saw him inclined to be good; everything seemed to favor the
hopes I had conceived of him. I thought it running a great risk to
leave him to another's education. My daughter I designed to take with
me, though she was at this time ill of a very tedious fever. Providence
was pleased, however, so to order it that she speedily recovered. The
ties, with which the Lord held me closely united to Himself, were
infinitely stronger than those of flesh and blood. The laws of my
sacred marriage obliged me to give up all, to follow my spouse
whithersoever it was His pleasure to call me after Him. Though I often
hesitated, and doubted much before I went, I never doubted after my
going of its being His will; and though men, who judge of things only
according to the success they seem to have, have taken occasion from my
disgraces and sufferings, to judge of my calling, and to run it down as
error, illusion and imagination; it is that very persecution, and a
multitude of strange crosses it has drawn upon me, (of which this
imprisonment I now suffer is one,) which have confirmed me in the
certainty of its truth and validity. I am more than ever convinced that
the resignation which I have made of everything is in pure obedience to
the divine will.

The go