o us, though unconsciously to herself, was her Heavenly
Father thus fitting her for the work he was preparing for her. Had she
known that she was to spend her days in instructing bigoted and captious
idolaters in religious knowledge, she could not have trained herself for
the task more wisely than she was thus led to do.

While, under the guidance of the Spirit of truth, she was thus
cultivating her intellect, that same Spirit was also sanctifying and
purifying her heart. She loathed sin both in herself and others, and
strove to avoid it, not from the fear of hell, but from fear of
displeasing her Father in heaven.

In one place she writes: "Were it left to myself whether to follow the
vanities of the world, and go to heaven at last, or to live a religious
life, have trials with sin and temptation, and sometimes enjoy the light
of God's reconciled countenance, I should not hesitate a moment in
choosing the latter, for there is no real satisfaction in the enjoyments
of time and sense."

On the fourteenth of August, 1806, she made a public profession of
religion, and united with the Congregational church at Bradford, being
in her seventeenth year.

Very early in her religious life she became sensible that if unusual
advantages for acquiring knowledge had fallen to her lot, she was the
more bound to use her talents and acquirements for the benefit of others
less favored than herself. Actuated by such motives, she opened a small
school in her native place, and subsequently taught in several
neighboring villages. Her example in this respect is surely worthy of
imitation. Perhaps no person is more admirable than a young lady fitted
like Miss Hasseltine by a cultivated mind and engaging manners to shine
in society, who having the choice between a life of ease and one of
personal exertion, chooses voluntarily, or only in obedience to the
dictates of conscience, the weary and self-denying path of the teacher.
And probably such a course would oftener be chosen, were young persons
aware of the unquestionable fact, that the school in which we make the
most solid and rapid improvement, is that in which we teach others.

An extract from her journal will sustain what we have said of her
conscientiousness and purity of motive in endeavoring to instruct the
young:

"_May 12, 1809._--Have taken charge of a few scholars. Ever since I have
had a comfortable hope in Christ, I have desired to devote myself to him
in such a way as to b