tisfied with Episcopacy, feeling its forms lifeless; but
now, after having carefully considered the various other sects, and
finding error in all, she concluded to remain in the church whose
doctrines at least satisfied her as well as those of any other, and
were those of her mother and her family.

Of the Society of Friends she knew little, and that little was
unfavorable. To a remark made one day by her mother, relative to her
turning Quaker, she replied, with some warmth:--

"Anything but a Quaker or a Catholic!"

Having made up her mind that the Friends were wrong, she had steadily
refused, during her stay in Philadelphia, to attend their meetings or
read any of their writings. Nevertheless many things about them,
scarcely noticed at the time,--their quiet dress, orderly manner of
life and gentle tones of voice, together with their many acts of
kindness to her and her father,--came back to her after she had left
them, and especially impressed her as contrasting so strongly with the
slack habits and irregular discipline which made her own home so
unhappy.

On the vessel which carried her from Philadelphia to Charleston, after
her father's death, was a party of Friends; and in the seven days which
it then required to make the voyage, an intimacy sprang up between them
and Sarah which influenced her whole after-life. From one of them she
had accepted a copy of Woolman's works,--evidence that there must have
been religious discussions between them. And that there was talk--
probably some jesting--in the family about Quakers is shown by the
little incident Sarah relates of her brother Thomas presenting her,
soon after her return from North Carolina, with a volume of Quaker
writings he had picked up at some sale. He placed it in her hand,
saying jocosely,--

"Thee had better turn Quaker, Sally; thy long face would suit well
their sober dress."

She was, as we have said, of a naturally cheerful disposition; but her
false views of religion led her to believe that "by the sadness of the
countenance the heart is made better," and she shed more tears, and
offered up more petitions for forgiveness, over occasional irresistible
merriment than I have space to record.

She accepted the book from her brother, read it, and, needing some
explanation of portions of it, wrote to one of the Friends in
Philadelphia whose acquaintance she had made on the vessel. A
correspondence ensued, which resulted after some months in her ent