key to this self-examination, a
self-examination which was strictly continued as long as reason held her
sway. This entry is entitled "Questions for Myself."

"First.--Hast thou this day been honest and true in performing thy duty
towards thy Creator in the first place, and secondly towards thy
fellow-creatures; or hast thou sophisticated and flinched?

"Second.--Hast thou been vigilant in frequently pausing, in the hurry
and career of the day, to see who thou art endeavoring to serve: whether
thy Maker or thyself? And every time that trial or temptation assailed
thee, didst thou endeavor to look steadily at the Delivering Power, even
to Christ who can do all things for thee?

"Third.--Hast thou endeavored to perform thy relative duties faithfully;
been a tender, loving, yielding wife, where thy own will and pleasure
were concerned, a tender yet steady mother with thy children, making
thyself quickly and strictly obeyed, but careful in what thou requirest
of them; a kind yet honest mistress, telling thy servants their faults,
when thou thinkest it for their or thy good, but never unnecessarily
worrying thyself or them about trifles, and to everyone endeavoring to
do as thou wouldst be done unto?"

A life governed by these principles, and measured by these rules, was
not likely to be otherwise than strictly, severely, nervously good. We
use the word "nervously" because here and there, up and down the pages
of her journal are scattered numerous passages full of such questions as
the above. None ever peered into their hearts, or searched their lives
more relentlessly than she did. Upright, self-denying, just, pure,
charitable, "hoping all things, bearing all things, believing all
things," she judged herself by a stricter law than she judged others;
condemning in herself what she allowed to be expedient, if not lawful,
in others, and laying bare her inmost heart before her God. After she
had done all that she judged it to be her duty to do, she humbly and
tearfully acknowledged herself to be one of the Lord's most
"unprofitable servants." It would be useless to endeavor to measure such
a life by any rules of worldly polity or fashions. An extract written
at this time, relative to the welfare and treatment of servants, may be
of use in showing how she permitted her sound sense and practical daily
piety to decide for her in emergencies and anxieties growing out of the
"mistress and servant" question. "At this time there is