state of my heart, long wavering between two opinions,
has of late been fearfully in danger of fixing
to the wrong one of these, I would ask of Him who
seeth in secret, and who is, I trust, at this very moment
renewing a measure of the contrition, which,
amid all my desires for it, did but gleam upon me
this morning, to do in me a thorough work, to remain
henceforth and ever.

_2d Mo. 12th_. About four weeks since, we had
a precious visit from B.S., and it has been a sacrifice
to me to make no record of his striking communications;
but I have been fearful, lest in any measure
the weight and freshness of these things should
vanish in words; and I have never felt at liberty to
do so.

In this year, she wrote but little in her Journal, and it appears
to have been a time of spiritual proving; yet one in which she
experienced that it was good for her "to trust in the name of the
Lord, and to stay herself upon her God."

_6th Mo. 16th_, 1844. One week ago was the
twenty-first anniversary of my birthday. In some
sense, I can say,--

"The past is bright, like those dear hills,
So far behind my bark;
The future, like the gathering night,
Is ominous and dark.

"One gaze again--one long, last gaze;
Childhood, adieu to thee;
The breeze hath hurried me away,
On a dark, stormy sea."

Deeply and more deeply, day by day, does my understanding
find the deceitfulness of my heart. Well
do I remember the feelings of determination, with
which I resolved, two years since, that this period
should not find me halting between two opinions,--that
ere _this_ day I would be a Christian indeed.
And looking back upon my alternating feelings, ever
since reason was mine, upon the innumerable resolutions
to do good, which have been as staves of reed,
I must want common perception not to assent to the
truth, that "the heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked: who can know it?" But,
oh, it is not this only, which my intellectual conscience
is burdened with: when I look at the visitations
of divine grace which have been my unmerited,
unasked-for, privilege, through which I can but feel
that in days past, a standing was placed in my power
to attain, which, probably, now I shall never approach,
the question does present with an awful importance,
"How much owest thou unto thy Lord?"
Seeing we know not, nor can know, the va