Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/365

Rh forget not to give him thankes, but to walk more closely with him then before. This is the desire of your Loving Mother, A. B.

With this record came a time of comparative health, and it is not till some years later that she finds it necessary to again write of sharp physical suffering, this being the last reference made in her papers to her own condition:

May 11, 1661. It hath pleased God to give me a long Time of respite for these 4 years that I have had no great fitt of sickness, but this year, from the middle of January 'till May, I have been by fitts very ill and weak. The first of this month I had a feaver seat'd upon me which, indeed, was the longest and sorest that ever I had, lasting 4 dayes, and the weather being very hott made it the more tedious, but it pleased the Lord to support my heart in his goodness, and to hear my Prayers, and to deliver me out of adversity. But alas! I cannot render unto the Lord according to all his loving kindnes, nor take the cup salvation with Thanksgiving as I ought to doe. Lord, Thou that knowest All things, know'st that I desire to testefye my thankfulnes, not only in word, but in Deed, that my Conversation may speak that thy vowes are upon me.

The diary of "Religious Reflections" was written at this period and holds a portrait of the devout and tender mind, sensitive and morbidly conscientious, but full of an aspiration that never left her. The few