Page:Memoirs of Mrs. Harriet Newell.pdf/4

 praise the Lord for his former kindness to me, and feel encouraged to persevere in a holy life.

The first ten years of my life were spent in vanity. I was entirely ignorant of the depravity of my heart. The summer that I entered my eleventh year, I attended a dancing school. My conscience would sometimes tell me that my time was foolishly spent, and though I never heard it intimated that such amusements were criminal, yet I could not rest until I had solemnly determined that, when the school closed, I would immediately become religious. But these resolutions were not carried into effect. Although I attended every day to secret prayer, and read the Bible with greater attention than before, yet I soon became weary of these exercises, and, by degrees, omitted entirely the duties of the closet.

When I entered my thirteenth year, I was sent by my parents to the academy. A revival of religion commenced in the neighbourhood, which, in a short time, spread into the school. A large number of the young ladies were anxiously inquiring what they should do to inherit eternal life. I began to inquire, what can these thing mean? My attention was solemnly called to the concerns of my immortal soul. I was a stranger to hope: and I feared the ridicule of my gay companions. My heart was opposed to the character of God; and I felt that, if I continued an enemy to his government, I must eternally perish. My convictions of sin were not so pungent and distressing as many have had; but they were of long continuance. It was more than three months before I brought to cast my soul on the Saviour of sinners, and rely on him alone for salvation.

The ecstacies which many new-born souls possess were not mine. But if I was not lost in raptures