Her father, a man popular on account of his genial ways and social disposition, making no objection, she joined, with some of her sisters, in all the gaieties of life in Norwich.  Prince William Frederick, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, was then quartered with his regiment there, and there was an incessant round of pleasures—­balls, concerts, and oratorios.  Elizabeth Gurney entered into all the gaiety, but she was ill at ease.  She says, “I see the folly of the world.  My mind is very flat after this storm of pleasure.”  “I do believe if I had a little true religion, I should have a greater support than I have now.”

She had also before this time given expression to the better dispositions of her natural heart, saying, “I must do what I can to alleviate the sorrows of others; exert what power I have to increase happiness; try to govern my passions by reason; and adhere strictly to what I think right.”

This condition of her mind, with alternate indulgence in vanity and resolutions after better things, lasted till she was twenty-two years of age, when she came to the settled conviction that “it is almost impossible to keep strictly to principle without religion.  I don’t feel any real religion; I should think those feelings impossible to obtain, for even if I thought all the Bible was true, I do not think I could make myself feel it:  I think I never saw any person who appeared so totally destitute of it.”

It was something to arrive at the conviction that she lacked the one thing needful; and that she felt that more than natural effort, even the power of the Holy Spirit, was necessary to awaken her to new life, and to change her heart.  The arrival at Norwich of an American friend, William Savery, “a man who seemed to overflow with true religion, and to be humble, and yet a man of great abilities,” confirmed her in her dissatisfaction with her own state, and strengthened her desires after a new life.  Of him, she says, that “having been gay and disbelieving only a few years ago, makes him better acquainted with the heart of one in the same situation.”

III.

First visit to London.

While in this unsettled and partially awakened state of mind, Elizabeth’s father proposed to take her to see London, an offer which she gladly closed with, without any thought beyond the excitement of new scenes and pleasures.  He took her there, and left her for several weeks, under the care of a relative.  It was a perilous trial for a young girl, but the result was for her happy.  The effect was to disgust her more with the world and mere worldly amusements, and to fix her heart more surely where true peace can alone be found.