Alluding to a religious magazine, she writes:—­

“It is always pulling down error—­seldom building up truth.  Surely Antichrist comes to oppose Christ, not Christ to oppose Antichrist.  Is there, then, no positive Christian duty?  Are we never to rest in principles and practices of actual faith and love? or are we to be always on the offensive and negative side, stigmatizing all who act contrary to our belief of the truth as doers of the work of Antichrist?  Antichrist, I fear, cares little for orthodox doctrines, but fights against the Christian spirit.”

9th Mo. 13th.  Conflicting thoughts again.  I long that there may be no building on any sandy foundation.  But oh, the fitness that appeared to me this evening in the blessed Saviour to supply all my need.  The one sacrifice He has been, and the one mediator and way to God He ever is,—­His own spirit the one leader, teacher, and sanctifier; whereby He consummates in the heart the blessed work of bringing all into subjection to the obedience of Christ.  Oh for a personal experience, a real participation in all this, a knowledge that He is my own and that I am His.

16th.  Somewhat puzzled at myself.  This has not been a spiritually prosperous day—­passed just to my taste, much in reading, but not much, I fear, with the Lord.  Yet I have had very loving thoughts of Christ this evening, and was ready to call Him my own dear Saviour, though I trust on no other terms than His terms, namely, that I should be wholly His.  Some misgivings are come up that I am tempted to think Him mine when I am not in a state to be His; some fears lest Satan has put on the winning smiles of an angel of light; and yet where can I go but to Thee, Saviour of sinners?  Thou hast the words of life and salvation; suffer me not to be deluded, but at all hazards let me be Thine.

  Thou who breakest not the bruised reed, oh, bring
  forth in me judgment unto truth, and let me wait for
  the law of life and peace from Thee.

9th Mo. 18th.  Rode to Lodge to get ferns.  Enjoyed thoughts of the beauty of nature, imperfect as it is, because one kind of beauty necessarily excludes another.  What, then, must be the essence of that glory in which all perfection is beauty united?  Thus these things must be described to mortal comprehension under contradictory images; such as “pure gold, like unto transparent glass,” &c.

9th Mo. 19th.  I think harm is done by considering a society such as “Friends,” “a section of the Christian Church,” as societies are so often called.  It can be true only by considering the “Christian Church” to mean professing Christians; but surely its true meaning is the children of God anywhere.  Of this body, there are no sections to be made by man, or it would follow that to unite oneself to either section, is to be united to the body,