“I was in Beaufort,” she says, “when the news of my dear Ben’s fate arrived.  You may well suppose it was a great shock to my feelings, but I did not for one moment doubt all was right.  This blow has been dealt by the hand of mercy.  We have been much comforted in this dispensation.  I have felt that it was good for me, and I think I have been thankful for it.”

And further on:  “If this affliction will only make Mary (Benjamin’s wife) a real Christian, how small will be the price of her salvation!”

Poor Ben! heroic, self-sacrificing soul, he was not a professing Christian.

In this same letter she expresses the desire to become a communicant of the Episcopal Church.

But she did not wait for Sarah’s answer.  Before it came, she and one of her sisters had joined the Church.  This was in January.  Before a month had passed she began to be dissatisfied, and grew more and more so as time went on.  Why, it is not difficult to surmise.  From having been accustomed to much society and genial intercourse, she found herself, from her own choice, shut out from it all, and imprisoned within the rigid formalism and narrow exclusiveness of a proud, aristocratic church society.  The compensation of knowing herself a lamb of this flock was not sufficient.  She starved, she says, on the cold water of Episcopacy, and, to her mother’s distress, began going to the Presbyterian church, just as Sarah had done.

In April, she writes thus to her sister:—­

“O, my dear mother, I have joyful news to tell you.  God has given me a new heart.  He has renewed a right spirit within me.  This is news which has occasioned even the angels in heaven to rejoice; surely, then, as a Christian, as my sister and my mother, you will also greatly rejoice.  For many years I hardened my heart, and would not listen to God’s admonitions to flee from the wrath to come.  Now I feel as if I could give up all for Christ, and that if I no longer live in conformity to the world, I can be saved.”

She then states that this change was brought about by the preaching of Mr. McDowell, the Presbyterian minister, and that she can never be grateful enough, as his ministry had been blessed to the saving of her soul.  A little further on she adds:—­

“The Presbyterians, I think, enjoy so many privileges that, on this account, I would wish to be one.  They have their monthly concert and prayer-meetings, Bible-classes, weekly prayer-meetings, morning and evening, and many more which spring from different circumstances.  I trust, my dear mother, you will approve of what I have done.  I cannot but think if I had been taking an improper step, my conscience would have warned me of it, but, far otherwise, I have gone on my way rejoicing.