Whatever engaged her attention, whether study or amusement, was pursued with an ardor that excited the sympathy and love both of her teachers and schoolfellows.  Though little of her writing at this period is preserved, and the generation that knew her personally is mostly passed away, yet her whole subsequent career gives evidence of an intellect of a very high order, carefully cultivated by study and reflection.

She seems scarcely to have been the subject of serious impressions before her seventeenth year.  Until that time she enjoyed the pleasures of the world with few misgivings and with a keenness of relish which led her to think herself, as she says, “the happiest creature on earth.”  She adds, “I so far surpassed my friends in gayety and mirth, that some of them were apprehensive I had but a short time to continue in my career of folly, and should be suddenly cut off.  Thus passed the last winter of my gay life.”

During the spring of 1806, she began regularly to attend a series of conference meetings in Bradford, her native town.  She soon felt that the Spirit of God was operating on her mind.  Amusements lost their relish; she felt that she must have a new heart or perish forever; and she often sought solitude, that she might, unseen by others, weep over her deplorable state.  Soon, however, her fears that her distress might be noticed by her companions, were merged in her greater terrors of conscience, and she “was willing the whole universe should know that she felt herself to be a lost and perishing sinner.”  Her distress increased as she became more and more sensible of the depravity of her heart, and the holiness and sovereignty of God.  Her mind rose in rebellion against a Being, who after all her prayers and tears and self-denial, still withheld from her the blessing of pardon and peace.  She says, “In this state I longed for annihilation, and if I could have destroyed the existence of my soul with as much ease as that of my body, I should quickly have done it.  But that glorious Being who is kinder to his creatures than they are to themselves, did not leave me to remain in this distressing state.”  The plan of salvation through a crucified Redeemer, gradually unfolded itself before her; she began to take delight in those attributes of God which before had filled her with abhorrence; and although she did not at first imagine that this was the new heart for which she had sought so earnestly, yet she was constrained to commit all her interests for time and eternity unreservedly to that Saviour, who now seemed infinitely worthy of the service of her whole existence.[1]