The change in her from extreme worldliness to a life of piety and prayer was deep and permanent.  Hers was no half-way character.  While she was of the world, she pursued its follies with entire devotion of heart; and when she once renounced it as unsatisfying, and unworthy of her immortal aspirations, she renounced it solemnly and finally.  Her ardor for learning did not abate, but instead of being inspired, as formerly by a thirst for human applause and distinction, it was now prompted by her sense of responsibility to God for the cultivation of the talents he had given her, and her desire to make herself increasingly useful.  In the sketch referred to she remarks, “I attended my studies in school with far different feelings and different motives from what I had ever done before.  I felt my obligation to improve all I had to the glory of God; and since he in his providence had favored me with advantages for improving my mind, I felt that I should be like the slothful servant if I neglected them.  I therefore diligently employed all my hours in school in acquiring useful knowledge, and spent my evenings and part of the night in spiritual enjoyments.”  “Such was my thirst for religious knowledge, that I frequently spent a great part of the night in reading religious books.”  A friend says of her:  “She thirsted for the knowledge of gospel truth in all its relations and dependencies.  Besides the daily study of the scripture with Guise, Orton, and Scott before her, she perused with deep interest the works of Edwards, Hopkins, Belamy, Doddridge, &c.  With Edwards on Redemption, she was instructed, quickened, strengthened.  Well do I remember the elevated smile that beamed on her countenance when she first spoke to me of its precious contents.  When reading scripture, sermons, or other works, if she met with anything dark or intricate, she would mark the passage, and beg the first clergyman who called at her father’s to elucidate and explain it.”

How evidently to us, though unconsciously to herself, was her Heavenly Father thus fitting her for the work he was preparing for her.  Had she known that she was to spend her days in instructing bigoted and captious idolaters in religious knowledge, she could not have trained herself for the task more wisely than she was thus led to do.

While, under the guidance of the Spirit of truth, she was thus cultivating her intellect, that same Spirit was also sanctifying and purifying her heart.  She loathed sin both in herself and others, and strove to avoid it, not from the fear of hell, but from fear of displeasing her Father in heaven.

In one place she writes:  “Were it left to myself whether to follow the vanities of the world, and go to heaven at last, or to live a religious life, have trials with sin and temptation, and sometimes enjoy the light of God’s reconciled countenance, I should not hesitate a moment in choosing the latter, for there is no real satisfaction in the enjoyments of time and sense.”