She alludes repeatedly in her correspondence to the delight which she
found on the Sabbath in listening to that eminent preacher and divine,
the Rev. Dr. Wm. S. Plumer, who was then settled in Richmond. In a
letter to her cousin she writes:

I have become much attached to him; he seems more than half in heaven,
and every word is full of solemnity and feeling, as if he had just held
near intercourse with God. I wish that you could have listened with me
to his sermons to-day. They have been, I think, blessed messages from
God to my soul.

All her letters at this time glow with religious fervor. "How wonderful
is our divine Master!" she seemed to be always saying to herself. "It
has become so delightful to me to speak of His love, of His holiness, of
His purity, that when I try to write to those who know Him not, I hardly
know what is worthy of even a mention, if He is to be forgotten." And
several years afterwards she refers to this period as a time when she
"shrank from everything that in the slightest degree interrupted her
consciousness of God."

The following letter to a friend, whose name will often recur in these
pages, well illustrates her state of mind during the entire winter.

_To Miss Anna S. Prentiss. Richmond, Feb 26, 1841._

Your very welcome letter, my dear Anna, arrived this afternoon, and, as
my labors for the week are over, I am glad of a quiet hour in which to
thank you for it. I do not thank you simply because you have so soon
answered my letter, but because you have told me what no one else could