amusements; but it was made in self-will, and did not stand long,
though I was so earnest that I gave away much of my finery. I cannot
look back to those years without a blush of shame, a feeling of anguish
at the utter perversion of the ends of my being. But for my tutelary
god, my idolized brother, my young, passionate nature, stimulated by
that love of admiration which carries many a high and noble soul down
the stream of folly to the whirlpool of an unhallowed marriage, I had
rushed into this lifelong misery. Happily for me, this butterfly life
did not last long. My ardent nature had another channel opened for it,
through which it rushed with its usual impetuosity. I was converted,
and turned over to doing good."

Up to this time she was a communicant in the Episcopal church, and a
regular attendant on its various services. But, as she records, her
heart was never touched, her soul never stirred. She heard the same
things preached week after week,--the necessity of coming to Christ and
the danger of delay,--and she wondered at her insensibility. She joined
in family worship, and was scrupulously exact in her private devotions;
but all was done mechanically, from habit, and no quickening sense of
her "awful condition" came to her until she went one night, on the
invitation of a friend, to hear a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Henry
Kolloch, celebrated for his eloquence. He preached a thrilling sermon,
and Sarah was deeply moved. But the impression soon wore off, and she
returned to her gay life with renewed ardor. A year after, the same
minister revisited Charleston; and again she went to hear him, and
again felt the "arrows of conscience," and again disregarded the solemn
warning. The journal continues:--

"After this he came no more; and in the winter of 1813-14 I was led in
an unusual degree into scenes of dissipation and frivolity. It seemed