The extracts from Mrs. Graham's letters and devotional exercises,
which constitute so large a part of the following pages, will furnish
the best development of her principles; and may, with the blessing of
God, prove useful to those who read them. In all her writings will be
manifested the power of _faith_, the efficiency of _grace_,
and in them, as in her own uniform confession, Jesus will be magnified
and self will be humbled. Her life was chiefly distinguished by her
continual dependence on God, and his unceasing faithfulness and mercy
towards her.


ISABELLA MARSHALL, afterwards Mrs. Graham, was born July 29,
1742, in the shire of Lanark, in Scotland. Her grandfather was one of
the elders who quitted the established church with the Rev. Messrs.
Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine. She was educated in the principles of the
church of Scotland. Her father and mother were both pious; indeed, her
mother, whose maiden name was Janet Hamilton, appears, from her
letters yet extant, to have possessed a mind of the same character as
her daughter afterwards exhibited.

Isabella was trained to an active life, as well as favored with a
superior education. Her grandfather, whose dying-bed she assiduously
attended, bequeathed her a legacy of some hundred pounds. In the use
to which she applied this money, the soundness of her judgment was
thus early manifested. She requested it might be appropriated to the
purpose of procuring a thorough _education_. When ten years of
age, she was sent to a boarding-school taught by a lady of
distinguished talents and piety. Often has Mrs. Graham repeated to her
children the maxims of Mrs. Betty Morehead. With ardent and unwearied