of the Pharisees, but in making every word and action accord with
the will of God, I determined to commence with earnestness, to pray
in the spirit with unceasing effort: in other words, to permit no
one thought which should not be inspired by a wish to conform my
whole life to the decrees of God.

The forms I adopted were simple and few; not from contempt of them
(I think them very salutary, and calculated to excite attention),
but from the circumstance of my being unable to go through them at
length, without becoming so far abstracted as to make me forget the
solemn duty in which I am engaged. This habitual observance of
prayer, and the reflection that God is omnipresent as well as
omnipotent in His power to save, began ere long to deprive solitude
of its horrors, and I often repeated, "Have I not the best society
man can have?" and from this period I grew more cheerful, I even
sang and whistled in the new joy of my heart. And why lament my
captivity? Might not a sudden fever have carried me off? and would
my friends then have grieved less over my fate than now? and cannot
God sustain them even as He could under a more trying dispensation?
And often did I offer up my prayers and fervent hopes that my dear
parents might feel, as I myself felt, resigned to my lot; but tears
frequently mingled with sweet recollections of home. With all this,
my faith in God remained undisturbed, and I was not disappointed.



CHAPTER VII.