My parents taught me to fear God, and as I grew up, I often prayed in secret, and suffered anguish of conscience on account of my sins, but was ashamed to let it become known. A varied experience was the consequence, sometimes I was hopeful, often despairing. Where I lived, true religion was despised, and a knowledge of this kept me from a profession of penitence which I felt. But the passage of Scripture in Mark, "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels" (Mark 8:38), drove away my hopes of being saved without a sacrifice of my pride.

      I was thirty-two years old before I consented to yield. When I did, the Lord gave me an evidence of His love by filling me with happiness and a zeal to serve Him in all His ways. My load of sin was removed, and I have been happy since in trying to live a Christian, and am "not ashamed to own His cross, nor blush to speak His name." The Lord's promises are my meat and drink, and my constant longing is toward the Heavenly City.

[THW 91]