A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)

The vague, fitful desire I had felt from my childhood to be something to the world I lived in, to give it something of the the inexpressible sweetness that often seemed pouring through me, I knew not whence, now began to shape itself into a definite outreach towards the Source of all spiritual life. To draw near to the One All-Beautiful Being, Christ, to know Him as our spirits may know The Spirit, to receive the breath of his infinitely loving Life into mine, that I might breathe out that fragrance again into the lives around me--this was the longing wish that, half hidden from myself, lay deep beneath all other desires of my soul. This was what religion grew to mean to me, what it is still growing to mean, more simply and more clearly as the years go on. The heart must be very humble to which this heavenly approach is permitted. It knows that it has nothing in itself, nothing for others, which it has not received. The loving Voice of Him who gives his friends his errands to do whispers through them constantly, "Ye are not your own." There may be those who would think my narrative more entertaining, if I omitted these inner experiences, and related only lighter incidents. But one thing I was aware of, from the time I began to think and to wonder about my own life--that what I felt and thought was far more real to me than the things that happened.