once. But as God was
willing to purify her soul, He separated her from all those things for
which she had before the greatest attachment. At last, after she had
patiently undergone her sufferings, her Superior wrote to me that "I
was in the right, and that she had now come out of that state of
dejection, in greater purity than ever." The Lord gave to me alone at
that time to know her state. This was the commencement of the gift of
discerning spirits, which I afterward received more fully.

The winter before I left home was one of the longest and hardest that
had been for several years (1680). It was followed with extreme
scarcity, which proved to me an occasion of exercising charity. My
mother-in-law joined me heartily and appeared to me so much changed. I
could not but be both surprised and overjoyed at it. We distributed at
the house ninety-six dozen loaves of bread every week, but private
charities to the bashful poor were much greater. I kept poor boys and
girls employed. The Lord gave such blessings to my alms, that I did not
find that my family lost anything by it. Before the death of my
husband, my mother-in-law told him that I would ruin him with my
charities, though he himself was so charitable, that in a very dear
year, while he was young, he distributed a considerable sum. She
repeated this to him so often, that he commanded me to set down in
writing all the money I laid out, both what I gave for the expense of
the house, and all that I caused to be bought, that he might better
judge of what I gave to the poor. This new obligation, which I was
brought under, appeared to me so much the harder, as for above eleven
years we had been married I never before had this required of me. What
troubled me most was the fear of having nothing to give to such as
wanted. However, I submitted to it, without retrenching any part of my
charities. I did not indeed set down any of my alms, and yet my account
of expenses was found to answer exactly. I was much surprised and
astonished, and esteemed it one of the wonders of Providence. I saw
plainly it was simply given out of Thy treasury, O my Lord, that made
me more liberal of what I thought was the Lord's, and not mine. Oh, if
we but knew how far charity, instead of wasting or lessening the
substance of the donor, blessed, increased and multiplied it profusely.
How much is there in the world of useless dissipation, which, if
properly applied, might amply serve for the subsistenc