earned
for Angelina, whose religious state excited her tenderest solicitude,
and called for her wisest counsel. For that enthusiastic young convert
was again running off the beaten track, and picking flaws in her new
doctrines. But there was another reason why Sarah desired to absent
herself from Philadelphia for a while.

I can touch but lightly on this experience of her life, for her
sensitive soul quivered under any allusion to it; and though her diary
contains many references to it, they are chiefly in the form of prayers
for submission to her trial, and strength to bear it. But it was the
key-note to the dirge which sounded ever after in her heart, mingling
its mournful numbers with every joy, even after she had risen beyond
her religious horrors.

For months she fought against this new snare of Satan, as she termed
it, this plain design to draw her thoughts from God, and compass her
destruction. The love of Christ should surely be enough for her, and
any craving for earthly affection was the evidence of an unsanctified
heart. In a delicate reference to this, in after years, she says:--

"It is a beautiful theory, but my experience belies it, that God can be
all in all to man. There are moments, diamond points in life, when God
fills the yearning soul, and supplies all our needs, through the
richness of his mercy in Christ Jesus. But human hearts are created for
human hearts to love and be loved by, and their claims are as true and
as sacred as those of the spirit."

It was very soon after her first doubts concerning her worthiness to
accept the happiness offered to her that she determined to go to
Charleston and put her feelings to the test of absence and unbiased
reflection. The entry in her diary of November 22d is as follows:--

"Landed this morning in Charleston, and was welcomed by my dear mother
with tears of pleasure and tenderness, as she folded me once more to
her bosom. My dear sisters, too, greeted me with all the warmth of
affection. It is a blessing to find them all seriously disposed, and my
precious Angelina one of the Master's chosen vessels. What a mercy!"

CHAPTER IV.

The strong contrast between Sarah and Angelina Grimke was shown not
only in their religious feelings, but in their manner of treating the
ordinary concerns of life, and in carrying out their convictions of
duty. In her humility, and in her strong reliance on the "inner light,"
Sarah refused to trust her own judgment