True Reli­gion of the Inward Life

I was now led to look seri­ous­ly at the means by which I was drawn from the pure truth, and learned that if I would live such a life as the faith­ful ser­vants of God lived, I must not go into com­pa­ny as hereto­fore in my own will, but all the crav­ings of sense must be gov­erned by a divine prin­ci­ple. In times of sor­row and abase­ment these instruc­tions were sealed upon me, and I felt the pow­er of Christ pre­vail over self­ish desires, so that I was pre­served in a good degree of steadi­ness, and being young, and believ­ing at that time that a sin­gle life was best for me, I was strength­ened to keep from such com­pa­ny as had often been a snare to me I kept steadi­ly to meet­ings, spent First-day after­noons chiefly in read­ing the Scrip­tures and oth­er good books, and was ear­ly con­vinced in my mind that true reli­gion con­sist­ed in an inward life, where­in the heart does love and rev­er­ence God the Cre­ator, and learns to exer­cise true jus­tice and good­ness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute cre­ation; that, as the mind was moved by an inward prin­ci­ple to love God as an invis­i­ble, incom­pre­hen­si­ble Being, so, by the same prin­ci­ple, it was moved to love Him in all His man­i­fes­ta­tions in the vis­i­ble world; that, as by His breath the flame of life was kin­dled in all ani­mal sen­si­ble crea­tures, to say we love God as unseen, and at the same time exer­cise cru­el­ty toward the least crea­ture mov­ing by His life, or by life derived from Him, was a con­tra­dic­tion in itself. I found no nar­row­ness respect­ing sects and opin­ions, but believed that sin­cere, upright-heart­ed peo­ple, in every soci­ety, who tru­ly love God, were accept­ed of Him.

As I lived under the cross, and sim­ply fol­lowed the open­ing of truth, my mind, from day to day, was more enlight­ened, my for­mer acquain­tance were left to judge of me as they would, for I found it safest for me to live in pri­vate, and keep these things sealed up in my own breast. While I silent­ly pon­der on that change wrought in me, I find no lan­guage equal to con­vey to anoth­er a clear idea of it. I looked upon the works of God in this vis­i­ble cre­ation, and an awful­ness cov­ered me. My heart was ten­der and often con­trite, and uni­ver­sal love to my fel­low-crea­tures increased in me. This will be under­stood by such as have trod­den in the same path. Some glances of real beau­ty may be seen in their faces who dwell in true meek­ness. There is a har­mo­ny in the sound of that voice to which divine love gives utter­ance, and some appear­ance of right order in their tem­per and con­duct whose pas­sions are reg­u­lat­ed; yet these do not ful­ly show forth that inward life to those who have not felt it; this white stone and new name is only known right­ly by such as receive it.

Now, though I had been thus strength­ened to bear the cross, I still found myself in great dan­ger, hav­ing many weak­ness­es attend­ing me, and strong temp­ta­tions to wres­tle with; in the feel­ing where­of I fre­quent­ly with­drew into pri­vate places, and often with tears besought the Lord to help me, and His gra­cious ear was open to my cry.