Taken www.monsterlegendshacktoolsz.xyz/monsterlegendshack/ from the book: THE GRIMK?SISTERS ?SARAH AND ANGELINA GRIMK? THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMEN ADVOCATES OF ABOLITION AND WOMAN’S RIGHTS; By CATHERINE H. BIRNEY, 1885 “The glory of all glories is the glory of self- sacrifice.”

In 1818 at the age of twenty-six and with the exception of the period devoted to her father, Sarah had only performed home duties, private charities and visits to the sick. But all these were performed with one specific motive and with the same end in view to find good in the eyes of God and lessen her guilt for her past. Interest in her family, friends, home and community service was performed only if they furthered this objective.
She was too busy watching and crying over her own short-comings to identify her own purpose or to concern herself about her families grief. Her diary is filled with the reiteration of her fears, her sorrows, and her prayers. Many years afterwards she thus referred to this condition of her mind:?br />
“I cannot without shuddering look back to that period. How dreadful did the state of my mind become! Nothing interested me; I fulfilled my duties without any feeling of satisfaction, in gloomy silence. My lips moved in prayer, my feet carried me to the holy sanctuary, but my heart was estranged from piety. I felt as if my doom was irrevocably fixed, and I was destined to that fire which is never quenched. I have never experienced any feeling so terrific as the despair of salvation. My soul still remembers the wormwood and the gall, still remembers how awful the conviction that every door of hope was closed, and that I was given over unto death.”

When she was 28 years old, her guilt from her lifestyle and struggle with finding salvation with God affected her health. Her mother became concerned, and in the autumn of 1820 sent Sarah to North Carolina to live with an aunt and where several relatives owned plantations on the Cape Fear River.

In the village near where this aunt lived there was no place of worship except the Methodist meeting-house which Sarah attended. By listening to the earnest and alarming preaching, and associating with some of the most spiritual-minded of the members, she began to come out of her apathetic state. She joined in their services and even offered up prayer with them.

At one session she delivered a public testimony to the truths of the gospel. She began to examine their principles and doctrines, but found them as faulty as all the rest she had share this website from time to time investigated. She therefore soon decided not to become one of them.

From her earliest serious impressions, she had been dissatisfied with electric kettle review Episcopacy, feeling its forms lifeless; but now, after having carefully considered the various other sects, and finding error in all, she concluded to remain in the church of her family.

Having made up her mind that the Society of Friends [Quakers] was wrong, she had steadily refused, during her stay in Philadelphia, to attend their meetings or read any of their writings. Nevertheless many things about them, scarcely noticed at the time,姊﹉eir quiet dress, orderly manner of life and gentle tones of voice, together with their many acts of kindness to her and her father,姊抋me back to her after she had left them, and especially impressed her as contrasting so strongly with the slack habits and irregular discipline which made her own home so unhappy.

After her father’s death, on her trip from Philadelphia to Charleston, was a party of Friends. During the seven days which it took to make the voyage, a friendship formed between them and Sarah which influenced her whole future life. From one of the Friends she accepted a copy of Woolman’s works,姊晇idence that there must have been religious discussions between them. Sarah’s brother Thomas gave her, soon after her return from North Carolina, a volume of Quaker writings he had picked up at some sale. He placed it in her hand, saying, “Thee had better turn Quaker, Sally; thy long face would suit well their sober dress.”

She naturally had a cheerful disposition; but her false views of religion led her to believe that “by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better,” and she cried and prayed for forgiveness, over frequent occasional irresistible fun.

Accepting the book from her brother, she read it, and, needing some explanation of portions of it, wrote to one of the Friends in Philadelphia whose acquaintance she had made on the vessel. A correspondence ensued, which resulted after some months in her entire conversion to Quakerism.

Now, under the influence of her new belief, she found her call to the ministry. She was very apprehensive about this solemn work, and she prayed the Lord to spare her. But the more she prayed, the stronger and clearer the intimations became, until she felt that no loop-hole of escape was left her from obedience to her Master’s will. From the publicity the work involved, she intuitively shrank. Her natural sensitiveness and all the prejudices of her life rebelled against it, and she could not look forward to it without fear and trembling. She dreaded having to rise and speak at meetings, even before two or three attendees.

One morning it became distinctly evident to her that some words of admonition were required of her; but so appalling did the act appear to her that she trembled, hesitated, resisted, and was silent.

Sorrow and remorse at once filled her soul; and, feeling that she had sinned against the Holy Ghost, she thought that God would never forgive her. She believed that no sacrifice she could ever offer could atone for this first act of disobedience. Apprehensions continuously followed her denying her any religious peace, and bringing her such misery that, she says, it almost destroyed her soul.

Her Quaker friend’s frequent letters were firm, and to the point of implicit obedience to the movements of the Spirit. Sarah found herself in a straight and narrow path, from which she was not allowed to deviate. In late 1821 she returned back to Philadelphia to stay with her friend Israel Morris for at least five years before returning back to Charleston.
(Adulthood to be continued?/p>

Article Source: