Since then, now for almost eleven years, He has always been within the gate of my prison as well as of my heart; He has strengthened me, comforted me, refreshed me, and often even cheered me. God has done wonderful things in me, for it is more than inconceivable that I should have been able to survive the great misfortunes that have befallen me, and at the same time should have retained my reason, sense, and understanding. It is a matter of the greatest wonder that my limbs are not distorted and contracted from lying and sitting, that my eyes are not dim and even wholly blind from weeping, and from smoke and soot; that I am not short-breathed from candle smoke and exhalation, from stench and close air. To God alone be the honour! The other cause that impels me is the consolation it will be to you, my dear children, to be assured through this account of my sufferings that I suffer innocently; that nothing whatever has been imputed to me, nor have I been accused of anything for which you, my dear children, should blush or cast down your eyes in shame. I suffer for having loved a virtuous lord and husband, and for not having abandoned him in misfortune. I was suspected of being privy to an act of treason for which he has never been prosecuted according to law, much less convicted of it, and the cause of the accusation was never explained to me, humbly and sorrowfully as I desired that it should be. Let it be your consolation, my dear children, that I have a gracious God, a good conscience, and can boldly maintain that I have never committed a dishonourable act. 'This is thankworthy,' says the apostle St. Peter, 'if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.' I suffer, thank God, not for my misdeeds, for that were no glory to me; yet I can boast that from my youth up I have been a bearer of the cross of Christ, and had incredibly secret sufferings, which were very heavy to endure at such an early age. Although this record of my sufferings contains and reveals nothing more than what has occurred to me in this prison, where I have now been for eleven years, I must not neglect in this preface briefly to recall to your minds, my dear children, my earlier misfortunes, thanking God at the same time that I have overcome them. Not only you, my dear children, know, but it is known throughout the whole country, what great sorrow and misfortune Dina and Walter, with their powerful adherents, inflicted on our house in the year 1651.