"Sir Launcelot admires the 'beauty of holiness' in my Mother. He says, in all times, happily, there have been these sweet exalted Saints, especially among women, bright particular stars, celestial beauties, and princesses, that all men must revere. Quite another kind of thing, he says, from the Puritan notion of calling all men to be 'saints,' or else consigning them to reprobation as among the wicked. "_Note_.--I am at a loss what to call this writing of mine. It is scarcely a Diary or Journal, for I certainly shall not do anything as regular as write in it every day. It shall not be 'Annals;' for I hope to have done with it before Christmas, when I shall have met Olive and all of them again at home. 'Chronicles' are more solemn still. 'Thoughts?' where shall I find them? 'Facts?' how is one to know them, when people give such different accounts of things? 'Meditations?' worse again. 'Religious Journals,' 'Confessions,' etc., always puzzled me. I could never make out for whom they were written. Especially the prayers I have seen written out at length in them. They cannot be meant for other people to read. That would be turning the 'closet' into 'the corners of the street.' They cannot be meant for the people themselves to read. For what good could that do? It would not be praying to see how I prayed some years since. They cannot surely be meant for God to read. He is always near, and can hear, or read our hearts, which is quite another thing from reading our Diaries.