In this state of painful bewilderment, depressed by repeated failures in her efforts to acquire the knowledge which she deemed essential to her happiness, yet resolutely determined to prosecute her inquiries, she wrote to her uncle, a clergyman of the Church of England, stating her case, with its painful perplexities, and desiring his sympathy and advice. He replied, expressing some surprise at the receipt of such a letter, and intimating his apprehension that she had been hearing some methodistical or evangelical preaching, which he denounced as a fatal heresy, more calculated to drive people into a state of derangement, than to advance them in virtue or in happiness. He assured her that, as she had been, in baptism, made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven, she need not cherish any anxieties about her spiritual safety or final salvation. He advised her to banish the absurd chimæras, which were disquieting her, and go and take the sacrament, which, he said, was the spiritual nourishment which Almighty God had provided to sustain the inner life of the soul; and, in addition, he recommended her to mingle rather more in the circles of gaiety, so as to drive away her melancholy ideas. This letter was both mystical and unsatisfactory. It contradicted her experience, and she felt astonished that a clergyman should advise her to go more frequently into the gay world. "I knew," she said, "that my own ideas were not fanciful, but the vague conceptions of some great truths of the Bible; and I felt as unable to banish them from my heart, as a person, when asleep, feels unable to banish the dreams which disquiet him." However, she decided on joining in the communion; and being then at Bath, away from all her gay friends, she went to church, and took the sacrament--a thing she had never done before. But it had no tranquillizing effect; indeed, it increased her perplexity, and for awhile made her think that her case was a hopeless one, and that it would be better for her to abandon all further solicitude and inquiries, than to cherish and prosecute them. But she could not bring herself to such a decision; and the more she laboured to do so, the more anxious she became to get the clue of discovery, which she thought was to be found _somewhere_. In this state of intense anxiety and great depression, she returned to her town residence. Her friends were more assiduous to please than ever; but some were mortified, and others were offended, because she would not again enter into the gay scenes and habits of former times; occasionally they hinted their apprehensions that she would soon turn an Evangelical, and become as scrupulous and devout as any of the sect. These sarcasms, in conjunction with her uncle's letter, suggested to her the idea of going to some church, where an evangelical minister did duty, thinking it possible that he might give her the explanation she so much desired; but she long hesitated about doing