"The charge which is often brought against religion, as tending to abridge our comforts, and induce a melancholy and dejection of spirit, I can repel from experience. Infallible Truth declares, that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths are paths of peace; and now I know, and feel it. My mind, which has been tossed about on the surging billows of doubt and perplexity, has at last gained that haven of rest, where, I trust, it is destined to remain. "No one of my family has any knowledge of the present state of my feelings, as I have cautiously abstained from making any allusion to religious subjects; not because I am ashamed of religion, but because I am unwilling to make a premature profession; and though perhaps you may censure me for withholding from my dear parents a communication which is so calculated to give them pleasure, yet if I should be permitted, after having made it, to relapse into my former course of gaiety and folly, the disappointment will be so great that it may entail on them perpetual sorrow. Pray that I may be kept in the evil hour--that I may be enabled to walk circumspectly towards them that are without--that I may have courage to make a profession of my attachment to the Lord Jesus, and grace to adorn it, and at length be presented faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy. "I need not say how acceptable another letter from you would be; but I certainly should prefer a personal interview, if you could make it convenient to pay us a visit. I am happy to inform you that I am much better, and that all the rest of the family are well.--Yours affectionately, LOUISA. "To Mrs. Loader." True piety does not act to be seen of men, nor speak to gain their applause; but though for a season it may remain unobserved, yet the meekness of its spirit and the lustre of its character are marks by which it will always indubitably be known. For the reasons which have been previously assigned, Miss Holmes had abstained from communicating to her family the change which had taken place in her sentiments and feelings; but she was not able to conceal from them the external proofs of it which her conduct and her occasional conversation necessarily supplied. As she was reserved on the subject, so were her parents; and though they felt anxious to ascertain if her great seriousness of manners was anything more than a recurrence of her former deep depression of spirit, yet they knew not how to do it.