[This illness, after a day or two, much increased, and appeared to be a putrid fever: but her mind continued stayed upon God. About a fortnight, after she was taken, she expressed a full confidence in him, being wholly delivered from the fear of death. A few days after, her speech and hearing were taken away, by the violence of her distemper. But it was easy to discern, that her understanding remained, tho’ she could converse with none but God. Her eyes and hands almost continually lifted up, shewed her heart was still with him. In her greatest agonies of pain, there was not the least mark of impatience: till on _January_ the 21st, 1768, about four o’clock in the afternoon, she quietly resigned her spirit to God.] An Extract from the JOURNAL of ELIZABETH HARPER. To the READER. 1. TO set the doctrine of Christian perfection too high, is the ready way to drive it out of the world. Let a man only describe it, as implying a freedom from mistakes and human infirmities; and whoever knows there is no such freedom in this life, naturally concludes, “There is no perfection.” Hence we should always carefully guard against this, by insisting, it is no more and no less, than giving God all our heart: loving him with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves. 2. This is well consistent with a thousand infirmities, which belong to every soul while in the body. To place this in the clearest and fullest light, I have published the following extract from the artless journal of a plain woman, wrote merely for her own use. I have no doubt, but God had all her heart. But yet how many were her infirmities! And these are the more apparent, because she was a person of no uncommon endowments; one that had just plain, natural understanding, without any advantage of education, and who wrote down daily just what she felt, with all possible artlessness and simplicity. The chief of these are, wandering thoughts (whether natural or preter-natural:) listlessness in private prayer (I believe, entirely owing to bodily disorder:) hurry in business (it seems, not apparent to others, though frequently felt by herself:) want of a steddy, invariable advertence to the presence of God: speaking too many words, more than were strictly necessary: speaking through ignorance, a word not strictly true: speaking sometimes too quick, so as to have the appearance of anger: omission of things which had better be done. Perhaps one might mention likewise under this head, such vehement temptations to anger, to impatience, to fretfulness, to immoderate sorrow, and to follow her own will, that at divers times she escaped with the skin of her teeth, and scarce knew whether she escaped or not. So particular a detail of these things, may be of singular use to those who find the same temptations: and who may be encouraged hereby, to _hold the beginning of their confidence stedfast unto the end_.