In the spring of 1840 there was a great revival in Lowell, and some of the little girls held prayer-meetings, after school, at each other’s houses, and many of them “experienced religion.” I went sometimes to these meetings, and one night, when I was walking home by starlight, for the days were still short, one of the older girls said to me, “Are you happy?” “Do you love Jesus?” “Do you want to be saved?”--“Why, yes,” I answered. “Then you have experienced religion,” said the girl; “you are converted.” I was startled at the idea, but did not know how to deny it, and I went home in an exalted state of feeling; and, as I looked into the depths of the heavens above me, there came to my youthful mind the first glimmer of thought on spiritual themes. It was an awakening, but not a conversion, for I had been converted _from_ nothing _to_ nothing. I was at once claimed as a “young convert,” went to the church prayer-meeting, told my “experience” as directed, and was put on probation for admission to the church. Meanwhile, I had been advised not to ask my mother’s consent to this step, because she was a Universalist, and might object. But I did not follow this advice; and when I told her of my desire, she simply answered, “If you think it will make you any happier, do so, but I do not believe you will be satisfied.” I have always been very thankful to my mother for giving me this freedom in my young life,-- “Not to be followed hourly, watched and noosed,”-- this chance in such an important matter to learn to think and to act for myself. In fact, she always carried out this principle, and never to my recollection coerced her children on any important point, but taught them to “see for themselves.” When the day came for me to be admitted into the church, I, with many other little girls, was sprinkled; and, when I stood up to repeat the creed, I can truly say that I knew no more what were the doctrines to which I was expected to subscribe, than I did about the Copernican System or the Differential Calculus. And I might have said, with the disciples at Ephesus, I “have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” For, although I had been regularly to church and to Sunday-school, I had never seen the Articles of Belief, nor had I been instructed concerning the doctrines, or the sacredness of the vow I was about to take upon me. Nor, from the frequent backsliding among the young converts, do I think my case was a singular one, although, so far as I know, I was the only one who _backslid_ enough to be excommunicated.