THE EARNEST PHILANTHROPIST. tional feelings of hr childhood had faded like a dream, vaguely remembered, though still lingering dimly in the depths of her soul. The formal dis- cipline of her Church, so much at variance with the habits of the brilliant world to which she was so attached, clashed with her love of admiration and her fondness for dress and fashion : and had it not been for her uncle, Joseph Gurney, a steady and firm " Friend," who urged religious duty upon her with gentle, unwavering persuasion, she would probably have never broken through her habit of absenting herself fromMeeting. The decisive battles of the world have been chron- icled. Whenwill some able pen write for us the decisive battles of the heart, and give us some faith- ful account of those mysterious but mighty fields where the angels of good and evil have met in deadly conflict for the conquest of a spiritual empire, the destinies of thousands depending on the issue of the strife ? The old feelings of Elizabeth Gurney's heart at length began to struggle through the mists of vanity and unthinking pleasure in which her better nature was enshrouded. The sisters became acquainted, in 1797, with a Roman Catholic gentleman -a Mr. Pitchford -aman of amiable, intellectual, and serious disposition. He gained an influence with them which he used, not for the purpose of drawing the careless girls into his own Church, but to awaken in their dormant minds some degree of reverence for 11
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