Through all the scenes of her eventful life may be traced the
energy of a naturally powerful mind-the fearlessness and child-like
simplicity of one untrammelled by education or conventional
customs-purity of character-an unflinching adherence
to principle-and a native enthusiasm, which, under different
circumstances, might easily have produced another Joan of Arc.
With all her fervor, and enthusiasm, and speculation, her
religion is not tinctured in the least with gloom. No doubt, no
hesitation, no despondency, spreads a cloud over her soul; but
all is bright, clear, positive, and at times ecstatic. Her trust is in
God, and from him she looks for good, and not evil. She feels
that 'perfect love casteth out fear.'
Having more than once found herself awaking from a mortifying
delusion,-as in the case of the Sing-Sing kingdom,-and
resolving not to be thus deluded again, she has set suspicion to
guard the door of her heart, and allows it perhaps to be aroused
by too slight causes, on certain subjects-her vivid imagination
assisting to magnify the phantoms of her fears into gigantic
proportions, much beyond their real size; instead of resolutely
adhering to the rule we all like best, when it is to be applied to
ourselves-that of placing every thing we see to the account of
the best possible motive, until time and circumstance prove that
we were wrong.
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