AN EVENING AT HOME. 51

 

disgust. It was low, sensual, and too much
of it vile and demoralizing. Never, from
that hour, did I join them. Their way,
even in the early stage of life’s journey,
I saw to be downward, and downward it
has ever since been tending. How often
since have I thought of that point in time,
so full-fraught with good and evil influences!
Those few hours spent with you seemed to
take scales from my eyes. I saw with a
new vision. I thought and felt differently.
Had you gone to the ball, and I to meet
those young men, no one can tell what
might have been the consequences. Sen-
sual indulgences, carried to excess, amid
songs and sentiments calculated to awaken
evil instead of good feelings, might have
stamped upon my young and delicate mind
a bias to low affections that never would
have been eradicated. That was the great
starting-point in life—the period when I
was coming into a state of rationality and
freedom. The good prevailed over the evil,
and by the agency of my sister, as an angel